I'm a teacher. I've grown up using the old school learning style. Rote memorization, pencils, paper, neat handwriting, teachers talking, and those wretched lame videos that almost always put people to sleep.
Luckily I have enough sense not to teach that way. I've also been fortunate to be in a school where admin prioritizes technology in the classrooms. We have projectors, laptops, and in my case, a 1:1 program. 1 student to 1 laptop. Basically, each kid gets a laptop. Which is awesome. when it works.
You see, what good is technology if it doesn't work? isn't that just a step backwards? if the technology doesn't work, the kids get frustrated with it because what they have at home is better and faster. The problem, i found, wasn't my school, or my machines (indirectly). The problem lay with the district. Why on earth wouldn't they hire more techies to be able to come into the schools to solve the technology problems? Isn't it a priority for them?
I could easily put in a ticket, and then wait for days and days before it even gets addressed. Seriously, days and days? for a Computer? that's like the bullet train going down and sending a crew to inspect it a month later!!! Damage is done.
Technology is great, and it can be so useful. When it works.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think it is a logistical problem requiring a leap of faith. The more people use technologies to take the place of existing resources, the more it MUST be supported.
ReplyDeleteThe bullet train has literally replaced older slower trains between Amsterdam and Paris, to continue with your analogy. Today if anything should happen to this route, it is immediately looked at, as so many people depend on it.
If more teachers make the leap, and start doing radical things like phasing out textbooks and doing their teaching and their assessment through things like virtual classrooms, then they run the risk of not having a fully operational class if there are technical difficulties. However if your teaching depends on the technology, then the district has to support you as you can't do your job without this support. Unfortunately, the "you" can't just be you. It has to be a much larger number of teachers who have also bought in, until incorporating the Internet becomes the standard of educational excellence.
Convince more teachers to take the leap, and the district will have to leap after you. The time is coming. But pioneers of all kinds face adversity. You are one of those pioneers. Keep the faith. No one ever erected a statue to those that followed the trail that someone else blazed long before they got there.
PS. I feel your pain.
James Gill said it best. We definitely have a chicken-and-egg situation here. We do need this to change, but do we shift the resources before or after the change. Either way, someone is going to be upset--the technological pioneer or the teacher holding on to pencil, paper, and memorization. Given that resources are and will remain very limited, this looks to be the case for some time...
ReplyDelete