I have made a vow to the Altona staff that next year I will not ask them to learn one more technology tool until we have mastered what we are using. Like every industry on the planet education is going through a massive shift in how we teach and operate. I began teaching in St. Vrain 13 years ago. I had to master the VCR and the overhead projector to function in the classroom and workplace. Today I ask teachers to be fluent in a variety of technology tools to function administratively and to engage students. This is what I expect teachers to be able to use on a regular basis:
1. SMS - our student management system for taking attendance and accessing student information.
2. SMS Gradebook - our standardized computer gradebook.
3. K12Planet - our web based program that shares grades with parents.
4. TeacherWeb - our web based service that informs parents of what is happening in their student's classroom.
5. Scholarsmart - A data program that tracks CSAP progess.
6. SMET - Standards Made Easy for Teaching - a web based service that collates CSAP data and generates other information such as Assessment Frameworks and released items.
7. ACUITY - our assessment program that correlates with the CSAP and provides invaluable information for students that have not previously taken the CSAP.
8. CPS - Our Classroom Performance System. We have 10 clicker carts (lightware projector, laptop, and CPS system). A great article about this can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/education/28neck.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin .
9. General computer use including Excel, Word and Outlook.
10. Building Management Systems - including remote video access, library data books, student passwords, alarms, phones, etc.
11. Curricular Tools - as each successive curriculum adoption includes a plethora of web-based learning tools.
Thus the Technology Tsunami! I think we all feel swamped by these incredible tools. Finding the breathing space to master these concepts is a priority next year.
But... that classroom blogging is pretty cool, and smartboards in every room would be awesome, and you know the document readers are cool...
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3 comments:
I agree, it is a lot and I applaud the outreach to technology that Altona has embraced and implemented. It is a Tsunami, but I think we need to be careful that we are riding at the top of the wave and not getting buried at the bottom with out a way to get our heads above water. Technology is moving in an incredible rate today and once you get behind it takes twice the work to catch up.
There is an interesting article in Edutopia this month, "Programming - The New Literacy", ( http://www.edutopia.org/literacy-computer-programming ) and in the article kids are feeling that parents and teachers are illiterate. As a parent, that sends a loud message.
Teachers do have their plates full. To ask them to take on more is difficult. So how do other districts do it? With support personnel built into the technology equation. How do we do it with budgets already stretched to the limit? I don't have the answer.
I agree Mrs. Platt! Appropriate funding would help the situation. My answer is this: kids and parents expect it in the 21st Century. No one told me in Principal's school that I would have to take on technology duty as one of my jobs. But, I believe its value is worth the expenditure in time and energy.
I just picked up another cool application of blogs in the classroom that I thought I would share-- in my K-12 Online class, Scribe Posts were discussed by Joanne Meester - "A different student in his class is responsible for the daily scribe post. On a rotating basis, a student per day is responsible for posting to a blog what happened in class on a particular day in enough detail, so that if a student was absent they would have a good idea of what they missed that day by going to the blog." This is an excellent example of using a blog! I know that this is what TeacherWeb is for, but I could see the teachers could possibly copy and paste what the students write into TeacherWeb, correct? And with the commenting, students could ask questions about the assignments and discuss them as they're working on their homework.
I just thought I'd share.
:)
Mrs. P
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