An unexpected technology turn this year

Well, what I thought was going to be my technology focus this year turned out to be a bust. I tried getting computers running for my class again yesterday, but didn't get enough to log in for 15 students. Makes me so mad, but at least I didn't let it raise my blood pressure. Oh well...the students are used to it by now and are willing to share...and we'll hope for better in the new year.

BUT...I've been pleasantly surprised by the ease in which I'm communicating with my parents via e-mail and a website. I'm sure I have at least 1 or 2 e-mails from or to parents a day. I've communicated for many reasons, such as reminders, a certain child's mis-behaviour, the class's good behaviour one day, to tell parents the book order has arrived, to set up care team meetings, and the monthly newsletter. Every family is on my e-mail list.

I set up the website on a whim one day because I had taken so many pictures of my students on Halloween and on a field trip and didn't know how else I would share them with the parents. Within a few hours of inviting the parents, I think I had about half of them signed up. By now I have 16 parents on there. One parent lives away from his child and he has appreciated the fact that he can see his son at school. Another parent wanted copies of the pictures for her own album.

So, my technology component this semester has not been what I had hoped, but maybe this is even better. Parents have expressed great appreciation for the constant communication and the website. I'm thankful.

Time to Synthesize

It's getting to the end of the term and I really should be synthesizing my learning...what have I learned?? That is the question, and one I'm not sure I can answer fully, but I'll do my best here. My inquiry started with my stated difficulty. I have trouble with creativity, a mental block, so to speak whenever I hear the word and feel like the expectation is there that I should be creative and allow my students to be creative.
So what did I do? Face it head-on was my strategy. First, I did a bit of reading and discovered that it's true: A teacher's attitude towards creativity does affect her class. I found some definitions of creativity and a few practical ideas for encouraging creativity in the class. And so I faced it directly. I let go of some of my need for absolute control...actually with the class I have this year that's an impossibility anyways, so it wasn't a great stretch....and let my students be creative. And lo and behold, it wasn't so ominous after all. I was pleasantly surprised by what emerged. Students were able to show me their complete understanding of concepts covered and explain it to me, but it wasn't in a typical, prescribed way. Students enjoyed my creativity exercises. Those were places where everyone could be successful and unique. They all tried, which is a success in and of itself.

So what have I learned? I think I learned that creativity isn't that unattainable. It's important for all of us to be creative for future success. Creativity is within all children, but the more we encourage and reward quick answers, and discourage questioning, the creativity slowly ebbs away. I learned that I can be creative and that it's not limited to art class, although that's the first place I thought I'd find it. Surprisingly, that's not what emerged. I found creativity in science and math first. I discovered that I could encourage creativity by having children do something different with an object they only knew to use one way. I found creativity when I held my tongue and listened first. I found creativity when I loosened the boundaries, but still had expectations and criteria to assess whether learning and understanding had taken place. I found creativity showed a mastery of concepts, not just a "fully meeting expectations" type of work. So yes, I think I learned something this term. :) Now to put it into a paper for next Tuesday's class!

Class Assignment: Who owns the info on the web?

Creative Commons: Who owns information on the web? What considerations should we give as professionals as we use/share information/media?

Good questions. Well, take for example, my facebook account. What is mine? What can anyone else take and use? Could people take my pictures and use them? Should they? Why do I put them on there? Well, to share with my friends and family; no one else. But, by putting them on a public forum like facebook, I have inadvertently allowed more people access to "my" stuff. (privacy settings on...hopefully not too many people have access that I haven't allowed)

Well, what about professionally? When I take an idea I find online that I'd like to use in my class, am I stealing? What if it's not a page that says "print," but I highlight, copy, and paste it into my own document. Do I have an obligation to the original writer?

We just explored the corporation "Creative Commons" which is a place to license your work online for others to use, change, but always to attribute. You can say what you allow with your own work. As more and more people find out about this, more and more work can be used legally and credited to the author. This is copyright for the new digital age.

well...that was yesterday

So today didn't work that well, but we as a class are starting to get the hang of dealing with disappointment. They were pretty good about letting their computer go when they had finished their assignment, even though they were all hoping to go on to one of the game sites that I approve. Is that progress? Probably.

But it's so disappointing to not be able to trust the technology to work every time. Today I got a total of 4 computers to work. That's it! And there's no rhyme or reason to why those 4 worked and not any others. No one can tell us anything and we're not allowed to complain to the "powers that be"....

Oh well...onward, forward. Try again tomorrow.

Some good things happened today

Some good things happened today...and they're even technology based!
First...heard by my principal in the hallway as a parent is coming in with my student ... "Yes, I got an e-mail from Mrs. Brandt yesteday to remind us to bring your library book and so it's in your backpack!"

Secondly, as a PS on the above-mentioned e-mail, I mentioned to the parents that I was working on developing a private website to display pictures of the students and other things from our classroom. I got an e-mail in response from one dad. "Great idea!"

Thirdly, I was able to invite parents (and my principal) to become members of my website. Within a few minutes of the invitation going out, my principal responded saying he had joined the website and enjoyed the pictures. I also have 4 parents as members already! One parent e-mailed me, as well, to say she'd really liked the website and seeing the pictures.

Fourth, I was able to get enough computers working so that all students in my class were able to work with one! Yeah! And it didn't even take too long....I think I may have discovered a trick: log on while still connected to the power source...then disconnect and bring to desk to work. Most students were also able to use Kid Pix to create a picture showing a season of the year (our science topic). I have the computers booked every afternoon this week, so hopefully the creativity juices will soon be able to flow using the technology.

And...finally....I'm almost finished my report cards and was able to save them to a flash drive, update them at home, and save them again. I was even able to correct a problem with the program.

Things are looking up... (my optimism may also be due to the fact that we have a day off on Thursday [duty day] and only half day on Friday!)

Field Study Winding Down...

What?? I'm supposed to start writing my field study summary?? But I haven't finished! But, in retrospect,...I think that shows growth as a teacher. Developing creativity in students should be a goal I aim for whatever class, whatever students, whatever school I end up in, not just as a project for my univeristy course to get a credit to get my pay raise. So growth...yes! Completion.... no, but that's okay.

My principal had a "fireside" chat with me the other day for a few minutes, as he did with all teachers on staff. He asked me to describe my class and my teaching style and planning that I have done to accomodate the class I now have. Good questions that made me think and see how I'm doing what I'm doing is for the good, or not good, of the class. But then he asked me how he could support me and I immediately started in on the lack of technology in my school. He gently encouraged me to keep trying, as the IT guys had been by again and had "fixed" the system again...So I will. Keep tuned for how it turns out. I'm not optimistic.

Creativity....how am I trying to develop it?

One of the things I'm trying to do is to ask the students to do something different than they expect with what they have. For example, as we print our letters, I'll ask them to take the letter they have just printed on their white board and make it into something different. Most of the students are quite enjoying this. Others can't quite understand what I'm saying, or can't think of anything. It's been fun to watch as they struggle with this. Today, in Math class, we were working with manipulatives to show different ways to make a certain number. So they had about 20 things on their desk, such as uniblocks, in 2 different colours. They showed me many ways to make 5 and 6 and 7 and 8. They quite enjoyed that activity and I often commented on their new structure they were making. At the end, just for fun and to stretch their creativity, I asked them to make a structure with all of their items. It was fascinating to watch as their little hands got very busy. (probably the only time during the day that everyone was focused on the right task!)
And so it was good for me to see too. I even took pictures. :)

It's a new day...thankfully!

And I think I need to do a new technology component to my inquiry...I'll keep the creativity thing, but do that the old fashioned way. Rather, my technology aspect will do with communicating with a student who is homebound for a few weeks.
One little girl in my class, (I'll call her Madi) had a bad fall on the weekend and broke her clavacal (collar) bone. It is a very bad break and any bump on it at this point could send her for surgery. She is also in a fair amount of pain. With my very rambunctious class who find it very hard to not touch each other (usually tackling, bumping, poking, generally not watching out for each other), this would not be a good situation for her. So Madi will wait until it's healed sufficiently before she comes back. But I don't want her to feel left out. When she came to see me after school earlier this week, I got some books and work together for her and then we talked about what else she could do. Because it is her right shoulder and she is right handed, anything written is out of the question at this point. BUT she can use a computer with her left hand. So this is what we've come up with so far. I've recommended some websites that are appropriate for her (starfall.com, primarygames.com, sd34websites.com, etc). I've also set up e-mail communication with her so that she continues to write. She's written me twice so far. Her spelling's not great, but she can communicate clearly and it's been a real pleasure for me to read. Now i"m hoping to somehow have the kids also communicate with her. I could just set them all up on my e-mail to write her, but I"m not sure that's the best way. On the other hand, I don't want to set my grade 1's up with their own e-mail addresses. Does anyone have an idea of how this could work?

Another thought that just came to me is to have her record her voice on an i-pod. She is a fairly fluent reader, and maybe I could have her recording books for the kids to use to read. Hmmm...I'm liking this idea. Let me go work on that.

It's a new day! Whew! (And I start the day with an hour long prep!)

A Rant!

I hope you don't mind if I rant just a bit. My inquiry is about developing creativity in children and I have to have a technology component. My thoughts were that I would let the kids experiment on the computers a bit, get them comfortable with the kid pix program and then do a visualization lesson (think Adrienne Gear) with them and have them illustrate this using the kid pix program. But I've hit a snag...a major snag! Today I had my lovely high school student volunteer in my class for the morning. What better time would there be to get all the kids working on the computers? With two of us running around trouble shooting, surely all the kids could have some constructive time on there. So the plan was that after recess, the two of us would get the computers out, turn them on and log the kids on and then bring the computers to the kids. We have been told that we can't have the whole class logging on at the same time as it overwhelms the system (hogwash, I say, but that's beside the point). So, we turned on 4 computers and started logging on. IT TOOK US 45 MINUTES TO LOG ON 15 COMPUTERS...THAT'S NOT EVEN ENOUGH FOR ONE FOR EVERY STUDENT! We tried all 30 computers in the mobile lab, and eventually only had 15 working. So that meant that a few of my students had to buddy up at a computer, which is a major problem because the things are so puny only one can really see the screen at once...but that's also beside the point. Fortunately my class was having a good behaviour day (and believe me that doesn't always happen), and they waited patiently. I think maybe the threat of computer removal was enough that they just coloured quietly and stayed out of my way! But what a waste of time. For 45 minutes, I could have done a great math lesson, done the visualization exercise 3 times over, or got more than enough time to do my DPA. UGH! So much for the technology aspect of my inquiry. Next time I'll just use the good old pencil and paper!

Conformity versus Creativity

So this week I'm writing up interim reports for my class of grade ones. It would be so much easier if I used a cookie cutter model and anyone that did not fit gets the unhappy faces! But that isn't right and now I'm forced with wrestling with how much of a child's behaviour is because they are creative/expressive and how much, if any, is because they are willfully being "bad."

Report Cards are such limited tools to record a student's progress. As soon as you put down certain terms to evaluate, you're forced to give a certain grade, but are not allowed to explain the rationale. For example, this term I am evaluating on the student's social adjustment to grade one including such things as showing respect for property, getting work done on time, following rules, etc. But it becomes very difficult for me to put a "happy face" on Karl's paper for listening attentively when I know that half the time karl's mind is far away on some creative venture. So is it right for me to give him a bad grade when he is being creative?? "Following rules and directions" is another tough one. Breaking rules is what creative people do....isn't it?? But how do I teach in such a way that rules are there to give guidance, but not limit? And, to the child who follows every direction I give, who does the assignments exactly right, I reward with all happy faces? Of course I do, but it almost feels like I'm punishing the children who push the boundaries (ie, are creative!).

This is a tough spot, and I'm not sure I have the answers.... Hopefully the fact that I'm struggling with this shows that I'm learning.

Will using a computer make my students more creative?

Yesterday as we were sharing some thoughts about the progress of our inquiries within our mentor group, I shared my student Karl's work (see blog from earlier). I then stated that I hoped our computers would soon be working well enough that I could get the students to do some creative work on there...after all, I am taking a "learning and teaching with technology" course! After each person presented their work, the rest of us in the mentor group was encouraged to come up with a thoughtful response. I was flattered by most of mine, but one in particular caught my attention. "Do you think the students will be more or less creative when you transfer it to the computer?" Hmmm, I think my initial reaction is "Of course!" But now I wonder.

The students have only been able to touch the computers once this year, and that was not a very pleasant experience for most as there were more glitches in the system than notebooks that worked. I do know that last year they never touched the computers at all. I don't think any of my students have used kidpix before. I don't know how literate the kids are with computers. For most of them, logging on using first and last name is a big accomplishment. Will my students then be able to use the computer in any creative way? Do they first need to learn the basics of how these work? I'm sure most of them, although not all, have had some experience on home computers playing games and things, but is that going to transfer over? I guess what I'm wondering is what skills (literacies) do my students need to have before they are able to be creative? What will I judge as being creative? How can I assess this, if it is different from producing a picture?

Any ideas out there? what has worked for you in your class? Does having computers increase creativity?

Mulling some more over creativity

I've actually had 4 different individuals respond to my discussion starter in the Educator's PLN and I've found all of them to be helpful. One person, Marisa Constantinides, recommended an article she wrote about this very topic "The Art of Being Creative." She borrows someone else's definition of creativity to include fluency (lots of ideas), flexibility (different types of ideas), elaboration (building on other's ideas) and originality (original thoughts).

One line in her article grabbed my attention. "I would like to suggest that the lack of creative thinnking skills in an educator needs immediate attention for many reasons,..." Oh boy, good thing I'm doing this inquiry now!

She also takes a stab at why some people, like me, have blocks to creativity. And , lo and behold, one of them has to do with social environment...ie, how I grew up and what kind of school system I had way back when... I was right! This has also led to a "self-image block", I believe, in that I no longer feel like I am creative or can do creative things.

She then goes on to give some ideas for developing creativity in teachers. I might try one or more of them. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I like how she ends the article. "This article is based on the firm belief that by undergoing training in developing our own creative thinking skills, those of us involved in the teaching profession will enhance our potential for dealing with the problems of daily teaching and find new ways of making our approach to teaching more exciting and stimulating."

Here's hoping!

My Global Community Expands....

It actually worked! During my summer semester when I started to think about creativity in the classroom, I put some feelers out there for strangers to read and respond to. And this week I got a response! And it is a good one. He didn't say particularly much, but pointed me towards 2 articles he had read in newsweek.com. I found both articles stimulating and relevant towards my current inquiry of study. Woo Hoo!

How has it changed me? Well, I followed a few further links on these articles and kept expanding my definition of creativity. The one that really stood out to me this time was the capacity to work "outside the box." Do something unexpected, but relevant and useful.

The articles both supported the present movement towards "project based learning" or PBL as those of us in the know say. :) (Oh gag!) Those of you who know me personally know that I am struggling with the concept of PBL as I am a very linear person who needs things black and white. PBL often blurs those lines! And yet, in our present day and age, we need people who will be able to solve problems. There is no way we as teachers can fully teach and prepare students for specific jobs in the future simply because we don't know what those jobs will be. But we do know that whatever jobs they take, they will need to be creative, adaptive, global thinkers.

The articles portend that creativity is best when mixed with fact-finding, research and basic skill sets. Creativity emerges when "they alternate maximum divergent thinking with bouts of intense convergent thinking, through several stages." As I understand it, divergent thinking would be the creative part...brainstorming, experimenting, etc., and the convergent thinking would be finding out facts that affect the project.

Encouraging creativity in the classroom means no longer hoping kids get the right answer as soon as possible, but rather letting them wrestle for a while with the issue...trying to see it from all angles, coming up with all kinds of solutions and figuring out for themselves what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately for me, I've always looked for the easy right way and I'll need to be very deliberate about letting my students struggle...

till next time

creativity and planning

So tomorrow is the first pro-d of the year and I get to spend the majority of my day planning for the coming year. One of my focuses will need to be on incorporating ways for children to express themselves in creative ways. I know very little about "art" officially, but am beginning to realize that art has very little to do with encouraging creativity with children. It is definitely a worthy component of it, but it is not the only, or maybe not even necessarily, the best way.
For example, the other day in math class, the topic was patterns. We talked about what a pattern was (something that repeats), saw some examples of patterns and then I let them create patterns. I took out blocks, lego, cars, chain links, etc and let them build a pattern. It was fun to watch them be creative. The teacher's guide said I should limit them to a repeating pattern of 2, but I have some fairly bright children in my class and didn't want to limit them. Some children
did indeed build repeating patterns with two colours and I was thrilled that they "fully met expectations." However, some children became much more elaborate. One particular boy built a pattern in 2 ways. He found 3D shapes of different colours and did a pattern of first 4 shapes (cone, cylinder, pyramid and cube [he actually knew these terms!]) in all the same colour and then repeated that pattern in the next colour and on and on. I was amazed. Would he have been able to express his creativity if I had kept him to two colours? I don't think so, and I was able to assess his learning as "beyond expectation." How exciting!

Creativity emerges, despite myself!

My research continues to challenge and broaden my definition of "creativity." According to an article in Newsweek in July, "creativity is production of something original and useful..." I'm trying to be more open and accepting of my students' work, even if it isn't immediately apparently "correct." Take, for example, one of my student's depiction of "living and non-living" things as we had discussed in science. Most students chose to draw pictures of people, animals or plants for the living and fruit off the vine for non-living (as we had discussed earlier). But then I went to see Karl's work and rather than reprimanding him for just drawing something off topic, as I was tempted to do, I asked him to describe his picture. He went into great detail to tell me what was living in his picture (a human [living] digging a tunnel in the dirt under some living grass. The details were amazing. His non-living picture was of a 'camel-car', which, as he said "some people might think it's living, but it's not. It's pretend!"

So...I think I was successful yesterday. Rather than do my gut-reaction of stopping him in the midst of his work, I took the time to listen...thus encouraging his creativity.
Hopefully this will continue to be a new way of teaching for me!

Forgot about ART??

Well, today I was quite proud of myself as I had a draft of my weekly teaching schedule ready to hand in to the principal. I brought it to the staff room to share with the LA teacher and the other grade one teacher took a peek. "You're not going to do any art??" she asked incredulously. Oh my! In my inquiry towards encouraging creativity, I totally forgot about an art block with my kids. Oh, that sinking feeling again. I hate art! I hate creativity! I never know what to do in that block. That's the hardest block in the week to plan for...

So...what does that say about me? Well, it was a complete oversight. I had so many other things I wanted to do with my time with the kids...but art is such a logical time to encourage creativity. I can't believe I did that. Well, it's now duly part of my Friday afternoons.... Anyone have some good ideas for me to use tomorrow?

Two Ah-Hah moments this weekend...

Creativity...what is it? According to Sir Ken Robinson, in his TED address "Do schools kill creativity?" defines creativity as being willing to be wrong.

I like that definition, partially because it identifies for me one of the reasons why creativity is such a mental block for me. I HATE being wrong, and will go to some great lengths to prove my "rightness" in an argument. I feel like I'm incompetent or stupid if I admit to being wrong. Hmmm... something to think about more.

And...as I was discussing this with a very creative friend of mine, she elaborated on this and said that part of encouraging creativity amongst youngsters was allowing them to be wrong. Wow...that hit me. I often want to correct students as they are in the midst of trying to solve a problem if I can already see that they are headed in a "wrong" direction. I want to point them towards the correct solution...something that will work. I think maybe this is one area in which I will be able to test my own encouragement of creativity in my students is if I let them make mistakes...How do I still make them want to try things even if they get things wrong repeatedly? Is it the process that's important??

Some heavy thoughts as I try to enjoy my weekend... :)

Creativity?? How about survival?

The last few days have been a blur as I teach a class that was together last year for 2 1/2 days while we wait for the new configuration to set in for this year...These kids were good. I had fun with them, although they needed more planned for them then I was willing to give them. But we did some creative stuff. But today the new kids moved in...took about an hour to move them all in, so in the meantime the first kids are getting bored, I'm losing my prep, I have recess duty and suddenly, they're all there. All 20 beautiful children...I think they're smart. A number of them are reading a lot, but boy, they're ALL busy! I can't turn my attention away from a few of the idividuals for more than 10 seconds, or they're in trouble....running in the classroom, poking someone, playing with something off the shelf, or just plain yelling! Yep, I said yelling! There are a few kids that just for the pure joy of being at school need to yell and scream. I don't know how many times I reminded them to use their inside voice.

So anyways...creativity?? Didn't even cross my mind today, I'm afraid.

First Day

So today was it...the start of a new school year and my focus on creativity was forefront in my mind...well, after welcoming 22 new students into my class that won't be part of my class as we wait to see what the numbers will do (but that's another story). So I have these 22 grade 3 and 4's to supervise and teach over the next few days. How can I be creative with that?

Well, I started them off with a writing assignment on what they remembered from their summer. I told them it didn't have to have perfect spelling or grammar; I just wanted them to be able to write as many things down as they remember. We then got into a group to share one thing from our list. After that, I had them choose one of the things they had written down and asked them to illustrate it in some way. I had play dough in 4 colours, different coloured construction paper and plain white paper for them to use. The majority of the class chose the play dough and we had a ferris wheel, boats, bunk beds in a cabin, a family swimming together, a birthday party in the wave pool, a flower girl, etc. They seemed to really enjoy the hands on work, and were able to make some pretty detailed diagrams of something that had been important to them. The pictures that were drawn on the plain paper were also well done. I'm sorry I forgot my camera today to take pictures of some of their creations.

So...was that creativity on my part? Did I encourage creativity with the students? Should I have offered more options? Why didn't anyone take construction paper? (I think it's because I didn't have a model to show them and they already knew how to use play dough and paper with markers.)

I hope to write regularly about creativity in the classroom. What does it mean? How can I encourage it? Do I have to be artistic to be creative?? Do you have any thoughts about it? Let me know.

Creativity and Me

Yesterday's class discussion on project based learning struck a real chord of fear inside of me. I am sure it has to do with the word "creative." Somehow that word causes my blood pressure to rise and I get a panicked feeling inside..."I'm NOT creative! How am I going to do this?!?" And so, to face my fear head-on, I am basing my fall inquiry on the topic: "How can I overcome my fear of creativity to encourage my students to be creative, especially in the area of writing?"
I will blog separately about this inquiry and the process I will embark on to explore it.

For now, these are the 3 things I want to cover today. First, why do I have this fear? Secondly, what does creative mean to me? And third, when do I feel like I have been creative or helped my students be creative?

Why am I so afraid of being creative or of allowing my students to be creative? I think the roots of it come from being a perfectionist and being raised by a perfectionist. Nothing less than perfection was acceptable, at least that was my perception. I am also a control freak (according to my children). I want to be able to plan everyone's life. I work hard at organizing things so that it will all work out. Consequently, I have high blood pressure! :) I think that if a student is being creative, I can't judge it.

Being creative, to me, means doing something without a map or directions, which of course, to my organized mind is very stressful. You can never predict the outcome of creativity, hence it is impossible to plan for it. These are all emotional statements, and shouldn't be taken as a definition!

I have tended, over the past 24 hours, to be very hard on myself because of my lack of creativity. And yet, I know that if I am honest with myself, I have been creative and have allowed and encouraged it in my students, as well as my own children. My annual Christmas letters are creative writing pieces, if I say so myself. I have enjoyed giving scrapbook assignments to my students where they were required to do some creative writing and design.
I have honestly tried to support my young elementary students in their creative art ventures, always saying something positive about their attempts. I have sometimes given students a math problem to figure out themselves.

So there you have it, some initial ramblings of my thoughts of creativity...this is a scary path I'm on.

Project Based Learning

I don't know about you, but I hated projects as a kid in school. I much preferred getting assignments where there was a right answer, had a completion target that was easy to see and concepts that were easily mastered and memorized. But that was me and my learning style. I am a linear, logical person.

Which then begs the question....how will I ever teach in a project based learning environment? I can see the benefits. Students can become more engaged, dig deeper, apply knowledge they already have and construct new knowledge, incorporate curriculum content from different areas and be creative on top of all that. And there might be the reason I find projects so hard. I maintain, mostly truthfully, that I am not a creative person. Anything that requires some sort of creativity causes me to freeze up. I feel like I can't do it. I think most of this wall comes from my need to know I have done something right and perfect. I have to get over that.
This will be the hurdle for me to overcome.

Technology and Curriculum

"In short, the theory and practice of technology integration need to be inextricably connected to the processes and products of curriculum development." (p. 99, Rethinking Technology in Schools, by Vanessa Elaine Domine)

What? You mean we don't start with the technology and then figure out what we could teach using it? I know, I know, this is what we've been told over and over again. In fact, I remember my university profs way back in the 80's saying the same thing. First, know what you want to teach. The pedagogy comes first. Then, begin to think how you would like to deliver the lesson. What tools would be the best way to achieve understanding in your students? It may very well be some sort of technology, but it might not. We need to be open and aware of our context, our students, and be intimately connected to the curriculum and then think of how we will do it.

Learning over the past week - A Summary

1. I am learning some practical technology tools to use in the classroom, such as mixbook, kidblog, blabberize, wordle, etc. This connects to capacity #3 in my LTT program "use, evaluate and integrate existing and emerging technologies into your practice." This is important to me because, as we studied earlier this week, education must and is changing. I need to be a part of it. Children these days need to use emerging technologies to be a part of our new society. Their definition of knowledge is fluid and is only worthwhile if it is useful. By using some of the above tools, I am encouraging my students to use creativity and share their work with a wider community. Evidence that shows this learning would be the notes I've taken in my journal with these websites listed, my new membership at places like mixbook, and my journal entries from the past few days where I've talked about how much I was learning.

2. I am learning to appreciate and participate in the global education community using such things as twitter, education pln, classroom 2.0 and a few educators' blogs. This links to Capacity 5 in the LTT program "access, evaluate, use and participate in new media interactions in education." This is important to me because i must model being a lifelong learner for my students. If I feel that it is important for them to know and behave in such a way that they are part of a global society, I must also behave that way. By participating in these communities I am acknowledging that people outside of my own "home" circle have ideas of worth for me and also, equally as important, that I may have something to offer to them. Evidence that shows this learning would include my posts on Classroom 2.0 (see previous blog), my tweets, and my explorations on the web (and my journal responses to them).

Assessment: A necessary evil or catalyst for growth?

This is an old discussion, I know, but there have been a few new ideas that have presented themselves to me during our reading and research today.
First, the difference between summative and formative assessments. In our table group, we defined the two as summative being the one that is at the end of something. A final report. The formative assessment is the one that's ongoing; it's the one that is used more directly as assessment for learning, as it relates directly to the project at hand.
I really liked the new questions for assessment as put forth by Douglas Reeves and quoted by Will Richardson:

Learn (What did you know? What are you able to do?)

Understand (What is the evidence that you can apply learning in one domain to another?)
Share (How did you use what you have learned to help a person, the class, the community or the planet?)
Explore (What did you learn beyond the limits of the lesson? What mistakes did you make, and how did you learn from them?)
Create (What new ideas, knowledge, or understanding can you offer?)

Gary Stager disagrees. He believes all assessment is an interruption to learning. Well, I disagree with Mr. Stager. Assessment (oh how I long to shorten that word and just use the first 3 letters with a period after...) can be used to help students. As Chris Lehmann notes in his blog, "assessment as mentoring, assessment as skill-building, assessment as learning about how to create, revise and present. "

Another aha moment for me was the barriers to proper assessment. First, we teach what we assess. In the back of every teacher's mind is the prescribed learning outcomes, the report cards, etc. We know what we need to report on, so therefore that is what we teach. That does limit what learning opportunities we give to our students.
Secondly, we only get the assessments we can afford in time and or money. How true! So often, report card time is a high stress time where we quickly do some final tests on a unit, etc., but haven't had time to properly do "assessment for learning."
" And as Reeves notes, a third depressing fact is that this will require us to be able to step out of our own school experience, to be willing to define success in ways that are unfamiliar and more nuanced. That may be the biggest barrier of all."

I've mostly quoted and reflected from the following blogs:
http://practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/1103-Why-Assess.html by entitled "Why Assess" by Chris Lehmann

and the second by William Richardson on his blog entitled "weblogg-ed" at the following link: http://weblogg-ed.com/2010/new-assessments-for-new-learning/

Putting myself out there...Capacity 5! HA!

So I've done it. I've responded to a stranger who was asking a question that I thought maybe, just maybe, I could contribute to an answer. I know, I know...this is probably nothing to most of you, but it is to me. I have never felt like I could help anyone online with anything techy before. I'm taking this course simply because I am the newbie...I don't know anything technological...do I? Well, I was on classroom 2.0 (an educational Ning site) where i saw a question from a teacher asking for help using technology in reading education with young students. Well, although a voice in the back of my head keeps telling me "Oh come on...she probably knows all that. You have nothing new. You're way behind the times. She wants something great!"...but I'm ignoring that voice. And here I am.

Information Overload Once Again

So today we've looked at 8 different educational learning networks that we might be interested in following. Some were definitely more friendly than others and some were more applicable to my own situation. I enjoyed the exploration of these and of the 8 I have decided to become active (well, at least observe and join) in a few.

The first one I joined is the Educator's PLN. I enjoy this site because it's a place where there are a lot of educators, including those that I would consider to be gurus that I trust. :) It's got the option of live chat, and the founder, Tom Whitby, has been available on there whenever I've looked. There are groups of interest to different folks, and if I don't see what I'm looking for, I am welcome to make my own. In the few minutes I was on there today, I was able to make a connection for a fellow classmate of mine on the blog tab....both male kindergarten teachers.

The second one I'd like to join is the teachersconnecting.com which is a place where teachers can collaborate online for ideas and for joint projects with classes. As I don't quite know what I'll be teaching yet next year, I'll wait to sign up for this once I have my assignment and then can find people with similar interests and grade levels.

The third one, and the one I think I may be most interested in, is
http://www.jenuinetech.com/ . It appeals to me directly for a few reasons. One is that the homepage is very inviting and directly aimed at primary teachers. The projects she has going appeal very much to me, and I'm sure to most primary students. The projects are easily doable and relate directly to IRP's (unfortunately to the California ones, but maybe they can relate to BC?).

And that's just the start of it. We also worked on our igoogle page, which to me is much handier than netvibes. We personalized our page and linked many of our previous explorations (ie delicious, twitter, etc) to it, so that all these feeds are easily accessible.

And now we're being called somewhere else, so I've got to sign off... Hope I can handle it!

The future of Education

I grew up in the Industrial Age of education. According to Jane Gilbert, this age emphasized an organized system of education delivery. However, in our now technological age, this method of delivery no longer suffices. Students now have access to any information they need and so no longer see the need to be force-fed random facts that to them have no connection to the real world. And yet, our curriculum requires that we, as teachers, continue to fill their heads with these tidbits. But, we are also trying to lead our students, and ourselves, into the age where knowledge is fluid. Knowledge, to this generation, is only meaningful when they have had a chance to incorporate it and use it in a deliberate way to construct further learning.

So what does that mean for us as teachers? How can we make learning meaningful when we are faced with this huge list of curriculum objectives that we need to report on? How can we satisfy government and school district requirements and do it in such a way that students are prepared to be part of the global community?

At this point, I'm glad I teach at the elementary level where group projects, collaborative learning and curriculum content is easily integratable. We can cover lots of content area in creative ways. But I think we still need to do more. At least for myself, assessment is still an individual thing. I still want to know if Johnny can spell basic words, count to 100 and recount basic needs of animals. That is going to be more of my focus this year, I think...to think of creative, but meaningful, ways of assessment for my students.

Okay, that was really a random post, but this article has got me thinking...education has to change. Am I ready to be part of the process?

ISTE / NETS-T Goal for Fall 2010

"Design and Develop Digital-Age learning Experiences and Assessments"

This is my broad goal. I figure that no matter what my teaching assignment ends up being, I'll be able to do this. Last year in my grade 1 class, I started this with using Kidpix as a form of assessment in regards to a unit we had done on bears. Each student designed a kidpix page illustrating one of the facts we had discovered. They also added a recording of their voice saying what the fact was. I was also able to add their own picture onto their slide, so that when people viewing it at our assembly were able to see who had done the picture and whose voice they were hearing.

This year is a big question mark right now, but with any level I end up teaching, I can build on what I learned last year. I'd like to specifically work on the first point "design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity." I'd like to have my students design a digital product to demonstrate to their peers a segment of their learning. I'd also like them to be able to take this and show their parents what they have learned that relates to the curriculum, but is using a digital media to do this.

Depending on the class I get, I may even attempt to have them design a portfolio of sorts to track their learning through the year. I do know that in the midst of everything that happens in a school year, this is a lofty goal at this point, but I'd like to try. Even if it's only something they've entered two or three times in a year, perhaps to go along with my report card writing. Just a thought...

So the next day, we're supposed to also connect to a capacity in the program we're doing. I think this particular goal has to do with the third capacity: "use, evaluate and integrate existing and emerging technologies into your practice."

Baby Steps

So today, after another conversation with my prof, I think I may, just may, have a grasp on what I'm to do. As you can tell, if you've read my earlier posts, I'm feeling like there's too much information out there and it's overwhelming. I don't like doing anything halfway, and thought that I needed to incorporate everything that was "out there" into my teaching practice. But tonight, some thoughts emerged...
1. baby steps... don't try to find everything out there on my topic of interest, in this case technology coordinator leadership. Rather, I need to take small steps and only do as much as I can handle. So maybe I start with just following and contributing to one or two blogs of people I enjoy following, such as my small group of fellow students or one or two tech teachers' blogs. Okay, I can do that...I am doing that. Really, that's okay?? And he said "Yes." Whew! I don't have to be super tech teacher...yet!
2. Relationships...Building a netvibes page and following blogs is not all about what I can learn about technology or education; rather it's developing relationships with people from around the world. This, in itself, is transformational. It's not about me, it's about us.
3. Community...Tom mentioned the gulf oil spill. As individuals, there's nothing we can do, but as a collective community, we can make a difference. I want to be part of that community, so I will build the relationships, take baby steps, and see what we as a community of people can do to change our world. I can't change everything, but if enough of us start reducing our dependence on oil, maybe we can slow down the advance of oil exploration in sensitive habitats... And in teaching, together we as educators, can influence our students, our politicians, our world, to make it a kinder, gentler nation.

Do we really need it?

So my assignment this week was to build a "Netvibe" website in order to have one place where all the cool blogs, websites, and constant news feeds on my topic of choice can be displayed in one place. I'm hitting another wall with this one. Not because it's difficult, but because I'm wondering at the wisdom of it. Again I feel like I'm not even using all the good stuff I've found the old-fashioned way, so why would I look for even more things? Even with all the filters out there, the amount of information coming in to my netvibe page is overwhelming! How can I possibly keep up with it? Time is of the essence.... or is it?

What's the ultimate goal here? Just to gain knowledge/learning for the sake of learning? Surely there has to be more. I need the purpose here... I'm losing focus.

So let me go back to my basic. I want to be the very best possible teacher I can be in order to help my students become the very best possible citizens they can be in the world we share together.

Anyone else collecting info and now wondering what to do with it? What's your focus? How are you able to sort through things you are learning to choose the stuff that's really important? How do you manage your time? With the stuff I'm collecting on Netvibes, I could be sitting at the computer reading 24/7.
HELP!! I'm drowning here...

Crap Detection

Ever watched the movie "Wag the Dog?" Throughout all of Rheingold's blog, Crap Detection 101, I kept having flashbacks to the movie. The main premise, in case you haven't seen the movie, is to create a political crisis though medica deception so that attention is diverted from a real situation that could have meant the downfall of the president. Since watching that movie, I have never been able to watch news without a critical eye again. And, now since reading Rheingold's blog and watching the video clip, I won't be able to look at anything I find online without being just a little bit skeptical.

For me, one of the main things I've learned, will be that unlike with books where checks and balances are in place that only credible things are published, things on the web are checked and balanced by the consumer. We are responsible for checking all sources (triangulate!) and determining which items are valuable. We will need to exercise our "think for yourself" muscles. I wonder if I've ever really been taught how to do that?

One of my quandries while reading this was realizing that I had always thought, and I think have been taught, that the internet has made things easier to find facts and information. But now I wonder. I think it might be more difficult.

So how does that affect the way I teach grade 1? I do not allow them to go on information sites without me first having researched those. I have done research with students, but done it through child friendly search engines. As a student myself, I need to make sure to triangulate my sources. Using search engines such as ERIC puts a great filter over articles I may want to use.

Overall, I need to have an attitude of suspicion towards things I read on the web.

My Learning Network

So here it is! My map that I made with the assistance of Mindomo. It worked quite well, but I hope there's some way to enlarge the picture without blurring it too badly. Hmmm.
So what I have learned about my learning network? I think I realized I need to acknowledge my background as part of what affects my learning. Fortunately, I grew up in a home where education was valued and it was expected of all of us kids to go to post secondary school and I watched my parents constantly upgrade themselves with self study, community courses, and reading.
Other learning cells are about the same as I blogged about earlier, but I thought it was really cool the way I could insert hyperlinks into my map. :) These show the blogs I am currently following in my quest to continue my own learning.

Connectivism

Our assignment for this week was to watch some podcasts of George Siemens and Steven Downes on the topic of connectivism and networks.
The first part of the assignment was to draw out our own networks as we perceived them to be at this point. I duly went and drew a nice little diagram showing my connections. I divided them into 5 categories: face to face (neighbours, family, care group, church), Social Networks (facebook and my blog) LTT class (colleagues, professor, mentor) and Online Stuff(Educator's PLN, Group Ed Tech Talk, videos, other blogs, educational websites) and my school (teaching partner, principal, other teachers, students).

Then I watched all 7 podcasts. (Aren't you proud of me??) Their basic premise is that learning is not a "inside an individual" but rather takes place within a network of knowledge, of which a person's own brain is just one part. As people, our desire is to express our thoughts through language of whatever medium (art, speech, etc). Knowledge is constantly changing and we as human beings, must find a way to learn so that we stay current. "What we know today is not as important as our ability to stay current." According to Downes, networks must be open, autonomous, diverse and connected. Only then will the learning be optimized.

I think I'm questioning the basic premise that increased knowledge is the ultimate goal. Really? Why? Does this not just make another power system..those with the most networks have the most power because they have the most knowledge at their fingertips?

And yet, I love the idea of community/connectivism. I identified closely with Siemens' description of how he grew up. Although my community was not as narrowly conservative as his was, I know of which he speaks. I wonder if he would say he has given anything worthwhile up in his quest for knowledge?

I believe in community rather than heirarchy. At times when I was listening to these podcasts, I thought I could be sitting in church listening to a sermon about how the people of God are to live. It is not about the individual, it is about the community with the common purpose, not of building some big building, but of building the community of God. Communities need to be open, diverse, connected and autonomous.

And yet, I fear this is a educational utopia.

How does this affect how I teach in a school where some of my fellow colleagues refuse to touch the computers and feel that they have enough to teach without adding to their plates. How do I influence them to extend their boundaries? Look beyond their classroom to the world beyond? To realize that teaching is not about filling kids' heads with knowledge, but teaching kids to make relevant networks.

How will this change the way I teach Grade 1? Any ideas?

Developing Leadership

Leadership is an elusive thing. I think it's difficult to track or to guage effectively. I've often heard about "servant leadership." I think that phrase is valid, for in my experience, the more I'm willing to do for others, the more willing they seem to be to acknowledge my leadership and ask for more.

For example, this past week I demonstrated with my class an example of technology infusion...or at least how I define it. The students had illustrated a fact they had learned about bears on a kid pix program and I then collected these and made a slide show out of them to show the school. I thought that this demonstration of student learning would be one teachers would embrace and would therefore ask me how else technology could be used to meet learning outcomes, etc. It hasn't happened yet.

But, one teacher is asking me to help her out with getting her Grade 2/3 students on the computers. She, by her own admission, is petrified of all this technology and was unable to even approach it with her students. So, I offered to help. When asking her what she wanted, I realized that she had not even taken the first steps of putting her class list together and choosing courseware for the students to experiment with. One morning I showed up extra early and asked her for her classlist so that I could start on this. She was eager to observe and within 10 minutes, we had her class ready to sign on for the very first time. As she left me that morning, she said "This is exactly what I needed..someone to show me what to do and how. THANK YOU!"

Success!

I viewed today as a sort of lithmus test as to my capability as a technology leader within the school. What did I do? Well, my students were on schedule for leading the school in the weekly assembly. So what, you say? Well...it was a little different from the usual poems, songs and posters with speeches that most classes have done to reflect their learning. I wanted to use technology in a meaningful way and so I had the children use the kid pix program to illustrate a statement of their learning about bears that we had done in the past month or so. Each child was to choose one fact that they could illustrate. After they did this picture, I also had them record their voice stating their fact on the slide. I also imported a snapshot of the student to put into the corner of each picture so that when their picture was displayed, you would see their picture, as well as hear their voice. And today, it all went well. Teachers and students, I believe, were duly impressed that Grade 1's could do this work on the computer. I was so very grateful that the technology worked today. There were sometimes in the past few weeks that I wondered at my foolishness in attempting such a thing. No one in our school has done this before so I couldn't ask for help from anyone. I had to learn it on my own. And this is the learning I have done:

- how to make the computer and the projector communicate. Sometimes during my classes when I wanted to show the students what I wanted them to do, I tried to use the projector and it wouldn't work. Ugh! And our little mini-notebooks are not suitable for showing 20 eager students at once. But, if all else fails, read the instructions! Earlier in the week, in a fit of panic cause the projector wasn't receiving the images from the computer, I started to read the owner's manual and lo and behold, there was a neat little trick I could try. The "fn" key together with the F2 turned it all on. Whew!

- how to save so it actually saves! My poor students had to do a minimum of 3 pictures for me before I figured out how to save it so that it worked. Some students, and I still don't quite know why, just couldn't get their pictures saved until the 4th or 5th time. Fortunately, the students are patient with me. :)

- how to use the kid pix program. This was brand new for me and I quite enjoyed it. There are a number of features on it that added a lot to the slide show and it was fun to play with them.

- how to import jpeg files into the kid pix program. Unfortunately, the webcams on our notebooks have been disabled, so I needed to take pictures using my digital camera and then import those pictures to the program. I found this information on the internet using google search.

- how to use my flash drive in yet another way. I found out earlier this week when we were doing a rehearsal in the gym, that the gym does not have wireless and so my slide show, which was saved on the server, was useless as it couldn't be accessed. Thank goodness for flashdrives. And because the program is loaded onto the computers, it was able to read the flashdrive and present.

- how to brainstorm with others. I knew the speakers on the notebook wouldn't be able to project for all 300+ students, but I thought I'd be able to mic it. Unfortunately, even that didn't work. As a few of us were brainstorming about this, the school secretary asked if it was possible to put a speaker jack in and so I brought my computer speakers from home. It worked fabulously! Whew!

But besides all that techie stuff, what did I learn? I learned that leadership often means just doing it! My hope is that teachers will have taken note that our notebooks can be used in educationally sound and relevant ways to the curriculum. Leadership has risks...if this hadn't worked, would the staff view me as someone who is a technology leader? I doubt it. One teacher approached me after the assembly to say that she was going to ask me next year how to do a slideshow.

But mostly I'm just relieved right now. It worked...now on to tomorrow. What should I have the students do with the computers during first block? Hmmm....

Head's too full!

Sometimes I feel like my head is about to explode...and it's not just the bad headcold I have today. I'm learning so much that I feel like I can't keep up. And yet, I feel like I'm expected to learn so much more! I'm supposed to be expanding my learning community to the online one, but I don't even use all the stuff I'm getting from my colleagues and classmates as it is, so why would I look for even more to not do? I thought I was doing an okay job on my inquiry and putting together my summary, but after an evening of discussion, feedback and looking at other's WOW! presentations, I feel very stupid. Will I ever get it right?

I'm too much of a "right answer/wrong answer" type of person. Or maybe it's just that I was taught that way, and being a fairly bright student back in the day, fortunately, I was mostly on the right column all the way through school. Now with inquiry based learning, I realize I'll never come to an end point. Even with our summary and final assignment, it's just called a "working portfolio". And part of that portfolio is to identify further learnings/wonderings/research we'd like to tackle next. Will I never arrive??

I think I did learn something of value today from my peer. She showed me how to take a picture of my computer screen -- it's called a screen shot. I had always thought it was only available to those superior MAC users, but apparently Windows does it, too. So I might use that in my portfolio. It'll come in handy and save some steps. Don't need to copy and paste...just take a screen shot and there it is, ready to be used however I want.

Anyways...guess I should work on my portfolio... wish me luck!

Ubiquitous learning / ubiquitous technology

The video showed a girl saying "We are learning the same thing, but in a different way." I question that. What is she learning? What did I learn back in the day? Are kids today learning the same things I did? What is the different way she is learning? I'm assuming she was talking about technology. No, I did not have access to computers, digital social networks or the world at my finger tips. But I did have a library complete with several complete sets of encyclopedias, I had a social network of my peers (and a few other grades in the classroom, as well), and radio where I heard news reports of things from around the world.

I sometimes wonder if it was necessary to learn the things I learned. Do I want my children to have to learn the same things? Why is it important? Just because it's part of the "prescribed curriculum?"

So do we need to change the very fundamentals of what we need to learn? What is important for our students to learn?

How does technology influence the learning our students are doing now?

Any comments? Opinions? Let me know.

4 Learning Statements...and the evidence to back it up!

My inquiry this term has focused around developing my own leadership in the area of technology within my school. I have had some frustrating times (see earlier posts), but am now beginning to see some change happening. What is surprising to me is the change within myself. I have learned things about myself and leadership. I have learned how to use technology, particularly computers, with my own class of grade 1 students. And I have learned that leadership is a critical role within the successful integration of technology in schools. I want to be part of this integration.

1. I am learning that to be a leader I need to be proactive. Setting out to be a leader in my school in the area of technology has not been easy. I am a part-time teacher and I don't attend the staff meetings, so then I don't have some of the natural places/times to develop the leadership. However there were things I could do. As I did these, the staff gradually began to acknowledge me as a leader by asking for my help, beginning conversations with me about what technology strategies were working or sites they were finding that were helpful and using the "Issues" folder I created. These were the initial steps I took:
- I pushed my name forward as one of the people to get the administrative password and manual for our new computer lab.
- I told the staff that I was able to help them with getting their classes set up and running. I was then given a few glitches to work out (ie students who couldn't log on) which I was able to fix. As I fixed a few of those, more staff became aware of my capability and have asked me to help me with their issues, as well. (see scraps of paper with names, journal entries)
- I made a "Computer Issues" duotang available on top of the mobile lab, so that teachers had somewhere to write down any problems they were having and I check this on a regular basis. I then fix what issues I can and forward the ones I can't to the IT guys at the district level.
- I am constantly sharing websites I have found or ideas that I am using with my fellow staff. I have written these down on paper napkins during staff lunches, e-mailed them to the staff, and had conversations about them.

2. I am learning that to be a leader I need to work within the "systems" already in place. Initially I had naively thought that the mere fact of putting myself out there with an e-mail stating my availability to help teachers with their computer issues would bring staff wanting my help. It didn't happen. I got a total of 3 responses to my survey/inquiry and none of them wanted or needed my help. Most staff completed ignored this method of approach. I needed to change my approach and so these were the steps I took:
- First thing to do was to work through the principal. He is the designated leader in our school. I talked with him about what I was hoping to do, explained about my LTT class and inquiry, offered my services. He then invited and paid for me to go to a a technology seminar held in Coquitlam. This event was one affirmation of my technology leadership from my principal to the rest of the staff at my school.
- Secondly, my principal suggested I use the communication method with the staff that seems to be the most effective...the black board in the staff room. So I started to write my availability on the board and before I was finished one of the teachers snagged me to help her start her class on the computers. My principal also offered to teach my class while I did this. My journal has a long entry on how effective this was, and to end it all...the teacher then called me "Mrs. Computer" in front of her class. :)
- Thirdly, as much as I find the present district IT system frustrating, it is the system in place and I will not be heard unless I use it. I was hoping that direct communication from me, as my school staff's rep, to the IT would be the way I could get help to fix problems and even learn how to solve some repeating problems (ie computers being locked, etc), so that I didn't need to contact them every time it happens. I got a rather terse response from them stating that I need to write down the issue, submit it to my principal and he would be the one to contact them. And then only would they consider coming out to solve it. To me this is tedious, especially because my principal really would rather not have anything to do with the whole system and would readily sign this responsibility over to me. However, as inefficient as this is, it does eventually work and computers are being fixed, slowly but surely.


3. I am learning to integrate technology in my teaching practice. My goals regarding technology this term had to do with ISTE #5d and LTT program capacity #3. When I wrote about this in my journal, I stated that I would know when I reached these goals by: continuing to debug the system, having conversations re. things I am learning in my LTT course and in the class, and having regular computer times with my own students, trying different things to enhance thir learning. I believe I have reached this goal. I have numerous documentations of where I have helped solve problems with the computers, had conversations with my staff and have tried different things with my class on the computers. We have been working on a unit on bears, and I was able to use a child-friendly search engine to find appropriate websites to find information about polar bears. I used the projector (another first for me) to help my whole class navigate to the same page. We then took notes together about what we were learning. We then spent another class on KidPix, where I had the students draw a picture about one of the facts we learned, and then put that fact on the picture.

4. I am learning through my readings that a technology coordinator is an indispensible leader in the school system.

My readings this semester have been focused on technology leadership within schools. A number of the articles specifically mention the importance the school principal, and other leaders play in having a successful integration of technology throughout the school. I want to be the type of leader that not only debugs the system, but is also leading the staff in thinking about where education needs to be headed in this technological age. How should our lessons look? What are the pedagogical ramifications of technology accessibility? Should our curricululm change? What is important for our children to know to be able to be constructive members in our society. How do we prepare them for jobs that don't even exist now?

Technology leaders wanted: Acknowledging the Leadership Role of a Technology Coordinator by William Sugar and Harold Holloman (TechTrends - November/December 2009, Volume 53, Number 6)

Critical Issue: Technology Leadership: Enhancing Positive Educational Change by Gilbert Valdez Ph.D. (http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/leadrshp/le700.htm)

Technology leadership, Technology Integration, and Student Achievment: A Correlation Study in K-12 Public Schools Technology Integration by Judith Keegan Yoho (http://www.lhup.edu.jyoho/psu_website/researchproject.htm )

Technology and School Leadership by Mojgan Afshari, Kamariah Abu Bakar, Wong Su luan, Bahaman Abu Samah and Foo Say Fooi (Technology, Pedagogy and Education, Vol. 18 No. 2, July 20009, 235-248)

The role of 'accomplished teachers' in professional learning communities: uncovering practice and enabling leadership by Ann Lieberman ad Desiree H. Pointer Mace (Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, Vol. 15, No. 4, August 2009, 459 -470)

Inquiry Learnings...

(editing done after talking it over with my peers and mentor at my class tonight)

For this semester's inquiry, I've been exploring the idea of leadership, particularly how it relates to technology in the school. The semester is winding down, but I feel like my inquiry is just beginning. That being said, I need to come up with a learning statement and evidence to back it up. So here goes my first attempt...

"I am learning that to show leadership in my school with respect to technology I need to understand and use the staff systems already there."

Let me explain. I had thought that I'd be able to offer what little I knew about computer use in the classroom to others in my staff. However, I'm new on staff and I teach half time. I made some assumptions, such as teachers would be open and welcoming to my offer to help and that my offer made on e-mail would be received by everybody.

Elaboration: Our school received our mobile computer lab (COW) for Christmas and the response from our staff has been mixed, at best. The grade 4 and 7 teachers had to use them for the FSA testing in February. A few teachers have used them as word processors to present projects or as a place for students to accentuate their learning with learning websites that incorporate games. But generally I'd said the computers are under utilitized. I hypothesize that there are a few reasons for this: the lab is unreliable and time consuming, teachers already feel like they don't have time to cover the curriculum and feel that this is just adding something new, and finally, teachers don't know what to do with them or how to use them effectively.

The first thing I did was offer my services to the staff through a general e-mail. I also asked them a few questions about how they intended to use the computers in their class and whether they had questions about anything related to computer usage in the classroom. The response was dismal...only 3 teachers bothered to respond and that was after I told everyone that I had sent this e-mail and would appreciate a response. Those 3 that did respond didn't want and/or need any help. So I was stuck, stalled, and stymied. How would I show leadership if no one wanted any?? Fortunately, I have a university class where I can express these feelings and some of them wisely suggested I narrow my focus. Was there any one teacher that needed help? And yes, there was. The Kindergarten teacher next door was talking to me about the computer in her class and how frustrated she was about a few things about it. One of those things was that when her students were on a website, they were inadvertently clicking outside of the window and then it would disappear from their sight and the students would need their teacher's immediately assistance again and again. I showed BJ the simple F11 key function which hides the menu bar and causes the website to fill the screen. Her students are now having more success on the computers and the teacher is able to do other tasks with other students without the constant interruption from the students on the computer.

First Evidence: The principal is acknowledging me as a leader
My principal chose me to go with him and another 2 teachers to a Technology conference entitled "Creativity and Technology." He has also offered to cover my class so that I can help other teachers during their computer times. He has also asked me to share the technology standards at a staff meeting.
Second Evidence: I'm learning what leadership is...and what it isn't.
In my journal Feb 9, I write "leadership...can't force it on anyone, but when there's a need I can step in and help along." In my research on this topic, I came across this quote: "Anytime we try to influence the behavior of another human being, we are engaging in an act of leadership." I am trying to help other teachers out where they need it. I now have administative powers to add students to our school list and a few other things on our system. I have used that to help some teachers put new students on their class lists. I have a book on top of the COW that teachers can use to describe any problems they have with the computers and I check that regularly and either fix the problem myself, or refer it on to the district IT department.

Third Evidence: She said it, not me!
On Friday, March 19, my principal came and covered my class so that I could assist another teacher in starting her students on the computers. It was their first time on computers and I was able to walk them through logging on and getting to KidPix without any hitches. I used the projector which was very helpful in showing the students what I was talking about. Towards the end of the class, the other teacher told me in front of the class that she would just call me "Mrs. Computer" from now on. 'nough said! :)

Cracks widening... :)

What a difference a few days make! As my first post says, I was very discouraged with how my school staff was responding to my attempts at showing leadership in the area of technology. But I went to school the next day armed with my strategies ready to try again. I stopped in at my principal's office first thing and said I was going to offer to help other teachers get their classes started on the computers if they would teach my class during that time. My principal said, "No! That teacher needs to be there, too, so I'll cover your class while you go help!" Then he says he'll put my offer in the weekly newsletter to staff and suggests I write it down on the staff bulletin board, which I promptly went to do. Before I had even finished wording this announcement, I had a teacher claim me for a time and we immediately went and booked a time that worked for all of us involved. So this morning, my principal was in my room and I got to lead another grade 1/2 class in their first exploration of our new computer lab. It went so well that the cooperating teacher expressed "I'll just call you Mrs. Computer from now on!"

What else has gone well? I was able to have a great discussion about the use of technology in education with teachers around the lunch table. I've already been approached by another teacher to help her get started on the computers with her class. My own class and I had a very successful time on the computers where we did research together. Their learning was definitely enhanced by using computers in the classroom. I had another conversation with the teacher librarian about how to communicate with the staff in this school. A lot of the teachers in this school do not use e-mail and refuse to use the district "first class" system. She had learned, when she first came to the school, that the staff prefer to use the staff wall as their main method of communication in the school, and that they don't want e-mails, but rather personal conversations. I've learned how to use the projector connected to the computer....

So what have I learned about leadership?
- leadership takes time to develop relationships, trust
- leadership can happen unexpectedly
- leadership means recognizing what is already there and working within the system


While researching, I came across this quote:

Because technology innovations require support, input and knowledge from so many diverse components of school organizations, they stand to benefit from an emerging view of school leadership style called “distributed leadership” (Spillane, Halverson and Diamond, 2001). In this view, leadership is an emergent property of how organizations operate, instead of as traits held by individual actors. In an environment that values distributed leadership, knowledge, feedback and most importantly, decision-making authority can be shared among those who are most integrally involved in enacting the innovation."

from part of a research paper by Judith Keegan Yoho entitled Technology Leadership, Technology Integration, and Student Achievement: A Correlation Study in K-12 Public Schools Technology Integration

http://www.lhup.edu/jyoho/psu_website/researchproject.htm

Cracks in the Walls

I'm a teacher facing walls. I want to help my staff (and myself) use the technology we have in our school to help our students in their learning. But the walls I'm facing feel overwhelming. My staff (as a whole) haven't expressed any interest in collaborating with me on computer use in the classroom. The IT specialists in the district are too busy dealing with system problems through all the schools to help individual teachers like me. And my administrator, although supportive in language, is lacking in knowledge to be of any real help.

But there are some cracks in these walls, and I intend to capitalize on those. Although most staff have brushed me off in my attempts to engage them in this conversation, a few teachers have asked me for help. For example, BJ was frustrated that when her students were on a website, they were constantly clicking outside of it. I showed her the real quick and simple F11 key trick, which hides the bar and makes the website fill the screen. She was so appreciative of this simple solution and it has meant that her students are more fully able to use the learning websites their teacher had picked for them.



So what do I do? Where do I go from here?

Some ideas I have include being open about websites I'm using with my students. Knowing that some teachers are frightened of the initial student experimentation with the computers, I'm going to offer to lead their class during this time.

But do you have some ideas? What has worked for you in your school?

Here's a blog I've found from someone who's a technology coordinator at her school:
http://cougarramblings@blogspot.com