Blog 4 SBTS Class

Challenging Assumptions about Technology Professional Development
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=183

This was a very professional presentation and effective slideshow. The speaker first outlined the obstacles to successful technology professional development as:

• Requires changes in classroom management and pedagogy
• Outside trainings are hard to transfer to the classroom

I thought this page from her presentation that introduced her assumptions about Technology Professional Development was apropos to our daily life as SBTS:

Misnomers about Technology Professional Development

1. Many feel teachers do not get enough technology training
   1. Studies show teachers are getting enough technology training but 80% are not comfortable transferring it to the classroom.
2. Teachers can only learn about tech outside the classroom, once they learn and are comfortable with it they can use it in the classroom
   1. The apprenticeship model works best. Newcomers learn best from veterans
   2. Teachers learn well in a co-teaching environment
   3. The place of practice is the best place to learn; learn where you need it.

This quote she shared from Seymour Papert really made me think about our role as SBTS and some teachers’ lack of motivation to integrate technology: “What we need is the kinds of activities in the classroom where the teacher is learning at the same time. Unless you do that you’ll never get out of the bind of what the teachers can do is limited by what they were taught to do when they went to school.”

This presenter’s solution to Technology Professional Development is to look to students as co-learners in a constructivist classroom where teachers are ‘guides on the side.’ She explained effectively technology integrated classrooms are collaborative, activity and student centered, inquiry based, democratic, reflective, and allow risk taking. By encouraging teachers to try new things in front of the students and tell them what they are doing, students witness a lesson lifelong learning. Students also need teachers to show them reasons to use technology for educational purposes.

The main point of this presentation, which I think is a shift in current thinking, teachers need students to help them learn how to use technology as a classroom tool. In a typical school 92% of the people in the school are students and 8% teachers and administrators. She believes the trickle down of professional development from the technology specialist to the teachers is not working. Students need to be counted on to model technology. When students see their input valued they will interact more and contribute more in the classroom. The goal of her organization, Gen Yes, is to pair a technology challenged teacher and technology savvy student. The students show how to teach lesson with technology, practice communication skills and learn teaching methods. She believes teachers like to learn from students because they go into teaching because they like to be with kids and like to learn from kids more than from adults.

I have included some of the slides from this presentation that I feel effectively demonstrate this way of thinking.

I really connected with this presentation and it made me feel motivated to push our school, teachers and students into a technology modeling environment where it is not just the SBTS doing the modeling. I also thought this presentation could have also fit in the Professional Learning Networks Strand.