By Diego Camposeco
Recently, I attended a teacher workshop with the purpose of assisting a webmaster update the new school website, while he explained the website to the teachers. However, while I was tinkering with the website, I noticed that many of the teachers in the workshop were having great difficulties with the technology. I ended up having to leave my duties and help the teachers log on to their email accounts, upload their syllabi to the website, import their contacts, and other presumably universal tasks.
I can understand why many teachers may not have Myspace or Facebook accounts. They may not understand the concept of Twitter and RSS Feeds. All these technologies and ideas are relatively new and seemingly useless to the archaic teacher. But when teachers cannot even get to the school website to check their email because the idea of browsers is an enigma to them, our school systems have a problem. How can we prepare our students for the global playing field when the teachers we employ are ill-prepared when it comes to technology?
I also understand that this scenario is not present everywhere, nor is it unique to this school. But to know this is present in some schools today is an unnerving issue. China has the number one amount of internet users in the world. They are preparing themselves. How can America stay competitive if we are being left behind? We need to find a way for America as a whole to embrace technology.
Now, I’m not calling for a Cold War-esque America where we invest vast amounts of money into new technologies and ways to prepare our students for the technological age (although this may work too). The solution to this problem is simple. Hire recent college graduates as interns. Having a few of them in every school will move schools forward. What the fresh college graduates lack in experience, they make up for with mastery in 21st century technology because they have been well-schooled on computers in college. They have their iPhones synced to their Microsoft Outlook, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. They know the difference between Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. And a good amount of them could even tell you the cons of updating your computer from Windows XP to the Vista OS (or they flat out tell you that the Leopard OSX is superior).
With school budget cuts due to the economic recession, this solution may have to come to fruition slowly. But I am not saying this is the only solution. Send teachers to workshops on essential technologies of the 21st century taught by their own students. Somebody told me one time, “Teachers are the hardest to teach.” I don’t know if this is true, but to better instruct and prepare our students for the “flat” world (Go read “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman), we must make sure our teachers understand what their students are getting ready to jump into. We are in the 21st century. Simply knowing how to make a PowerPoint presentation doesn’t cut it anymore.
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By Dan Henrikson
ReplyDeleteSemi-Archaic PEC Math Teacher
I am a teacher that is near the middle of my career. I’m neither resent college grad nor totally archaic. I know how to use a web-browser and e-mail, I’ve tinkered on Myspace and Facebook but I am not proficient with these technology applications. Twitter and Leopard OSX are pretty much enigmas to me. I would like to point out that I believe it is very rare for your teachers not to know what a web-browser is and that most of us are excellent problem solvers; therefore, very good at figuring out how to use technology.
I believe that the problem is not only that teachers are insufficiently schooled in technology but that we are fearful of what students are doing on the internet and what who they may be communicating with. Fears of the internet are well founded because many people do seek to use the internet to do harm to today’s youth, thus I will include a paragraph in this response about internet safety. I do feel avoiding use of the internet in education also has some very serious consequences. As Diego pointed out schools are ill-equipping students to thrive in the 21st century “flat-world”. Plus, because students are not using technology enough in school, they are forced to learn about internet safety on their own outside of school without the supervision of their teachers.
One way to bring our schools into the 21st century is by changing state end of course exams (EOC’s), because the exams influence much of what is taught and how it is taught in schools. One way that “No Child Left Behind” has succeeded is that educators are now very driven to help their students get good state test scores. As evidence, I recently attended a conference for math teachers which offered hundreds of professional development opportunities and teachers were allowed to choose the workshops they wanted to attend. All of the workshops that had EOC in the title were so popular that some teachers couldn’t get in because there wasn’t enough room, while the workshops with technology or computers in the title tended to have around five teachers wanting to attend. The powerful tests are influencing education, but they are not based on the abilities students need to succeed in the technology centered world they will work in after graduation. For example the current U.S. History exam causes teachers to have their students spend many class hours memorizing dates and facts. I think the school systems would quickly embrace technology if instead the powerful tests put students in front of computers and asked them to respond to a few questions. Then students where evaluated on their ability to gather information, filter out unreliable information, and then use that information to clearly express and support their thoughts. Students, teachers and administrators would then demand professional developments about how to help their student use technology and synthesize ideas.
In order to help teach technological proficiency through my class, I challenge my Algebra 2 students to use technology to learn how to solve quadratic equations with answers in the field of complex numbers. Details of the assignment and helpful blogs can be found on my website.
So here are my ideas on one way to bring our schools into the 21st century. Step 1: get on a blog and call your teachers archaic. Step 2: contact state board of education members and demand EOC’s that evaluate 21st century abilities. Thank you to Diego for helping us take the first step in a long, exciting, important and sometimes scary journey.
Internet safety paragraph: When communicating with someone that you don’t know, always assume that they intend to do you harm and therefore do not share any of your personal information including age, phone number or address. Never post anything on the internet that you wouldn’t want your future boss to see. I personally know someone who was fired from his teaching position due to content that he had on his Myspace. PEC students are future judges, teachers, and politicians.
@Diego - Excellent post! I have a few comments:
ReplyDelete1. Interestingly enough, in my experiences, age is less of a relevant factor when it comes to technology use than you may think. In fact, I've seen seasoned teachers who are more comfortable with technology than those fresh out of their undergraduate studies. I think the key is embracing technology as a lifestyle. You have to have something that motivates you to use it (and thus learn it). My wife's grandmother (in her 80's) regularly emails, uses Photoshop, and even plays on a Wii (Go Grandma!). As a result, she's become comfortable with a variety of technologies. For me, personally, the motivator has always been gaming.
2. I agree with you that there are some major issues for the future of our students. It's not that you guys aren't learning 21st-Century skills. Students today are easily filling the void in their education on their own. What I fear is that while students are engaging in a variety of online activities, they're not doing it well.
For example,
- Many of our students today can shoot a video clip and upload it to YouTube, but the overwhelming majority of what they're uploading is crap (can I say that? :P). Schools should be teaching kids how to make quality videos and films.
- Students are investing countless hours on social networks, but how much of that time is meaningful for anything beyond basic socializing? Schools should be teaching kids how to capitalize on the power of social networks to create change.
- Students can create MySpace/Facebook pages (and some even blogs!) with their thoughts about all sorts of things. How much of it is something people acutally want to read? Schools should be teaching students how to write for an online audience!
- Students already have an online identity. They willingly share vast amounts of personal information online (perhaps too much). What schools should be doing is teaching students how to properly manage their online identity, and better yet, how to market it!
3. One thing that's a complete paradigm shift for most educators, because it's so different than what we experienced for 17+ years of education, is the idea that they may not be the expert at the front of the classroom (the "sage on the stage"). I applaud your suggestion of having students lead technology staff development. It's a fantastic idea. For over 10 years as an educator, I've learned a vast wealth of technology knowledge from my students (especially when it comes to video games (World of Warcraft, for example)). Likewise, I've taught them about technology, too. Teachers would benefit from the concept of being a "co-learner." Modeling lifelong learning to our students is something else we'd do well to teach them.
4. I second your suggestion of "The World is Flat" by Friedman. It should be required reading for our educators. I'd add to that list "Don't Bother Me Mom - I'm Learning" by Marc Prensky as well. It focuses specifically on video games and how today's student is learning valuable skills through play.
I look forward to future posts!
@Daniel - I agree and think our current form of standardized testing is partly to blame for not encouraging teachers to embrace innovative teaching practices. I think it encourages Industrial-era instruction.
I also agree that fear of the unknown (and change) are major factors in people resisting technology. Just as we need to be educating our students about these things, we need to be teaching our teachers about them too.
-Lucas Gillispie, Instructional Technology Coordinator, PCS