Educational Discourse

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!

Tomorrow morning life will once again begin that familiar cadence as school begins for 2008. We’re almost half-way through the year but 2008 is just beginning and with it all the expectations of a new year. It seems kind of funny to be starting a new year in the middle of a school year. I mean, all the rest of the world works on the calendar year, beginning in January and ending in December, kinda. Why is education so different? Why do we begin our year in August/September and end it in June? Why couldn’t we transform our school year to begin in January and end in December? Would it be impossible? What is keeping education from doing this?

The new year will start whether we are ready for it or not. Instead of waiting until June to finish our schooling, why can’t we finish it in December – have exams and begin our new year in January? What is keeping education from joining the rest of the world and following a yearly schedule that is more closely aligned to the calendar. We’d get rid of all the problems with birthdays – born in X year, you begin school instead of having a cutoff of, like, September for students.

I’ve thought about this for quite awhile, ever since I began having to deal with budgets that would begin in August and end in June but really didn’t happen that way since they ended with the Dec cycle. So, as I prepare to go back to school, knowing that I have about 3 weeks to finish my course and then exams begin, I really wonder if this is the best for students. Why can’t  we finish everything up, write exams and be done with the year like everyone else? January would see us beginning another year, students would be moving on to a new grade in time with a new year. We might even be able to do some moving of holiday time so that there is a bit more time off now or at other times of the year instead of the huge break in July and August when students lose so much. We are no longer an agrarian society yet our school system is still being run like we were.

Would changing the way our system was organized allow us to break the mold in other areas? Would we be able to redesign how things work and take into consideration what works best in each area? I mean, what works well in cities might not work as well in the rural areas. Do we all have to be cookie-cutter replicas? Education the world over looks very similar, from what I’ve seen. Why is that? Why is it we seem to have only one formula for schooling?

Tomorrow, ready or not, school will begin for many educators and students. Life will once again fall into a familiar pattern as education moves forward to the end of yet another year – in June. Maybe we need to disrupt that pattern. I mean, for the first time in history, there will be more people living in urban areas than in rural which could give way to a whole group of new developments and changes. Could 2008 be the year of the great educational reform?

The new year has arrived and I’m spending time back in my hometown visiting family. It’s always nice to come home to take some time to just visit and catch up. It gives me time to do some reading and blogging and just reconnect with my family – dysfunctional as we are. As I drove home, a 6 hour trip, I was reflecting on all the things that have taken place during the past year and looking forward to where things might be going in 2008.As I look back at 2007, I marvel at all that has happened since I began really blogging in January 2007. I mean, I’ve met and interacted with a whole variety of different educators and technologists from around the world. I’ve learned a great deal about what tools are available and some of the great things that are being done in classrooms all over the world. I’ve been able to interact and expand my knowledge of teaching and learning and the impact that the technological tools are having, or could have, on the classroom.

As an administrator, I find myself to be a somewhat oddity in this blogosphere ether that we inhabit. I’ve come across a few regular principal bloggers but the list isn’t very long. Ive also read many a blog where principals are one of the main stumbling blocks in getting technological tools into classrooms. As my last post indicated, I’ve come to realize that these tools will become necessary components of teaching and we need to become active in promoting use before someone else comes to tell us what and how to use them. As an administrator, I’d better be assisting my staff in working with these tools and looking at ways to help them become part of the teaching pedagogy in the school.

As I look forward to 2008, I see ever so unclearly that we need to reconceptualize the way we go about doing “school”. As the web grows and tools become more available, it will be necessary to decide what and where these tools will be used. I mean, just look at the tools available at go2web20.net and you’ll see that there are multiple sources available for anything that you wish to do. I spent a few days just surfing and checking out many of the sites that are listed on this site. Some I found to be very userfriendly while some just didn’t do what I wanted them to do so I looked for another tool.

The following is just a fraction of what is available.  I found MeeMix radio to be very good and have used it a few times. I thought Gorillaspot has some good potential for creating online video especially in my Communication Production Technology class. We may use this to create our online trailers that the students are suppose to do. I’ve also added the liveZuu widget to see how it might help. I’m not sold on it but will be taking a closer look. I thought the  was a good idea and would work in an office or classroom setting. I’m going to give it a try after Christmas with the first staff birthday.  I’m also giving meemi a try just because it sounds like something that a might work for a group project. Mind42 is a free online mindmapping site that looks like it has potential. I won’t really know until we give it a spin in class! Scribblink is an online whiteboard that I’m going to give a try. It sound like something that would be very useful when teaching a distance ed class. Converttube  provides a way to convert youtube and such videos to other formats. Storyofmylife looks like an interesting site especially with all this focus on storytelling. I haven’t really looked at it closely but it looks very inviting. Mygetgo is another online organizational site that allows you to add your information and content. Much the same to netvibes and pageflakes. I like the backgrounds and will fiddle a bit with the modules before I give a screenshot.

Whew. I really didn’t mean to go that far but I just get carried away when I see what is available for use on the net and I’m always weighing the benefits of what I look at with what I’m already using since recreating a new startpage or adding yet another site does take a great deal of time. Right now, my main focus as an administrator is having staff use various online applications on a regular basis so that they become use to the routine of checking for updates, information and email more than once a week!

Looking back on 2007, I see that education and educators have made progress in using the technology tools but we haven’t re-visualized school by including them in the day-to-day happenings of our classrooms and our lives. It’s not that we throw out all we are doing but we need to reflect on what is happening around us and explore how it can assist us in what we are doing. Banning, confiscating and outlawing technologies won’t stop their use while letting them drive how and what we do isn’t right either. One of my greatest worries for the upcoming year is that instead of educators adopting these tools and using them, they will be “required areas of study” and become the “essential learning tools” that teachers will be mandated to use, following the prescribed online curricula that will be supplied. We have an opportunity to be proactive innovators but our time is dwindling. It can’t be long before someone, probably an administrator, figures out it might be easier to track if curricula are being followed by tracking usage of recommended online sites through a database, using particular tools to demonstrate and show particular things and having students complete specific information sheets to determine comprehension.

Rest assured, that administrator will not be me.

Since Monday I’ve been having conversations about teachers and their lack of participation in social networking. I’ve been reflecting on the whole idea of teachers and networking. For years teachers have been encouraged to move out and interact with other teachers. They’ve been encouraged to share with other teachers, collaborate with other teachers and build relationships with other teachers. Some teachers have been more successful at this than others. Then the work of the various people empirically demonstrated that teachers who collaborated had students that were much more successful. Thus, teachers were encouraged to create teams and work and share. Again, some teachers were more successful at this than others. Finally, the work of Richard DuFour demonstrated that teachers who worked in Professional Learning Communities examining the data about their students were able to greatly improve the success of their students. Thus, for many, the PLC movement began where teachers were put into teams, identified particular areas of study to examine through data gathering and then adjust their teaching to strengthen areas that were weak. This cycle continues as students progress through the grades with teachers continuing to develop a new group of students.

My experience is that some schools have been very successful at developing their PLC’s and establishing benchmarks, goals and collaborating in all aspects of teaching. Throughout all these endeavours, the resounding idea is that teachers need time to accomplish these things. They need time to develop their  plans, test, review the data, implement changes and check. They need time to reflect on what they have done and establish a new focus. This time was not necessarily to be on top of their already full days but time was to be found for this in some way. In our school, I have been able to do mini-gym days so that teachers can have time together to work together.

All this was to be done in addition to: differentiating the curriculum for their students, assessment – formative and summative, check and track public illnesses, document behaviour that was unusual, track progress of students with learning difficulties plus a host of other things. Now, as we are in the midst of working through the whole PLC concepts, we are suppose to add another layer of networking – the global level.

I know, I know. The growth that individuals have seen in themselves has been incredible. The things they have learned would never have taken place any other way. Their students have been able to do a great many things that would have been impossible just a few short months ago. They understand when their students talk about Facebookin and twittering, texting and chatting. Their network allows them to share ideas and bring together voices that cover a wide variety of topics and ideas. Their schools have been able to implement networks that connect teachers, parents, grandparents and students.

My own growth has been substantial as I have learned a number of things from people as I peruse their blogs, look at the videos on their sites and discuss things with them. However, I’ve also noticed a gap between those who spend a great deal of time with their network and those who have only limited time.

Because I track the conversations of all the people who contact me on twitter, I get to see a great many conversations going on. However, in the past little bit, I’ve noticed that there are some people who everyone is following and get tremendous response when they tweet while others who don’t have many following their discussions get a limited number of replies, if any at all. So, when I began, I was expecting that whomever was following me would see my tweets when I posted them. Not the case. Actually, I’m not sure how many people actually see when I tweet. My network still seems limited despite efforts to read others blogs, answer their requests and so on. I know that it takes time to build these relationships but how long? And what if I don’t have the time like it seems other twitters do to chat and comment, to travel to different conferences or create presentations? What if, like so many teachers I know, I am working hard at just trying to do all the things that are requested of me by the parents, School Community Council, school division and other stakeholders? How do we expect these teachers will build these connections if they aren’t comfortable with technology? Who will respond to them?

I don’t argue that some of these networks are very important and I have made some great connections and am catching nuggets of information that I’d not have been able to get before. However, like in my f2f working position, I am not really “in”. As an administrator, I’m no longer a teacher and this creates some space between those I work with and myself. In fact, most administrators I’ve talked with find that this is the case. Well, in my online networks I find the same thing, mostly, I think, because I have no more time to dedicate to them than I am already giving and, therefore, am not a consistent contributor.

Yes, Dean, I’m taking the side of the teacher again:) I understand the power that networking has but I also see the real pressures that are going on each day in the classroom. To bring theoretical to reality, we need to bridge the time factor and until we see a change in what is being demanded of teachers and schools, I see this little revolution gaining ground very slowly. Eventually schools will be forced to address many of the issues that the people in my networks are struggling with, mostly in solitude and isolation. Maybe networks that we are seeing are really a result of people not being able to collaborate within their schools with other teachers and once change begins to take hold, we’ll see another shift in networks. I’m not sure that we’ll encounter the “social” networks that the youth have today regardless of what we are doing.

One thing is for sure, only time will tell!