Week 6 Can You Hear Me Now?

Wow! This week we explored several tools that have the potential to make learning in the classroom come alive with action. Discovering the simplicity of using Jing to create a podcast was exciting. Experiencing the advances in technology has been a fun adventure. I also explored Ning, a social networking site, useful for online collaboration after reading about it in my article.

I work with several campus technology specialists and at our meeting this week I introduced them to and invited them to pbworks. Last week when we created accounts at pbworks I set up several work groups in addition to contributing to our class wiki. The tech specialists were so excited. We have many documents, thoughts, ideas, projects etc... in common. Up until now most collaboration had been via email. Although email is a good way to communicate it lacks many features necessary for efficient and effective collaboration! Before we were out of the meeting, several had logged on and were already contributing to the wiki. We made a group decision to use pbworks for the next several months as a pilot and also to develop a professional development plan to share with district teachers. Talk about improving interaction and critical thinking!

I believe with all the tools available and their ease of use, we are on a tipping point in education! It will be critical to help teachers and students alike develop good organizational skills. As long as I access the tools we have been learning about through the eCollege portal and the framework of the class I navigate fairly well. However, trying to remember the web sites, user ids and passwords for all the accounts has been challenging. Working and learning anytime, anywhere is truly a reality.

There are several things preventing change from happening quickly. I believe change is occuring ~ just slowly. Initially change was hampered by access. Many schools do not have the equipment and bandwidth necessary to utilize many of the tools we are using in class. Technology supports and facilitates a new paradigm for teaching and learning ~ a constructivist philosophy I would propose. Many schools function under a different philosophy and until pedegogical philosophies are redefined the change will be slow. However..... it is exciting to see the developments over the last few years and how technology is changing teaching and learning in the K-12 environment and yes I would suggest a tipping point... is very close!

If I could wave a magic wand I would like to change the way we "do school"!!!! Much of instruction is driven by the results of high stakes testing. I accept the reality of assessing student learning but I believe education is being driven by test results. Instead of teaching students to think, learn, and use innovative tools for complex learning, we are compromising to have high test scores. If we could and would leverage the power of technology with a constructivist philosophy I believe our students would perform higher than we could ever imagine.