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.
Hi Sheri,
ReplyDeleteI like the Albert Einstein quote you chose “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think”. I agree with you that an educator’s passion and dedication to teaching are VERY important. I am also a huge advocate for teaching students problem solving skills (instead of memorization). These skills will be useful for the rest of their lives. However, I believe it crucial that students experiment and gain experience with various technological tools, especially those students who don’t have computers at home. We have learned in this course the importance of obtaining web 2.0 skills in order to be competitive in the 21st Century. We definitely don’t want our students to lag behind.
Good luck with your presentation. I am sure you will do an amazing job!
Jenny
What a great blog! I also agree that the passion of the teacher can make a successful classroom with or without technology. Now how do you get the teacher passionate about technology? Teachers have to learn how to teach incorporating technolgies and how do you get students to hand in their assignments, projects etc using technologies? I guess that would be the teacher's job too. I'm not saying every assignment (yet) will be handed in via computer, but one can start with something.
ReplyDeleteYour presentation topics sound very interesting. Sounds like what us teachers need to hear. We need the push and the support for those who walk the walk. It makes change a little less scary.
Break a leg!