Educational Discourse

There’s a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that has Calvin hammering nails into the coffee table. His mom comes in and freaks, saying “What are you doing?” Their is a pause and then Calving replies “Isn’t it obvious!”

Sometimes, this is how I feel when I’m working with the various tools that I use each day at school. I think it’s obvious what I’m doing, kind of like hammering nails into a coffee table. And it may be obvious to others who are using similar tools and doing similar work. However, I think that many teachers react like Calvin’s mom – in some type of disbelief and shock. It looks like we’re hammering nails into their coffee table.

So, I wondering, in the same vein of my previous posts, what 5 tools do you think would be the best to use with teachers so that they don’t think we’re hammering nails into that coffee table.

My list looks like this:

1. pbwiki – staff wiki of information and events with calendar of school-wide activities.

2. eye-jot – introduced to me by Alec Courosa – just something fun that teachers can do. It is amazing how you can get teachers using things just for fun.

3. Audacity – recording using the computer lab instead of tape-recorder. Students like wearing headphones and having a microphone!

4. Zoho business – introduction to online desktop. Slowly beginning to look at using online document sharing.

5. Google Earth – there’s just so much to do with this program.

Okay, I now pass this on to the following three: Julie Lindsay, Mrs.Durff, David Truss

They can choose to participate or this will die a quick and sudden death.

Creating effective and sustained change in education is akin to moving a mountain. When you move a mountain, it usually involves quite a lot of explosions, debris, change of structure and what you’re left with does not resemble the original form. The material is the same but the solid impenetrable mass is now broken down, much easier to move and reshape.

For many educators trying to effect technological changes in schools, it may seem that they are indeed facing a mountain. No matter what they try, it still seems to loom there unchanging, unmoving. It almost seems to be a force of itself, daring someone to try and change what is going on in any real way. “Movements and programs come and go, I will continue to do what I do until the end.”

Now, teachers may not come out and say that or consciously even be resisting but they provide enough rationale for not looking for change: not enough time, not enough resources, not enough internet access, poor hardware, not enough PD, don’t know enough, too many other initiatives, too many other social demands in the classroom. Every single one of these is going on in classrooms and schools. As schools become the ever-popular dumping ground/fix-all for so many of the problems that are in society, there would seem to be no time to even consider having teachers spend more time to work with something that they are not comfortable doing. Besides, what really is the harm anyway? With all the other things that children are facing, is not having a “horse and light” show to teach reading really a problem?

Before I answer that, I have to explain that I am a defender of teachers and teachers’ time. Time with students, working with them and helping them is the best use of time. Teachers need to given support to help them with students who have behaviour and learning difficulties. New initiatives need to implemented with existing programs not on top of them and curricula objectives need to integrated across subjects not in isolation so that teachers have to do the integration work.

Now, is using technology to teach necessary? No. Should it be done. Absolutely.

While it may not be a necessity by overlooking the use of technology, teachers are doing the same things as someone overlooking the use of ballpoint pen and its impact on schools. That one piece of technology had a great impact on school, although those of us who’ve had it around don’t even think about it. However, talk to someone who remembers it and there is usually a story or two about the adoption of that pen. ‘Tis the same with this new technology. The difference, from my perspective, is that teachers are fearing this technology change more than any other before. While there are many who are accepting and embracing this change, there are still a majority who do not. There are many reasons for this but the bottom line is that this fear needs to be addressed.

So how do you move a mountain without blowing it up or destroying it? I have no clue. But I do have some ideas about changing the ideas of teachers. In my career, I have moved several times. Each time, it seemed, I’d be in the position of bringing technology into use in the school. In my present location, when I arrived email was not used by everyone. So, I made it mandatory that teachers use their email daily and began sending memos and information via email. Some really resisted and I had to spend time with them, helping them get use to using the software. Today, it’s standard fair in the school. This past year, our staff began using a wiki to log information, plan school events, record upcoming events and share templates. Was it easy? Nope. But, I worked with staff who were struggling. My secretary began putting information for teachers on the page and I showed teachers how to get daily updates via email. All teachers check email and wiki daily. Some are beginning to use it to post information for staff. A few have asked if they could use it for classes. We just made it part of the teacher culture.

Next will be using audio equipment and some of the software online to share photos and information. Slowly teachers are being introduced to these ideas and adoption is taking place. The idea now is to increase the speed of introduction and adoption. When the whole staff is included in the adoption of the technology and people begin to see the use of the it and how it saves a great deal of time and helps us to organize, then teachers who are resistant are less vocal. Just this past week I was included in a conversation with Kim Cofino from the ISB via Ustream in which there were many of the school teachers in attendance. Not all participated but they the exposure was great for them. The past two days I have been working with another administrator helping them get their information ready for a graduate class they are taking from Alec Couroso.

Small steps are important. Bringing people along so they can see the benefit and having it save them time really heps. Providing that one-to-one help is so important. As Michael Gregory, a member of the Ed Administrator2.0 ning, effectively captured this:

I have been in this dormant stage for a month now because I’m struggling to understand and put in to words how/why teachers don’t see what seems obvious to us regarding the value of the tools of Web 2.0 in the classroom. More importantly, why they don’t seem to realize that students are wired differently than of years gone by. Probably of more significance, is that the students are wired differently than the teachers themselves. This is unique for most teachers because in past years there has not been such a technological difference between student and teacher.

Now he and I have been discussing the whole wiring issue but, besides that, he is dead on. There is a gap and it will continue to grow. I know many people are like Michael, in a “dormant stage”, as they struggle with the whole issue. I’m hoping that this post might give some ideas. It’s also a discussion over at the ning that I’d encourage you to join, especially administrators. We need to help teachers overcome their fears, addressing them not dismissing them and giving them the time that they need to adopt.

Again, thanks to my network for the comments and ideas.

The other night I was working on converting a video from flv to mov format but couldn’t remember the online site that did that. I went to the twitter page and asked if anyone knew of the name of the site. In less than 5 minutes I had 3 responses of sites I could use. Now I was trying to remember zamzar, which is a name one should not forget, but it took no time for someone to help me.

In educational technology circles, we’ve been discussing and talking about using new tools and leveraging these new tools for the benefit of students learning. At various times it has been lamented that teachers are basically unwilling to change how they do things despite the availability of different tools that might enhance the learning opportunities for their students.

Just recently, there has been a growing discussion about how important networks are becoming for individuals as they experience the power of being able to connect and share with other professionals. Educators are beginning to build a variety of networks, discussing the ways that these types of things might be used in education. One such discussion is actually an online debate, Oxford style, between Ewan McIntosh and Michael Bugeja. This is Ewan’s promo:

This week you can take part in the Economist.com debate I will start today with Michael Bugeja, Director of Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University. We’re arguing our corners in an Oxford-style online debate, he against the motion that social networking will have a positive impact on education, and I’m arguing for the motion.

Now Ewan used the power of his network to put together his opening statement.

Incidentally, my first 1000 words were effectively co-written in a 25 minute Twitter conversation across the web and mobile phones. My thanks to Lucy, John, Nick, Lisa, Adam, Judy, Sue, David… and many more who jumped onto Twitter. Who can say social networking is not having a postive impact on the way teachers, at least, are learning?

This is a great demonstration of how a network can help individuals in their own learning and in problem solving.

Over at Change Agency, guest blogger Nick Pernisco is discussing this same theme in the context of news and keeping informed.

I have to relinquish some of my own thinking to a trusted third party… I simply can’t keep up myself, so someone else needs to. Instead of checking 100 sources of information per day, I’ll only check 10 that will hopefully contain the best of the 100 sources. That means I can shift my brain from seeking out 100 sources to critically analyzing the compiled information from the 10 sources. We do this everyday when we watch a newscast instead of going to each place there is news happening, or read a newspaper instead of calling local and national governments ourselves for the scoop.

His final thought, though, gets at the real core of the matter when dealing with education and teachers.

This is why media literacy is more important than ever in today’s information glut world.

Media literacy, and for teachers, technology literacy, is so important. People in education must be able to discern what will serve them the best in a given situation. This is where the discussion about technology becomes a bit difficult. Advocates of technology use in schools see the use of technology by teachers as a natural progression of teaching as the teachers learn new things and use them to help build student’s learning. However, we do have a bit of a problem. How do we get a bulk of the educators to begin using and adopting?

Pete Reilly at Ed Tech Journeys continues the discussion that started at Scott Macleod’s Dangerously Irrelevant about mandating teachers. His thoughts are, as usual, insightful and make one question the actual validity of something like that.

It’s a great question and it provoked some good discussion; however is mandating technology use enough? Will it create the pedagogical changes we want, if put in the hands of educators whose personalities are not conducive to the classroom transformation we’d like to see?

Read Pete’s post. It really does highlight the problem that mandating has in education. We can control the program or tool but not the people or how they will use the them. We’ve seen that in so many different programs that have come and gone through the schools. What compounds this problem is the fact that there are so many different tools that one can choose to use and there is no real agreement on what are basic tools that teachers should begin using. People like Vicki Davis and Jane Hart do a great job of giving their suggestions, as do others. The point here is that there are so many tools that are out there and it is hard to know where to start. And this could be the problem, with so much happening so quickly, there seems to be something new and improved coming out every week. It is a bit overwhelming at first look.

Perhaps the teachers who are not jumping on-board are not aware is available to them? I think the biggest problem is that perhaps there are too many possibilities for “jumping in”. This actually makes it scarier then it really is. Paul Williams

This is where many of us who are already working with many of these tools have an edge that other educator do not. Our networks. We have been working through problems, trying out software and sharing ideas as quickly as something comes out. How? Well someone on the network seems to have or use whatever comes out and shares it with the rest. These early adopters (where do they get the $ ) help to bring the rest along. But where does one start? There are literally hundreds of networks that educators can join.

I agree with the social networking comments. Two people on twitter took time and great care to introduce me to some twitter friends whom I could follow and whom they knew would follow me and allow valuable interaction. Otherwise I was following some, unable to interact, unable to learn much and about to nearly give up. murcha

For those who are trying to get going, it can be a very daunting thing. That’s when, sifting through my RSS feeds in Google Reader, I came across an post by mscofino in which she states:

I know it’s frustrating to see something so close yet so far, and I know it seems like if we could just get the technology authentically embedded (and we don’t need the teachers on board for that, do we?) into the curriculum in one fell swoop, we’d be done before we started. But teachers are special folk. If they don’t want to change, they won’t. We have to show them, we have to prove why they should. And there’s no better way to do that than with other classroom teachers sharing their success. And those successes aren’t going to happen with a technology facilitator forcing a teacher to change (as if they could, given that they’re never going to be a supervisor to other teachers). It’s going to happen when a teacher wants to change and asks for help.

It would be easier if we could just mandate things but that isn’t going to work. We now that social networks, whether technological or f2f, are very powerful and impact all of us. These networks, for the most part, have not been well used in education. Teachers, usually in isolation, have worked away at subject or grade levels, implementing curriculum with a PD day here and there. Every now and then, something new comes along, usually with a new administrator at some level, but it passes. Not this time. Technology isn’t just a fad that will pass with the next hiring. Why? Because it is becoming part of the culture.

I like the idea of “Change One Thing”, and relate it to technology. Make one technological change, whether its a Google Reader account or a Wiki, the important thing is to change something.  Paul Williams

This is where, I believe, we need to begin. We need to work with teachers and use one tool. Show them how to use it and manage it while at the same time introducing them to a network where they can lurk for awhile, seeing what others are doing and understanding that frustration and problems are part of the whole learning equation. In fact, today I made my first inroad with one of my other administrators who is taking an online class. She has asked me to help her with setting up some things and working with some of the tools. She wanted to know if I had the time? Of course I do. I know that if I can get her started and then encourage her, she will grow and some of these tools will be adopted. As she told me “I know I have to do this but I just haven’t had the right push to do them. Well, now I do.” She’s worried she’ll do something wrong or things will be too complicated. For those of us using the tools we need to let other teachers know that no one has all the answers and we’re all on a learning continuum. It’s the sharing that helps us grow in ways we never could have dreamed of.

To my network out there, thanks for your input!

I just recently joined the Fireside Learning Ning which was started by Connie Weber. I haven’t spent a great deal of time there yet, but I can sense that it will be another great place for networking and learning. As an administrator, I’m always looking for ways to help the staff with whom I work improve their teaching. This stems from my work as a classroom teacher where I spent 10 years developing and adjusting what I was doing. During this time, I completed my master’s degree and it was here that I began to question what I was doing and how I was interacting and teaching the students in my room.

When I began teaching, I was a typical lecture, show then have students do work type of teacher. I had success with students who were average or above but really struggled meeting the needs of other students. One year, I had a class with a number of students who needed me to do more for them but I felt I really wasn’t helping them like I should. During one of MEd classes, I was introduced to the work of Vygotsky and, wham, I was drawn in. I began to read and look for ways to move my teaching from the traditional style to a more constructivist approach. I also began to really look at the lives that my students were living which really helped me to understand better what we were dealing with in school.

Eventually, I moved from the classroom and into administration. Now, as an administrator I am thankful for all that struggling that I did trying to find my way in the classroom. My first few years of administration were trial by fire as I tried to bring what I had learned in the classroom to bare on an entire school and work with teachers in this manner. Actually, I was pretty bad at it. Looking back, I wasn’t a very effective administrator and ended up in more conflicts than I needed to be in. But like all things that didn’t start out being positive, that experience has really helped me in developing my own administrative style which definitely has its roots in constructionist theory.

At the school level, I try to encourage all the people there to remember that learning doesn’t stop but continues on. I try to support PD endeavours the best I can and look for ways to that will support the process of learning for everyone. During our Drop Everything And Read time, I encourage all people in the building to do just that. I demonstrates that this time is important and supports the idea that we all need to spend time reading. As an administrator, I try to model this through taking classes myself and sharing some of the things I’m reading with staff whom I believe will be interested.

The one thing that I really try to do is help teachers to look at different strategies for teaching. It also means that I try to visit their classrooms on a regular basis, seeing what they are doing and getting to know how they conduct their classes. This helps me when we have conversations about teaching and when I come across information that I want to share with them. Like students in the classroom, teachers are not all the same. Each one has their own style and way of doing things which are important to validate. Because learning is a lifelong venture, I want teachers to be confident knowing that I will support their ideas asking that they have a plan that involves reflecting on what they are doing. As a teacher, I found that helping students build their understanding was so satisfying and I want to continue this as an administrator. I think I’ve finally reached the stage in my administrative career where I can now focus on this much more, having become comfortable with the role that I am in. I also see that technology will be part of the learning environment regardless of how much people resist so part of my role is to bring this into fruition as painlessly as possible.

I remember as a teacher how I rarely talked about teaching and learning with my administrators. It wasn’t something that happened often. For me, I really want to encourage and grow these conversations. How best can this be done especially in the jam packed world of the teacher? How can conversations, especially around technology, best be begun so that people do not feel pressured and attacked?

I have often discussed on this blog that schools really need to approach things in a different way and one of my goals this year is to begin that walk. This will require change on many fronts which is not easy but, I believe, necessary for schools in order for students to become lifelong learners not repositories of information.

How do you get other teachers started and dedicated building and participating in a network. How do we encourage teachers to be life long learners, to invest time in these technologies as they relate to the classroom. How do we show them what they are missing out on?

These were questions that Kyle left on my last post. Kyle is an intern and, I’m assuming, soon to be a teacher entering the profession with all the enthusiasm of someone new. Kyle’s full comment was very insightful as he wondered about the state of teaching and learning as it is buffeted by the changing winds of technology and 21st century learners.

As an administrator, these questions really made me sit back and ponder what it is that is needed to help teachers venture out and into some of the different networks that I and others are participating in regularly. So, like all good administrators, I asked a few teachers.

Their first response across the board was that the equipment had to work when they went to try it and there had to be someone close who could lend a hand it needed. Without this, they would get frustrated and stop. As one pointed out “I don’t have the time to wait for something that might or might not work. With all the demands I have, it is either working or I’m on to something else.” With all that is going on at the school things need to be working. As I stated earlier, some days teachers don’t have time to go to the washroom.

The other side of the coin is that there needs to be someone who can help them along WITHOUT making them feel like they’re unintelligent. In my younger years, my wife often accused me of this. Instead of patiently working through things with her, I’d get frustrated and finally just do it, usually right after a huge sigh. Not cool. Teachers often are made to feel inadequate because they don’t know how to do some of the simple things, like understand what URL stands for. As another reader commented

Increasingly, education has become more compartmentalized, the work load is more than ever before, and the support is not there.

Each area has its own set of acronyms for different things. It’s got to the point where, as an administrator, I’m not sure if my PGP needs an IEP or a PPP or if I should  just CRY because I forgotten where my CAR is parked today. Really. Some days, with the different meetings that take place, it’s a wonder that teachers don’t start an acronym wall in the staffroom so that they can learn the new vocabulary that is being tossed at them. Now, we toss in a bunch of other things like URL and IP address and UN and wonder why people are backing off going “NO WAY”. Especially when they hear me talk about the twits with whom I tweet to get insights and information. Now that sounds like a place to go for good information!

As for dedicated and participating in the networks I think that they need to be shown that it’s not an add on or something else to do besides what they are already doing. That it is an extension of their lives in a new context. I’ve introduced some teachers to some of the less intimidating networks but they still don’t see them as being really relevant to the day to day things that go on. So, I guess I’d have to say, to question 1, we have to make them less intimidating and more welcoming. Using Twitter might not be the best thing to start with because of the limiting 140 characters. That would be very hard for someone to handle right out of the gate. Something like Pownce, on the other hand, might just be the ticket. A slow introduction to a network where teachers can ease into discussions.

The next question is something that those of us using the tools really have to watch because these teachers are lifelong learners. I watch them as they try new things, read books and articles, discuss new strategies with people in the building and seek out conferences and workshops. They are trying new things and extending themselves. They’re learning, just not like we are. I have teachers who subscribe to Educational Leadership and read the magazine and books when they get them. Others are presenters at conferences while others work within the division on different committees. The teachers with whom I work have been willing to be pilot teachers for a whole host of things, from math to ELA and have taken part in benchmarking and test creating.

So, How do we encourage teachers to be life long learners, to invest time in these technologies as they relate to the classroom? We validate what they are doing and then we take the time to show them how they might be able to replace one thing they are doing with something else. Instead of ordering a magazine, they can read online. It saves them money and they can search out articles they want. But to make this replace the other, we need to show them how to search for articles, bookmark online using delicious or Magnolia. We have to take the time to demonstrate that we think it’s important enough that we’ll give our time to help them and then check in on them. Suggest an article and then discuss it with them. Get them to show someone else a great article or website. But give them the time. Heck, show them a site that will make them flashcards so they don’t have to do it themselves.

How do we show them what they are missing out on? I don’t think we can. See, it’s like the poor man that was happy with his life because he had all he needed and was content with it. When asked by a rich neighbour why he didn’t work harder or do more to get more money, the poor man replied that he didn’t need anymore. The rich neighbour, wanting to show the man what he was missing, asked the poor man to come with him the next day to see what he was missing. The poor man agreed.

The next day, the poor man was picked up by a servant who drove him to the mansion. Another servant answered the door and showed him into a very luxurious drawing room where the man waited and listened as his neighbour conducted business with all different kinds of people, arguing about prices and costs, threatening people who owed him money and making deals for lending out more money. At noon, the two had a quick lunch together as the rich man had to rush off to another business meeting. He told his neighbour to make himself at home and enjoy the day. That afternoon, while the poor man walked around, he noted that there was a huge library with beautiful padded chairs and a fireplace but not a book was open. He walked out into a garden in which two servants worked and when he tried to help they would have nothing of it as they didn’t want him to make a mistake with what was being done. All day long he wandered about, seeing people working and hurrying off to tasks but no one smiled or stopped to talk. Of course, there was no family, the man didn’t have time for one. So when the owner arrived home, the poor neighbour thanked him for the day and started off toward home. The rich man was puzzled. Didn’t he want to stay longer? What had happened? The poor man answered that he had seen enough and was sure he liked his life just the way it was. He may not have had servants in his home but when guests came, they would always find a comfortable chair and great conversation. He might not have a beautiful garden but he was allowed to touch and work with his. He could plant and grow and bring forth life without worrying if he displeased someone. He might not have a great library but his one book, the Bible, was worn from being read each day. When people passed by, they would stop and talk, exchange news and gossip with him, not rushing away from him. And truly, he didn’t have the money but what he did have was earned without arguing and meetings and he enjoyed the few things it afforded him. No, he figured that he’d seen enough and was content with what he had. And with a smile, he turned and headed home.

Take a look at how people see you? What do they see? Is trading what they have for what you’re offering going to bring them what they want? Are we offering something that looks inviting? If not, what needs to happen to make it inviting? How can we entice people when we looked tired or stressed or …. ? We can be excited about what we are doing but if we don’t take them along and infect them with the excitement, what will they see?

Now, I just have to practice what I blog;)