The dog (education) must wag the tail (technology).

Scott McLeod, the leader of Castle, expresses concern that the very leaders who are the least knowledgeable about technology are the very ones responsible for creating new paradigms necessary to prepare students for the next fifty years. And while I’m concerned that legislators are dangerous because they don’t understand the alue of technology nor do they understand the fundamentals of learning and teaching, I assert that the principal doesn’t need to be proficient in the use of technology; however, she must believe in technology – in fact, he must have a passion for the role that technology has in learning and teaching.

It’s the job of the principal to create an environment that is encouraging for faculty to be innovators; to fund technology infrastructure so that there is sufficient bandwidth (100 megs minimum), a stable network, appropriate and enough hardware, and an abundance of software. The principal needs to reward innovation and create a community of support among the faculty.

Zhao et. al. discusses what conditions are necessary within a school to make classroom technology innovations a success. The necessary conditions fell in three realms – the innovator (the teacher), the innovation (the hardware, software), and the context (technological infrastructure, the culture of the school). The principal of the school (or the provost of a college) influences all three realms. The principal hires the teacher, controls the budget, and sets the tone of the culture of the school.

The principal is the most single important factor (precisely because s/he cuts across all three realms) in determining how successful technology integration will be. It is not the case that the principal be able to code a webpage or manage border routing protocol or manage a server or administrate software. The principal must be a sophisticated end user of educational technology and have a passion for its use. The principal must set a culture of innovation and budget for its success. The principal must understand that we are preparing today’s students for an unknown future – but a future that includes the use and leveraging of technology as a fundamental skill.

If the principal doesn’t create an appropriate environment for faculty to be innovators, for faculty to change the paradigm of education so that we are teaching for the next 50 years, not the last 50 years, then, as in McLeod states, schools can become dangerously irrelevant.

References:

McLeod, (2010), Are Schools Dangerously Irrelevant? http://youtu.be/-yA6oTU1emM

Zhao, Y., Pugh, K., Sheldon, S., &Byers, J. (2002). Conditions for classroom technology innovations. Teachers College Record, 104(3), 482-515.

University Day - April 19th

I'm thinking more about the talk I'm going to give next week for the faculty at University Day.

I have to work on my short abstract..... Tell me what you think. Would you come to this interactive presentation? (I'm going to have everyone use their smart phones to be involved interactively in the session. I'm going to use Turning Technologies Student Response System. And I'll have extra devices for those without a smart phone.)

Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. – Albert Einstein

As teachers we are preparing our students for futures that we can’t even envision; for jobs that don't exist, using technology that hasn't been invented yet. The most important thing we can do is "train (sic) the mind to think."

And this is our (the faculty) challenge. To spend more time teaching our students to learn and less time focused on our teaching. Were teachers successful before the advent of classroom based technologies? Of course. But that doesn’t mean a good teacher couldn’t be even better with the integration of today's tools.

Over the last few years we've told students to put their devices (tablets, phones, computers) in their lockers. Turn the devices off and shut them away. How does that help students to learn to learn? We should embrace technology. Today I'm going to demonstrate some easy to integrate technology into classroom environments and discuss their role in educational methodology and pedagogy.

Be sure to bring your favorite device with you. Open it up and turn it on! Its time to learn!

Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. – Albert Einstein

Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. – Albert Einstein

My day job is to support academic technologies for K20 (Kindergarten through Graduate School) for the State of NJ. To this end I introduce technology coordinators to new vendors, new technologies, pedagogies, and so much more. I make sure that I use these same tools and methodologies in my classroom (both online and on-ground) when I'm teaching and learning. I not only talk the talk, I walk the walk. And yet, (there's always an "and yet") and yet, I strongly believe that its the quality and passion of the individual teacher that creates a successful classroom, regardless of whether or not she uses technology. On the other hand, (and yes, I have multiple personality disorder), as teachers we are preparing our students for futures that we cant even envision; for jobs that don't exist yet, using technology that hasn't been invented yet. The most important thing we can do is "train (sic) the mind to think." Thus, even though I believe that a good teacher can create a successful learning environment with or without technology, to prepare our students for the future, we must integrate as much current technology as we can in order that they learn to leverage technology.

Next week I am the keynote speaker at one of my member college’s faculty day. What is the message that I want to impart to them? I know some of the details. I want to talk about how technology and society share a symbiotic system - that changes in one create opportunities for changes in the other; I want to talk about how today’s students are different from us when we were students; I want to talk about really cool tools – many that I learned from each of you and of course from Cheshta; I want to talk about commitment and passion for learning; I want to talk about social media; I want to share resources and talk about the importance of professional learning communities; I want to talk about institutional support, peer support; and so much more. But these are the trees. What is the forest that I want to paint for my audience? What is my responsibility to the faculty?

Maybe its that our responsibility to our students is not to set them up to learn facts, but to help train their minds to think.