I've never been much for blogging. In my teen years I dabbled a little in the world of LiveJournal and was quickly turned off by massive amounts of drama, plus...I never really had anything worth writing about. I'm not saying that anything I have to say now is any more worthwhile than what I had to say back then but I often feel the need to record my thoughts somewhere and maybe share some of my aggregation of knowledge with the world. Oh...and I can always reference this when I forget something since I've found that my memory has been slacking lately. Where to begin? I guess I'll start with the basics. I'm a 26 year old male, living in what some would refer to as the "sticks" in Northern Maine. I work for Easton School System as a Technology Director and Integrator. In my off time I attend Northern Maine Community College where I'm one semester away from snagging my second degree, in Computer Information Systems. I live with my fiancee Alyssa, who I have been with for about 5 years now, and her 6 year old daughter Kayla. When I have a spare moment I enjoy playing guitar, my Xbox 360(addicted to consoles as a child and can't shake the habit), the occasional movie, listening to my favorite podcasts and reading.
My passion is technology. I, whether by design or by chance, have managed to integrate it into almost every part of my life. I spend my days trying to think up new ways to integrate technology into education when I'm not spending my time fixing it when it breaks down. My principal, our two teacher leaders and I went to an MLTI conference a couple weeks ago that was focused on integration of technology in the classroom. There was an eye opening presentation explaining the correct balance of pedagogy, knowledge and technology, with well defined examples of how technology should function at these different levels of integration. There are 4 levels in this model, which is called the SAMR model, that define what role technology is playing in a teacher's curriculum and what your next goal should be. SAMR stands for "Substitution", "Augmentation", "Modification" and "Redefinition". I'm not going to go into detail on each one but lets just say that the "Modification" and "Redefinition" are the levels to shoot for in most situations. So, after the presentation, I came back from the conference wondering what I could do to redefine the process in which my staff uses the provided technology to improve the learning experience for the students. Over harvest break (we get three weeks off from school to pick potatoes here), I helped our HS math teacher install a projector in his classroom. He wanted a way to project his Geogebra software onto the whiteboard so he could graph on his computer rather than by hand. Now, what he WANTED to do would have only fallen under the Substitution or Augmentation level of the model but he no idea how many possiblities that projector opened up for him. I decided that my next objective would be to open his eyes to some of these just to get the ball rolling. One suggestion he seemed to latch onto was the recording of his lessons. We actually managed to procure a Mimio appliance for him to use with his whiteboard, this gave me an idea. I showed him how easy it would be to download an application such as Jing and use it to record EVERYTHING he does on the whiteboard using Mimio mouse and Mimio studio. Now it doesn't matter if he's doing equations with a marker on the board or if he's working with graphs on his computer, it is all recorded as a flash video with Jing. Now he plans on creating these videos to use as study tool and also intends to use them as a way for students with extended absences to receive their lessons at home. I was amazed at how simple it was to move up the SAMR model just by introducing one simple piece of technology such as a projector.
The largest hurdle that I've come across is the acceptance of technology in the classroom. I think I spend more time convincing people or defending my ideas than I do actually integrating and improving the technology. There are so many amazing tools that my staff could be using to improve their ability to teach and maybe even make parts of their jobs more enjoyable, that I don't even know where to begin. Things like Wikipedia, Twitter, Google Docs, Open Office, multiple Firefox extensions...the list goes on and on. The majority of the time they are just tiny apps or add-ons, but now even the tiniest of applications can do some amazing things. It's hard to believe that in this day and age that people are still fearful of technology. I've come across many people who have said to me "I don't use it because I don't want to break it" or "I don't use it because I don't know how" and sometimes a combination of the two. What do I say?
Nothing is unfixable, and how can you learn to use it if you don't use it? The best training you will ever receive is experience, no matter what you are referencing. Whether it be a job, riding a bike...or using a piece of technology, the best way to learn..is to try.
To close my first..and probably my longest blog post...an article about the use of Wikipedia in education...it brings to light some factors that have come into play when it comes to teachers using it in their classrooms and it also helps to explain away and alleviate some doubts some of you may have about using it.
http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2008/11/teaching-administrators-about-wikipedia.html
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