Another Teacher for Non-Teachers to Read (and an Invitation to Teachers to Prep for Next Year)
with 3 comments
Print This Post
One (obvious) thing I will say for Technorati—it’s a great way to connect us to fellow travelers. It introduced me to “Ms. Sigman” just now, because she linked to this blog. Predictably, since the ideas here were noteworthy to her there, my visit to her blog revealed ideas there noteworthy to me as well.
Ms. Sigman is a middle school science teacher somewhere on this planet. Her blog, “Middle School Science for the Future,” seems to be brand-spanking new. Here’s to new teacher voices!
She writes a post reflecting on how much more difficult it is for us teachers to actually do this stuff in content classrooms than it is for the non-teaching web 2.0 enthusiasts to merely envision us teachers doing it in the abstract (I still think all administrators should teach one
class each year to stay connected to the reality on the ground). She does a good job delineating the pitfalls of classroom implementation in her post–it’s worth reading, especially for non-teachers, because this teacher found himself nodding like a spring-necked dashboard doll as he read: “Yep. Yep. Yep.”
Ms. Sigman follows up with this “lesson learned”:
Before we can teach with this tool we must first teach the tool or nothing we do in class (or on the web) has relevance to the student.
She and I have learned this by doing. I left a comment that I include below, because I’d like to open the invitation to all teachers wanting to have a programmatic approach to classroom training ready by the beginning of the next school year. Drop a comment if you want to contribute to this conversation. Here’s the reply to Ms. Sigman:
–I would add to this (and I think you have learned it this year as clearly as I have): We must teach these tools at the beginning of the school year.
Like you, I started experimenting with these tools in my classroom only at mid-year; and like you, I found the constant distractions from technical questions aversive to the projects’ effectiveness.
This is why I look forward to next year. Before plunging into content, all of those tech necessities–email addresses, group emails by class, registration in Bloglines, wikispaces (or whatever), our school blog and Moodle, training in all of these, website evaluation processes, etc–will be done as much as is reasonably possible.
If you’d like to join me in maybe creating a wiki on which we plan this type of systematic training, I think it would be great. I’m sure other teachers would be interested in joining such a conversation.
Finally, your economic challenges made me think of Karl Fisch’s mention in “Did You Know?”––his original version––of how almost all of his school’s computers were funded by grants. Maybe grant proposals for 1:1 laptops (or second best, laptop carts) could ameliorate this problem.
Anyway, get in touch with me at Beyond School (or email me at clayburell [at] gmail [dot] com) if you’d like to take me up on the student training brainstorm wiki. I like the idea, and need it before the first weeks of school next year.
(Photo credit: “Inner Glow” by xgray on Flickr.)
If you like this post, please spread it: 
(But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)
- "The Year of Global Cooling" and "Understanding by Design" (part 4 in a series)...
- Must. Read: 21-year-old on Slow Blogging...
- More on Protecting Classroom Bloggers from Teachers...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Thanks for the introduction to a new blog. Ms. Sigman is definitely thinking about her own practice and how she can improve. I left her a comment - what a great, honest posting that was. We get very excited about new technologies and sometimes jump right into the middle of things - that’s where I’ve found myself lately in working with a 5th grade teacher lately. You’ve expressed a lot of the same feelings this year. But that’s where we learn the most - from jumping right in with enthusiasm and seeing exactly what the kids can do and can understand. It also forces us to look at our instructional practices to really see if what we do now makes a difference once different tools are added to the mix. In the same way that we establish basic routines in a classroom each year, we need to establish understandings about the technology tools and how they will support learning. Spending that time in the beginning will buy some much more instructional mileage throughout the year and it’s time very well spent.
[Reply]
Diane Quirk
4 May 07 at 8:58 pm
I’ll check out Ms. Sigman. As an administrator that teaches, uses blogs, wikis, podcasts and is trying a host of other tools, I understand what you are saying. However, I don’t think you can ever be fully ready. I, too, began to use these tools about midyear. It wasn’t always easy and there were a few problems, there were a great many questions but we prevailed. Now, with each introduction of a new tool, the questions are less and the time spent on task is greater. I believe that as more teachers embrace these tools, we will see less of a need for time on introductions because students will be seeing them at an earlier age and using them themselves. There is no harm in taking time at the beginning of the year but one must realize that as you add tools, you will need to spend time in explanation. Also, as you allow students to use the tools, they will find tools to assist them and then you’ll need to give them time to explain things. However, the understanding and creation is so much more authentic and deeper, most of the time. Off to see the new blog.
[Reply]
kelly christopherson
5 May 07 at 12:13 am
Hi Diane, (and nice to hear from you)–you’re right, leaping after you look is essential so we can get those first lessons learned.
And Kelly (an admin’r who teaches–”Rethpect,” as Ali G would say)–your point about “getting them young and training them right” adds a hopeful long-term perspective. Next year our ES and MS will intensify their integration of blogs and wikis, and as you say, that will make the grades ‘downstream’ much easier to teach in the following years.
It’s so easy to forget that we’re the transitional generation.
Thanks for welcoming Ms. Sigman–on her third post, no less. We need every teacher we can get to reflect on their jumping-in.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
5 May 07 at 12:37 am