Getting Teachers to Adopt Technology: What to and not to Do

Title
Getting Teachers to Adopt Technology: What to and not to Do
Alternate Title
This guys gets it.
Presenter
Rushton Hurley, Executive Director, Next Vista for Learning, and Teacher, Santa Clara Unified School District, CA
Presentation
Notes
Two things technology must do for him to use it
  1. Save him time.
  2. Teach kids better.
Six Don'ts and Dos
  1. Don't require teachers to be experts in technology. Do remind them of their expertise.
  2. Don't tie everything to standards. Do show them something fun.
  3. Don't sit everyone in a lab for training. Do allow for regular and short sharing time.
  4. Don't limit technology to labs. Do showcase what can be done outside the lab. This ones is a little less important int our 1 to 1 environment.
  5. Don't buy expensive software a teacher has not used. Do learn what is freely available.
  6. Don't blanket the school with expensive hardware. Do use targeted spending to focus purchases. No matter what you do you are going to tick someone off. Do not shoot for equity shoot for putting stuff in rooms where it will get used. If the people who do not get the technology a mad and they do something about it, great. If they are mad and they don't change give more stuff to the people do stuff. If you flip this around the people who get mad are the people doing stuff, and you want to encourage them not discourage them.

Storytelling for the YouTube Generation

Title
Storytelling for the YouTube Generation
Presenter
Steve Dembo, Online Community Manager, Discovery Educator Network, Discovery Education
Alternate Title
Kids tell stories in thousands of new and different ways, let them!
Presentation
Notes
"I do not give assignments, I give creative briefs."
You can make interactive choose your own adventure videos on YouTube.
Reflection
Step 1: Watch all the videos linked in the presentation in class.
Step 2: Give kids a topic.
Step 3: Give kids a due date.
Step 4: Watch awesome material on your topic.

Seems simple doesn't it?

Steve's main point: let your learners have the freedom to create. They will. And they will get better if you keep letting them.

My laptop has a webcam, now what?

Title

My laptop has a webcam, now what?
Actual Title
So many teachers and student use these things around here, I wonder if other people need to know the power?
or
It was the catchiest title I could come up with and I am working on a theory that catchy titles are the key to presenting.
Presenter
Me.
Presentation
See attached photos of slides. They will not be of much value since they each need the story and the slides do not have video. Sorry no audio. I wish I had the ability to remember to record myself at these things.
Reflection
I love presenting. It forces me to reflect on my teaching and tech coordinating and bring out in front of people what good is happening around me. I tried out two specific new things this year that I think may have helped.

First, I spent a lot of time on my title. It may not seem like it but I did. The title above is the best I have ever had. I liked that it was current: many PC people are new to having a webcam. I liked that there was no mistaking what the presentation was going to be about. I thought it communicated that there would be stuff in here to try out on Monday (a way teachers often decide what to do at conferences) while I knew I would get at picture theories of education during the whole thing. I wanted more than my current average at MACUL of 15 people in the room.

Second, I think I realized that there are three tiers of presenting at conferences. First tier is the true story tellers with a big philosophical point. Dan Meyer, Alan November, Will Richardson, David Warlick, Gary Stager all weave stories and presentations to make you think big thoughts. Second tier presenters show you a lot of things that you can do and try to weaver their big picture stuff into that. I think this is second tier because I might only get a few nuggets out and I will probably have to find them myself a little. Plus it is easier to make these presentations. Line up 25 good ideas and go. There is another tier but I would like to stay positive. 

If you look at the slides, my presentation was essentially 21 good ideas about using webcams. I weaved through that some good rules of teaching, and how to use other devices than webcams that you may have around to achieve some of the same goals. I was really happy with how it came together.

I think my title worked. I had about 50 or 75 people at the presentation. The room was pretty big, so it was not full, but close. Aside from my title I was in the room that on the program had me right below all the headliners. That probably helped. The room I was in was literally the farthest room from anything, which might have hurt. I was very happy with the turnout. And I think no one left, which is another good sign for my title. I got a lot of positive feedback from the people who stayed after as well.

I could do some things better. 
  • I need to put my slides up before the show so that my sharetabs.com link includes a link to the slides. 
  • I need to make my sharetabs.com before the morning of the event.
  • I need to be ready to present 20 minutes early so I can greet them at the the door. By ten minutes left when I was ready to meet people at the door the room was half full. By the way, greeting people at the door is an essential and under utilized presentation technique. 
  • I should consider the whole presentation being websites, although with all the videos that are of unknown copy write status, I really could not.
  • I should have short Google Form for evaluation that people can go to for feedback.
Overall I was really happy. The audience really tracked and seemed to enjoy it. I was very comfortable. I am glad MACUL sees fit to continue to allow me to present. Now I just have to think of a topic.

Cache the Excitement!

Title
Cache the Excitement!
Alternate Title
I use my passion to be a better teacher.
Presenter
Cheryl Lykowski, Teacher, Bedford Public Schools
Reflections
She was great. She loved to geochache and has developed several lessons for kids to use geocaching. I love it when teachers bring what they love into the classroom. Her resources and a recommendation seemed to be well developed and thoughtful. May be environmental science will be experiencing this soon.

Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter

Title
Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter
Alternate Title 
I did not get it at first but now I love it.
Highlights
Leslie Fisher is always informative and interesting.
Her rule for what to twitter 1/3 humor, 1/3 informative and 1/3 miscellaneous. I wonder what rule is for me?
She recommends three twitter accounts for educators: personal, professional and classroom or backchannel.
To embed or do other fun things go to twitter.com/goodies and look at what is available.
Definitive twitter resources twitter.pbworks.com
Thoughts
I would have talked about http://www.readtwit.com/ which brings twitter links into Google Reader.
I was in the same boat as her. I am starting to get it. It is powerful when people show it off because they have a ton of followers, If you do not have a ton of followers there is less immediate power. However, I have found great reading material from people that I follow. And that I think is the selling point. It is almost really easy RSS. You can see quick takes on the articles (and links) that are shaping the opinion of people you follow.

Think like a statistician – without the math | FlowingData

Finally, and this is the most important thing I've learned, always ask why. When you see a blip in a graph, you should wonder why it's there. If you find some correlation, you should think about whether or not it makes any sense. If it does make sense, then cool, but if not, dig deeper. Numbers are great, but you have to remember that when humans are involved, errors are always a possibility.

via flowingdata.com

Asking questions, learning, inspiration, creativity, how are they different? Can we have any without the other?

Inspiration or Learning?

Today in Environmental Science class a student was back after a trip to Chicago with the AP Art class. I asked her what she had learned, and she said, "nothing." I was a little taken aback and asked had she been inspired. She described some wonderful art that had inspired her. I asked her if there was a difference between learning and inspiration. A wonderful conversation ensued about creativity and learning and inspiration and what makes us be a part of advancing the topics that interest us. I learned this: for juniors and seniors, at least the ones in front of me this morning, their definition of learning was very different from mine. I would not want to learn if learning meant what they thought it did.

I think that truly learning something, something that makes you think a new thought, see the world from a new perspective, ask a new question, explore a new technique, express who you are better to those around you is inspiration.

What do you think? Are inspiration and learning the same thing? What do we do so that our students see learning as something as important as inspiration? What have you inspired in your learners recently?

Segment Four Reflection

Henry Giroux, Education Incorporated?
I think there is one largely overlooked piece that corporate America underestimated on its way to dominate schools: that information finds a way. Open source brings the power of the crowds to bear against the power of many corporate interests. The wikipedia, moodle, blogs, and RSS stand as a bastion of freedom against product placement, textbook publishers and those who would control our kids and their education for their profit.

Competitiveness rather than community; commodification of knowledge rather than coherence and creative synthesis: these are fruit of an evil spirit. In what concrete ways might your school demonstrate, in the “nuts and bolts” of the teaching-learning process, fruit that grows on the tree of the Holy Spirit?
I think my school has done a ton to emphasis community. The next thing that they could attack to reducecompetition is change how we sasign grades. This needs to be based less on two things: work done and big stakes tests. It needs to be based more on what student understand. In our school one of the ways we are moving towards this is with one to one laptop program. It allows you see deeper into what kids are thinking and their participation in what happens. It allows you to work together and evaluate individually.


Jean Anyon, The economic is political.
Poverty is real in America. For many years I have attended a church with great economic diversity. I quickly learned that no one works harder than the poor in America. Often with two jobs per adult (if there are two adults) and childcare and other pressures there is little time or money for involvement in any community. I remember once sitting in a council meeting discussing how the church council did not represent all incomes in the church. Later that night I was tired, I had worked 10 hours at school that day and the council meeting was going on into its fourth hour. As we discussed nominations for council time after time people who worked two jobs were taking their names out of the running. They could not meet in the evenings, they worked. I wondered to myself if I had put 80 hours in at a manual labor minimum wage job if I would even want to be at a 4 hour deliberative council meeting. My answer was obvious. I work a 56 hour a week classroom and desk job. I could not handle 4 hours.

Education is a piece of the answer. Being deliberative and discerning are skills that we should teach. I worry though that the skills that need to be taught are exactly the skills that politics is demanding we not teach. Politicians rarely want thinking voters. That is why the push for standards that teach facts and algorithms instead of thought and discernment. Being thoughtful about time and money are things that can reduce dependence on two jobs.

Are these concerns too political for schools to address? Or is it also to take a political stance to refuse to address them?
Yes to both. Sitting pat is a political skill and tactic that is used incredibly effectively in America. Earlier we read an article that showed us that you cannot teach without values. This truth lead us to know that you cannot teach without a political value coming through. I think this has a ton to do with the push for standards. No one want to loose the battle for the perspective that things are taught from. Unfortunately we then land on our students only getting the least common most agreeable facts. This is politically expedient because it leads to non-understanders, who vote the way the best media tells them too.

Must matters of social justice await consideration until the later levels of schooling, because they require developed cognitive capacities? Or, touching affective, evaluative, and discerning capabilities, should they be addressed at all levels, by seeking to inculcate tendencies, habits, dispositions, or virtues that are life-enhancing?
I think that all issues should be address at all levels. I think that as long as you interesct with the subject at all you will be developing a sense of the justice issue. Take you five year olds to the mission. Allow your students to hear from other cultures and continents. That alone will expose students to the learning about justice that you want.

Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed, 180-200.
Yes.

“Knowing the world in love is the only viable alternative to a knowing aimed at objective mastery. But such knowing is never divorced from doing” (p. 196). What are the implications of such an “epistemology of love” for curriculum, instruction, assessment, etc?
There are two parts that work in contrast to each other. How we treat others and how we are treated. Right now in schools we need to treat our students right. This is doubly difficult because society as represented by our politicians is trying it hardest to destroy schooling. By destroy I mean make it as cheap and generic and ineffective as possible.

“Biblical wisdom is the tracing of the divine wisdom of creation. Such wisdom—such an understanding of things in their interrelatedness—is in short supply in [our] fragmented culture….” (p. 198). How may your curriculum be structured so as to better reflect this interrelatedness?
We have to go beyond the basics and look at much more and look at it from every perspective in the room. No options, even if it seems ineffective or ridiculous.

Jeannie Oakes & Martin Lipton, Policy and law, 429-457.
What is the impact in your own school setting of the spirits and forces Oakes and Lipton discuss?
We feel pressure from ACT, SAT and AP more than NCLB. However it rarely drives our curriculum. Our students can get through the Michigan standards pretty quickly and move on to the real stuff of teaching and learning.

Whether or not Kimberly Min’s third grade students knew what her question about “science” meant, her claim that “an inclusive curriculum” is a social justice issue deserves consideration. (In a Christian school, this extends to the question of how one includes a Christian perspective in a skewed or crowded curriculum; for a Christian teacher in any setting, it is the question of how one respects the interrelatedness of creation that displays God’s wisdom.) Taking your cue from her example, what are some steps you have taken and could take to make your curriculum more inclusive?
I have been adding a lot of talk of energy on the grand scale into physics as we talk about it on the micro level in the book. I am not sure that this matches the genius of Ms. Min. I am also always seeking to mkae students more aware of the digital literacy that they need to be aware of as we use online resources and engagement.