Week 3 - Shifting Ground

Chris Lehmann has a lot of enthusiasm for communicative technologies and education. He is idealistic about the potential that new tools have to transform education into a student-orchestrated pursuit of knowledge. His perspective is perfectly reasonable given that he is the principal of an inquiry-based private school for high-performing students. Alas, some of his rhetoric is a little to utopian for me when I think of my school. 

Lehmann's notion of empowering students to direct the course of their own academic journeys rather than simply engaging them in the teacher's version of essential facts is an admirable concept, but this could only ever work with highly motivated students. Granted, the whole concept of empowering students should, in theory at least, lend toward the overall motivation of students to learn. Such a theory is great for elementary school teachers, almost none of whose students has already had the innately human desire to learn drilled out of them by boring lessons or patterns of academic failure, but for secondary school teachers who work with already unmotivated students, Lehmann's notion of empowerment is lofty at best if not utterly fantastic.

Perhaps, I am especially skeptical because the holiday break is approaching, so getting my students to invest in any sort of learning seems nearly impossible. Alternatively, it could simply be that my students are quite different from Lehmann's students. I also work at a private school, but unlike the students at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, my students did not apply with excellent grades and letters of recommendation attesting to their zeal for education. Instead, area public schools send most of the students to my school because they do not perform well in traditional classroom settings.

My students have a variety of special needs. Some have learning disabilities. All present behavioral challenges that exceed the “typical” high school student. I believe my students can benefit greatly from using interactive and collaborative tools, and I agree with Lehmann that an inquiry-based approach to learning can be beneficial, but most of my students are not apt to embrace an educational approach that requires them to direct their own learning. I have a hard enough time getting my students to select their own topics for projects or their own projects for given subjects.

Most of my students want to be told what to do so they can either choose to do it or reject it. They do not want to take responsibility for the idea. It is too much pressure, requires too much thought and creativity, and is just too risky. I am encouraged to see that there are educators like Lehmann who believe in putting students in charge of their own learning, and I must admit am a little envious of his perspective, but it is not for everyone. Some students need, and will always need, more direction.

Week 2 - Chapter One

The first chapter is a justification for the book. The authors discuss how prevalent technology is already and present the notion that technology can transform the learning environment. They also discuss how technology can help learners think at higher levels.

In the section about 21^st century skills, the authors emphasize that learning how to use technology is an essential part of education. Students need to develop information technology literacy in order to become viable workers and productive citizens in an increasingly globalized and competitive world. This is just as important as learning to read and write. Students who are not educated in the use of technology are at an extreme disadvantage.

On the flip side, when teachers infuse technology into learning and instruction, they not only provide students with a chance to learn technology, they provide students with a better learning experience. Ubiquitous computing in the classroom contributes to a student-centered learning environment. Students have more opportunities to create and collaborate, and find a learning style that works for them. Lastly, computers help students learn how to continue learning, which should be the goal of every teacher.

Week 2 - Initial Toughts about the Course

I think the biggest struggle I have with technology is explaining it to other people and convincing them to use it. I teach at Granite Hill School in Newport, New Hampshire. It is a small school for students with special behavioral needs. This past September, I convinced my principal that we should begin using Google Calendar so we can keep everyone up to date. She liked the idea but getting people to actually use it is not easy. I gave all staff a quick training at the beginning of the semester but it was not enough. I think getting people (especially educators and other professionals who are used to doing things one way) to really appreciate and utilize new technologies takes a sustained effort.

I hope as we learn new tools in this course, we also learn how to make them useful to our colleagues who are not taking Computer Education courses and do not have the time for substantial amounts of training. I have been considering using Jing to make some tutorials for my co-workers to view, but I'm not sure it would be enough. I think as schools embrace technology and make it ubiquitous, they will need to provide ongoing professional development to help teachers use the technology. My school is small; we do not have a technology coordinator. I teach ICT, Economics, Wood Shop, I am the Safety Coordinator, and I teach a night school class as well. I would love to spend more time working with other staff to incorporate technology into their classes, but this is not something that is presently feasible.

Currently, my digital footprint is limited. I do have a website, but only for the classes I teach. I use it for lesson plans sometimes. If I am working with the students in the computer lab, I will put my lesson plan into a blog on the site with links to Google documents or other websites for each activity. This helps a lot with the flow of the lesson. I have a couple of videos on YouTube but only for academic reasons. One video I created for I presentation I gave in Theories of Learning and Cognitive Development last year. The other two are videos of three-dimensional models I made using Google SketchUp; I posted them to my class website as samples to share with my students, some of whom use SketchUp in my classes. Finally, I recently started contributing a little to a few forums, mostly ubuntuforums because it is an extremely helpful resource for people like me who are new to Ubuntu.

If you are wondering, Ubuntu is a popular Linux distribution. It is a completely open source alternative to Windows or Mac. It is free, powerful, and growing. I highly recommend checking it out. I used it in a virtual machine (Vbox) on my Macbook for about a month before deciding to buy a System76 Starling netbook, which comes with Ubuntu. I love it! I now use the netbook as my primary computer. I am sure I will end up blogging more about Ubuntu, but I think I will wait until we get into discussing open source software later on. For now, let me share my KWL (minus the L):