My progress thus far with my GAME Plan is going well. I have begun to find technology experts to learn technology and how I can implement it in my classroom. Additionally, once I learn the technology, I have garnered interest from a few other teachers who would also like to implement new technologies in their classrooms.
Currently, I am finding difficulty because many websites are blocked or banned at school. When at home, I'm finding some but want to find more but am seeking better results. As of now, my plan seems solid and attainable. For the moment, no changes are necessary. I seem to be getting good feedback from other teachers and hopefully I will be able to deliver in the near future. I have learned that finding new educational technologies can be challenging and some teachers are extremely non-receptive to learning new technologies to implement in their classroom. Hopefully, I will be able to overcome these barriers and totally implement my GAME Plan. A new question that has arisen is what is the most efficient way to find new avenues of technological support and what is the best way to approach teachers who are weary of new technology and implementing it in their classroom.
Jonathan Garrett
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Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteThe website blocks upset me as well. I do not understand how students are held accountable by signing agreements with the school. However, they are not trusted to go to even the safest websites. Many websites are blocked that do not need to be.
Hayley
Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteAs a Baltimore City teacher, I can relate to your problem with the Internet filters at your school. For years, I struggled to bypass a filtration system that erred grievously on the side of caution (read: paranoia). Things have improved somewhat since our system created an online Acceptable Use Policy course which, if completed, grants the teacher access to banned sites such as Blogger, Google Docs, and YouTube. Even so, I occasionally come across a site that is forbidden even to these teachers. Sometimes it seems as if our profession is perceived as a refuge for criminals, deviants, and fools.
Before the new policy, I used KeepVid to download YouTube videos. When that stopped working for me, I found a widget that allowed me to download these through the Firefox browser. Unfortunately, these applications are routinely circumvented by YouTube and its contributors, although I cannot imagine they have teachers in mind when they do this.
I also find that some of my colleagues are reluctant to adopt new technologies. For some, this is because they are highly effective using low-tech methods. Others, however, have experienced attempts to force the use of technology that unnecessarily complicates their jobs. I began using an electronic gradebook more than ten years ago, and it really made my life easier. This year, our school system introduced and made mandatory an electronic grade keeping program that is absolutely horrible. Designed to allow options for everything, it is so Byzantine that the online training course takes five hours and still leaves teachers confused about how to enter assignments and grades. Teachers can control the colors of assignment categories (whoopee!) but cannot add a name to the class list when a student joins the class. As a relatively technology savvy teacher, I have been running around the building for weeks, trying to help teachers solve problems with the program. One notable flaw is that teachers cannot apply category weights to multiple classes or multiple reporting periods. Instead, we must open up each class and specify the weights for each category for all four marking periods and each progress report, so that a teacher who has five classes (as I do) must enter category weights for classwork, homework, drills, projects, and tests, forty times! (This, despite the fact that our school has a mandatory grade weight policy that applies to every class in the building.) We also have two online attendance taking programs: one for official city records and one for tracking students in the building. These are in no way linked, and we are required to use these in conjunction with written records. This means that the teacher with five classes takes role fifteen times per day!
ReplyDeleteHere’s another example. About twelve years ago, our system hired a consulting firm called Workforce 2000. Our consultant, Dr. Nick, introduced us to a comprehensive lesson planning program that was designed to help us incorporate state mandated goals, standards, indicators, and class objectives, by number and description in a detailed plan that included descriptions of activities, transitions, assessments, evaluation instruments, theoretical foundations, and scripted dialogue between students and teachers, all with the help of access to a database of documents, images, and information Workforce 2000 deemed appropriate for this purpose. This program was a true wonder, allowing the teacher to construct a beautiful document depicting a lesson in excruciating detail. We were assigned partners, and collaborated with them to build our first lesson plans, and--in only three short weeks-- each team was able to construct a ninety minute lesson for a single class. Dr. Nick and his firm walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars for selling the school system software that was not only cumbersome and inefficient, but which was incompatible with our hardware and other software within a year. Nobody ever used it for daily lesson plans, as most teachers were already producing excellent, detailed plans using Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and the burgeoning resources of the Internet.
Is it any wonder that many of our colleagues have become trap-shy about technology integration? Too often, some ill -conceived software or hardware is rammed down our throats as a panacea, without regard for the methods and judgment of expert teachers. Personally, I love what computers have done for me, as a scholar, as a teacher, and as a human being in general. I will never go back to paper records and chalk. But when I share ideas about what technological tools have worked for me, I also have the humility to listen to and respect the methods of colleagues who were effective in doing my job when I was still in diapers, and who still are.
-Dug
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ReplyDeleteJonathan,
ReplyDeleteI want to encourage you to keep collaborating with your colleagues about the use of technology. Since the beginning of my masters program I have shared more ideas with teachers in my building than I did for twenty years. I like to see what other teachers are using and I am excited to share the bits of technology I have started to integrate into my math classes. By sharing with other teachers, our curriculum director and administrators, I have colleagues who have never been up to the second floor coming to my classroom to see some of the great projects my students are doing. I get so excited about integrating technology to enhance the learning in my classroom that our technology director is coming in to talk and share ideas with me. Keep Talking!
Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteLike the saying goes, "There is strength in numbers." The more colleagues you can get on board with technology the better chance you have of changing the attitudes at your school. Many teachers are weary of using technology for one reason or another. They either lack confidence in their ability to use it or think it is an unnessary distraction. The latter is usually due to lack of exposure to valuable tools and resources available. These are the teachers who think technology means video games, inappropriate Youtube videos, and online chatrooms containing internet predators. These teachers need to be encouraged to seek professional development opportunities in the area of technology integration.
I am in agreement with Douglas on the idea of not every technology being useful. It is important to remember that some of the people that are promoting technology in the classroom have a financial stake in its success. We must be critical of anyone who "pushes" something on us without being able to test its validity and usefulness.