1. What policies govern your uses of ICT in your school setting?
With all responses, I’m going to be speaking in past tense. As of Friday, my district no longer has middle schools, and having worked in a middle school, it is no more. At this point, I don’t know where I’ll be in September.
There has been both an increase and decrease in ICT in our school district. While more workshops are being offered, district Pro-D days have had a tech focus, teachers are being encouraged to use technology more than ever, yet one of our district tech positions was cut, the person who worked directly with teachers. We still have a district principal of technology, although much of what he does is a mystery to the average teacher.
There really aren’t many policies that govern our use. From time to time an issue has cropped up, and an email is sent out to the district to enlighten us on how to deal with a problem. Also at the district level are occasional emails offering workshops, often in relation to Apple products. Our district is firmly pushing Apple in all areas. At the school level, we would sometimes get schoolwide emails that asked us not to use something (Safari) and to use something else (Firefox). As mentioned in class, we had an incident with a student recording a teacher and publishing it on YouTube, yet we still did not firmly establish any guidelines or policies, and the event remained a mystery to most staff.
2. What digital technological resources do you have available for teaching and learning in your school setting?
We previously had access to two computer labs, both Macs. There was a possibility of requesting something to be added to the computers (an app), although this wouldn’t necessarily happen. Our school librarian ran the school website, which contained subject area links, along with links to teacher/class websites. One of those labs contained a projector for use in display, while in both Remote Desktop no longer worked for sharing screens. The plan had been to replace one of the labs with a cart of iPads.
Outside of the lab, most classrooms had one or two former library computers, which were little good beyond basic web surfing and word processing. Every classroom had a projector and document camera. Most teachers had a school laptop that could be connected to the projector. With that, we had reasonable access to a range of sites, with some blocked (Facebook, Lego?????). It did make it problematic at times to access some resources. Thankfully Twitter was not blocked. Smart Boards were in three classrooms.
Through the library, teachers and students could access iPads, digital cameras, and iPods.
We had schoolwide wifi available for all.
3. Please provide an example of an exemplary use of digital technologies for teaching and learning that you have observed or experienced personally.
I struggled with this question. Adoption of digital technologies has been somewhat slow in our area. Within our school, teacher age is significantly older, with many nearing retirement and not necessarily willing to try out new technologies. One class this year was a pilot program using technology, but the closure meant that we didn’t learn much of their experiences.
At another school, I learned much from a fellow teacher who really awoke me to the use of iPads. He kept copies of assignments on his iPad, student videos, bookmarked useful links, used it to run slideshows for the kids, do attendance and instantly send a copy of student attendance home, and much more. Much of what I do is based on his practices. I try and keep my iPad like his magical treasure box, always full, always ready.
4. Please provide an example of a problematic use of digital technologies for teaching and learning that you have observed or experienced personally.
The most problematic use in my experience was a lack of use. An example would be Chris Hadfield, on Twitter. During that time I hadn’t taken a contract and was TOCing. Within our school, not a single class that I visited had been following Chris’ tweets. Most students didn’t know who he was. It was such a loss of an educational opportunity.
Related to this would be using it, but not really teaching students how to use it. An example would be a slideshow we watched on the last day. A student created it, and it was lovely. However, it was clear that the student didn’t really know how to use the program. She knew how to drag in pictures, how to drag in music, but nothing beyond that. The pictures kept starting and ending in strange places (it used the Ken Burns effect), which detracted from what it tried to do. She knew the very basics of the program, but didn’t really know how to use it.
5. Please provide a brief history of how you learned to use digital technologies (personally and professionally).
My first computer was a Commodore 64. I started using the internet as soon as it was available to us in our high school, and created my own website using books for reference (!!!!). I’ve always been interested and willing to learn. I’ve done some professional development, such as the CUEBC conference, but much is self taught through trial and error and research. I’m also open to what I can learn from my peers, and what I can learn from students.
6. How would you rate your digital technological proficiency? 0 = low level of proficiency -> 10 = high level of proficiency? Why did you give yourself this rating?
8-9? I’m willing to try new things, which usually leads to learning. I help and teach others, which also helps reinforce my skills. I’m active on Facebook and Twitter, publish my own videos to YouTube, am considering trying out podcasting, am constantly trying out new ways of using iPads in the classroom, have my own blogs, and use the internet as a main method of communication with peers and friends around the world. However, with how much technology expands day to day, it’s nigh on impossible to keep up!
7. What do you hope to accomplish in this course?
I’d like to learn more on how to incorporate ICT into a library, and support classroom teachers on the use of ICT. I believe our schools have lacked any drive in doing so, and the library is a great place to move that forward.
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Brianne, I really enjoyed reading your post. It must be very frustrating to not know where you’ll be in September. I like your comment about the simultaneous “increase and decrease” in ICT in your district. This is a very valid point – more and more Pro-D is being offered with a tech focus and our school superintendent is a huge proponent of technology, but the lack of technology in our schools is laughable. We just found out that the Vancouver School Board will no longer be supporting or maintaining our school computer labs, which will leave me with ONE ancient classroom computer. I attended a host of Smart Board workshops years ago but never actually got to work in a classroom with one. None of it makes sense. I don’t understand how the ministry can make technology a focus and not fund it. My school doesn’t even have wifi. To connect my personal MacBook to the internet in class, I have to run a 50 ft ethernet cable snaking across the room from my laptop to the internet drop in the far corner of the room. (Someone trips over this cord at least twice a day).
It’s fantastic that you’ve begun using your iPad based on what your colleagues are doing. iPads do seem to be the next big thing but I worry they will go the way of the Smart Board. I haven’t begun to tap into all the ways to use iPads in the classroom but I’m sure there are some amazing uses. In particular, I discovered an app that allows you to turn your iPad into a Smart Board. Whatever is displayed on your laptop is mirrored on the iPad which is in turn projected through an LCD projector. Instead of having students come up to the board, the iPad gets passed around for kids to interact with – and all markings appear on the screen.
Between your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube videos, and iPad use in the classroom, it seems like you already are on the forefront of technology in education. I’m sure your colleagues are learning as much from you as you are from them. And that is the truly exciting thing about technology – we are destined to be lifelong learners.
I am sorry to hear of the closing of middle schools in your district! You bring up a good point, the cognitive dissonance of being encouraged to use ICT, but not being adequately prepared to understand why it is important to use it (other than a vague notion of progress), or how to go about using it in school settings. There seems to be this consistent gap between what policy-makers and administrators assume of teachers’ ICT perspectives and practices, and teachers’ day to day realities of ICT encounters and technological dispositions. Honestly, if I was presented with a classroom set of iPads, I would have to do some real research to figure out how to take advantage of their technological affordances in a class setting. It would be interesting to see how educators are using them. Age is not necessarily correlated to ICT use by teachers, it does seem, however, that teachers more advanced in their careers, who haven’t engaged with ICT previously, are not necessarily willing.
When you are thinking about improving the use of ICT in the library and with teachers, make sure you are thinking about the philosophical, curricular, or pedagogical interests, issues or ideas first, then bringing the technology forward as a way to do things that couldn’t otherwise be done.