Jan 2nd, 2012
by Mr. Salsich.
I guess I’m a “techy” teacher. I finally accepted the label – given to me by co-workers – sometime in the past year, but I’m still a little surprised by the fact. After all, I had never been on the Internet until after I received my undergraduate degree and it wasn’t until I started teaching (about 7 years ago) that I really began to learn about computers and technology.
How did I get to be here?
Now technology is completely integrated into my life, and more importantly, into my instruction. How did this happen? I never took any classes about how to use technology in class, I never read a book on the subject, nobody sat down with me and walked me through the steps of how to use a blog (or a wiki, Twitter, Facebook, etc.). So how did I learn all of the technology I use in my instruction and in my online collaborations with teachers? I learned it on my own.
Well, kind of…
I have had minimal PD (professional development) on how to integrate technology into instruction, but much of that has been superficial, focusing on how to adapt old lessons into “new” ones using some specific web tool. However, one technology PD session did have a big impact on me. David Warlick spoke to the entire faculty a few years back and the main idea I got from his presentation was this: Students are using the internet to learn how to do anything they want to do. He was speaking primarily about middle school and high school students, but I figured the same would be true for me as well. So, I started using the internet to learn how to do what I wanted to do – blog, make videos, make podcasts, publish student work, etc. Of course it wasn’t easy, but I wanted to learn it so I did. (That is key – my learning was self-directed.)
I quickly realized that if I had a question about how to do something, chances were that thousands of other people had already had the same question, and perhaps a dozen or even hundreds had left tips and instructions that answered my specific question. I just had to use critical thinking skills to locate the information on the Internet. In that way, I wasn’t actually learning on my own, I was learning from hundreds of people that I had never met.
Now, after a few years of tinkering with technology, I’m involved with a few committees that are looking into ways to increase technology integration into instruction. The thing that occasionally surprises me about these meetings (and about tech integration in general) is how often everything comes back to PD. If we are talking about the possibility of using Edmodo (just as an example – it could be wikis, blogs, etc.), inevitably the response is, “Well, the teachers need PD first.” Why? I don’t get it.
Why can’t teachers transfer their learning?
I think it’s safe to say that all teachers, regardless of the state or district, have had PD in some web 2.0 tool. Maybe it was blogging, or wikis, or even just how to use the school’s email account. My feeling is, if a teacher can do a few basic computer skills (format in MS Word, copy and paste, attach a document to an email or upload a photo, and perhaps add a hyperlink) they should be able to transfer that knowledge across various internet programs.
Teachers sometimes express surprise when a student can’t write a response to a question that is virtually the same as one they answered the day before simply because it is worded differently. Yet teachers can’t apply what they know about Facebook (or shutterfly, gmail, youtube, etc.) to use edmodo or a wiki? I’m not saying they should be able to master a new program immediately – like anything new it takes time, but they should have the flexibility of thinking to apply what they already know. If teachers can’t transfer their knowledge, how are they going to teach students to do so?
I understand that time and countless other responsibilities are often the hurdles for teachers to integrate more technology into their instruction, but that’s a topic for another time (Kathleen Morris has a great post about overcoming obstacles to tech integration.) What I’m wondering is whether we teachers know how to transfer our technological knowledge and use the Internet to actively seek answers to questions on our own. In other words, are we independent learners?
Dependent on PD
I suspect that the main reason many teachers don’t transfer their knowledge and actively seek answers to their questions about tech is that they simply aren’t very interested in learning it. The key to David Warlick’s statement is that people can leverage the internet to learn anything they want to learn. But let’s put that aside for now and assume for the sake of argument that teachers need to learn how to use tech whether they want to or not. Why do they often profess helplessness and state that they can’t learn it without PD?
If we expect our students to use “critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making” (ISTE student nets 4) and “apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes” (ISTE student nets 1.a), shouldn’t we be able to do the same as teachers? If we can’t apply these skills in our own learning, how can we teach our students to use them?
Besides the lack of time and/or motivation, I’m beginning to wonder if teachers really know how to learn new skills independently. We come from a system of education where everything was fed to us. As a student (even through my master’s degree), if I was told I needed to learn something there was a clear process I had to go through to learn it; sign up (and pay) for the right course with the available expert, buy some textbooks, go to class, follow directions, and collect my credits to show that I had learned it. Most PD follows a similar process (although greatly abbreviated).
So that is the paradigm that teachers have for their own learning – they feel that they need to be learn, especially where learning about technology is concerned. But how would they know this new way of learning if it’s rarely been modeled for them? And if this is how they view their own learning, can we really expect them to teach students how to be independent learners?
A different kind of PD?
So perhaps instead of endless PD sessions for each “new” technology or different web application, teachers need PD on how to be self-directed learners. I’m not exactly sure what this would entail, but it could start with learning how to do an efficient web search – not just Google, but YouTube and other video sites for tutorials. I think it is also vital that the similarity between applications is emphasized so that teachers begin to understand that they can transfer their learning. I think specific skills such as these are necessary to help teachers begin to become more self-directed learners, but ultimately it is a shift in thinking.
Learners are no longer dependent on learning directly from an expert, the information is literally at their fingertips, they just need to know how to access it. And most important, learners of all ages need to be the drivers of their learning. Just like our students, teachers need to seek answers through active exploration. Again, if we are not independent learners, how can we expect our students to be?
This article gave me a lot to think about as I reflected on my own experiences as a student in high school and university as well as my practices when I was in the classroom as a mathematics teacher. In my current role as vice-principal, I support teachers and students with using technology as a tool to learning and teaching.
I remember using a typewriter to type my essays in both high school and university. It was only when I was in the faculty of education that I used a computer to type my assignments. I found it far superior since I could make changes after the initial paper was composed. Previously, I would write everything by hand and then type it out. It would not be long afterwards that I would sit in front of the computer and compose my thoughts and edit as I went along.
Although we had access to the Internet, I resisted getting an e-mail account from the university. It was in 1995, as part of my B.Ed. science education class that the professor encouraged us to continue class discussions on-line using First Class. I became addicted to being on-line, quickly figuring out how much learning took place through reading and replying to posts – which expanded my own perspectives on teaching and learning. I checked numerous times each day to see if I had an e-mail sent to me.
I still remember the huge main frame computers in the university computer labs. I took 2 half courses in computer programming, learning SAS and Fortran. I took a night course at York University on Numerical Methods and had to write computer programmes to solve mathematical questions/problems. Everyone in the class used C+ programme, while I used Fortran. In 2nd year, I had to learn MAPLE software to solve 1st and 2nd year calculus and linear algebra questions/problems. No longer could I memorize my way through as writing computer programmes required logical reasoning and application of concepts. I struggled with the MAPLE course.
Desperate to be employed as a newly-minted teacher, my first position was at an all-girls independent school teaching grades 7, 8, and 10 advanced computer studies in 1996 (in addition to a split grades 8/9 mathematics class – back in the days of destreamed!). I had to take an additional qualifications course at University of Toronto and learned Turing, which has similar structure to Fortran. It was a steep learning curve teaching computer studies as I had to teach students QuickBasic programming (similar to Turing and Fortran), spreadsheets, databases, and HTML web page design. I learned a lot from teaching computer studies and enjoyed it a lot. I had to be a “student” at all times as I had prior experience with these computer hardware and software. I had to learn by doing. Fortunately, I had a trusted colleague who taught senior computers and he answered my questions without making me feel inadequate.
When I became redundant after 1 year, I applied to every board of education in Ontario, taking the first job offered to me – Belleville. It was full-time mathematics position and the principal said I was #7 in queue to teach computer studies (which I wanted as well). I put to good use my experiences using Geometer’s Sketchpad software and TI-graphing calculators. Ontario did not purchase provincial license for the Geometer’s Sketchpad software yet nor did ministry providing funding for graphing calculators yet. I invited my principal to observe a graphing calculator lesson and he was so impressed with how students were actively engaged in exploring mathematical concepts that he used school funds to purchase a class set of graphing calculators.
Throughout my 15 years as a mathematics teacher, I used the technology as a tool towards developing deeper conceptual understanding. Worksheets were created with the availability of print resources and numerous conferences/workshops attended. I was enthusiastic to use the technology since I saw students transformed from passive to active learners. Students who were disrupted in traditional teacher-directed lessons “ate” the technology learning episodes. I have wonderful memories of students “dragging” a vertex in Geometer’s Sketchpad to observe what happens, my 9 applieds become so proficient in using graphing calculators to create scatterplots, and my grade 9s using CBR motion detectors to “Match It” graph activity. The problem solving and communication that occurred – wow!
Reading the article, I must ask myself, “Was I ready for the explosion in technology?” My answer is “No”. When I was a young teacher (I’m still young at heart and students “complain” that I have the mind of a 14 year old!), I remember being told at a conference if teachers wanted to engage students, use music. Now a-days, it’s through technology. I remember students using iPods in class to listen to music and had cell phones – they now have Blackberries (I just upgraded my cell phone to a Blackberry last month and love it!). Why is it students who are disruptive and disengaged (I see them in my office daily as a vice-principal), are producers and consumers of technology – they use blogs, Facebook, create web pages, and have written video game programmes? We have a lot of teaching to the 21st century – technology definitely does that.
The question posed in the article: “Students are using the Internet to learn how to do anything they want to do” is so true. For myself, I must ask when was the last time I used a paper dictionary or thesaurus in my work? Google is so important in my work – I can find anything on the Internet! But I need to know the reliability of the source. As educators, we must explicitly teach students to critically think in order to locate the information needed.
With the 21st century classroom, we must ask ourselves what are the “big ideas” we want from our students. What’s nice in Ontario is we assess students using 4 categories of the achievement chart. As a mathematics student, the focus was on skills and procedures. With the 4-year curriculum in the late 1990s, knowledge is 1 (or 4) categories – we need to also assess students’ application, communication, and thinking. Communication and thinking are key – if students can communicate, they understand. Memorization can only get you so far – as I found out in 4th year undergraduate mathematics!
I regret not using Smartboards when I was in the classroom. For some reason, I was and continue to be intimidated by it. Yet, I observed many teachers using Smartboards which actively engaged our kinaesthetic learners. I also never used a class Moodle, which I see many teachers at my current school using. This reiterates that learning can happen 24-7. Also, I don’t use Facebook (and are told not to use it with students) – as vice-principal, I have dealt with students bad mouthing each other, causing conflict.
I love learning and am a life-long learner. I never would have anticipated how technology has exploded. I have embraced technology as a tool for teaching and learning. To do so otherwise would mean disconnect between students and teachers. Also, students have taught me a lot – technology transforms teacher from knowledge provider to facilitator in the learning process – we have lots to learn from each other. I love blogging (have maintained a running blog for a few years). I also love Tweeting. The hope is these tools are integrated into the classroom – not something that is done outside of school.
Next goal: Learn the benefits of iPad. I used my annual PD funds to purchase an iPad2 – everyone raves about it and says it’s the apps that make it amazing.
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