Shift to the Future

I’ve learned a lot (through the school of hard knocks) about implementing technology for learning, teaching, and work.  I naively used to focus on the tools and the technical aspects without seriously considering the impact on people.  That was then and this is now.  Technology is very often the instigator of significant changes for people.  It should be, or what’s the point of buying and providing it?  Simply adding a new tool and carrying on with a current practice really doesn’t make a lot of sense does it.  We see this occur often in schools.  SMARTBoards, for example, often get a bad rap, perhaps unfairly.  We need to do implementation well! Principals will see or hear about how amazing these interactive whiteboards (IWB) work, then they buy and install some in their school and wonder why teachers don’t use them.  Or, worse, teachers do use them but in exactly the same way they used their overhead projector or the LCD projector they al...

A few years ago I led a learning team with seven K-5 teachers who came together to do some action research around the use of SMART boards in their classrooms.  Through that year I learned a lot about what’s possible and how challenging it is to effectively incorporate a foreign technology into pedagogy.  Often making technology choices requires a good compass to show them the way.  Learning teams have been a successful structure for our teachers in doing this.  Being a firm believer there’s always more to learn, I decided to participate in a workshop last week with about 20 teachers learning about SMART boards and in particular the Notebook software.  The workshop facilitator, Sasha Zekulin , was brilliant.  She really brought to life the capabilities and possibilities, light-bulbs were going off for many of the teachers. We live in exciting times don’t we.  Every week there seems to be some new technology invented and put on the market.  Educa...

I have the pleasure of regularly going out to visit with teachers and students in classrooms.  This past Thursday I visited two classrooms: a Kindergarten and a Grade 1 class.  In the Kindergarten class I was video recording a learning documentation process the teacher uses to support her students story writing.  The students came up one by one to share their pictures and in some cases, also written stories.  They were very motivated and proud to be able to do this.  The teacher used her iPod Touch to record each student explaining and/or reading their story.  The teacher then plays back the students reflections in the quiet of her home and provides written feedback in each students journal.  The kids loved that I was recording them telling their stories! While this was going on, one of her students had a bit of a melt down.  This particular student is designated as having certain special needs and a special education assistant (SEA) was present...

I recently had the privilege of visiting a couple of our middle school classrooms.  Our middle schools have students in grades 6-8 and they are organized into teams of approximately 120 students who share teachers for their core subjects then explore other topics or subjects with specialist teachers. One classroom I visited is led by a technology specialist teacher James Gill .  I wrote briefly about this visit in a previous post Preparing Students through Educational Futuristics .  In this classroom, James was facilitating skills development and collaboration with a variety of technical tools including discussion boards within our my43 portal and using Google Sketchup (free) to propose designs for their new school to open in 2014.  Here is James talking about the setup for the learning activity… James talks about using discussion board to brainstorm school design Emily took the lead with a topic discussing the pros and cons of Smart boards vs. White boards and...

In my last post I talked about a learning team I facilitated for school principals.  Well, I also facilitated a team of K-5 teachers last year in their journey to figure out how to use SMART boards .  This was a great experience for me to have with classroom teachers learning a new and powerful technology. SMART boards are interactive white boards (IWB) or devices that allow the user to touch the white board and manipulate objects, text, and various software tools.  It is best to mount the IWB on the wall with an LCD projector arm built in.  This way it is always available and properly aligned and calibrated – which reduces setup time and frustration for the teacher.  Then use a laptop (or desktop) on a cart to connect to the IWB.  Software on the laptop controls the IWB’s functions. Schools have embraced IWB’s all around the world.  I believe Alberta, CA has a goal to put an IWB in every classroom in every school and is well on its way to achiev...