And She’s Off . . .
I’ll admit it. I talk everday to everyone about everything that I am learning through the EC & I course. Then I go home and do NOTHING! When I say nothing I mean after I have my kids to bed and finish my admin and classroom responsibilities. We’re talking 11:00 p.m.-ish. I am scared out of my wits about the wave of information that has come my way. Overwhelmed is an understatement. Yet, I contradict myself by enjoying all the new awkwardness that has crept into my life. Perhaps it is the incentives that I provide. For example, when I was finally able to post my You Tube bio movie (after great discussion with the Help Desk at RPS) I celebrated with a “Yahoo” that woke the children and sent my husband to uncork a bottle of red.
I continued my path by watching the session from Tuesday (see, I told you I put it off!) and felt the blood pressure rise as techno garb was projected my way. How do they chat and listen to the teacher at the same time? What if the teacher knew what they were doing? What? The teacher wants them chatting? What the hell is going on? wait a minute . . .I fit here. I am a multi-tasker. Yahoo! Skip the wine glasses honey, just grab me a straw!
I do want to tackle the issue of technology in the school system. Particpants at the live session discussed the pros/cons to ever constant hot topic. In my mind I just continued to reflect on how educators tend to deal with issues in similiar fashion time and time again. For example, a child has behaviour issues on the playground. Often, this child will be taken off the playground and has to sit at the office for all recesses for a set amount of time. If we don’t like the action our reaction is to take something away. What many of us have not learned, in my opinion, is that this will not remedy the situation. We are in education yet we forget to educate. How many of us take the time to educate ourselves about why the child is having issues on the playground?
I take this one step further. We constantly hear how schools are banning any or all forms of technology from schools. When will we realize that the technology is not going anywhere? Removing the technology from schools does not solve the problem. How about educating ourselves and students (and parents) on how to utilize current technology to assist in the learning process?
roadrunner replied:
Hear, hear Angie!
Let’s be part of the solution, not the problem.
Cindy
January 20, 2008 at 2:28 pm. Permalink.
Shaun Loeppky replied:
As a behavioural teacher, I loved your comment about “taking the student off the playground”…instead of dealing with the issue of the playground.
In terms of technology, lets deal with the issue. If you have read my blog, I have been cautious of the real issues of cyberbullying, privacy, etc. I am starting to slowly understand that “the playground” of web tools exist and students/parents need to be educated. Your approach has hit home!
January 20, 2008 at 7:07 pm. Permalink.
Laurie replied:
Hey Angie,
One of aspects of this course that I absolutely love is that we can chat as the instructor is instructing. I was amazed to find out we could even carry on private chats. Imagine the implications of that for our classrooms and many of our colleagues. I think the bottom line is that we must think outside the box and truly find alternative ways for our children to learn and for educators to truly begin to deal with discipline issues. We know that taking things away only works for a small percentage of kids. I took RAP (Response Ability Pathways) training last summer. It helped me to think about the way that I deal with issues and I have found it to be invaluable.
As far as technology goes, I really think we need more support for teachers to begin to think about learning in different ways. We had a program in our district called Learning Plus. However, only one teacher and the librarian were pulled out of schools for sessions, in the hopes that they would teach others. This model has failed, probably because the people being trained have little time to help others in a meaningful way once back at school.
We could also talk about the 400 page curriculum documents (with 437 grade level objectives) that assume all kids are ready for the same concepts at the same time but we’ll leave that for another time. My big question now is “How do I take what we are learning about all this great technology and meaningful apply it to the classroom and as an administrator how can I support and encourage others to think about learning in meaningful, up-to-date ways (in other words incorporate some of current technologies in their classroom)?
January 20, 2008 at 8:37 pm. Permalink.