Much like my feelings about ICT in terms of my own growth, I feel ambivalent about the need to make this area a primary aspect of my work either, as a classroom teacher of teacher-librarian. That being said, I know that a sizable part of my job in terms of supporting classroom work will involve research and tools from the technological world and that there is a definite need for someone to act as a reservoir of knowledge and tools about how to best use ICT in the service of my school’s staff and students.
My ideas for how to support my school’s teaching community with their ICT needs, are fairly straight forward.
1. Consult – As part of a go-around to all departments, I would ask departments if they have any departmental or specific needs that I could help with. These needs could really be anything but I imagine many will be about accessing specific information or tools for their students, training resources for their own professional development and, perhaps, mini lessons about what ICT tools are available to us through our district or elsewhere in the on-line universe.
2. Dig – As I explore on-line resources myself (see previous blog), I will keep an eye put for tools that are useful for me and my colleagues but also for tools that I can see would be helpful for my colleagues or students that don’t have a utility to me.
3. Share – I would then note which discoveries that would be of use to either my co-workers or students and then make them part of my supporting work. I can imagine reserving 5-10 minutes per staff meeting to introduce a new tool or ICT-based idea to help inform my staff of the possibilities. I would also look for opportunities to work with any of my colleagues on ICT related projects.
4. Resource – I would also continue our current teacher-librarian’s policy of support resources by sponsoring book clubs for teachers and maintaining a virtual and hard copy library of resources for the staff of our school.
As I look over my blogs on this subject, I feel a bit embarrassed in that my ambitions, at least at this point, are pretty humble. I have tried, in the past, to keep up with and use a variety of social media and other internet resources to augment my teaching but have, largely, found that the amount of time it takes to master and maintain these formats, often made them quite expensive in terms of time in relation to their true usefulness. Key to my exploration of ICT is the idea of being conscious about how much of my practice becomes subsumed by these tools and which aspects of the ICT world are really are worth the effort to bring them to a larger audience.
Hi Guy,
When we first started this course I was not really ambivalent as much as concerned. I know the course is K-12 so the course matter has to benefit everyone. I am a huge believer in a play-based learning environment that is nearly tech-free until the end of Grade 3. It’s been a bit tough wrapping my mind around some pieces. I also work in an environment that is 1:1 device-based for the Grade 6-7’s and their teachers are true experts. So who am I learning all of this for? Just the Grade 4 &5’s? Turns out, there’s a lot I can add in at the earlier years that doesn’t upset me after all. And those Grade 4 & 5’s have access to almost nothing in our school as there aren’t any computer labs and just 1 iPad cart shared between. So, I’m going to try really hard this year to give everyone something, focus on the 4-5’s and use the Apple tech centres for the early folks. I would really reccomend accessing the Apple Education centres that Darcy shared with us on Tuesday. They are super low-barrier for us :-).
https://www.apple.com/ca/education/k12/everyone-can-create/
– Janet Smith
Thanks, Janet. That’s helpful.
I know, right??? With technology being so advanced today, when is a good time to introduce it to students? Currently as a resource teacher, I would love to be able to teach students how to ‘properly and respectfully’ use mobile devices to support their learning at home. But the question that I have is that if the parent is not capable to regulating their child’s screen time, am I opening up Pandora’s Box?
Yes. But you can’t regulate the parents.
I love the simple 4-step process. Simple explanations and simple executions. Good work!
Your first step of communication and collaboration is a big one. It’s time consuming, and I find that many educators have their curriculum dialled down that they don’t want support because it means more time and energy spent that they don’t want give up. Especially with more intermediate grades (speaking from personal experience), there’s so much work that teachers want to cover within their developed curriculum that involving another person is just a nuisance.
I guess patience and perseverance in the name of the students is what we as educators have to remind ourselves of everyday!
Rick Lee
It’s tricky because as a classroom teacher, I see both sides. Anyone shows up telling me they can help me by adding something new, there is definitely a protective guard that goes up. There are so many competing forces vying for your attention as a teacher and some of them are just to check someone’s box (Administrator: “I really think blogging might be a good way for students to explore their thoughts in a new way that allows for them to collaborate in new and innovative ways.”. Teacher translation: “Part of my administrator portfolio revolves around 21st century learning and if I can get you to put in an immense amount of work to show I have led this initiative in a documentable way, I can then check off this little box so that I can move up the ladder.”). This is a cynical view and I try to be open but… teachers have reason for caution.
I suspect you’re right, patience and perseverance will eventually win trust.