How to Breathe

Today’s post is from the Global Education Collaborative entitled “How to Breathe” where the author states more eloquently than I why technology integration is important and how it needs to be done. Enjoy.

60 Seconds on the Internet

Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

Click on image to see full graphic.

Did You Know That – In 60 SECONDS (from: http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/60-seconds)

Search engine Google serves more that 694,445 queries

6,600+ pictures are uploaded on Flickr

600 videos are uploaded on YouTube videos, amounting to 25+ hours of content

695,000 status updates, 79,364 wall posts and 510,040 comments are published on Social Networking site Facebook

70 New domains are registered

168,000,000+ emails are sent

320 new accounts and 98,000 tweets are generated on Social Networking site Twitter

iPhone applications are downloaded more than13,000 times

20,000 new posts are published on Micro-blogging platform tumbler

Popular web browser FireFox is downloaded more than 1700 times

Popular blogging platform WordPress is downloaded more than 50 times

WordPress Plugins aredownloaded more than 125 times

100 accounts are created on professional networking site LinkedIn

40 new Questions are asked on YahooAnswers.com

100+ questions are asked on Answers.com

1 new article is published on Associated Content, the world’s largest source of community-created content

1 new definition is added on UrbanDictionary.com

1,200+ new ads are created on Craigslist

370,000+ minutes of voice calls done by Skype users

13,000+ hours of music streaming is done by personalized Internet radio provider Pandora

1,600+ reads are made on Scribd, the largest social reading publishing company

Off the top of my head

As we recap the old year and plan for the new year and think strategically, I wonder where the chips will fall this year on the importance scale. Currently buzzing in my world are the ideas of 21st Century skills (nearly passe at this point), technology integration into the curriculum, stand alone technology classes and their value (and yes, I believe there is great value in exposing the brain to linear thinking and the creative freedom that photo editing provide – even when it is not connected directly to current curriculum. These ideas are not new and are, actually, beginning to feel a little old. What is innovative? What is new? What will be the “game changers” this year. In my school it will be iPads and Google Docs, but certainly we are behind the curve. I would have thought virtual reality a year ago, but Second Life is loosing steam and I am not sure that is where the great insights will be found (although I am still intrigued by the notion of Avatar).

What changes will mobile computing bring to the world, especially the world of education?  My guess, if we are ready and handle it well, teachers will adapt, innovate, and seek to exploit the value that mobile computing brings to the classroom. How are you being prepared for this in your school?

Don’t Let Educators Off the Hook!

Today’s post comes to you from Scott McLeod and can be found at his blog: Dangerously Irrelevant

I have included it here for you…

Steve Dembo said:

I don’t see it as teachers spurning technology, or choosing not to take advantage of those new ideas and tools. I think most teachers don’t even realize that there’s a decision to be made. It’s not a matter of choosing the red pill or the blue pill… if you don’t know that there are even two pills available as options.

… A teacher that has never heard of Blabberize or Glogster or Prezi, has never been introduced to the new world of online applications that are available to them. They likely don’t follow blogs or listen to podcasts. They have probably never been to an EdTech conference or seen a TED talk. In short, they’re just ordinary, average educators who aren’t aware that there’s a whole other world that they have easy access to… if they just ‘take the blue pill’.

… I’m all for conversations about ‘big’ change. And yes, I agree, it’s not the technology, it’s the pedagogy. However, I also think that you need at least a minimal base to build from before you can have those conversations. And the vast majority of the educators in this country do NOT have that base yet.

Every day that I present for educators, I have a greater appreciate for how distorted the view is as seen through the eyes of a typical EduBlogger. In fact, the majority of the voices in the EdTech Community are so far ahead of the curve that it doesn’t even seem like their on the same road anymore. Most educators have never listened to a podcast, much less created one. They’ve never edited a wiki, much less started one of their own. So how on earth could they be expected to have a rational conversation about the impact new technologies are having on the skill sets our students need? Simply put, they can’t. The majority of the voices many of us listen to on a regular basis… actually represent just a tiny fraction of the educators out there. We’re the minority, the outsiders, the ones who talk using strange terms involving words with far too many missing vowels.

Darren Draper said:

the large majority of teachers that I know are very caring individuals that believe firmly in life-long learning. Most love teaching because making a difference in the lives of our youth can be the most rewarding profession on the planet. Most love kids, love community, and want to share. It’s not that they don’t want to try new things, it’s not that they’re lazy, and it’s not that they’re incapable. Rather, it’s that their priorities don’t always line up with those of other progressive educators in and out of the blogosphere. I’m not saying it’s right, but I am trying to describe the reality that so many in the blogosphere seem to misunderstand.

Darren also said:

Those content to lurk but still hesitant (or unable, for whatever reason) to contribute.

The fact of the matter is that there exist a very large number of effective educators that are simply not able to contribute in any significantly recurrent amount to online discussion. All told, it’s not that they’re incapable of participating and it’s not that they’re unwilling. Rather, this group maintains perceived silence online because their professional priorities prohibit them from spending the time or energy required to provide plausible contribution.

To which I say, NO, WE CAN’T LET EDUCATORS OFF THE HOOK. Whether they’re teachers or administrators or librarians or education professors, they have a voluntarily-assumed, paid responsibility to be relevant to the needs of children and education TODAY and to prepare graduates as best they are able for TOMORROW. ‘Professional priorities’ must be aimed at preparing students for the world as it is and will be. Otherwise, what are educators there for?

You can’t ‘firmly believe in life-long learning’ and simultaneously not be clued in to the largest transformation in learning that ever has occurred in human history. Those two don’t co-exist. Being a ‘life-long learner’ is not ignoring what’s going on around you; you don’t get to claim the title of ‘effective educator’ if you do this.

Look, it’s not like those of us who now ‘get it’ were born with this knowledge. We weren’t like this at the beginning. At some point in our personal histories we were the same as these educators that for some reason now get to be labeled as ‘unable’ to do this. Unable to do this? Poppycock. At no time in the personal computer / Internet era has this technology and social media stuff been easier to initiate. It’s not like back when you needed to know computer coding. Want to use a wiki? Click Edit; type; click Save. Want to leave a comment on a blog? Click on Comments; type in your name, e-mail, school web site, and comment; click on Save. There isn’t an educator alive who ‘can’t do that.’ They engage in similarly-easy activity every time they search or order something online.

The reason many of us now ‘get it’ is because we realized that the world is changing, we recognized our responsibility to our students and schools, and we dived in and learned as we went along. Changing inertia into momentum, not waiting for someone to hand us the answer, taking responsibility ourselves rather than blaming others for our own inactivty – that’s what life-long learners do. That’s what effective educators do. That’s what we owe our children.

If you’re a teacher / administrator / librarian / education professor that somehow ‘doesn’t even realize [yet] that there’s a decision to be made,’ should you even be working in a school or university? Don’t our children and our school systems need and deserve someone who’s in a different place than you are? It’s one thing to still be a learner; heck, we’re all learners with this technology stuff. It’s another to opt out or not even recognize the choice. If we look at what our kids need, shouldn’t we replace you with someone else?

It’s not about us. It’s not about our personal or professional priorities and preferences, our discomfort levels, or any of that other stuff that has to do with us. It’s about our students: our children and our youth who deserve at the end of their schooling experience to be prepared for the world in which they’re going to live and work and think and play and be. That’s the obligation of each and every one of us. No educator gets to disown this.

We can’t let educators off the hook. Not a single one. So keep that fishhook firmly wedged in their mouths. Keep tugging them along on the line. Keep scooping them up in our nets. Feed them tasty tidbits if need be. Do whatever it takes to make this happen. But insist on them doing the same.

Edutopia: Top 5 Educational Videos

What Everyone’s Watching: Top 5
Educational Videos

–> How to Teach Math as a Social Activity
A cooperative-learning environment in an upper-elementary classroom.

An Introduction to Project Learning
In this hands-on approach to teaching, students create schoolwork that demonstrates core subject knowledge.

Tech-Fueled Differentiated Instruction
Engages Elementary School Students
Technology personalizes the learning experience at Forest Lake Elementary School.

Pixar’s Randy Nelson:
Learning in the Collaborative Age
Why schools must prepare students (and themselves) for new models in the workplace.

Big Thinkers: Howard Gardner on
Multiple Intelligences
An interview with the Harvard University professor about multiple intelligences and new forms of assessment.

The Daily Find

This week’s find has some great treasures.  Check it out.

Innovative Educators Professional Development

Colleagues,
The early bird registration for the Center for Innovative Educators summer workshops is May 1. Please share information about these workshops with your colleagues at your school. Fourteen professional development workshops are offered from June 23-25 on
the Harpeth Hall campus, 3801 Hobbs Road, Nashville, TN. Costs are $160 for half-day courses and $320 for full-day workshops. The center’s mission to inspire teachers to develop new and creative practices, to build a network of learning professionals, to
support teacher growth through innovative thinking and to prepare students for the 21st century. Below are titles of the workshops. Register at [ [ http://www.harpethhall.org ]http://www.harpethhall.org ]www.harpethhall.org. If you would like a copy (or copies) of printed brochures,
contact Center Coordinator Traci Keller, [ [ mailto:keller@harpethhall.org ]mailto:keller@harpethhall.org ]keller@harpethhall.org. Register before May 1 and receive $10 off the course fee.

TITLES OF WORKSHOPS
1. Beginner’s Guide to Using a Smartboard in the Classroom: (Or, Why the Heck Would I Want to Learn a New Technology?)
2. Creating a Character Education Curriculum Using Your Mission Statement
3. Creative and Collaborative Learning in the English Classroom
4. Developing Professionally within the Classroom: Critical Friends Workshop
5. Silhouettes: Challenge Every Student to Find Individuality through Art
6. YouTube and Beyond: Transforming the Traditional Lecture
7. The Capstone Project Concept: Research, Critical Analysis, Technology, and the Big Picture
8. The Harkness Table in the Real World
9. What Goes Down CAN Come Up: A Five Es Approach to Understanding Density and Buoyancy
10. What Mainstream Movies Teach Us about Race: Helping Students Be Informed Film Critics
11. The Cheapskate’s Guide to Wowing Your Students: Free and Easy Technology at Your Fingertips
12. The Game of Life: Using Simulations to Teach Real Lessons
13. How to Create Project Pages Using Follett’s Destiny Library Automation Program
14. Philosophy is What You Do: Crafting and Honing a Teaching Philosophy

Joanne Mamenta
The Harpeth Hall School
Director of Communications/Public Relations
[ mailto:mamenta@harpethhall.org ]mamenta@harpethhall.org
615-346-0135
[ http://www.harpethhall.org ]www.harpethhall.org
[ http://www.twitter.com/harpethhall ]www.twitter.com/harpethhall
Teaching girls to think critically, to lead confidently, and to live honorably