A post from D'Arcy resonated with an effort I am thinking of starting next year to promote the sharing of classroom technology activities among teachers from different grade levels. D'Arcy links to the Viral Professional Development project, where Jennifer Jones writes:

The primary goal of VPD is to grow a culture of sharing, where instructors learn from each other and spread the knowledge throughout the organization.

This is exactly what I have in mind. While our school is tiny compared to a university, teachers nonetheless work primarily within their own division (elementary, middle, high school). Yet, we have teachers at all different grade levels investigating technology in a similar manner. What potential exists for the use of multiple media, small handheld recorders, and social web tools. We even have one who has carried his technological toolset from the high school to the elementary.

Teachers do not have a lot of common time to spend talking face-to-face, especially across school divisions. They have a lot more opportunity to interact online, to complement and enhance occasional in-person meetings. As I learned from Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, I need to find a half dozen or so who will form a committed core group to keep the momentum going. Ewan McIntosh stresses the importance of getting the technological part right the first time.

I'll give this a try in the late summer and early fall. Building Learning Communities ought to build my enthusiasm to put some effort into this.

Postscript: July 6, 2008

A recent presentation by Konrad Glogowski well articulates the online portion of this.



tags: professionaldevelopment, learning, community

A high school teacher is seeking international partners for an election class he will teach next fall. Do you know of anyone who is thinking along the same lines, especially in Central or South America (fewer time zone issues)? Do you have other good election sites with an international focus to add to the following list?

When History Happens

Taking IT Global

Global Education Collaborative Ning

ALA Election Web Sites

Skewz: All Sides of the Story

Voices Without Votes

tags: election, globaled

I am considering activities to run with our faculty at tomorrow's end-of-year meeting. Do you have any thoughts about which might be particularly effective? What other ideas do you have?

1. Tech Showcase: A few teachers each highlight a successful, technology-rich activity and explore the connection between the medium and teaching/learning. This could help promote sharing of ideas among departments.

2. Top 10 Disruptive Technologies: We may lead off with the article, to provide context to breakout groups and frame one aspect of the challenge facing us.

3. Theories of Learning: Behaviorist, Cognitivist, Constructivist, Connectivist. Framing T&L within these four theories may help teachers design new activities that incorporate technologies. I can provide an example of each one, rooted in subject-specific curricula. Some points of emphasis: teachers typically incorporate multiple theories of learning to provide curriculum to students. Over the years, educational theorists emphasized each of these theories at one time or another. Increasingly, student learn through their networks: a high degree of connectedness to resources and peers characterizes their learning landscape (provide examples). Schools that do not take acknowledge and take advantage of this may appear “artificial” or “irrelevant” to students. Teachers may design new, technology-rich learning activities by: 1) identifying a curricular objective that they would like to teach better next year; 2) choosing the learning theor(ies) that would best support this learning objective; 3) designing a classroom activity or project that would help create this learning environment; 4) Taking advantage of new literacies in our students: personal learning networks, visual information. This presentation could preface departmental discussions.

4. Tech survey results. We have at our disposal an upper school parent laptop survey, upper school student laptop survey, and eighth grade student technology survey (blog articles coming soon). Our middle school head has particularly recommended that the upper school teachers should take a look at the responses of their incoming students for next year.

tags: techintegration, connectivism, disruptive, technologies