Monday, July 22, 2013

Video Thoughts/Questions

School communities are all faced with varied levels of staff experience and comfort with technology.

Questions
  1. With varied levels of staff experience, how do we "convince" and train staff on how/when/why should we put technology into the hands of our students?  
  2. Where do we start and how do we develop a community of adult learners who are comfortable, excited and willing to use technology within their classrooms?
"Deep Thoughts" by ________
Please respond 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes and Reflection
 7/22/2013

 TED.com---great deal of videos on education (By Sir Ken Robinson)

  • Can be viewed as Professional Development


Part of Abe Lincoln's quote: "We must rise with the occasion"---"we must act anew"
  • Love this quote...with constant change in school and technology, we as educators must remember to "rise with the occasion" to best meet the needs of students in order to prepare them for the future. 

Time:  Most teenagers don't wear a watch because time is digitized all around them; they see them as a one-dimensional device that's not worth much
  • Interesting concept...I recently lost me watch and it's driving me crazy!  I have to keep reminding myself to look at my phone.  


Education is built on the model of fast food---depletes our spirits and energy as fast food depletes our physical being


Passion--what excites our spirit and energy; when you don't have "passion," time passes slowly and does not feed our pleasures to make us flourish
  • So true.  When we're not engaged or excited about something, time drags on and on and on and on and on and on......  How do we get educators excited about technology without overwhelming them?

Yates Poem: Everyday, everywhere, children spread their dreams beneath our feet so we must tread softly
  • Great reminder to keep every child's "suitcase that they come with" in mind when teaching them.  The little things we do can make and/or break them.  Always remember to tread softly on their dreams.
What can I do in my little world to initiate change in moving to integration of technology? 

  • Exposure, putting the technology in the hands of teachers with targeted PD?  This seems so so simple but doing so creates so many barriers one must overcome.
Possible Books to Read:
"Don't Make Me Think"---ideas on how to create simple, straight forward websites
"The Flat World and Education"
"John Dewey: School and Society: (free on IPad) written long time ago but pretty much tells of future of technology
"Catching Up or Leading the Way" by Yong Zhao








3 comments:

  1. Great questions at the top of your post...I'll let the other experts in the room address it, then weigh in at the end. Good thoughts along the way, especially the "suitcases students bring in with them" to school. I remember a great quote, "you can't teach kids you don't know". So true...

    Good to have you in class!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think you have great questions about education. It is time to change how we do business in education. Isn't the definition of insanity do the same thing and expecting a different outcome?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Holy moly, I love your blog. It's so clean and beautiful! Great work! As for your questions, I remember once I was trying to figure out why I couldn't get a group of adults to do a task. I had taught them the benefits. I had spent all sorts of time showing them how important it was. They had agreed that it was important. I thought that we were done.
    I realized that there were two possibilities:
    1) They didn't really want to do it and had agreed it was important so I would shut up.
    2) They wanted to do it, but didn't know how.
    I started doing one-on-one trainings, not assuming that they knew how to do it. This was very telling. I had assumed too much. As soon as i gave them the tools, they were able to do the task.
    Gotta go! Class is starting!

    ReplyDelete