Beth’s Thoughts on Technology in the Classroom

Jen Wagner has tagged me in the “This I believe” meme started by Barry Bachenheimer

I have been mulling this over a few days.  Hoping to come up with something witty and inspiring.  What do I believe about education?  My answer has changed over the years. As I have matured as an educator, became a parent, varied my experiences and shared with other educators I find I am not the same teacher I was 20 plus years ago (thank God).  I am sure I will be different educator in another 20 years.

I began writing my list of where I stand now but the list kept going and going and going. So I have summarized it into a few key beliefs, a snapshot of my philosophy of education at this point in time.

I must preface this with a quote attributed to Mark Twain, “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.”  I think that really reflects my current view.  My children hear me say it often, in fact I have caught them telling others.

I believe

…education begins at birth and ends with death.  It is not limited to what happens in schools.

…all people should be educated to reach their fullest potential; academic, creative and spiritual.

…learning how to learn, reason and share what you know are fundamental to education.

…learners should frequently ask themselves “how do I know what I know?” They need an understanding of the theory of knowledge.

…education is an active process and often collaborative

…education must be adaptive and flexible to the changing needs of the learner and society.

…the desire to learn is an intrinsic value but it can be encouraged and fostered from without.

When I am in one of my more cynical moods I might include … that schools should not hinder the educational/learning process.  But that is more a transient thought of mine then a persistent belief.

Now the truly hardest part of the meme who to tag next. So how ‘bout

Julia Colby
Liz Davis
Louise Maine

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In the last few weeks I have been trying to drum up business.  Hoping to get teachers to work with new tools in the classroom, always a challenge as the year draws to a close.  Anyway…

I have been hearing more and more of the following lately.

• Why should I learn this tool, won’t there just be another one?
• What is ONE I should be using.
• There are too many tools what is the best one?

I sympathize. I try to offer a couple of tools for each task but there are always new, better and cooler tools coming along.  I get excited about them so I share.

Today I read the post I’m Still Rezzing by Bob Sprankle.  You really need to read the post in its entirety, it covers a lot of ground. He writes;

In a sense, isn’t so much of the Internet “still rezzing?” Most of the tools we use are either still in “beta” or are an early draft in a long lineage of “updates.” Many of the technologies that we think are brilliant today will be replaced with even better realizations in the future.

We are working with a medium still in flux, perhaps forever in the process of becoming the instrument we dream of.

Bob really explains well what I have been feeling and trying unsuccessfully to share with the teachers I work with. There is never really an end.  We always learn and grow. there have always been new programs and technologies it is just that they are coming at us much faster. Therefor use the tools that you find useful, feel free to chose. No longer is it dictated to you what tools you will work with.  And freedom of choice comes with responsibility. So be flexible, be open, be an explorer.

He continues.

…And yet, most of the time, we are forgiving. We’ve become accustomed to websites being “down,” browsers crashing, incompatible applications, constant problem solving. Our response to technical issues is to find alternatives, seek upgrades, reconfigure. I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s given up on the Internet because of its problems. We understand that the Internet is still evolving.

This is so true, we just keep plugging along. I need to stress this to the teachers who tend to give up a bit too easily.  You are already a trouble shooter and have learned Internet adaptability. The Internet is evolving and so are you. Keep learning, experimenting and never give up. In the words of Dora “just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.”

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Last weekend I was exposed to a new product called WorkBench by TRintuition. It is a flash, web based content creation tool. As Karen commented earlier, since it is flash based the text can not be read, thus it is not accessible by all. I took about 10 mins this morning to begin learning the tool. There is still more to explore. Here is my first attempt.

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One year ago today I began my adventures exploring Second Life as a networking tool.  It is so hard to believe that it has only been a year.  In that time I have met so many wonderful people, learned to much and had a blast doing it. Thanks to all those who have made it such a great place to be and Happy Rez day to all the others born around this time.

A special shout out to the following for being my mentors and co-adventors at the beginning of my Second Life. (I know I am missing a some names so please for give)

The DEN is SL leadership Council (RipTide, Lor, JM, Laelia, Celestia, Demb)

KJ, Existensial, LillyoftheSea, Macsmom, Kristy, Kathy and… boy I feel old there are others from the early days I am sure.

Thanks again for keeping learning fun.

Beth

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I had a great time this weekend meeting and learning with and from some terrific people.  I meet with the people in my MassCUE network, and some of the people who make up my twitter network at the New England Tweet up. I met people connected to a virtual network and those that network face to face. I met people not associated with any of my networks.

I learned from them all.

There has been some chatter lately about the echo chamber and the inner circle. It is topic that seems to come and go. I have written about this before.  I think of my many interlocking networks as a fermentation tank not really an echo chamber.  But in pondering about it during the drive home I realized I honestly didn’t care.  Not that it is not important to some, just not me at this time. There are some people who study social networks and group dynamics but I can’t get my head around those things.  I learn, I share and I love to develop my thoughts with people, the people who make up my networks.  It is with these people that I continue to grow and learn and be inspired.  I take that knowledge and passion and share it with anyone who will listen and even with some who will not. As teachers we look for the teachable moments. As learners we should be looking for the learning moments.  I believe I can learn from the well known, the unknown, the master, the novice, and most importantly our children.  The key is to be open to learning from anyone and share with everyone.

I see myself on a mission to learn, grow and be challenged in my thinking. And in turn encourage others to learn, grow and be challenged in their thinking.  In my opinion if we all did that the message, the skills and the knowledge would spread.

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Today I attended a MassCUE leadership retreat where we participated in presentations regarding different tools and products for education. Two of the tools captured my attention and now have me completely distracted.

Disruptive Technology

Disruptive innovation often initially results in worse performance compared with established projects and service in mainstream markets. But disruptive innovations have other benefits. They are often cheaper, simpler, smaller and more convenient to use.

Clayton Christensen author of The Innovator’s Dilemma

(This is a book I need to read.)

This was the opening slide in a presentation by Rick Trietman one of the creators of Buzzword, also presenting was Tad Stale. Rick’s kids are teachers and he spoke from a teacher/student perspective. He talked about the development of Buzzword and how development and marketing strategies have changed.

It used to be all the cool tools and early adapter where in the world of business. Now it is the kids who are early adaptors and testers and then educators looking for free, or cheep, open source solutions. The kids and consumers are more apt to try new things and use the ‘cool tool’ then business. This has resulted in a new way to market and develop products.

He said a key term used in the development of Buzzword was for it to be term paper ready. Kids are so used to having their personal life in the clouds their school work should live their as well. Not bound to a computer or a school network.

Buzzword (recently acquired by Adobe) is similar to Google docs and Zoho Writer but is flash and flex based. There is no need to preview documents it shows pages and has a page segmented scroll bar, good list features and graphics handling with drag and drop photos and text flow. I liked the way it handled tables. More than one person can comment at a time. Comments are like mini documents and can have graphics and tables. There is also a nice history feature to see different versions of the documents. Currently only one person can edit at time but after each save another can edit the document. They are working on improving this feature, as well as adding and developing other applications.

Another product that we were shown was The WorkBench by TRintuition. CEO and developer Ron Gwiazda shared with us the use and development of the product and was asking for ways to tweak it for the education market.

It is a Flash based on-line authoring environment. The media created can be viewed on line or downloaded. It is a quick clean way to make interactive web-page like media. It has many features I have only begun to explore. Projects live on their server and are not shared on the web till you give it a URL name, it can be taken down just as easy by removing the name. Currently it is free to individuals and they are working on a pricing structure for groups, and classes. Groups can share resources, projects and collaborate. My daughter and I are already playing with it. I see her completing a lot of school projects with this tool. And I know I will be playing with it during my upcoming April vacation.

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Ryan Bretag’s March post** …Aren’t Good Enough, really hit on something I have been struggling with myself. In my responsive post I listed some questions I am focusing on and will discuss with anyone who will listen. Here are my thoughts on my first questions.

How do we get teachers/administrators to use and see the value of these tools for themselves and their students? (In my opinion Hurdle #1)

First let me preface that the educators who ‘get it’ sign up for classes, workshops and ask for individual support. Honestly these are not the people I am trying to reach.

So here are the results of a little unofficial - mini experiment I conducted.

Last fall (2006) I tried to offer some workshops on media creation and storytelling. I had a low turn out. So that spring (2007) I offered workshops on Recording your Family History. I had a great turn out. I had teachers bring in family photos, showed them how to scan. We then looked at how to import the photos into an application and add voice. I played one I made with my mom and I talking about old family photos over coffee, I added the photos to match the conversation. The teachers were hooked, they saw this as valuable. They felt it would be a great summer project to get the whole family involved.

Well it it just under a year since those workshops and all but one of those teachers has now completed a digital story project in their classes. Three of them signed up for a fall course, that is a more intensive look at using technology to reach all students. Others have attended smaller workshops. So now as spring approaches I am getting ready to do a re-run of those classes. I deem them a success. Teachers who need to attend content/standard based workshops do not wish to attend additional technology workshop. But to learn something for fun and family seems to have been a hit. And though it took a year they took the skills they learned and developed over the summer and incorporate them in the classroom on their own with no prodding by me. Isn’t that the goal? Now I need to come up with more ’sneaky’ workshops to get the skills out there.

** Ryan has just written another post related to this one.  It is a must read.

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