Chapter 3: Educational Technology for School Leaders

Schrum, L. & Levin, B. B. (2011). Strategic leadership: Encouraging and assessing technology integration. In Schrum, L. (Ed.), The best of Corwin: Educational technology for school leaders (41-58). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Summary

            In education, change is often the only constant.  In addition to the changing faces of students within classrooms, new ideas, standards, and requirements are often being foisted onto teachers.  To avoid making technology a burden, administrators should understand levels of willingness to adopt innovation and the stages of concern teachers may have.  By forming professional learning groups and supporting innovators and early adopters in teacher leadership, administrators can appoint technology coordinators and form technology planning committees all in an effort to create technology-rich lessons that enrich student learning.

Reflection

            My experiences in science outreach have taught me that the best leaders of teachers are teachers.  From outside of education, solutions to problems seem ever so simple.  However, the old adage to “walk a mile in my shoes” certainly applies for teachers.  Partnering with teachers and learning about the challenges they face within their schools and classrooms began to open my eyes.

            When I completed my master’s degree, I was uncertain whether I should pursue a PhD in science or science education.  The message I heard from many professors was to go for science because picking up teaching ideas and language would be easy.  That route was not the right one for me, and fortunately I landed in science education despite the original detour.  Here, I am learning that teaching is not as easy as everyone thinks.  It is a science unto itself.

            Once again I feel like I face a crossroads.  Soon I hope to apply for an education director job with a STEM outreach program.  At the same time, I am aware that several science teacher positions are opening in local high schools soon.  I have been encouraged to apply for both positions.  Considering that the best leaders of teachers are teachers, will I be better prepared to work with K-12 teachers after having been one?  Or, have I been teaching and leading all along?

Playing around with educreation

So, I got my hands on an iPad during my friend's action center and made this:

http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/science-by-carrie/4358677/?s=oofrzx&ref=app

Crazy fun.

Ideas for my audio project

My goal for this course is to use these web tools to connect with students in the Geology Department and teachers in the local school district.

Having said that, I might record audio files to help teachers know how to pronounce rock and mineral names.  However, it just occurred to me that I might get more student volunteers if they have a stronger link to the teachers and students that they would be working with.

Therefore, I am considering audio files of students talking about their geological understandings or experiences with geology volunteers.  That might get everyone's attention!

Chapter 7: Educational Technology for School Leaders

Langer de Ramirez, L. (2011). Why use Web 2.0 tools with ELLs? In Schrum, L. (Ed.), The best of Corwin: Educational technology for school leaders (129-138). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Summary

            Web 2.0 tools allow students to find and create information alone and with others.  For English Language Learners (ELL), these tools extend opportunities for practice beyond school hours and provide anonymity for students uncomfortable communicating in front of their peers.  Consistent with goals outlined for Partnership for 21^st Century Skills and TESOL Standards, web tools integrate social communication, academic communication, and technology skills for all students.  Understanding how to communicate safely on the internet is a subject belonging in schools.  Technopanic should thus be kept under control so as not to create a barrier to learning with technology, disenfranchising digital native students.

Reflection

            When I taught BioWriting several semesters ago, my co-instructor and I required that our students keep a blog, updating at least three times a week.  Our purpose was to follow the advice of many established writers – to write, write, and write.  We had several ELL students in the course and at the time, I did not consider how the assignment might be of particular benefit to them.  While their blog posts were never long, I learned things about my ELL students that rarely spoke in class.  One student in particular had this to say in his blog Derek cannot write:

This is the last blog required in the class and probably the last one forever. Look back what I wrote here and find most things I talked are stupid and boring. I can't say my writing improved a lot in the past few months. But I am sure that I can express my feelings more fluently now. Maybe the word I chose is not the best in certain cases. Maybe the grammar still has some problems. Maybe not everybody can understand what I rambled here. But I am still proud of what I achieved and accomplished. (Derek)

Me too.

Chapter 5: Educational Technology for School Leaders

Parker, J. K. (2011). Understanding youth and digital media. In Schrum, L. (Ed.), The best of Corwin: Educational technology for school leaders (79-91). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Summary

            Current definitions of literacy and knowledge do not necessarily apply considering new media and digital technologies.  Likewise, the conception that technology is making students less intelligent is false.  Student use of technology is complex and interwoven into their learning and socializing in addition to their play.  Teachers should consider collaborative, creative, peer-driven learning to create new media classrooms.  These attitudes and practices are central to integrating technology for effective learning as technologies alone will not suffice.  

Reflection

            Integrating new technology into my classroom is a challenge.  I am divided between wanting to maintain the undivided, rapt attention of my students and wanting to connect to their world, engaging their thinking through technologies central to their lives.  As a writing consultant and science communicator, I often bridge a gap between traditional forms of communication and the new, 140-character, speed of light transactions of knowledge and experience.  Science needs an image update; a goal shared by the National Science Foundation and Alan Alda’s Center for Communicating Science.

            While working with a group teachers, I pleaded with them to stop making their students write lab reports in passive voice.  “No!” one of my teachers gasped, “That’s what I fight with them about.”  This is not uncommon; we are trapped by the forms and formats of an earlier age, when journal articles themselves were a new technology.  The struggle now is not to perpetuate minutia, but to focus on the higher-order concerns.  For my teachers, the thing to fight for is that students make a clear claim, supported with evidence and reasoning.  Our goal is student learning, the understanding of concepts rather than the mechanics of assignments.

Chapter 4: Educational Technology for School Leaders

November, A. (2011). Emerging roles within the knowledge community. In Schrum, L. (Ed.), The best of Corwin: Educational technology for school leaders (59-76). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Summary

            November advocates connecting education with reality through collaboration and technology.  Rather than finding and learning every new app or program available, teachers should pay attention to what their students know about and can do with emerging technologies.  Teachers can also expand their classrooms to include colleagues, student peers, and experts from around the world.  By making connections globally and locally, teachers can give their students meaningful projects that will give purpose to and stimulate learning.  This is by no means a simple task, as many students are accustomed to a passive role in the classroom, and teachers themselves face uncertainties when encouraging and incorporating more and more technology into their classrooms.

Reflection

             I always sniffed at the idea of a digital native; I mean, I remember when our modern technology really took off and I’m pretty darn good at adapting to it. (Unless of course, we are talking about making a switch from cassette tapes to CDs, VHS to DVD, or Office 2003 to Office 2010.)  November gave me a reality check however, when he included the E-Venture Dino Documentary in his article (pg. 64-65).  While working on life science curriculum for K-5, I kept figuring that students would record their thoughts and ideas using crayon and paper… those who can’t quite write can draw.  Clearly I am being narrow-minded in this regard.  These students would make excellent documentaries, especially for a live-animal focused curriculum!

            November also reinforced the idea of teaching through problem-solving.  I wonder how effective the client approach would be for lower elementary students.  He clearly gives evidence of fourth grade students responding to this kind of prompt (pg. 74).  How young will this extend?

Chapter 2: Educational Technology for School Leaders

Kelly, F. S., McCain, T. & Jukes, I. (2011). No more cookie-cutter high schools. In Schrum, L. (Ed.), The best of Corwin: Educational technology for school leaders (25-40). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Summary

            Kelly, McCain, and Jukes make it abundantly clear that change is here and it is not going away.  High schools are not sufficiently meeting the needs of students and all involved in the design and vision of high schools need to make some fundamental shifts.  The authors advocate a business model of education that is able to keep up with changing communities and technologies.  This type of plan requires planning, patience, and perseverance.  All parties involved with education need to be part of the process and negative reactions to change should be expected.  However, by designing flexibility into the educational system – structurally and pedagogically – schools will be more ready to prepare students for an unimaginable future.

Reflection

            I have never been comfortable with the students-as-customers idea.  In higher education, there is always chatter about entitled students who believe that trying hard merits an “A.”  However, I am willing to ask a difficult question: would students act less entitled if we were meeting their academic needs?

            As a writing consultant, I often have students who want to hand me their paper for me to fix.  One of my biggest struggles is finding ways to help them learn strategies to revise and edit their own work.  It is very easy to slip into a didactic mode of consulting, rather than a partnership.  My goal in Geology and Geophysics is to create a myriad of opportunities for students to improve their writing, which I think is in the spirit of Kelly et al.’s exhortations.  For instance, I am in the process of creating a D2L resource page for graduate students and faculty, establishing a graduate student writing group for long-term, mutual support, and am open for students to work with me personally during office hours.  

Chapter 1: Educational Technology for School Leaders

Prensky, M. (2011). Partnering: A pedagogy for the new educational landscape. In Schrum, L. (Ed.), The best of Corwin: Educational technology for school leaders (3-23). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Summary

            Prensky redefines classroom roles in this chapter, encouraging partnering to learn, rather than direct instruction.  Students in school today do not learn and interact with the world as previous generations; we cannot teach them the same way we ourselves were taught.  These students are accustomed to using technology to find information quickly and on the move, they do not have the patience to sit still and absorb what we impart.

            Thus, we must reconsider the roles of students and teachers in the classroom.  Partnering teachers pose questions and establish parameters, guiding students toward finding and integrating information.  Partnering students are researchers, making use of technology to self-teach and create, often changing the world around them.  Teachers and students are not the only members of such a partnership; administrators and parents must also understand and support such partnering measures.

Reflection

            A little over a week ago, I listened to Mark Morvant talk about this very subject.  In many ways, his presentation was like watching a prophecy manifest.  Several years ago, I (by chance) observed a class discussion on the purpose of education.  The instructor reviewed benchmarks in technology and teacher responses from Ancient Greece projected into the far future.  Like our chapter and Dr. Morvant’s talk, his message was to avoid obsolescence education must be about teaching creativity rather than dissemination of information.

Amazing Technology

I am taking the opportunity to launch my new blog during my Teaching with Technology Course.  As you will see, technology is a great way to bring creativity into the classroom.