Emerging+Technologies+-+what+do+I+bring+to+the+classroom+and+what+do+we+leave+outside?

Don - How do other people decide what to bring in the classroom?

He buys hundreds of magazines. He skims all of these and blogs and is on the int. 6-7 hours a day. Info. Is edited in the mags that he reads. Business magazines are really good. He also uses books. He wants to know how else people are going about doing this.

Jane Moore – thought topic for session is about making curricular decisions – considering technology when working with children.

David Lankford – his method uses online sources (fark – college kids talking about tech) and trade shows and conferences. Find out what vendors are beginning to work on. Uses books for learning how to use technology after it’s come out.

Herschel Kaufman – sees what teachers want to do and then sees what can be used. Has vendors come to him to see what they are doing. Created a network of vendors at Apple, Cisco, etc. to see what they are doing.

Everyone is using other means to filter out technologies to see the best. It’s overwhelming.

Marsha Mayer – at Hofstra she talks to kids about what they are using that’s not academic. She also talks to people at bars. Conversations that happen outside of our discipline gives her information. She works from curriculum forward.

One drawback of trade shows is that it’s overwhelming

Judith James – uses listservs and HVLA and ALA conference for ideas. Uses high school students to tell her what they’re using. If she thinks it’s useful, then she tries to get faculty to use the resources.

Does anyone use blogs? Don uses 6 or 7 blogs but finds the magazines more accessible.

Judith uses RSS feeds because then she gets what she’s looking for as opposed to blogs which are a lot to wade through.

David Lankford – do we try to find solutions to teachers’ problems? Or do we think of ourselves as leaders – thinking that we bring new technologies to teachers and get them to use the technology? Leadership vs. practice.

Marsha Mayer – addicted to Moodle. Fosters more responsibility onto faculty for tech. depends on individual – have to assess who you’re speaking to.

Christine Nicolaou – sometimes responds to needs, and sometime she tries to find a way that a new technology can fit into what people are doing. Depends on relationship with faculty.

Herschel – make sure there’s a plan involved before bringing something into the school.

Christine – some things you might not know until you try.

Lisa Scudera – have to know curriculum before you can think about what to use

Judith James – uses curriculum mapping at her school to learn about curriculum

Erin Mumford – curriculum mapping hasn’t been as valuable at her school but that conversations between faculty have been more useful.

Don-- currciulum mapping is a good administrative tool, as an archive. His school tossed it out and now uses a wiki, which is more current.

David-- moodle forum has really facilitated a multi-disciplinary project about the Tapanzee Bridge. Concerned that mapping provides a easy comforter for people; they don't have to look for new technologies.

Francine-- at Allen-Stevenson, they used to have to copy and paste from Word into Rubicon Atlas. They used to have to PRINT their mapseach year; finally that was tossed out. F's map isn't current; she isn't held accountable; she doesn't think other teachers are keeping the maps current as well.

Judith-- Must be top down from administration

Don-- That's why it's an admin tool.

Judith-- There have been drops in the writing scores; the maps were helpful in analyzing why. Though it's not a perfect system.

Marsha-- Her maps are sorta kinda up-to-date; it's for the administration. She wants a program where she can bullet words so that the words will key.

Jane Moore-- Curriculum Mapper does that.

Don-- It's like tagging.

Hilary-- You need to decide on common words or you'll never find it. You need a common language.

Don-- The wiki works because there are teams and themes. Teams meet weekly to decide the curriculum; wikis are updates on the fly. For example, Karen goes to all team meetings for the grades she teaches.

David-- How did you decide to use it

Don-- Because of wikipedia, we decided to use mediawiki (web 2.0 tools)

Herschel-- You need a relationship to provide solutions

Jane-- Is is protected?

Don-- It's behind one password; maybe we should make parts of it public (curriculum maps) and part private (student work)

Marsha-- How is the CIA communicating between departments? How do high tech companies stay connected?


 * Side conversation about how google keeps its employees happy: bagels, wii, and games. (Herschel and Erin have been in!)

Marsha-- would it be worth it to have a conference within our schools?

Don-- It energizes it to bring someone else from the outside; refreshes it for the faculty

Hilary agrees. Same with the students. They don't want to hear us anymore.

Francine-- WIll Richardson impressed but intimidated our faculty. How will we do it? Then, tech teachers paired with homeroom teachers to create a presentation for the rest of the faculty; teachers presented during sessions to other fac members. The day flew by. But for me-- how do you get the K teachers involved and get the Ks using this technology? But how do we find the time? There isn't enough flex time in the schedule.

Hilary-- It depends on the teachers. Some are more willing to integrate or use tech as a discipline of its own.

Erin-- Some teachers need the tech to be just as a means to create a project that supports the content.

Don-- Teachers find their content precious

Francine-- By the time the students to a tech project they are bored.

David-- Teachers make PP and then can just play it on auto. Then they just have to update and deliver. But then they didn't have the projectors. Now they do. Now teachers see PP as a means for the students to deliver projects. The same could be true of podcasts. Move from teachers to students.

Herschel-- Emergent tech: train one teacher and use it as a "model student" approach: other teachers are jealous. Works for us in the LS and US.

Richard Abba-- finds it works best in the MS.

Herschel-- gets the scariest teachers to use the tech. If they're doing it, the other teachers believe they can too.

Marsha-- Has an example that is diametrically opposed: in tech classes, the tech teacher will work with teachers of other disciplines to team teach 2 consecutive classes; use technology as a means to complete projects in the other disciplines.

Herschel-- Can everyone say the best thing you've come across? DILL: Language lab: recording, syncing, correlating.

Don-- [|TUMBLER]: sort of like twitter, uses many kinds of media.

Tracy Tong -- [|www.backpackit.com] to-do lists.

Judith-- aquabrowser. it makes any catalog system like google. does deep content: table of contents, chapter names.

Jane-- [|SCRATCH]