Graduating from the education program, the advice we received on the way out was “make sure you are careful with what you put online because once it’s out there, it’s there forever.” For many of our professors and peers, this translated to changing your name online and ramping up the security on your Facebook accounts. Our goal was to restrict ourselves and only put out what we had to. Three weeks ago, I was faced with a completely opposing point of view – put as much out there to maximize our social presence. Which model do I choose?

When I started this course, I had no clue what the course was about. “Special Topics in Teacher Librarianship” was all I had to go on. I felt completely overwhelmed and under qualified. How was I going to incorporate all these ideas and theories when I didn’t even have a budget for whiteboard markers and books? Furthermore, how could I use any of these ideas now that I don’t have a classroom this fall? “Trust the process,” was what we were told.

In the following days, we were introduced to a number of online resources; some of them I’ve heard of but shied away from because I didn’t see the value, and others I’ve never heard of. Having a chance to tinker with them made me realize that there is potential in things like blogs and Twitter. They aren’t just diaries and ways to update people that you’re eating a sandwich. The feedback we received was unobtrusive during presentations. People were able to finish speaking their train of thought and others could comment instantaneously. Instead of waiting around and taking turns, we could share our thoughts in a matter of seconds. Furthermore, these ideas were documented; we could go back and review what was said instead of busting our heads trying to remember everything that was said. Okay, +1 to “the process”.

As the course progressed, I began to realize there’s a lot more I could be doing to enhance my teaching and teaching practices without completely restructuring what I’m already doing. I am already fairly comfortable using technology and learning how to use devices I’m interested in – why not explore ways to combine the two? Just because I don’t have a contract next year and infrastructure for ICT is inconsistent doesn’t mean I can’t do anything. Surely, there’s got to be a way to find out what is available in schools and find ways to take advantage of our resources. That’s what led me to the inquiry topic of combining ICT and substitute teaching.

Sandy and I set out to create an online database to share information about classrooms and their availability of ICT to assist substitute teachers (TOCs). I feel we’ve been able to combine some of the concepts we’ve talked about in class, and a few of the resources shared during the 10 Minutes of Fame on our site in a constructive manner. Hopefully what we’ve created will do justice to the inquiry topic we set out to do.

The ICT Sub Hub – theictsubhub.weebly.com

So, going back to my first question, which model do I choose? Do I minimize and restrict what I put out there, or put out as much as I can? A balance of both, I’d say. It’s true we have to be extremely careful of how we are portrayed online because if anyone digs deep enough, personal content intended for friends and family could wind up on an unintended screen. But if we consciously share our professional ideas, create online communities for our students, and enhance our digital presence, there’s going to be a lot more positive content out there than potentially compromising content. From here, I intend to continue being apart of the discussion, incorporating ICT in subbing, teaching, and personally – that is, in moderation.

Today we hit a bit of a wall. For some reason, the information from the survey is not automatically sorting itself alphabetically on Google docs. It seems that users can sort the information after the data is collected, but our goal is to minimize the amount of moderation needed. Another issue we are having is that while we have set the permissions for the spreadsheet to be public, sometimes it requires users to login to Google, and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not sure what the issue is or if there is a way to get around that. While it is frustrating, I feel we have managed to tackle our biggest challenges – creating a resource to gather information about ICT in schools, sharing that information, providing resources and ideas on how to use ICT, and creating a place for teachers to share ideas. Tinkering with the site will be an ongoing challenge, but maintenance and updating is necessary for just about everything. The important thing is we have a beginning that is incorporating ideas and concepts we’ve learned and shared in class, and made it possible for the conversation to continue. I’ve been considering what other content we should include on this website and I am having some trouble. I’ve thought about some of the resources we looked at in the first week, such as Twitter, Pearl Trees, Mindmeister, and Pinterest, but I don’t know if our site is the right place for something like that, and if I’d be adding them just for the sake of using technology, or if they would have validity to achieve our goals. It might be better to recommend some of those resources rather than embed them in our site. Pearl Trees could be an effective way to present some of the links, but I don’t want users to have to create account after account to access the information we are sharing. Another thing I’ve been considering is if more visuals are needed. One of my concerns is that more images and embedding will take longer for mobile devices or slow broadband to connect to the site if teachers are trying to get ideas on the go. However, having images can be aesthetically pleasing and appeal to visual learners such as myself. Also, the basic version of Weebly seems to be pretty restricting as to where you can post photos on the page. I’d love to hear feedback on things to add or revise on the site.

Today we started with the article “iPads vs Teachers – Why Technology is Winning” – this article bothered me for a number of reasons. The title in itself is polarizing and implies it has to be one or the other. My initial gut reaction was shock and anger. How could a piece of technology replace someone that has trained for years to become a teacher and that has a genuine interest in working with students? Not to mention how little evidence there is to support the efficacy of iPads over other approaches to improve student learning. There are so many things wrong with this concept of iPads replacing teachers, it’s ridiculous. Is an iPad going to teach empathy or how to work with manipulatives? Maybe the iPad will help the kids tie their shoes or teach restitution?

Then I began to wonder who David Sirota is and where is he getting his information from? It turns out that Mr. Sirota is a liberal political commentator and radio host. His 2006 book “Hostile Takeover” is about how corporate interests are driving the U.S. policy. Fair enough – his views may be a little biased and his article seems to have left out some important details. Where are the teachers in this conversation? Why were there significant teacher layoffs in the states? Is that directly linked to the purchase in technology?

There are certainly many issues both with the idea of technology replacing teachers and people taking an anti-technology stand point. What is the goal here and who’s really benefiting? The push for every child to have their own laptop never happened, so why are iPads going to be different? I feel the conversations have to happen and they need to be made transparent. I don’t believe there’s a one-shot panacea that’s going to reform the system. It’s going to take community with the end goal being education and what’s best for the students, not what’s best for business.

On that note and thoughts on community, Sandy and I have managed to overcome a couple big challenges in our developing of The ICT Sub Hub. We’ve decided to make three separate sub-pages with different surveys so we could distinguish information on elementary, middle and high schools. The surveys were easy to embed, but I don’t think the spreadsheets can be. I’ve set it so they are viewable to anyone accessing the link through the website. I’ve also created a forum and embedded that into our website in hopes that it will serve as a means to foster community and communication. In regards to the resources, I’ve tried to share and comment on some of the many sources we’ve seen during the 10 Minutes of Fame / mentioned in class. It’s an ongoing process, but I feel the project is really starting to take shape. I’ve recently been in contact with the technology teacher at one of the schools I was staffed and he’s happy to share his resources and share his thoughts. The conversation is beginning! There is a community that supports this, and I’m feeling optimistic we’ll be able to contribute.

Continuing on with the project, Sandy and I focused on establishing who our target audience is, what are the developmental characteristics and needs of our audience, and ways we can foster connectivity. Our topic is intended to be a resource for teachers-on-call (TOCs). Other users may be able to benefit from it or contribute, but our goal is to create something that can be used by teachers that are constantly on the go from one classroom to the next. The database of ICT infrastructure in schools does not have much use for a classroom teacher.

Most new teachers entering the TOC position have at least some basic computer literacy skills, such as how to use a computer, projector, or perhaps even Smartphones or tablets. More advanced ICT users may have experience with Smartboards, and have knowledge around the inquiry model and how to use technology to enhance their ideas. There’s also a community of retired teachers that are entering the TOC field again after years of teaching experience. I would argue that those teachers have a plethora of knowledge and would also have basic ICT skills. Some may be experts with technology, whereas others may have shied away from it before retiring. It is our intent with this website to enable those willing and wanting to use technology to enhance their lessons in the event that the regular classroom teacher did not leave anything, or is open to new ideas.

Beyond the database of what technology is available in classrooms, we’d like to create a page of suggested ideas for subs. It is our hope that our contributions will just be a starting point for others to contribute to. We’ve thought about sending out a blurb to our respective TOC representatives in try to get the word out and reach out to the sub community. Also, talking about it in staffrooms or sharing the ideas with administrators might help spread the idea. In regards to community, we initially thought of creating a blog, but we realized that since we do not want to be the sole moderators of the site, we decided a forum might be a better medium for people to communicate. While the survey and database portion will be username and password free, I feel it’s important for people to have an identity when communicating ideas.

I’ve been able to embed our survey on our Weebly site, and have created a brief write up for our goals. Our current challenge is figuring out the best way to organize the survey information. We have discovered it is possible to filter the surveys by alphabetical order of the schools, but we’d like to find a way to organize it further. We are investigating if it is possible to have a tab function that will allow users to differentiate from elementary, middle, and high school. The problem is we are not quite sure if google docs will distinguish that information or if more advanced scripting is needed.

Slowly, our idea is taking shape. I see potential in what we are creating, but it will certainly take a lot of refinement and numerous versions before we have something that we can work with. Perhaps this is the start of a collaborative resource concept that would be unofficially be supported by districts.

Today Sandy and I continued working on our ICT resource for TOCs (http://theictsubhub.weebly.com/). Still very much a work in progress, we have decided to keep our scope focused on teachers-on-call, and developing the survey for our database. The database will be compiled based on information provided by teachers-on-call or teachers and administrators willing to contribute information about their classrooms. Some of the criteria on the survey requires users to input the name and level of the school, the division room (we decided to avoid using teacher names due to privacy concerns), available technology in the classroom (are there computers readily accessible, is there an Internet connection, is there a projector/overhead/television), etc.

The draft of the survey is as follows:

While creating this, we’ve run into a few challenges along the way. The biggest challenge so far is figuring out how we can make it useful for teachers-on-call. Furthermore, finding ways to collect and present the information is something we still need to figure out. I think each district has a TOC representative – perhaps one way to get the word out would be to contact our district reps to get the word out.

So let’s pretend the survey is complete and TOCs are accessing the site – great, now what? We are currently trying to find a way to collect that data and present it in a useful way so users can quickly find the school and classroom they are looking for, and see if that class has a projector for them to use, or if there’s someone or something in the building that could be done to utilize ICT. We’ve considered having sub-pages stemming from Elementary, Middle and High School, but that would involve a lot of site management from moderators. Having all that information available on one page could work if users use the “Search” function on their computers; however, that would be pretty disorganized and may lead to information being re-entered by accident.

Aside from the survey and how we would like to present, the next big section will be the “TOC Tool Kit” on the site. What use would having a database of technology be if there weren’t any appropriate uses for it? We’re hoping to put together a few 1-off lessons that a TOC could use in a classroom if the teacher did not leave a day plan. On the more basic side, I was thinking we could have a list of books and suggested lesson activities stemming from them. If the books are available in a digital format, that’s even better. Other things we could include would be TED Talks or Podcasts to spark discussions. It is unlikely every student will have access to a device in the classroom setting (outside of the lab or cell phones if the students are older), so I think most of the resources in this section will be teacher led.

I’m starting to realize how much of an undertaking this project is, and I think the main thing for me is to focus on keeping it simple. With a lot of work, tweaking and luck, perhaps this will fill a need that is lacking in our districts.