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I have read some excellent posts tonight about edtech. David Warlick wrote a rant expressing his frustration that teachers don’t want to learn technology. I don’t know what his background is, but he doesn’t sound like a teacher. I honestly don’t know where he lives that teachers are “treated with awe and respect.”
He made an excellent point that the “… only taste that most children have of the 20th century, is their classrooms — where we’re supposed to be preparing them for the 21st century.” I couldn’t agree more. I just don’t think teachers are anywhere near the biggest issue.
The only thing my school district wants to spend technology money on is testing. The entire month of September is out of the question for students using computers because THEY are are using every available computer in the school for MAPS testing the freshmen. Then I was asked to stay after school today to have an “inservice” on an online test prep membership that THEY purchased a trial of for two weeks. This “inservice” was a joke. I have no idea what the thing is. We saw two three-minute promotional videos, while sitting at computerless tables. Oh, and we got a handout.
But there is a “minimum technology standard” that THEY require teachers to meet. It involves a class in how to use PowerPoint. There is no way to test out of that class. THEY awe and respect me so much that they ignored my suggestion that we could save money by allowing people to test out of that class. THEY insist on spending money to train me to do things I already know how to do and then frustrate my every attempt to learn something new. I honestly sat through a three hour “technology inservice” in 2003 when I was getting my master’s in which I heard the following quote from the teacher, “If you want to change the size of your text, you can just highlight it and change the font size.” I know that’s exactly what she said because I wrote it down at the time. I took lots of funny notes during that class. I was bored out of my mind, and she took attendance.
The funniest part about today’s “inservice”: We’re all supposed to experiment with this test prep software in the next two weeks. My students have been begging me to “let them” blog, which we do intend to do, but we have to wait until October to get started. No computers. You have no idea how it breaks my heart to hear, daily, “when are you going to let us blog?”
When October comes, I will still be lucky to get into a lab once a week. When we get there, there will be 30 computers set up, 2 -4 of which will not work. I have 35 students in some of my classes. Exactly how am I supposed to pick which 7-9 kids have to do this assignment at home? And what kind of management nightmare is 9 unoccupied kids? Those nine won’t even have chairs. But the district will spend ten grand on a Promethean board. There’s nothing wrong with the Promethean board. But I’ll take however many laptops THEY can get for that ten grand, thank you.
But only if THEY will unblock YouTube, respond to my request to apply for Think.com, and let kids get social on the web. There is no nuclear firewall.
Contrary to popular belief, these kids are not Internet savvy. I have done an assignment every year as the first part of my research paper unit that requires students to write 2 Internet source rationales. Kinda like the way we used to turn in bibliographies? Except they have to evaluate a source they find on the web, explaining why it’s a good source of information, what its potential weaknesses are, and how they can be overcome or compensated for. Is is okay to quote Louis Farrakhan? Depends on what you want to use it for. A comment on the Nation of Islam’s stance on an issue? Great. A statement on black history that can’t be verified anywhere else? Not so great.
These kids are lost. Loster than lost. These are all new skills for them. They have never been asked to do this before. Most of them didn’t even know about the “about” page or how to find it. They didn’t know what the various .com, .org, .gov suffixes stood for. This is no problem for me. I am, after all, a teacher. But THEY are going to have to give me more than 5 days with the computer to teach all of this and do a research paper.
This is why teachers say they don’t want to learn something new. We want to learn something useful and new that won’t be scrapped for the next new thing, that will work when we need it and be available. And we teachers could figure out how to do this come-on-into-the-21st-century thing if THEY would get out of our way.
Or many of us could…. I did talk to a teacher this week at another school who was so proud because she just learned how to burn a CD last week. And she teaches chemistry. AP chemistry. So, okay, some teachers don’t know nearly enough about technology. But the pressure is never going to be on them to learn it as long as those of us who want to use technology have to claw each other for access.
For us to learn how to do this teach-with-technology thing, the “technology leaders” are going to have to let us play with the technology. Learning is fun. If the leaders of the technology “inservices” hadn’t forgotten that, maybe the teachers would want to learn. Hell, even the kids might like it.
The article linked above, “Teachers Caught in the Act” upset me because it implies that learning with technology means a top-town, sage-on-the-stage approach to a technology that is shaped like a web. I’m surprised to hear Ken, someone I usually agree with, say this. Don’t the teachers have to learn the technology before they can teach it? In fact, the lack of opportunities to grow as a learner myself is a big part of my overall frustration with teaching, and not just in the technology realm.
The approach that says, “Let’s put teachers in a chat room and then tell them not to chat” is the same approach that says students can’t learn anything valuable on MySpace or Xanga or Facebook. The article says,
“Mr. Warlick reported early Tuesday morning that only 300 posts pertained to the topic while an astounding 700+ posts were meaningless to the purpose of the gathering.”
I think this sums up the problem. We have to realize that we’re not setting all the agendas anymore. No one person is setting the “purpose” of the gathering. That doesn’t mean the students aren’t learning.
10 responses so far ↓
1 ken // Sep 27, 2007 at 9:56 am
Point of clarification (I feel so Grand Jury-ish whenever I state that phrase!):
I don’t have a problem with the fact that 70% of posts by teachers in an on-line chat room were off-topic; in fact, I’ve spent 13 years in a classroom where I found myself, the teacher!, going off-topic (the horror! please don’t tell my administrators).
And I agree with you that we are no longer setting or upholding a firm agenda and that students, regardless of age, learn in different and varied ways. In fact, as educators, it is our job to celebrate and encourage varied forms of learning.
I was an off-task student. And posting this comment right now is off-task to the meeting I am attending (but it’s not off task to my learning style!).
What bothered me about The Day After Warlick was the chiding by the rep from PA’s Dept. of Ed. She claimed we were unprofessional. She stated we should be the “leaders” of appropriate and ethical behavior. She railed against us by comparing us to a group from the previous week that kept the same chat directly linked to the presentation.
What I found amusing was that when I began to reflect on the presentation and our next-day reprimand, I realized I had engaged in a lot of thoughtful reflection and processing about Mr. Warlick’s message (even before PDE expressed disappointment in us).
Additionally, I began to reflect on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ we are using tech tools. I’m no ’sage on a stage’; if anything, I’m more of a ’sage against the machine’, but I surely would not release students in a classroom environment w/out allowing them to develop a list of appropriate behaviors.
Or…better yet and perhaps more to the point of my post…if Mr. Warlick and PDE wanted experimentation for its sake alone, then, well, perhaps the day-after diatribe was a cheap, Tommy Boy 2×4 slap in the face. I would never do that to my students, or my teachers.
If I want them to play in the sandbox, then I have to expect that some of them are going to get dirty, throw sand, and even kick over a castle or two. The joy of the sandbox is when some of the kids create, share, explore, and collaborate in a meaningful way; especially those that entered with a ‘this-is-a-waste-of-my-time’ attitude.
I love playing w/ technology. I run workshop after workshop after bleepin’ workshop and play, play, play all day I say…
But then I ask teachers to reflect on the how, why, and where these tools may fit into their classes.
They pause. They consider. They think about their diverse student population.
And when they do that, I know they’re ready to move from play to apply.
And if they’re really good teachers, their application will come off as play. Their students will play, but damn, they’ll really start learning in ways that matter.
Thanks for making me think.
2 Taylor // Sep 27, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Sage against the machine! Awesome. That would be a great name for a blog, or book, or something. I wish I’d thought of it.
3 Taylor // Sep 27, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I really need to talk to you some more, but I can’t post comments on your blog. Is that something you’ve done deliberately b/c of your job? Is there some other online space where we could chat?
4 Taylor // Sep 27, 2007 at 11:16 pm
I think it’s perfectly fine to do whatever you want with a blog, including post your own comments from another site. I would probably provide a link to the original site if I did that, which you did. I think we should use the tools in whatever way seems best. It’s up to the makers of the technology to keep up with us, not the other way around.
5 ken // Sep 27, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Rain Man: Learn! Learn! Learn!
Rodoff: Learn? Learn? Learn?
Rain Man: Comment permissions need fixing. I’m a very good commenter.
Rodoff: I think you just dropped 247 toothpicks; ballpark guess. Let me check that comment thing out.
Rain Man: Must comment on your blog.
Rodoff: Fixing it right now.
Rain Man: MUST COMMENT ON YOUR BLOG!
Rodoff: Done. Comment.
Rain Man: I’m a very good commenter.
FIN
Okay, turns out I’m learning every day about life and blogging, but really, is there a difference?
Anyone can now post comments.
Go for it! Thanks for pointing out the issue.
Oh, and I’m not trying to suggest that you are Rain Man. It’s just late for me and I’m back from Harrisburg and well…go figure, Rain Man is on.
Inspiration is all around us!!!
6 Taylor // Sep 27, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Your comments are always so insightful. I apologize if I misunderstood what you meant.
As a rank-and-file teacher, the most striking thing about what you said was the part about the sandbox. I’m not ready to apply anything until I play with it.
Case in point: I just discovered voicethread by reading the comments on your latest post. I’m so excited. I’m gonna play with it on my blog.
But all the time I know that the kids will make something even better if I give them the tools and the freedom to do so. But I’m not sure what I would ask them to do yet. I know that my own play will clarify that for me.
7 Taylor // Sep 27, 2007 at 11:27 pm
What really sucks is that our school has two digital cameras and one of them still uses 3.5 inch floppies, which none of the computers in the school will take. I know 90% of the kids have cameras on their phones, but they’re not allowed to use them during school and I’m not allowed to make an exception.
I don’t even know where to begin with the microphones.
Can voice thread use music?
Is it okay to post 3 or 4 consecutive comments on your own blog?
I already answered that, didn’t I?
Did I mention that I have ADD? I’m a grown up who takes adderall every day, listens to eminem, stays up way too late playing on the laptop, and is constantly frustrated by the oppressiveness of the school system. I think I might be regressing to teenage-hood.
8 ken // Sep 27, 2007 at 11:36 pm
You can add music to a voice thread. It is currently on our ’sexiest’ app list.
In other words, no such list really exists and the ‘our’ is me hiding behind plurality.
Let me make one pt. about Voice Thread: I do not recommend for use in a large group presentation (say 250 teachers) b/c if you have to access from a weak, Holiday Inn wireless router, you’re doomed for a long, stuttering Voice Thread.
And I’m sure that’s not what the creator(s) intended.
Oh, and posting multiple comments on a blog (your own or someone else’s) is one of those Blogging Essential Questions that has no real answer.
9 David Warlick // Sep 30, 2007 at 8:08 am
I hadn’t realized, until this morning, that the incident in PA had reached the blogosphere. It is easy to judge the PDE for their reaction. Having worked for a state department of education, I can understand the reaction, especially if watching the conversation transpire. The whole nation is watching PA right now. A lot rides on the CFF project and a lot of that rides on the folks in that room.
After having read through the chat, and analyzed who had contributed what, I suggested to the PDE folks (whom I’ve known for a long time and for whom I have enormous respect) that it wasn’t as bad as it probably appeared as the chat progressed. There were actually wonderful moments of brilliance, but, unfortunately, they were too often drowned by a listing of ’80s wrestlers
I believe that they left out Rip Hawk!
I found in my analysis that there were only three people who chronically abused the opportunity, and a handful of others who simply followed the atmosphere that was set by those three (one in particular).
I’ve already stated on another blog that the AjaxChat thing is an experiment. I know that it won’t go well every time, especially as people my age do not have the task-shifting abilities of my children. My desire is to frame the opportunity as little as possible, so that the conversation goes where it should. We’ll see where that is.
Thanks for continuing this conversation.
10 Taylor // Sep 30, 2007 at 9:51 pm
As a teacher my reaction would be, if a few students “chronically abused the opportunity” to learn in my classroom — (which never happens, right?) — what is the reason for their behavior? Are they unchallenged? Are they lost? The better I can figure that out, the better I can help them to learn. One possible culprit is the “experimental” nature of the chat. Not that we should stop experimenting, simply that experiments are messy. In trying to understand what learning means today, we’re all seeing the messiness that arises from the experimental stage we’re in, and possibly expressing the same frustrations in different ways.
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