STSD Curriculum & Technology Update

Regular updates and musings on curriculum and technology in the Salisbury Township School District in Allentown, PA.

The New Face of Learning

The power of technology derives from the people using it.  The new face of learning calls into question a rethinking of learning spaces that cross traditional boundaries. Students collaborate and build networks with the new basics. When was the last time you created a mobile podcast or tracked the blogosphere with your cell phone? Do you check your gmail daily? Which RSS web feed do you use? Checked out newer browsers - Firefox, Opera (mobile and device versions too), or Safari - which offer RSS support? Used online bookmarkers to aggregate and access all your website favorites? VODcast or semablogged lately? Created web tags? Have a mobile home? Chances are your students do, and that’s part of the problem. WE teach and THEY learn differently. Whether we like it or not, these cool tools are part of the expanding new literacy and we need to teach in the 21st century, moving toward the new basics.

Will Richardson asks, “What happens to time-worn concepts of classrooms and teaching when we can now go online and learn anything, anywhere, anytime?” He embeds his answer inside his question: “time-worn concepts.” Worn is not an essentially negative concept (think antiques, age-added value), but in the sub-text of this discussion, Richardson beg us to rethink as educators our own time-worn concepts and methodologies. And we resist, frequently with the full support of a district’s “block and bust” handbook. A district’s philosophy exists for sound, protective reasons, with the students’ health and safety foremost. But - and that conjunction is a huge separator between what is and what could be - we need to forge sustainable ways to implement technology, and we could begin by using the tools students carry in their pockets.

Last year in Denver at the T + L2 Conference, Hall Davidson, in his keynote address, Media for Motivated Minds, implored administrators and encouraged educators to shift the education paradigm to teach the way students learn best: with the devices they carry in pockets and purses. DEN Network Specialist Steve Dembo‘s webinar, Teaching with the Technology Tools of the New Generation, explored then-emerging ways a simple camera phone with Internet access can become a valid educational tool. Can a district implement a policy that enables students to learn with their own “textbooks”? Some already have.
Randy asks truly provocative questions: How will this shift impact our district? Our students? Us? Our district already feels the impact as we move forward proactively to implement a five-year district-wide Technology Plan. One of our most immediate challenges for the high school is the preparation for Pennsylvania’s Classrooms of the Future grant, a process requiring extensive in-service training for teachers with the grant technology, as well as developing technology integration in existing curricula. Pennsylvania has already begun the process of requiring NETS standards in all curricula. Most of our students know more about technology than we, as educators, know or use. That imbalance often intimidates us. Why not harness that skill base and learn from our students. For students not included in the most students category, Pennsylvania’s grant initiative levels the playing field, giving all students equal access to online learning. Is this concept not a moral imperative. Now we come to us, the educators - the aha moment of truth. We have the largest distance to bridge if we continue to teach in the 21st century. So, my question is, How do we begin?

Simply, I think. The first step is a self-inventory. Without asking where the technology will come from, or how you will budge me out of any computer lab (just ask and I’ll share or give it up), or without collapsing into the my-subject-can’t-integrate-technology response, just ask yourself Will Richardson’s question. Keep asking it until you are comfortable with a self-assessment: does my classroom methodology have just one time-worn approach that I can upgrade? Then ask yourself how technology could help your update. Think of it (if you’re female) as a wardrobe update: what can I add to change the look of my outfits? What new accessory could really update my look? Then ask someone for help. When I think of the long list of people who have helped me in my journey toward computer literacy, I realize that the list began with two students: Eric Gratz and Melanie Rutkowski. Debbie Green, former SHS technologist, helped me create my first two websites and Matt Meron, ‘06, created my current website. Michele Cotugno found my message board and uploaded my website for years, often several times a day. Now I am an independent learner, and I can do it myself, online directly. Chris Smith (scroll link to Our Focus - High Definition Authentic Learning) wears a halo you can see if you look closely; he survived all my help-me sessions and earned a much-deserved promotion. Tom Smith continues the family tradition and helps me as I move into new ground. Recently, I have even been helping faculty, and isn’t that the way it should be. There’s a lot of help out there; you just need to ask.

The second step is to take the leap and try it. Forget failure, or view it the way I do: a learning opportunity. I have never really learned from my successes in the same way I learn from things that didn’t work. Finally, realize that our students are amazingly generous human beings with a huge capacity to support our initiatives. I tell them when I am leaping into the unknown, the unfamiliar, and I ask them to come along and help me in the process. Somewhere in your classes you have real technology experts and you can ask them to help. They even teach well. Last year, Dan Lebo taught his Honors English class video editing and the finer points of Google Earth. Zack Creveling linked last year’s IP presentations on his website. The year before, Dan Lischner was my go-to technologist. This year, I am amazed by the number of students in each of my classes who are tech savvy; I use them as support networks in lab classes and they are wonderful resources. Take a simple step. Make a beginning.

David Warlick asks the question, What should a classroom look like in the Year 2015? I’d rather ask all of us what our classrooms will look like in the next five years?