Integration in 3000

Information technology has changed the face of education today. In the past, the teacher was the focus of information in the classroom. When technology is integrated in today’s classrooms, students are the focus and the creators, synthesizers and collaborators of massive amounts of information. I spent the past 3 years integrating technology in curricula from K-12 for North Penn School District. Technology is an actively engaging medium for instruction. It offers students immediate feedback and interaction on any level. Google offers a suite of applications that mimic Microsoft Office. A teacher can generate a Google form that collects student data and displays it automatically as the data is entered. The same activity can be conducted offline with a student response system. Students respond to a posted question using a hand-held device and the answers can be reported in a variety of formats. Integrating technology in this manner allows students to generate and synthesize their own data and solutions creating an authentic learning environment, providing teachers with quick formative assessment.

Integrated technology offers a high degree of differentiation. There is no wrong way of expressing creativity or mastery of a concept when the technology allows students to choose the format best suited to their learning styles. There are numerous web 2.0 applications that enable students to express their knowledge in a variety of media. Animated avatars, Prezi and Animoto are web based applications that actively integrate technology in any subject. Avatars are speaking animations that can be used to practice accents with foreign languages or give a book talk instead of a written review. Replace the textbook chapter on early explorers; students can research them and design an avatar to speak about their lives and discoveries. Prezi is a web based program that produces a dynamic presentation concentrating the focus through zoom and perspective to create impact on the audience with visuals and text. Animoto creates free, professional looking videos. This type of technology enables students to create a product that is professional in appearance and easy to use. The focus of these sites is content. The website produces the video. The most powerful point to integrating technology in all grade levels is to encourage early users and freedom of thought. Give students the tools and freedom to create what they know. As a technology integrator, my greatest success is to instill in students a craving for creativity beyond the norm.

Technology integration starts with teachers and administrators. It is not an addition to a lesson but a new way of organizing a lesson to fit the needs of students and content. Web 2.0 sites, Google, Microsoft Office, podcasting, multimedia projects and wikis are excellent tools to help shape original, perpetual digital natives that will communicate, collaborate and create for the real world.

I had 3000 characters to explain how information technology could be integrated into instruction and curriculum...it took two days and two people to pare down what could be said. We did not say it all, but we did scratch the surface.

Sometimes they just don’t know what they want.

“I want to do something fun with the computers” is a standard request in my job. So what do you make of that?

My first question back is “Well, what are you doing in your curriculum?” And more often than not, the teacher looks perplexed…the curriculum?

It isn’t the computers that make the learning fun. You know that right? It is the lesson created that should make the learning interesting and connected. The computers or laptops or minis are just a tool to extend that learning. Sometimes teachers just don’t know what they want.
Now let me take what you are actually doing in the classroom and make it 100% better, 100% related to the real world, 100% global if possible. Share your work. Collaborate and learn from someone else. Give up the power of instruction!

What happens when students generate their own problem and then solve it? They absolutely learn the objective of the lesson. They take creativity to a new level. They have the ability to design and implement if we give them the chance to do it. Don’t give them every requirement for a project. Give them only the means to achieve that product. Show them how to use some technology…how to collaborate on Google docs or edit a wiki or film a video and edit it in some software. Then let them choose how best to represent what they have learned. Would you rather grade 30 essays answering the same question in the same manner or would you rather grade projects that demonstrate an expansion of learning beyond the standard presented?
The idea is that if you are creating something that will represent your knowledge and understanding beyond the classroom that the end product will be better than what is produced for a rubric to be assessed by one person.

You don’t really want something fun to do on the computers, you want your students to enjoy learning and producing something that represents their skills and understanding beyond your classroom walls.

So what are you doing in your curriculum that expands your students’ learning experience?

Happy 2011 New Year.
This post is based on the quote by Randy Taran. The post refers to what we pay attention to grows. This new year a resolution of mine that is occupationally based is that I will pay attention to what is working and not focus so much on what is not working. I will focus on what teachers are doing with tech that is maybe an old practice done in a new way. I will focus on growing that old practice into a new practice done in a new way.

Many of the Elementary school teachers that we work with ask us for assistance with power point or excel or word. This is what they know, but they do not know it well enough to encourage their students to create using it. They want a new way to do an old practice. I come in and show them a new way to do vocabulary or a new way to display research findings or a new way to review unit content or a new way to discuss what was read that day. New ways are the seed. It is a good seed to plant. My focus will be sowing these little seeds so that other teachers will hear, "That was so easy to do. What else can we do?"

We have to start somewhere. Teachers have a small window of time for experimentation. Most teachers have zero time for experimentation, so it takes us, as coaches, to plant that seed of technology. To take that new way of doing something familiar and saying watch...and grow this. It can be done. You can do it. Your students will help you. We will help you. Let's focus on what can be done and is being done, no matter how small a step it is. Technology is more than just a new way of doing something old. It is growing in a direction that is new: a new way of instructing and a new way of learning.

My Own Little World

Simply said...stop motion and a kid.

http://youtu.be/YP5mYOzOvCs

Let them go...

What up...Tuesday? That's right. I'm branching out a little early this week. We have been back on the elementary school circuit lately and I've heard some interesting comments and some comments that were borderline offensive. Winner for this week...right, I know it's only Tuesday...and the winner is: "So if the school district is trying to cut money, how come there are three of you?"

Believe it. That was said directly to all three of our faces with no twitching of the speaker involved. Frankly, I was appalled that someone would have the gall to be so rude in public in regards to someone else's position in the district. On a whole other plane, there are three of us and that still isn't enough. Previous to this statement, the very same individual quizzed us on a variety of tech topics and software. We clearly held value at that point.

So let's go back to the original statement...with a district cutting budgets why would there be three academic integration coaches. Here is my theory on why we need at least three...
What is an academic integration coach? That is a fancy term for technology integrator. We take the paper tasks and make them extraordinary without the paper. "I can make that 100% better." Jason said this about two weeks ago in the office without even looking at the task at hand. What he failed to mention is that he can do it without using any kind of paper at all and the ultimate benefit...his students will be doing it too and better than any way that we could have instructed them to do so with paper involved. He has yet to do anything under 100% better...it really is a bit repulsive but inspiring. So reason #1 for why the district benefits from three academic integration coaches...we are cutting budgetary needs by providing alternative instruction methods. Going paperless...it can be done. And for the ultra tech resistent...we offer a going less paper alternative.

Reason #2...we are the resident experts on anything technology related. You need training in Word/Excel which is new to the district this year? Coaches can do that training. You need assistance with the new testing program purchased by the district this year? Coaches can provide that technology assistance. You need a cable for your board? It's a rumor that Jason knows how to do this...coaches have that covered too. If we don't know how to do it, we sure know who to contact that does. You want to show 3rd graders with an attention span of approximately 9 minutes how to use power point because the Easy Tech program is a one page lesson on power point...sure, we can do that and do it with the curriculum you are teaching that week. Nonlinear power point...bring it! The age of our students this year ranges from 7 to 60 roughly. How many professionals deal with that range of clientelle in a week? It is our job to meet the technological needs of anyone in our district...first grader to high schooler, teacher to administrator to adminstrative assistants and classroom aides. We do it all and we can make them feel comfortable doing it as well.

Technology is a dynamic entity. It constantly evolves and becomes smaller, faster and better. It is visual and stimulating and can provide immediate feedback on information created or consumed. So why does the district need three coaches? In our office, we all have our own niche. I am the primer. I educate and break down the nerd so that teachers and students can use it successfully. Scott is all about getting the tech into the hands of the district. Give a kid the opportunity and equipment and learn from them. Jason is the idea. He is who drives the vision of true 21st century learning and skills. All three of us, together, make the vision happen. The district needs the coaches to be 21st century interpreters for a staff that is desperately trying to keep up with the standards and rigor of the real world.

So, what will I say next time I hear someone say...how come there are three of you? I'm going to say we act as one so that you can be the one to introduce your students to a new way of thinking outside of the classroom and off the paper.

Backlog

I am finally sitting down to do my blog. I cannot say that I’m excited. I read Jason, the King of Blog’s entry…then I heard Scott’s idea for an entry and my writer’s block got higher and higher and higher and…well, you get the point.
There was something that Scott said though that has seeded itself in my brain: he said his post was going to focus on the fact that technology doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. Based on that theory alone…a tiny chip of light has made it through my writer’s block for this entry.
I’m not going to make excuses for taking so long to do this. The bottom line in reviewing my week as an academic integrator is that we are extraordinarily busy. Busy is good, but how productive have we been in encouraging people to “Do” for themselves what we do for them. Let me make that a bit clearer.
We planned our awesome inservice training for October 11th. It is so progressive and well designed, it will run itself. The best slogan to come from that planning session is IT’S NOT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY. There was more to the slogan than that, but if you think about it, that is all you need to say. It isn’t the technology that makes the lesson, it’s the independent learning that takes place because of it. It isn’t the technology that stimulates student interest, it’s what they are DOING with their learning that motivates. It’s not the technology that provokes higher level thinking and collaborative skills, it is the individuals USING it…DOING and SHARING and SHOWING and GROWING what they know with more than just their teacher and classmates.
Technology is not a noun…it’s a verb…an action verb. Just do it.
My goal for next week will be to treat technology as a verb.

Hit me over the head, please.

What up Wednesday? I'm trying to stick to my web Wednesday plan. So what is up this Wednesday? Excel is up. My week ended last week with Excel and started this week with Excel and here it is the middle of the week...and guess what? Still Excel. I have never opened Excel as much as I have these past two weeks.

The week started with a district support staff training on advanced Excel topics. Scott Swindells and I combined sessions so that we could troubleshoot and support each other rather than go it alone. As it turns out I was hit over the head this weekend and needed the extra body help to present. We covered some serious Excel work in our sessions: tables, charts, mail merge graphing, formulas, formatting and other extras. Some topics went more smoothly than others and we helped everyone as the questions popped up. The questions we could not answer directly, sometimes someone else from the group who uses Excel every day had the answer. It turned out to be an excellent use of best practices. Scott and I sometimes presented something in the very standard step by step approach and then someone in the group would speak up and relate a shorter way to accomplish the same task. It was training powered by experience...and it worked.

After our lunch break we got to kick back with the security staff and some basic Word and Outlook skills. There has not been one security guard at the high school that I have seen since that session that has not told me that they learned something from my class. I think they truly did not expect to get anything from a tech workshop. Imagine! There was actually one person that stayed later to try to figure out something because he had an immediate use for it at home. Technology beyond the school walls...anyone can do it with the proper training AND it does not exist only at school/work.

So the week started out a little hectic, but working together and using real world examples to promote the learning seemed to make all things right again. And to complete my "Excel"ing for the week, I created a basic learning model to be followed by 6th graders. Going from Advanced to eager to elementary learners...it is quite a diverse grouping with this job. Sometimes the juggling changes from beanbags to chainsaws and back again all in the same day. So what have I learned this week? I learned that it is okay to see things from a different perspective other than my own. That people do not always focus on what is accomplished but on what is not accomplished. That there will always be someone who learns in a classroom, and that the learning does not have to originate with me. The learning could come from something the person next to you says, or another presenter or simply yourself...maybe you were looking at the answer all along.

More importantly, I have finally reached the point to where I can open up Excel and not cringe...hit me over the head...it isn't nearly as evil a program as I always imagined it to be. See...I learned something too.