At the beginning of every month I complete a monthly calendar of all of our activities and other commitments. I also add my night classes to the calendar so my family knows what’s happening. I can’t believe that we only have three weeks until presentations start. I’m not sure where my students will be by then. Regardless, I think I will choose the latter of the scenarios presented in the title. I know that learning new technology takes time and I have heard many times this semester, “you learn by doing”. My students and I are definitely learning and what’s cool is that we are learning together. I have also seen progress in other participant’s blogs and classroom blogs. A lot of work has gone into the development of these tools.
I wonder if people who are involved in working daily with technology realize how much work it takes for someone who is not familiar with a program to produce a short video or some other presentation. Do you become desensitized to this fact? Do you become impatient with the lack of progress in your own professional development? And, how do you gauge someone’s progress in technology? I would love some feedback from anyone in our course.
I watched several videos throughout the day and the one that resonated with me on this particular day was Tom Peters, Educate for a Creative Society. The reason it stuck with me is my son was the child he spoke of; the one that coloured outside of the lines and received a poor grade for art. There are many children who do not fit the mold and whose creativity and spirit are crushed by the implementation of a plethora of curricular objectives; and systemic issues that have nothing to do with learning. When children don’t fit the mold educators attempt to “fix” the child rather than fix the mold. If you haven’t had the chance to view the documentary Stupid in America, you really should. It brings to light a lot of issues that the public education system is currently experiencing. A worthwhile viewing!!
Luis said,
March 3, 2008 at 11:41 am
Hi Rosanne !
I am so glad that my post about Craig could beuseful for your teaching-learning experience. I like your post and I think is connected with my new post about informal learning and web 2.0. Learning is everywhere, online tools can be useful. However, the human factor is crucial in this experience.
Thanks,
Luis
Tammy Sillers said,
March 3, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Hey Rosanne,
I think you have posed some interesting questions. I, personally, feel like it is easy to overlook the amount of time it takes to even “dabble” with technology, let alone become well versed in it. I recently spent an entire afternoon, about 4 hours if not more, putting together a guided reading video that is only 14 minutes long! However, I know it will be appreciated and used by our teachers, so the time is well spent.
In terms of guaging one’s progress in technology…I sort of think it’s like our work with kids. We really should be finding that “baseline” – you know, where they are at – and then monitoring the progress. But of course one of the big questions is always – how to monitor, and what is considered acceptable progress? That darn assessment…always keeps us thinking!!
I watched “Stupid in America” too, by the way…interesting vid – I plan to blog about it!! Thanks for the link!
cuparstaff said,
March 4, 2008 at 10:27 am
Hi Rosanne, “Stupid in America” was a terrific 20 minute video. I am currently posting it on our school blogsite. I am encouraging our staff to watch it, it is a great view.
rdrunner said,
March 5, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Rosanne, thanks for sharing “Stupid in America”. I really enjoyed watching it. However, I think it makes only a backdrop for a discussion, as in many ways it over-simplifies the issues and repeatedly blames teachers for the problems in public schools.
Let’s instead support teachers to be part of the solution.