we can change ed with tech:
tech tools/apps make things (some learning and management) more efficient. so that’s cool.

we can change ed without tech:
i really believe that community is the curriculum.. and if we can get schools involved in their communities and communities involved in their schools, ed will change. that’s real cool.

but i don’t think we can make social change without web access to people per passion. by social change i mean – nclb.
the web coupled with digital equity finally let’s us get to the no child part.
and the web coupled with people per passion – let’s us get to a left behind that actually matters to people. no one will be trashing it – but rather living it as we make school real life – and remixing it – daily.

i love this artwork my Meek http://screencast.com/t/MjNmN2E2 – i see the coins as tech and the change as web access.

I’m an instructor in an an M.A. program in the teaching of English. With each new cohort of students entering our program, and one of my classes, I have taken to asking how many of them have any recollection of school without high stakes standardized testing. Last fall, not one student raised his or her hand.

What ensued was simultaneously fascinating, frustrating and downright upsetting: Anxiety about grades (theirs, not mine). So I stopped grading. Everything. “But how will we know how we’re doing?” one student asked. “You mean, you really won’t be able to determine the quality of your work, why you’re learning, what you want to learn, and how you’re progressing, by yourself?” I replied. What came next? Stunned silence.

Among other observations: often, almost unquestioning expectations that I be The Source Of All Knowledge. Genuine confusion that I expected independent thinking, curiosity, taking initiative, which I had to embed in everything we did.

A couple of things helped. My own comments about what I was observing got many of them thinking. But I think the most significant was an active social networking site that was the hub of the class. It got me out of the center of things *fast*. It also became a place where they could experiment with finding/creating their own teacher voices & philosophies.

I tell my students I’m preparing them to conduct guerilla warfare in their schools. Out of the box thinking, unconventional approaches– which these days seems to mean student-centered, inquiry-based learning–but some days it feels like an uphill battle.

I don’t think technology is *the* answer– there isn’t going to be just one– but I am convinced that web-based programs and tools are powerful, powerful instigators of profound change in people’s experiences and the feelings and shifts in thinking that can result.

Thanks for the perspective.

Here is my question: is a teacher who is “skilled and knowledgeable at [his/her] craft” one who is skilled at being a teacher, or one who is skilled at being an historian, or chemist, or writer/publisher/editor, researcher (in any discipline), or end-user of modern technologies relevant to the field?

I came to teaching after 10 years spent in business and industry as a project manager, writer/editor, and “jane of all trades” when necessary. I was in a sink-or-swim situation most of the time, when learning new software and applications and how to adapt to the different personalities present on any given team taught me things that school could never do – at least not the school of my past. Perhaps the school of the future will address the hard and soft skills that people will need to be successful anywhere.

I’ve found, however, that because I did not attend a traditional teaching-college or go the CEAS-route for my license, I have unconventional and sometimes unwelcome (and admittedly economically conservative but socially liberal) views on the 21st century, I am not frequently welcome in the lounge. I keep my comments to myself after more than a few odd stares and glares given by colleagues. In short, my professional experience; knowledge of technology, business practices and realities; non “warm-fuzzy” views on competitiveness; and ability or desire to stay ahead of the curve and figure that students not only need but deserve to know about the realities surrounding x,y,z issue serve as a hindrance to my career.

I find that, as a motivated autodidact who is committed to getting kids outside the bubble of school walls, I am being caged by a walk-the-line mentality that inhibits and prohibits some of my ideas and practices.

It is making a return to the private sector incredibly appealing, if only for the relative sanity of being able to use my own creativity to solve a problem. Administrators say they want and even demand this of teachers, but sometimes the creative solutions they get don’t fall in line with the doctrine of the district. It is a tricky road to navigate.

I think the question that needs to be answered is how do we get teachers to change their view of the their role in the classroom? If ed schools aren’t preparing teachers to help students be self-directed, what do we do in schools to change that? I’m lucky enough to work at a school with 2 hours of staff pd time each week where we feel we actually can change that.

I think this questions HAS to be answered before we talk about adding more technology into schools and classrooms. Any piece of technology in the hands of a teacher-centered teacher will be used for teacher-centered activities. Unless we first get teachers to re-evaluate their relation to their students and knowledge production in their classrooms, any technology will merely be co-opted for anti-progressive ends.

So let me push back a bit. I disagree that there’s no compelling reason to see technology as the immediate need in the first two points. It’s a chicken and egg kind of question isn’t it? How can we get to that model (or many models) of teaching effectively with technology unless we infuse technology into the system? I’m constantly amazed of late by the innovation and contributions of people in my network today who weren’t even a blip on the radar six months ago. I think we need to have a similar type of exploration going on at scale in the classroom. Our classrooms, right now, need to be laboratories for good teaching and pedagogy with technology. I fully realize that takes money and time and leadership, but I can’t imagine trying to improve what happens in classrooms (adding inquiry, self-direction, etc.) without making technology a fundamental piece of that. Doesn’t mean we do everything with tech, but it does mean it becomes one of the fundamental vehicles for learning in the classroom. And, on a side note, I wonder to what extent good software can ameliorate some of the big problems the low income districts that LDH speaks so passionately about. (See my comment to Tom just above.)

I think the revolution is about ideas AND tech. You look at the National Council Teachers of English literacies for 21st Century readers and writers and I just don’t see how we get there without technology. “Share information with global communities…”, “manage, analyze, synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information…”, “create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts.” If that’s literacy today, and I agree that it is, then most of the kids we’re graduating from our schools are illiterate. How can we change that without putting the tools and access into kids’ hands?

My sense is that LDH has very little context, and perhaps, little interest in this part of the discussion. I’m the first to admit that my own lack of context for the history of education and the foundations of progressive thinking in education left me without a greater appreciation for the non-tech side of this conversation, but over the years, I’ve developed a much better understanding of it, thanks in large part to the people and teachers in my network who have pushed me toward it and helped me understand the importance. I don’t think you can separate the two parts at this point, and I guess I’m waiting for LDH to make that similar move in the networked online learning direction.

My tentative conclusion is that, in truth, we know what ails schools and it’s not the lack of technology… To wit, if we outfitted every classroom we know with all the relevant technologies, it’s not likely that most teaching would actually change. But I do see technology dramatically impacting education in three very significant ways.

First, it’s allowing for an incredible level of grass-roots involvement by educators in their professional development and in their empowerment in the larger discussion of educational policy. This does not, however, require a technology-rich classroom.

Second, the cultural changes around information are becoming so pervasive (Wikipedia toppling Encyclopedia Britannica, for example) that it’s hard to imagine teaching and learning remaining solely the domain of the formal education institutions we’ve been accustomed to. This outside pressure for change is likely to have the direct result of bringing more technology into classrooms in order to access and interact with that outside world. The new order of the world is engaged participation and conversation, and if we don’t start teaching students how to do that well, they will be at a great disadvantage. This does require a technology-rich classroom, but only when we have a model for how to teach this that is generally accepted… which I’m not sure will be an easy task, as it relies much less on traditional models and much more on student-driven pedagogies.

So far, no compelling reason to see technology as the immediate need. You surely know this is an interesting position for me.

Third, while I don’t think we’ve seen the educational equivalent of what the spreadsheet and word-processing did for the business world, I’ve got to believe this will come. Once available, these programs made such a huge difference in what could be accomplished that it was impossible to imagine a company not utilizing them. It could be argued that Learning Management Systems are or will play that role, but I haven’t seen the “can’t live without it” effect yet. I think it’s more likely to be the handheld/pad personal learning device, or the ability to connect to online/remote education. It might also be more robust student information systems. In any case, not today. Soon? Maybe.

So I ended up in the interesting position of agreeing with Linda’s omission. And while I disagreed with her abbreviated discussion of national policies (in all fairness, we didn’t go too deeply here), I came away from the interview with a keen sense that the revolution is more about ideas than tech. The interviews that are really lighting my fire are now less about the technology and more about models for individual participation, engagement, and passion–that the Web has released for a much greater number of us than ever before, which are significantly helped by the Web, but which do not necessarily solely dependent on the Web. These interviews are more about how local communities can work together to establish educational goals; about how we might, from that same grass-roots position, help change the model of the teaching profession; and about how we might allow students to be more self-directed in their learning.

Hmmm….

I think the key word here is infinitely. That to me means are not done learning, improving, changing and evolving with what’s best for a learning environment.

We have hundreds of thousands of teachers who may be a FINITELY good teacher. Was good at what they did and is still doing it despite best practice efforts to change them.

They survive 10, 15, 20, 29+ years producing what the post-secondary educators want. Someone who will listen to their professors drone on.

Well, look at the online revolution that is just starting, the enrollments that are down and the shift even the Harvards of the world are feeling.

De-skilled teachers look out, you bought into a system that is about to change