Innovation+vs.+Integration+Session

Integration vs Innovation Wednesday, 11/14/07

Seymour Papert: this stuff is supposed to be transformational, and we're still at the point where we're shoe-horning it into what we do normally. Web 2.0 has gotten us a little further. I come to this conference every year with the same hopes, and leaves with the same puzzle: how do you take it to the next level?

1. We get excited about technologies, and they don't always reach the teachers—pilots, organization, focusing. 2. Procedural, admin technologies are up and running, but they don't teach. They're not curricular. 3. Admin- why aren't you doing more? What are you doing? I'm not sure what you should be doing? We're constantly re-evaluating the role of an integrator in a school like this. We have a lower, middle, and upper school integrator who also teaches. 4. There needs to be top-down mandates to make sure these things happen-make tech a priority when you're hiring and recruiting students. Popular, successful teachers must do it to spread that. 5. Philosophical step beyond that- if the teacher has been successful all these years w/o tech, should they adopt it? Their kids are excited about the subject matter… 6. If you want to bring a technology inot the classroom, it has to be reliable, it has to work every time a teacher uses it. Best pilot is a technology that is a success, helps them with what they want to do, train them untl they are proficient. Other teachers will follow the innovators—"Why don't I have that?" 7. One at a time is the way to go. Our head of school went through everybody's teacher's page and graded them. "I made the time to look at them; you guys haven't made time to do it." Some pages make other teachers jealous—podcasts from every kid in the classroom. Make sure other people know about it—it's not so hard to do! When a real teacher does it in a real classroom, it looks better. We've had better luck in the LS—maybe b/c they're not so tied to content. Teachers in older grades seem to resent being messed with. Single biggest success- when we finally threw projectors into all the classrooms. Some of our more ludite teachers have been fascinated by what they can find in YouTube. 8. We also struggle with what our goals are. When will we find them, when will we be satisfied with the level of integration. It's frustrating to try to find goals with teachers—conversations stall on the list of things that don't work. I think our network manager is a genius and does an awesome job. I'm also a teacher. Teachers have a certain attitude about the tech department, and the tech department has a certain attitude about teachers. 9. Understaffed (like everyone else). One way to get more funding might be: if you give us this, the SAT scores will go up 100 points. They'll in invest in something quantitative—in the business world, ROI. 10. Two aspects- does it help the kids, does th school get a marketing value out of it—esp if the school can take pictures of it. 11. Is a technology slowing down the educational process? If so, it's time to find a new one. 12. Wiki- it has to be a one-at-a-time thing with the teachers. The thing that's the most inspiring was when a teacher would present what they were doing with technology, not the tech people. That is really important. 13. I always come here hoping to be inspired, but… I liked the idea of the Allen November classroom, but I go back to my own classroom. We're mostly finding ways to do what we already do electronically. 14. Blogging this year- blogging server. One dept started 30-40 blogs—by course, by section. Gung ho. Some of them got into the interactivity (comments) whereas others turned it into a place to post PDFs. Start with a few teachers, and go from there. They didn't stop to think about what they would do with it. 15. US faculty- wanted to blog. They were amazed that this would require work on their part—we'll actually have to read this every day? Moderating is work, this is like a journal. They asked for it, and I thought maybe if I gave it to them, it would work, but they didn't know what they were asking for. 16. The two teachers I thought would never, ever blog came to me to ask—they wanted to collaborate across sections. They weren't given time by the adminstration to share with other teachers. 17. Keep making suggestions—they'll find something they like. Build on the successes—one teacher leads another in. You definitely have to have the resources available—if you give a teacher an out (not enough laptops, network bandwidth), excuses become tolerated. Yearly evaluation—technology language gets more powerful every year. Remove the infrastructure/resource issues, and it has to be a requirement somehow. The head of the MS keeps raising the bar every year. In 10 years, it could be a very serious hurdle for teachers to pass. 18. For technology to change what's happening in the classroom, we need to focus on the outcomes… Has anyone articulated what we're looking for? Being more collaborative? 19. I've been using the ISTE NETS standards. I'm working the US tech integration according to these standards—instead of having four photoshop projects, spread out between different skills. I know people in schools don't like to talk about "standards," but in reality the English department has standards, etc. Make clear recommendations to administrators. What are you trying to achieve in the things you're doing with the kids the years you have them? 20. One great way to evaluate is to POLL THE KIDS. Ex- 7th grade blog- what do you think about what you're doing? GREAT! Why? We're learning from each other. It's meeting them where they live. We're in a fortunate position where everyone's behind us now, it's self-justifying in this century. 21. If you look at the old NETS and the new NETS, it's now much more about collaboration and social connections- truth, intelligence. The goals of computers in the classroom have transformed in the last few years… 22. Standards: It's not solely my job to do this. It's part of the classroom. I now look at them every year. These aren't my skills anymore, they're the classroom teacher's skills, but they still look at me. 23. It's more and more about RELATIONSHIPS. I've been working really hard with my department dealing with these issues. Even within our dept. We should set performance standards- 8-10 second tops. If it's more than 10 seconds, they need to be patient. The teachers looking to the tech people to teach basic standards is an administration problem. 24. I can only expect as much of the teachers as their division head expects from them. 25. Our Lower School (and it came from the division head) decided every class should have a web page. Let's do blogs, it will be easy for them to post. We got them all up. First week- we want comments turned off! So… the first year we'll just get content up, and later we'll see if interaction works out. 26. Are our technologies truly transformational? Sometimes you tap into certain learners. The teachers have to accept that. The jury's still out. 27. I think the transformation thing is the humanware—are the people changing. 28. Technology is changing our society 29. But is it changing the way people learn… 30. Depends on policy 31. Teachers have energy and time. If at the end of the day, the teachers have a microphone and it helps them conserve energy… if a SMART Board saves energy… it's valuable. 32. Having the capability to move back and forth from print to video is something that excites teachers. Having it all at their fingertips makes a difference in how they teach. 33. If they can do these things quickly, they have more time for the kids during the day. 34. I appreciate the efficiency factor, but I'm more drawn to the idea that the tools we use most successfully are the ones that connect to the kids deeply. Tools that connect with the way kids live have the most impact. It opens that channel for the content to go through. 35. Holy grail in constructionism- how do you make meaning? Empower kids to learn more on their own and have us act as facilitators? 36. Twitter from Kerri: D 37. Does tech integration force constructivism. Convince faculty as to why tech transforms the tech experience. Give them multiple examples. Why do this instead of handing out papers. Why are you putting this in my way instead of helping me.
 * How to integrate in the content heavy classroom? What are your techniques to get a math/science/English teacher to integrate with their content? This stuff is bigger than one teacher b/c there is a scope and sequence. We need to go with effective learning techniques and technologies, too. What are your success stories?**

1. Part of what happens is that we get caught up in what's new. We've invested in digital cameras, trips, the kids can report on their experience. They write for an audience. See these tools as something where they create content and can have control over what they've done. They can type in their comments- their words, what did that trip to Ellis Island mean to them. Sometimes it's okay to be behind the curve and figure out how to use them well and appropriately in the program. 2. SMARTBoards- not just because of the hardware, but because of the software- it has everything they're looking for. K/1/2/3. The US teachers should go see the LS teachers. Yong children and SMARTBoards- the kids are like "Oh my God!" It draws them right in. When we were first talking about putting them into the classrooms, we said they need to be at kid height—the teachers didn't get that at all at first. 3. Tie it all into google earth. It got the kids involved into something that had been number crunching before. 4. One success: time: second trimester dedicated to projects. Each student picked a country. Got in a cycle of research and reporting. Life ppt, podcasting, blogs. It takes so much time! Luckily we're in independent schools where we don't have to test to standards. It took time. 5. In III-V, we started digital portfolios this year, there is a page that is a blog. We're getting to the point where we're going to publish it all. The teachers are pretty open to it because that's where the reflection happens, and we've had administrative support. Apple gave them 12 .mac accounts (using iWeb). You're going to have an audience in 2 weeks- there's a new seriousness about it. I'm hoping teachers become even more proactive about it once it's live. 6. Digication- web publishing, focus on content. They've been very supportive. It's entirely web-based. We've been really happy with what happened. It's built from a teacher/instructor standpoint. 7. I've had a lot of success w/digital media with the kids. Kindergarten- iPhoto field guide. Second grade- iMovie on the planets. Once teachers get over the worry that they can't do it, they are excited about it. 8. Collaborative script writing on a wiki. 9. Evangelical people in our school- US Biology teacher. A lot of teachers come down saying they want a class website, we say no you don't, here are some options. We had a locally running, older version of a wiki server. Really developing all these ideas on his own; doesn't really consult with us at all. Psychology class where kids prepared a piece, students had to comment on one another's pieces. Linjing back and forth between their works. This guy just got into a lot of things- thinks it's a no-brainer that he should be doing these things. Thinks about how he should integrate technology himself—what would it be like? Not afraid of failing. Last year, in AP CS, we all agreed Moodle wasn’t working—wasn't stable, weren't confident in the system. This year, a wordpress blog for each student—18 years old, they think it's cool that they have access to this linux server. They kept asking questions—finally, took them on a tour of the server room. #1 reason of using this tool over FirstClass was to provide them with something that was visually different. Hard to communicate abstract concepts with MS kids, but with US kids, it looks different, and they can visualize: this is running on another computer/server in the same room, etc. Some kids can't look at a screen and differentiate btw background, icon, etc. These AP CS kids are addicted to innovation- try to get them excited. There's nothing exciting about a drop-box in FirstClass anymore. 10. Set a rule from kids: I'm not going to open an email from you if it doesn't have a subject.
 * Put out one practical thing that worked—best practices:**

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