Shift to the Future

It used to be so easy to be smart.  Seriously, all you had to do was learn lots of trivia, know how to do a variety of things, be able to quickly recall information, facts, and figures, and people figured you knew it all.  Well folks, the world has changed.  The Internet knows a lot more stuff than you or I do or ever will and it’s doubling every 18 months or so.  We must learn together to become wise!  Why then is it that a lot of learning continues to be isolated and static? How can individuals possibly compete with Youtube, TED, Twitter, Google, Wolfram Alpha, and many other sources that we can now hold in our hands to access whenever we need or want to? I participated in a conference led by George Couros with about 100 principals/vice principals ( #cpvpa ) from #sd43 .  Some of the deep thinking and resources shared can be seen here .  I’ve worked with quite a number of these folks over the years supporting their learning and progress with techn...

In my classroom visits I encounter all sorts of great examples of flexible learning environments.  I’m specifically interested in how technology is being used, good or bad, to support teaching and student learning.  What I increasingly see are natural, seamlessly integrated uses of educational technology and less of the standalone technology focused uses.  Check out this cute K/1 class learning about the number 10 using a variety of technologies, physical objects, and student interactions. K’s and 1’s learning about the number ‘10’ This teacher created opportunities for kids to use a variety technology with other traditional classroom objects and tools.  It is important to note that the technology really does need to be in the classroom and not in a lab for the occasional “field trip”.  I had a great time that day – if I was a teacher I’m pretty sure Kindergarten would be high on my list of preferred grades to teach. It is interesting how the notion of “...

Last year I had the privilege of facilitating a learning team consisting of a small group of school principals.  Learning teams in our District are learning structures designed to support action research.  These principals had recently purchased tablet PCs and had the following question: “In what ways will my leadership skills be improved by my learning the various tools of my tablet?”   They are leaders of elementary (K-5) and middle (6-8) schools. Learning teams are a very important method for our teachers and principals to experience embedded action research of their own design.  I presented their story at CUEBC in October 2009 .  We have over 1/3 of our educators who’ve chosen to be on a learning team and around 41% of all learning teams have a learning with technology focus.  I talked about technology leadership in a previous post and I think this group of Principals exemplify learning and leadership. Role of Principal and Technology They see the...