Another summer rapidly disappeared, and it’s time to get back in the classroom. Lately almost everyone I see who knows I’m a teacher asks the classic question, “Are you ready for school to start?” Well, yes and no. I’ve worked a lot over the summer to prepare materials in Moodle for my classes, but I have tons more to do. I’m ready–sort of. Of course, I can’t just stay in prep mode all the time.So, ready or not, here we come.
I’m really excited (and a little bit nervous) about the huge technology initiative our district is implementing. It’s sooooo cool. High school students will each get a laptop. Teachers will have tablet PC’s, and all elementary and middle school classrooms have Promethean interactive boards. How cool is that?!
We’ve spent the summer training and preparing for the new year. I know there will be a huge learning curve for all involved, but what an awesome opportunity. We’re preparing our students to thrive in this century using the tools of this century. For the most part, I think a lot of schools do a great job or preparing kids to do quite well for the 1980’s. You have to admit, the 80’s did have some good points, but I really don’t want my children educated that way. I’m so glad I work where I do. I’m glad our school board and administration have a vision and the courage to follow it–to take risks and make this step. I think other districts may wish they were doing something like this, but I don’t see it happening just yet. BTW, before anyone (like anyone reads this blog anyway……) gets any wild ideas about our district having a lot of money and resources, let me clarify where we stand. Last I heard, our district is the third-lowest funded school district in Colorado, and Colorado is pretty low on education funding too. By no means do we have tremendous amounts of money to spend. This technology initiative has taken a lot of creativity and determination on the parts of many people in our district. It would have been very easy for us to join so many others in simply wishing we could do something like this—get technology tools in our students’ hands, train our staff, and so forth. We coiuld have become discouraged and left the idea sitting there on the table in the board room. But that didn’t happen. And we’re all the better for it.
So, everyone, ready or not, time to saddle up. Be confident and try some new things with your classes. Have some fun and trust yourself. Be willing to make some mistakes and learn from them. The question isn’t “what’s the worst thing that can happen?” It is “What’s the best thing that can happen?”
Fellow educators, if you haven’t seen this video yet, please take a few minutes to watch. A few of the facts are from Karl Fisch’s Did You Know? presentation, but this takes that conversation quite a bit farther.
This is a great video about using technology tools in the classroom. I found it online at the T4-Jordan School District. I haven’t explored the whole site yet, but what I’ve seen so far looks like a pretty amazing pool of resources. Thanks very much to those in charge of organizing and sharing this site.
Vicki Davis linked this very cool YouTube video on her CoolCat Teacher blog today.
Communication is not the same as it was 5 years ago. Heck, it’s not the same as it was 1 year ago! Literacy skills are not the same, and if I don’t change the way I teach my students to communicate, I AM NOT DOING MY JOB! And if you’re a teacher (or a parent, for that matter) and all you’re doing is teaching your kids to read and write the same way you were taught to read and write, you’re not doing your job either. (Sorry if that offends anyone, but I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em.)
Watch the video–it does a beautiful job of explaing Web 2.0. You’ll be a lot smarter in 5 minutes. Trust me.
If you haven’t read the recent Time magazine article about preparing our students to compete and thrive in the new century, take a few minutes to do so. It’s definitely worth a few minutes of your time to read. Then think about what is happening in your own school and community. What are we doing right? What do we need to do differently? What obstacles are in our way? How will we deal with them? What resources are available to us?
I just love reading what my students have to say in their blogs. Take Grogan for example. He usually has some very thoughtful ideas as well as interesting comments to make to other students. He’s one who typically takes time to post responses to the writing of other students, including those in a different class. In his latest blog post for class, he made a comment that struck me:
Take, for example, this blog itself. No longer are we limited to just our teachers’ opinions, we are open to the critique of our peers.
They were writing in our weekly class blog. First they watched this awesome video by Karl Fisch called 2020 Vision. You’ll just have to watch this one for yourself–it’s amazing! The students loved it and a lot of their blog posts were interesting to read.
Anyway, back to Grogan–He is a real leader for us as we begin our adventures in blog-land. He’s made many great contributions to our class “blog-discussions” and really helps keep things rolling. So thanks, Grogan. Keep sharing the light. Keep showing us by example how we can learn together.
