Are we ready?
by Antonio
It really is a simple question, isn’t it? Are we ready? Are our schools, teachers, administrators truly ready to stop talking about teaching and learning in the 21st century and instead, start actually doing IT? I have been thinking about this quite a bit recently, and an email from a colleague prompted me to revisit Wordpress and finish my reflection on this question. He claims he is on a personal mission to “Get folks to re-think the use of the word technology as it is currently applied in school.” He says “Here at Urban, it’s all about how to improve the learning experience/learning community and NOT about learning to use technology.” Powerful right? And I can see where he is coming from when he says that his “given title is NOT Technology Director, rather Director of Digital Tools and Practices that Support, Enhance, and Extend the Teaching and Learning Process.” Brilliant. There is a paradigm shift for you. Put that job title in your ad in the newspaper or on Carney Sandoe next time you are looking to fill a technology leadership position. For those of you who know or have had the opportunity to work with Howard Levin over at Urban, you know that he means it and is actually delivering on it.
I blogged earlier in the summer that the warm (albeiet not so warm this summer) months are where I find the best time to refuel the creative tank and get my own brain thinking and churning in new ways. It’s when I find the time to try new ways of working personally like my recent re-adoption of Evernote, which is fantastic by the way! To spending time reading, researching and engaging with my extended network of colleagues through a variety of social networks online and in person. And as the summer starts to turn the corner, it dawned on me that through all of these conversations, it isn’t that we can’t engage in new models of teaching and learning, and it isn’t even that some of us haven’t, with success. I have come to believe that the issue is that as institutions and living organizations, the reality is that unless the critical mass is ready, we will have but small and modest success in rethinking how our schools should look. By critical mass I mean a majority of the people in our schools must embrace a new way of looking at themselves as teachers and professionals. They need to embrace the notion that their roles have changed. As Wendy Drexler put it in her wonderful video “The Networked Student” are teachers going to start seeing themselves as synthesizers of knowledge, connected learning incubators, modelers and information sherpas? Or will they continue to see themselves as content driven authorities who must cover material in order to reach the “end” of the book?
If you take Howard’s comment that his role is NOT about integrating technology but about leading the use of digital tools and practices that enhance, extend AND support the teaching and learning process, you need to be ready to rethink what technology means in your school. You need to be looking at resources like Creative Commons so that you can reassess how students understand the use and remixing of content. You need to be engaged in the conversation about how your graduates obtain and demonstrate the skills needed for our “new media culture” and the media literacies that will be required to not only be successful in the workplace, but to become thoughtful, creative citizens. Your curriculum committees need to be reading the work of Henry Jenkins and his work in New Media Literacies and your humanities departments need to see themselves as HUMANITIES departments and not isolated islands. They must engage in a rethinking of what the New Humanties are and explore the work of Richard Miller at Rutgers University.
It is simply not enough for us to sit back and start having conversations about this brave new world. It’s here and we better start doing something, because I for one don’t think we have the luxury to wait around and keep talking about it.
Photo Credit: Pete Ashton
Comments
Antonio,
I couldn’t agree with you more. So much time and potential is wasted in musing over the integration and implementation of technology within the educational process. It’s as if technology were merely a fad and that if we discuss it long enough it will simply disappear.
I must not dwell on the negative though. We are making progress, overcoming inertia, and spreading the seeds of change at our school but it does take time and it is as Jim Collins’ puts it, “This is the power of the flywheel. Success breeds support and commitment, which breeds even greater success, which breeds more support and commitment-round and around the flywheel goes. People like to support winners!”
I do wonder however, what will happen to those schools who fail to deal with your question? Our students don’t have the luxury of waiting for their teachers to be ready because the world will just move on.
Cheers!
Obviously, speaking from 9 years into the 21st century, we are NOT ready to start “doing it”. I find this so frustrating (or could one tell?) Administrators think it is all about the tech tools while it is really all about learning. Possibly a total collapse of the American educational public school systems will get someone’s attention. Just watched a video on another blog in which Obama says we can transform our schools and we will transform our schools. I disagree. We can but we won’t.
I live and work amongst people who think using (abusing?) FaceBook is all they need to do. No, I don’t think we are, or ever will be, ready to stop talking and start doing.
I think that we are a critical juncture where those who are willing and able to break new ground will and I believe that once a school has reached a critical mass, their ability to become innovative grows exponentially. The key is that schools must create conducive environments where the most creative and most trail blazing of their faculty can flourish.
Yes. Teaching is a verb. I’m not a teacher, I teach.
You know how I feel about ‘new media literacies’. The notion of improvisation (remixing, creating mashups, following ideas along different contexts…) taking risks, having to negotiate, have conversations to create meaning, all of these create a large part of the context in which I teach because they play a large role in my students’ lives and because they make learning active – they raise the velcro on the brain so new learning can stick – but I would not call them literacies. They are the context, the ground, they make up the environment, and sometimes they are the tools we use within the context.
I have always used student background as an important part of my planning process each year and that is one reason why collaborative technologies play an important role in the learning in my classroom – I always end up with the very social, impulsive learners
But I’d say that the most important reason for collecting data on student background (along with ability) has to do with relationship. I continue to learn – both in my own growth as well as my students – that relationship is the number one factor in learning. Of course it needs to be partnered with good solid teaching but without relationship, bah, they don’t care about the learning. They need to know I care about them and their interests. Luckily, I really do.
And you know what? Many good teachers are doing. We may not always hear about it because they aren’t talking about it, they are too busy doing. But if you look for them, you will find them. Of course, if you decide to point your efforts to finding those who aren’t, you’ll find them too. We do tend to find what we are looking for.
Continue to be a verb, and action happens.
“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.”
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)
Tracy, I totally agree. Continue to be a verb, and action will in fact happen. I find the social networking aspect of my personal learning network is much deeper and far richer than it was prior fully embracing these tools. Regardless of how we see the work, what is reassuring is that the conversation about what good teaching and learning should look like is giving way to actual changes in teaching practice and student experience. Thanks for sharing your thoughtful reflection and pushing my own thinking on the subject.
Antonio.
I am completely agree with you. We are on the age of technology. Where technology touches every part of our life. So why not the teaching process??
Am I wrong??
This is the right time to accept the truth rather than arguing.
wildernessprogramsetc.com
Yes, of course technology touches the teaching process! I love how that line is written. Touches the teaching process. There is no argument about that.
Many thanks for the thoughtful contributions and comments! I was recently engaging in a conversation on Facebook with a colleague about the thesis of an article which appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The article found here http://chronicle.com/article/Teach-Naked-Effort-Strips/47398/ highlights a college professor who is urging his colleagues to teach without using technology such as PowerPoint. He contends that the use of such technology stifles discussion and debate.
While I agree that Powerpointlessness is a problem, what I think the article fails to address is that using 21st century tools with 20th century teaching methods is bound to fail. It would be like asking a doctor to perform cutting edge heart surgery using the latest technology but outdated surgical techniques. Bottom line, boring is boring. With or without technology.
So the way I see it. Technology must touch the classroom. But more importantly, it can help us shift the way we teach as well as the way students learn.
Yes. That’s why I loved how Kiara put it – it must touch process and process must constantly be examined, critically.
I totally agree!