I’ve spent the last week reading people’s blogs and watching YouTube videos. Blogs from all over, videos about everything. It was a lot of reading and watching!
I started with the blogs on my blogroll and then their blogrolls. I’ve found many great posts, written by intelligent and articulate writers. I commented on some of them and then couldn’t find them again – It’s a real labyrinth out there! Insights into the thoughts , opinions and daily lives of other people is fascinating. I marvelled at how much and often some people write posts! And I found this great quote -
“For those of you who don’t have a blog yet, think of one as a large yellow Labrador: friendly, fun, not all that bright, but constantly demanding your attention.” – David Carr, The New York Times, Jan 15, 2007.
I’ve discovered new programmes like Grokker, Zotero, Snap and fd’s flickr toys. I watched Stupid in America (There must be a lot of discussion about that video somewhere!) and learnt more about Web 2.0
A common thread in education related blogs and videos is how out of step many schools and teachers are to the lives of their 21st Century students. All the great stuff on the Internet is simply not reaching the right audience! On Christopher Sessums blog in a post titled ‘Educational Technology and Teacher Preparation: Bridging Theory to Practice’ he writes
“The reality is, the teacher educators I work with who are reluctant to use technology in their curriculum do not use it for several of the following reasons: 1) they don’t want to learn about it; 2) they don’t see any value in its use; 3) it’s not the way they learned; 4) its considered just another educational “fad;” and 5) they don’t know any body else using it effectively.”
Teachers, like anyone else, are reluctant to learn and use anything new unless – 1. they see a personal benefit and/or; 2) they enjoy the experience and/or; 3) there is expectation and accountability involved (i.e there are consequences if they don’t learn and use it.) ; 4) lessons and situations are provided to help them learn and practice .
None of these ideas are new. You have to wonder why getting teachers to use technology can be such a slow process.
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April 16th, 2007 at 4:35 am
This is a question I continue to struggle with – given the way that the elderly are embracing email and txt messaging, the workforce adopts technology without even thinking about it and the rest of NZ masters their cellphones and Trade Me – all without any extra training/ pd/ funding I can only imagine that the reason why teachers are not adopting technology in schools is because ICT really does not enhance the conditions of value in terms of improving learning outcomes in a way that is significant enough to make the cost in money and effort worth it … check out the Artichoke post and comments from teachers on this – you will note that it is not just a NZ teacher thing “‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.’”
April 16th, 2007 at 5:57 am
Thanks Arti. The post you mention and the comments were very interesting. Making ICT happen in a school has everything to do with leadership. Maybe the e-fellow progamme needs to target only Principals! When I suggest a school-wide learning through ICT activity sometimes I’m told – “That won’t work! Can you imagine (teachers’ names) being able to do that?!”
April 18th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Like you I have been enjoying my holidays for a chance to catch up, read blogs galore and investigate new tools. It’s a really valuable time.
Without a doubt I can say that you run one of the best ICT Cluster Websites in the country… if you ever feel like your cluster teachers aren’t coming on board 100%, rest assured because you are positively influencing so many others out there in New Zealand… including me! I really want to thank you for firstly having your centre 4 site open to others, and secondly for the supurb content that you put on it! It really is useful.
All this new “ICT stuff” requires an investment of teachers own personal time… there’s no too ways about it. The reality is with a lot of teachers that they expect extra release time to “take in” all this “ICT stuff” and to hopefully master it – this obviously isn’t feasible.
Nurture your keen teachers and lavish lots of encouragement and information on to them… hopefully their enthusiasm and successes will rub off onto others. It reminds me of the process of osmosis! Since my blogging workshops with staff earlier this year we have got 6 blogs up an running in the school… now it’s a start! I focus on setting a good example within my own class of ICT practice and I gently prod those reluctant teachers…. but at the same time also expecting them to so things for themselves.
It can be a hard nut to crack… but we can only keep trying. Arti is right… others are getting on board…. why aren’t teachers!
PS – noticed your comment above about Principals being negative towards school wide ICT initiatives… all I can say is that sounds like a cop out saying “can you imagine X being able to do that!” – if we think like that we’ll never get anywhere….. reminds me of the old saying by Henry Ford…. “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.”
April 20th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for the feedback about the Wanganui ICT Cluster Website, Rachel. I really enjoy adding to it and love providing something which might be useful to others. My cluster teachers are really excited (and often amazed) to learn that others value their work.
There are lots of great things happening in our cluster, (and the website celebrates these) … even so, I want more!