I’m going to be in Boston (with questionable internet access) for the next 3 days, so I wanted to get some thoughts out of my head. Consider this my personal Pensieve post.
Fearful? Stupid? Blind? Egotistical?
We really have a problem with perception in education. Technology is perceived too much as invasive to the learning and thinking structures. Technology is seen as basically a virtual reference book and type writer - no social aspects to it. Technology in school is something that is called upon when needed - to look something up or write a “final draft.” Instead, it should be seen as a constant companion, always there to socialize, share, research, and learn. Unfortunately, we are a long way from that. Before we even start leverage the possibilities of the web, teachers need to be comfortable with technology in the class room.
A prime example of teachers being afraid of technology was this Wednesday. We were going to be watching In The Time of the Butterflies as a collaborative project between social studies and history. At the end of the day, we were supposed to have notes about what we saw. Naturally, I took out the laptop to take my notes. The second the facilitator saw a laptop he screamed across the room, put it away right now. Afterwards, he went into a lengthly rant about how this movie should be regarded as the same thing as class - no technology. At the end of his self-centered rant, he asked me this rhetorical question: would you have a laptop in class? (He thought the answer was no) Well, yes I would. Besides proving beyond a doubt (and confirmed by other students) that this teacher is a jerk, this shows the problem with education today. Traditional teachers think that it could never possibly be used in the classroom for any purpose besides mischief. They never pause to think computers could (or should) be used to facilitate learning, understanding, or even note taking. Hopefully, we can change that - but it is going to be a slow process.
Talk, Talk, Talk
Over the last couple of days, there has been a flurry of activity in the edutech community. K12Online is in full steam. There are interesting conversations in EdTechTalk almost every night. I have also been interviewed a couple of times. First, informally on Kristin Hokanson’s show. I also got a few minutes in EdTechWeekly. Finally, Steve Hargadon asked some great questions in my interview with him. Definitely a very productive week!
Gutsy Guy
I’m upgrading my old boxes to Ubuntu Gutsy. In addition, I’m hoping to convert my parents to Linux. I’ll also be upgrading my MacBook Pro to Mac OS X on October 26th. Lots of new technology in the world!
Conference Planning
I’m hoping to attend an education conference or two in 2008. I might even be running a student strand at EduCon 2.0 or NECC. If you’d be interested, please add your name to this list. However, none of this will be cheap. (Even if I can secure a scholarship) Therefore, I am now accepting donations on my blog. If I don’t get enough, I may have to integrate ads into my feed and/or the next reboot. If you can spare a few dollars and you support education, teens, free WordPress plugins, or random charity please use the button below to donate to a worthy cause - namely, me.
Now I’m off to Boston! I’ll hopefully be able to tweet this weekend though.
Arthus — I can relate to your laptop incident. I had the very same thing happen in a 2-day training that I attended last week. The facilitators wouldn’t let any of us use our laptops for anything during the training — and this was training required for school principals, administrators, and teacher leaders. They didn’t want us distracted with our email or other work that they assumed we would be doing instead of paying attention to them for 2 days.
So — I hate to admit this, but it isn’t just an issue with classroom teachers not understanding that technology can be used productively in a learning situation. When district-level trainers assume the worst as well (of campus administrators and teachers) — just as your facilitator did — then it becomes evident that we still have a very long way to go.
For the record — I felt as if MY tentacles had been chopped off during that training.
I know what you mean Stephanie. It is quite the viscious system we have - when the trainers tell the teachers not to use the technology, then teachers repeat it back to students. Something needs to change!
Watch your tentacles.
He screamed at you? The man raised his voice at you? In a public school? He is an employee of the school? Did you tell your parents, if not, please do!
No one should be yelling at any k12learner unless it is life or death (like walking in front of a car or something).
Now, as to laptops, there are rules that cover accommodations - how does this man know that the laptop is not an accommodation for you? It would be for me. I’m not sure on the present law, but when I was in public school, a teacher could not ask a student if they had accommodations in front of others (confidentiality), but could check records. I don’t ask learners now in private school, although I freely tell them mine (mainly so they don’t take all my markers, which are an accommodation).
There is something very wrong with any system that allows learners to scream at each other (vocal music class aside)
I wouldn’t characterize it as screaming… more like yelling. Which was partly understandable since we weren’t close by. Actually, that’s part of the problem - this guy has a strange need to make examples of people publicly. He could have quite easily come over and kindly asked me to put it away since it was not suitable (to which I would have pointed out my core teachers and plan have given me authorization for it). Still, far better than publicly being told laptops are not to be used “in class.” I wasn’t the only one who he make an “example” of - at the end of the movie, he was in a tirade about out “abysmal” behavior. So, he picked out a random friend of mine who had done nothing the entire movie and verbally abused him. Yeah, that’s the kind of teacher we love in our public school system. At least we outlawed physical punishment, or you can be sure quite a few people might have been made “an example of” in a very painful and public way.
I do have an accommodation for my laptop. I don’t really want to share the specifics on a public forum - but suffice to say my core teachers understand.
There is something very wrong with any system that allows this guy any where near learners.
onya arthus
gluck with gutsy.
cheers from #ubuntu-au
@lucychili thanks… the install was very smooth and went through without a hitch.
Sounds like you have teachers that view technology as stuff and there is no progressive vision of technology. I would question the teacher’s statement “no technology” and ask if that means the TV, VCR, pens, pencils and paper should be put away. Those were all considered high-tech and cutting edge at one point or another in human history. Just don’t turn around and be the jerk yourself.
Do you have a school that invests in SmartBoards, NetTrekker, AtomicLearning, UnitedStreaming, Labs, etc to say they have it? If so, you are in a vision-less environment. I am well aware how difficult it is to bring change into such an environment. 1:1 computing doesn’t necessarily mean that the environment will change. I became the tech coordinator for a district with a 1:1 that was using them as expensive spiral notebooks. Students would go home and Internet access was locked out on the machines!
Universities are not as bad as high school, so you have that going for you in the future.
@James: The statement that there is no progressive vision certainly matches my school. Technology and computers are basically used as souped up typewriters and dictionaries; we never collaborate online and are highly discouraged from even using the web for anything besides pre-authorized, “reliable” sources.
Schools are so desperate to squash free speech that they block every blog, including mine.
Hi Arthus
Just wanted you to know that I find your blog truly inspiring and as I embark on a year of researching into the potential of mobile phones in the classroom, I will be following closely what you have to say about the state of education. You can remind me what it is like back in the real world so I am prepared when I return to teaching!
Anyway, I do look forward to reading what you have to say.
PS you’ll be pleased to know I did fight a bit of a battle for the students last week with a teacher complaining about how terrible it was that I was using technology in my classroom because then the students came to his room and he had to argue with them as to why they couldn’t use the same technology with him…
Just thought you should know it’s not just the students who are battling with this! United front I say
Something to think about as well… Beware the Box and Wires Guy (BWG). You might be suffering in an environment where there is a network admin who has no education background, but comes from an industry, like banking, who feels schools need to be run like businesses. Depending on the size of your schools, there maybe a curriculum coordinator who has a total lack of technical knowledge. This might be the person to reach out to and get their input and offer yours as well. Just thinking diplomatically at this point.
@Toni: I’m glad to hear my (humble) words have an impact. Good luck with your research, it is certainly an interesting subject. I certainly hope I can help all teachers stay in touch with the needs and thoughts of their students.
Thank you for standing up for (intelligent) use of technology in schools! Maybe the teacher who complained could stand to learn a bit from you, instead of complaining.
Your blog certainly looks very interesting. I will definitely be following it in the future, especially since I see a post about Quizlet right off the bat.
@James: I know exactly what you mean. I’ve had that experience myself with local IT people. Actually, my biggest problem is the DITT - Digitally Illiterate Technology Teacher. In my old school, the guy who made all the technology decisions had absolutely no technical knowledge - yet thought he did. He had been hired over 10 years before and never bothered to learn new technology - thinking the digital frontier is in Word and not anything about the web.
I’ll make a deal with you…I can’t donate money to send you to NECC, but I am in the process of contacting people to get funds and if I get to go, I will buy you supper one night : )
Haha… good deal. I can certainly understand the inability to donate… I am also doing pretty well with some freelance work as well as having recieved a very generous donation from Lisa Linn.
I certainly hope we can both make it. Hope to see you either at EduCon 2.0! (But watch when you offer me food :P)
Do you have any advocates there? Younger teachers maybe who get “it?”
I know in my field there are many people who were Librarians who handled handing out the AV equipment as well, and “fell” into IT because there was no other pigeon hole to put it. Not a slam on librarians, but sometimes the needs of the system outgrows the person. I have seen it before. I am maddened when I see districts spend loads of money on SmartBoards thinking they have a high-tech school only to have it fall flat because there is, common theme here, no vision.
Unfortunately for you, change in education comes at a glacial pace. You will be lucky to see much change in the coming years of high school. Find an advocate!
You really should start reading works by David Jakes. Check out this post. It might be up your alley.
http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2007/10/student_absences.php
I am currently sitting in a class that is actually geared towards showing the usefulness of ‘technology’ in the classroom. In this class, each student is given a MacBook. We are permitted to use our laptops to take notes in our classes (excluding math classes, as they often require sketches that would be easier to make on paper). We are exploring the usefulness of computers outside of Microsoft Suite, and I am pleased that our school wishes to take advantage of the technology available today.
This class has been extremely useful, and I wish you luck on your crusade to make the classroom more ‘technology friendly’.
@James There are a couple of allies I have in my district. For instance, I recently spoke with out IT director and we will possibly be rolling out WordPress MU this year. (Developed and managed by yours truly) However, I can sympathise vastly with yur problems with librarians being put in charge of technology programs. In our school, all tech ed is done by the library. Unforunately, most of the librarians have little to no technical training and even worse don’t think outside the box. They are used to dealing with static information (books) and thus advocate looking for the same type of information on the web (closed databases, old newspaper articles, etc.). Not to degrade fine librarians, but most tend to be oblivious of the importance of a read/write web in which information is most definitely not static. Either give librarians more training in web technologies and culture, or chose a different department to handle tech ed.
In regards to David Jakes, I have been following his work. In fact, I had already commented on that very same article you pointed to.
@R08 Awesome! It’s always encouraging to see classes moving more towards total adoption of technology. (Extra points for using Macs)
I hope you go deeper than the surface level uses of technology. (note taking, word processing)
I’d love to hear if you end up using wikis, blogs, or Google Docs in your class. When everyone has a laptop, there is so much opportunity for virtual collaboration. In regards to math classes, I often end up resorting to paper as well. However, I definitely recommend checking our Zoho Notebook and skrbl - both of which offer excellent collaborative notetaking and diagramming solutions. Also be sure to check out the integrated Grapher program in Mac OS X - it’s quite lovely.
Good luck! Keep in touch.
R08 and I are in the same computer class, and let me just say, she is right on. Our computers are very beneficial in my opinion. Especially since our school is lacking in library computers (actually everything), it helps that those of us in this class have our own, so other kids who need them for school work have access to them.
…BTW, are you really 14?
Arthus, I’ve got to say, your use of the word *purrs* disturbed me greatly. Enjoy your day! I agree with ” They call me ruth”, she seems like a VERY wise lady.
I am also in this class that gets the lap tops. I am amazed about how much I am learning. It’s nice to be connected to the world through our laptops when we are learning. That way, we can look up real life experiences and learn about other’s perspectives on subjects through blogging. We are learning to use programs that can benefit us in our futures.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I figure you’re all in the same laptop using class?
@They call me Ruth: It’s good to hear that you are willing to share your computers with other students. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more and more classes/schools adopt 1 to 1 learning so that every student can have their own computer. And yes, I am really 14. I’m a freshmen in high school.
@Andrew the great: Sorry for disturbing you… I’ll try not to show my claws.
@The Tehnee: I think you really hit the nail on the head. Connections are really what computers and the web are all about. And what is learning but a strengthening of the connections between you and the world around you.
I’m glad to hear your learning some useful programs. Hopefully, the skill sets are transferable. What specific programs have your found most useful?
We are mainly learning the basic programs right now since we haven’t been in class for very long. We have been learning how to make projects on IMovie and working on setting up our own websites. Currently, we are working on blogging and researching using blogs. Our assignment was to comment on at least 10 educational blogs and keep track of them using our google notebooks. I love the fact that I can use blogs to get a better understanding on just about any subject imaginable.
The ability to make movies in iMovie and your own websites are certainly not basic. In fact, those two skills are some of the most useful skills on the computer. (And you’d be suprised how hard it is for some people)
I’m glad to hear that you are learning about the power of blogging/reading blogs. Hopefully, you’ll be inspired to keep on bogging and interacting even if this class is over.
What other blogs have you been reading? What are your thoughts on the edublogesphere so far?
Blogs are certainly a great way of learning about any subject. I recommend you also check out some blogs not related to academics at all. (There are some great sports blogs out there) When you read a blog for a while and comment, you start to feel like you really know the blogger. In turn, this makes their thoughts about the subject that much more relevant. For instance, I’d much rather get a movie recommendation from someone I have had some interaction with and is a great movie buff than get a recommendation from some overpaid reviewer working off in some office somewhere.
Good luck with the blogesphere! Stop by anytime.
I am also in the same laptop class. I see the same thing happen in a lot of my classes that happened to you. I don’t know why teachers can be so naive that they don’t believe that we are mature enough to use technology wisely in classes.
@amiller It is very unfortunate that teachers can be so naive and fearful of change. However, the more students who just show up and insist upon using their laptops the more likely it is that change will happen. Good luck with it and insist upon implementing newer technologies. We are mature enough to handle technologies, and all teachers must understand it.
I am also in the class that gets the lap tops. i think that it is cool that our school is starting to use technology more in our classes.
technology should be used in the classroom.
@pdautel Yes, it is very cool.
@Andrew the great: I agree.