Janet’s presentation about the learning communities that had been created in her school was inspiring. It seems like the kind of stuff that answers the WHY that Jenny keeps asking us. Why engage in the use of technology? Because it can help to create the results that Janet spoke about in her presentation. In her school the use of technology aided students to become better global citizens and to present their learning so that it could be shared with others. During her presentation I developed two take aways for my own practice.
The first take away was the need to create evidence of such great projects and to share them as best-practice examples. This is where I think that good uses of technology can occur. Using digital media to record evidence of student learning is a smart use of technology. Once this learning evidence is digitized it then makes it even easier to share. Sharing can be done with parents, other students, and other teachers in different learning communities. I am entirely guilty of not recording evidence of learning in meaningful ways. I think that I could be doing more in my classroom to create spaces where my student’s work is shared between them and with others. I am also doing myself a disservice by not recording the learning that I am facilitating with my students because I can’t as easily share my pedagogy insights with my colleagues. A picture or a video speaks a thousand words and if don’t have either then I have to say or write a description of my learning activities in order to be able to share them: what a lot of extra work! A lot of extra work often means it won’t happen because there just isn’t time. If we as teacher remember to record the learning projects and techniques were are implementing we will be more likely to share them with other teachers. Thus, record to contribute!
I also wonder if perhaps librarians could help classroom teachers in their recording efforts as well, or could be in charge of overall recording of school wide initiatives. With regards to sharing these types of ideas I think it would be neat to have a Canadian equivalent to the “schools that work” section that Edutopia has where they showcase best practice projects that are happening in different school communities.
The other idea that I hooked onto from Janet’s presentation was that of continuous pro-d. I think that so often pro-d opportunities are a one-time event that is highly disconnected from the learning communities that teachers are a part of. Imagine only taking in the first day of our class? I think that many would have felt disappointed and discombobulated. However, a few more days in and everyone seems to be making their own connections and exploring topics of interest to them. I think that there can be real value in a sustained type of collaborative pro-d. Some skills and programs are best learned and built over time. In education and technology there is so much change happening so quickly that we have to eek out time to discover it, hash it out and learn it, as well as decide on ways to best use it. I would like to like to develop something similar to Janet’s “luncheon learns” with my colleagues this coming year where we explore technology related issues and skills as a small committed group (or groups, depending on how many would like to participate). Of course I would have to remember to record our learning journey as well. 🙂
It’s interesting how connected all of these ideas are. Asking questions like “Why?” is part of the nature of inquiry. It’s difficult to be really invested in something unless we’re the ones asking the questions and looking for the solutions. In asking how teacher librarians can record and share evidence of projects that are taking place in the schools, it may ultimately lead us to ICT. You could record students working on the iPad and then share it on the library blog, or on to a site like Edutopia, as you mentioned. I feel that by engaging in our own inquiry and our own final projects, we’ll be buying into the tech because it helps us accomplish our goals in a way that we couldn’t without it. (And hopefully that’s how we’ll start to approach it in the classroom as well!)
I went to an interesting pro-D workshop on assessment practices in math this year and I think the reason I found it so appealing was that they didn’t start with “Hey! Here’s a cool online grading program.” I don’t think I ever would have used it. I already have a program. It’s fine. Thanks. They started by showing us some grades – percents, letter grades – and asking us what the grades meant. Did they truly represent what the students knew? Did they help the teacher or the student figure out what they still needed to work on and improve? Turns out they didn’t. Once we had that “Why” piece, the how became much more interesting. Hopefully you can find a way to set up your school pro-D in a way that captures the attention of your staff in the same way (this is something I still struggle with.)
One caution with the ‘best practices’ approach. We are learning that one-size-does-not-fit-all in education. Every district is different, and every school within a district is different. We might get a good idea of something that can work in our situation, but we should expect it is going to need to be customized for the people we are doing things with. And yes, please, record and post the journey! It is the way we learn, and by sharing our learning we contribute to others learning as well.