Presentation:
“Learning and Unlearning” theme of the week.
-constant process
-use prior knowledge to make new learning easier
-share what you have learned
Laptop- just spending time learning the machine-hard to master other technologies
-how would I as a teacher know how to work everyone’s device if it were bring your own device
Available technology in our school, student accessibility, bring your own device
-what about under privileged kids
-BC government has the Digital literacy framework but do we have the technological resources to teach these and how do we access them
teacher understanding of technology (Pam)
Collaboration in our school but between schools?
-blog
-tweet
-shelfari
-etc.
Collaborative learning is said to promote higher level cognitive skills, critical thinking, metacognitive strategies, and problem-solving.
“District Administration Leadership Institute” site http://www.districtadministration.com/article/benefits-teacher-collaboration
published an article of the benefits of teacher collaboration
-retention of new teachers paired with experienced teachers (not happening in our district anymore)
-positive correlation in math and language arts marks
-teacher collaboration as a frequent approach to improving instruction in 35 chronically low-performing schools that achieved dramatic turnarounds (substantial gains in student achievement within three years)
Really good food for thought today – the logistics and reality often outweigh the idealogy and things on our ‘wish list’ ! sorry about your laptop ;-(
Sounds like you are a learning master (always learning new things) as a TL should be!
Doni
I really connected to your discussion about sharing what you have learned. There is sometimes so much stuff I am learning that I do not even think of sharing. However, I have also had the feeling of being apprehensive of teaching. Sometimes, teachers do not want to step out of there comfort zone. I am always a little worried that I may come off as a little arrogant. Often, I choose not to speak out until a teacher approaches to teach them something.
You raised some really interesting questions in your presentation. You are so right. Collaboration is so important, but teachers do have to “buy in”. They have to develop their own ICT skills, comfort level, etc. in order to participate in and promote collaboration with other teachers, school, etc.
You have brought up many valuable questions.
Teacher collaboration is essential improving the baseline digital literacy in your school. We began at our school with lunch and learn sharing sessions through the school year. Even though is was exhausting to keep these going, we were really successful at improving our use of technology in the classroom.
Great presentation yesterday! You made a couple of great points that we can all relate to easily. Your struggle to adapt to Windows 8 is a typical example! It drives home how challenging some of these small changes can be, particularly for the teacher. It can be hard to figure out simple tasks like printing when Microsoft changes their programs! You are right that your experience shows how hard a BYOD policy can be. If a child shows up for a class with a new version of Windows that they do not know how to use, you could easily spend the whole class helping them figure it out. While that is a learning experience, if you are an English teacher, you could easily get frustrated as spending 40 minutes figuring out Windows 8 is not exactly what you are ‘supposed’ to be doing! Then there is the other issue of the other students in the class. Are they without a teacher while you help this student or do you abandon the student with Windows 8 and help the others? It is easy to see why we get so frustrated with technology.