Imagine going to an educational conference where, although technology is central, in many sessions it is not even mentioned because everyone is too busy talking about teaching and learning.
Imagine every presenter being a current educator (or student!), in touch with the concerns of their audience.
Imagine that there is no celebrity keynote speaker, nor any outsider delivering plenary talks; just those aforementioned practitioners.
Imagine a style of session in which the presenters have the freedom to give you, say, half an hour to just try stuff out or chat or read or whatever is right for you.
For a lot of teachers, that is the PD they wish they were getting.
I'm in Poland and the Learning2 Europe conference at the American School of Warsaw has just finished.
On Thursday, I signed up for Maker Your Own Learning. Right from the start, Mark and Sarah told us they wouldn't be giving much direct instruction. As a result I was a bit stuck. So I found a template to make a simple circuit on a piece of paper. I didn't know why I was doing it. But it worked, and now I could see some possibilities. The beauty is that I'd had to figure them out for myself. The final version can be seen in Sarah's tweet below. My polychromatically luminous badge is not exactly an innovative form of 21st century communications technology, but I am proud because four days later, despite much handling, it still works perfectly.
#learning2 making a stoplight badge! pic.twitter.com/RJtBMrpjZe
— Sarah Woods (@placeomanytrees) April 6, 2017
For the rest, I had a very CoETaIL time. The other sessions over the weekend I attended were with graduates Nicki Hambleton, Sonya TerBorg and Diana Beabout. Each time, technology was never far away, but it was integrated, in the words of Mary Beth Hertz, seamlessly.
"Students use technology to learn content and show their understanding of content, not just their expertise with a tool." (Hertz)
That, of course, is what technology integration should always be. I have been wondering how often my lessons look like that. I teach two widely differing classes: Grade 11 ToK (an externally assessed IB Diploma course) and Grade 6 Get Set (an introduction to the 1-to-1 classroom). My colleague Becky and I also run #islconnects (a series of workshops for teachers).
During Unit 1 of this course, I wrote a blogpost (WAY OF THE SAMR EYE) comparing the common models for evaluating tech integration.
SAMR (not my favourite);
TPACK (which I've used the least);
and PATER (which is least well-known but, being a cycle, the most effective to use, in my view).
Here are some learning activities involving technology which I have recently taught. I shall consider them with a TPACK eye.
Ancient Civilisation Facebook profile (bit.ly/islfacebooktemplate)
We use a facebook profile to highlight some facts about a historical figure. Aside from the factual content (which our Social Studies colleagues handled), we wanted the students to gain experience with technology: online search and citation; shared Google Drawings (the template); and simple photo-editing (the profile picture). Pedagogically, it was a challenge to manage the students juggling several tools at once while maintaining focus on the learning of history. Ideally, the students would have more choice of tool and their research questions, but we concluded that the restriction would serve our goals.
Knowledge Question Film Festival (bit.ly/tokkqff)
In a one hour lesson, we watch a playlist of clips, one chosen by each student to exemplify, as content, the sort of knowledge question ToK is interested in. The students reflected on the questions in an online back-channel. The discussion was too distracting: a victim of my desire to incorporate technology at all costs. Next time, the students will reflect alone and compare notes later. Pedagogically, a paper-based See Think Wonder would have been more appropriate.
The Power and the Point - of documents in the cloud (bit.ly/powerandpoint)
This activity has been through a number of iterations, each time giving the attendees more time to use technology to try things out. It remains a content-heavy session which is delivered largely from the front. Pedagogically, I would like to keep contact with the teachers while they implement what they have learned in their upcoming lessons.
After a foray into the upper echelons of administration, I returned to the classroom around ten years ago and was excited by the obvious possibilities inherent in educational technology. Like many other colleagues, I have consciously tried to find as many different ways as possible to integrate technology. We sometimes make mistakes and go too far. Usually, the first people to notice this failure are our students.
I so agree the power of technology integration, is that the learning and pedagogy are the engines of the thinking and learning, nice post thank you.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve,
ReplyDeleteI liked your opening sequence of "imagine a world..." this is definitely the kind of PD we were fortunate to receive!
Your post is a timely reminder to critically assess my own use of tech in the classroom--in my role I perhaps am looking through to narrow a lens--how can I fit tech in here--when perhaps the question should be, 'should I?' (will it actually enhance the learning, or simply be a distraction) Sometimes you can't know in advance a strategy's potential limitation--Today's Meet back channel sounds good in theory...but perhaps the students needed more experience with it beforehand, or needed more user guidelines/agreements to prevent it from becoming too distracting.
I do hope to meet again in Luxembourg--to learn more about "New ways of teaching and learning will need new ways of developing professionally in supportive and flexible models with transparent and flat organisations." Sounds fab!