Education and Technology

I strongly believe in technology as a tool in education. Of course I’m bias because I’m in IT in our school system, but today’s world is technology and multimedia. That being said, technology is not “THE ONE” solution to increasing our children’s knowledge or giving them the best education they can get. To the point, it takes a lot of things to make an education system work and here are my thoughts on what some of them are. These are in no particular order or a complete list, just some things to peak thoughts and discussion.

Parent involvement….This I believe, is crucial to the success of any child’s education. Active participation by parents creates a better view of school for a child, no matter the age of the child. Being in technology support I get to see all the classes, in all the elementary grades. I also get to see a lot of the parent involvement as I walk the campus and through classes. You wouldn’t believe what I hear as I walk by parents talking to their children; but I can tell you that the students that I see getting positive feedback are the one’s that I also see at the Student of the Month or Principal List awards presentations.

Teacher involvement….Boy this is a big can of worms because there are many different ways that a teacher can be involved and every teacher thinks their way is the right one. Well, I’m going to only give you one way that, in my opinion, is one of the best. At 8:20 am students are allowed into their classrooms at our school, which normally means the door is unlocked and the kids come in, the teacher says “hi” while directing the students in the daily start up routine. There is one teacher though, who stands at his door to greet each child by name, with a handshake, a “Good Morning” and a “How are you today?”. To me this shows the children that this teacher cares about them. It might take 10 minutes to do this, but he gets feedback and can take the extra time to work with or talk with anyone who might not be doing well or who has a problem.

Administration Involvement….Administration that walks the classrooms, sits in on a class, participates in lead teacher meetings helps with the students learning experience in more than one way. A principal that will go to a classroom to help teach a lesson is valuable. One that is able to lead, or more to the point to instill the want to follow by their staff is invaluable in shaping the way students learn. Our principal, Michelle Henderson made a deal with the students of her school that if they read enough books to earn 50,000 points she would jump out of a plane onto the PE field. Those points were earned through passing tests about those books they read. Well, those kids read a lot of books, over 2,500 and scored 57,000 points by passing those tests. Ms. Henderson jumped out of that plane last week to a cheering crowd of students.

I’ve purposely left technology off this list because there are a lot of things that don’t get noticed while we are pushing the technology. This post is meant to highlight some of the small things that happen that make our children want to learn, make them feel that someone cares.

The title of this post “It’s all about the kids” came from Ms. Henderson. I’ve heard her say it more than once and I know that she means it. It’s a joy to work at the school I do because the person at the top inspires her staff to keep their eye on the goal……the kids.

Technorati tags: K12, K12 Education, Elementary Education, Educational Technology, Education, PTO, PTA

Their is a test that our first and second graders take each year. During the math portion of the test the teacher is reading the question out loud to them. It is not written anywhere on the test and the teacher can only read the question once. Yes, you read that right, they can only read the question ONCE.

My question is the same as the topic of this blog, “Is this a math test or a listening test?”

How does this test a child’s knowledge of math? What if they don’t hear the question clearly, or they don’t understand it? Being able to read the question themselves after the teach reads it out loud isn’t cheating, it’s letting them understand the problem. These are first & second graders, they are 6 to 8 years old and we are expecting them to be able to understand a question read out loud only once. Who came up with this idea? Have they seen the attention span of this age group, or how they actually learn?

I know adults that can’t answer questions without asking for the question to be repeated or reading it themselves. Could we give these test writers a test commensurate with their ability, but only read them the question once, no exceptions. I don’t think they would do as well as they think.

Technorati tags: Math, K12 Education, Elementary Education, Standardized Testing, Education

Our school district has invested $14 million dollars into putting Promethean ActivBoards into every classroom and Media Center in the district. This ambitious project has been an ever changing work in progress. The first phase of installs has been 15% of the classrooms. The teachers that have gotten ActivBoards in there classrooms have primarily been receptive to their new teaching partner, while the kids have just loved it.

Let me explain what an ActivBoard is so you can better understand how it changes the way a teacher has to teach. Watch a Video Overview here or an Interactive Demonstration here to see it in action. The ActivBoard is a large “Interactive Whiteboard” that you don’t use dry erase markers on. But as you can see it is much more, it is a PC, a VCR, a flipchart, a PowerPoint, a DVD player, an interactive lesson with your students, a center during class, the Internet, a TV for special events and more. An ActivBoard can be attached to a PC, either a laptop or a desktop running ActivStudio Professional or ActivPrimary for Elementary Schools K-2. Also standard with our ActivBoards are speakers with an Amplifier and a DVD/VCR. Along the line we will be adding a document camera, but you can also attach an ELMO and other devices to the ActivBoard.

Can you imagine showing a video or DVD of Martin Luther King, pausing the DVD during “I Have a Dream”, changing to the PC in two clicks where you have flipchart or a web page showing something that you want to focus on at that point in the speech, then switching back to the DVD to continue where you stopped? You can even have the students use the ActivBoard to answer questions about the DVD and the Flipchart lesson afterwards using the ActiVote personal response system that captures student responses by asking students to make a choice on the hand held voters by clicking a button. A mini quiz without the students knowing it. The kids think it’s a game, answer the question right and be the first or get the most questions correct.

I want to stress how much the kids really love the ActivBoard. It’s interactive, it’s entertaining, they get to use it and most important, they listen to the lesson. From my life experiences, when someone enjoys doing something they tend to pay better attention, learn more and retain it better. I have no statistical proof, but this would lead me to think that the kids will improve in grade point average and to some degree on the standardized tests that the lawmakers seem to think are needed to show Yearly Progress. The ActivBoards are by no means the only way we should teach, not at all. We should be doing some things the old fashioned way, like writing and reading. We shouldn’t stop going on field trips just because the ActivBoard can go just about anywhere, while it doesn’t have to move from the room. We shouldn’t stop going outside, sitting at a set of lunch benches and reading out loud with our students.

ActivBoards are a good advancement in teaching methods, they should be used in conjunction with current teaching methods. Some day the ActivBoard will break, you’ll need a backup lesson plan to do it the old way. Don’t replace the car when you are just adding a new coat of paint.

I think the ActivBoards are a great addition, take a look at Promethean World and Promethean Planet.

Technorati tags: Education, Technology, Promethean, ActivBoard, WhiteBoard, Teaching, K12, Educational Technology

I was reading the Wall Street Journal online tonight and came across an article that makes an argument that teachers are overpaid. I was shocked with the comparisons and the idea that you can compare the work a teacher does to the work an architect or economists does. The other thing I was astonished to read was that the author was basing his premise on an hourly wage.

Who, on average, is better paid — public school teachers or architects? How about teachers or economists? You might be surprised to learn that public school teachers are better paid than these and many other professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker. [snip]…..

In the popular imagination, however, public school teachers are underpaid. “Salaries are too low. We all know that,” noted First Lady Laura Bush, expressing the consensus view. “[snip]…. time per-pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, has more than doubled; overall we now annually spend more than $500 billion on public education. [snip]….

It would be beneficial if the debate focused on the actual salaries teachers are already paid.

It would also be beneficial if the debate touched on the correlation between teacher pay and actual results. [snip]…. In fact, the urban areas with the highest teacher pay are famous for their abysmal outcomes.

Source: Is $34.06 Per Hour ‘Underpaid’? - WSJ.com

Teachers have contracts and a set number of hours they are required to work each day in our school district, but as anyone who has spent any time in a k12 school knows that teachers do not work the set hours and get their job done. 7.5 hours is not enough time to prepare lessons, prepare for the requirements of the state and federal “No Child Left Behind” standards or in the case of Florida the FCAT test. If a teacher just worked their 7.5 hours they would be woefully unprepared.

The author uses a poor logic for the annual differences in salaries stating that:

But comparing earnings on an annual basis would be inappropriate when teachers work significantly fewer hours than do other workers. Teachers can use that time to be with family, to engage in activities that they enjoy, or to earn additional money from other employment. That time off is worth money and cannot simply be ignored when comparing earnings. [snip]….

Moreover, the earnings data reported here, which are taken directly from the National Compensation Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, do not include retirement and health benefits, which tend to be quite generous for public school teachers relative to other workers.

Source: Is $34.06 Per Hour ‘Underpaid’? - WSJ.com

Now, nowhere in the article does the author link to his sources, he quotes them and tells us where they supposedly came from, but we have no easy way to check his facts. So, because a teacher can spend time with their family that’s compensation? Has the author tried to get a summer job? I don’t think so, especially when he is a higher education professor with the University of Arkansas and is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He doesn’t explain how the time off is worth money, it’s just a statement with no facts to back it up.

As for the benefits and retirement, if the data he quotes does not include these items for teachers, then they don’t include them for the other jobs he uses in comparison. How does he know the benefit packages for k12 teachers and economist? He again shows no facts, so how are we to believe his words.

I work with the k12 teachers, I know the benefits packages for these people. K12 teachers are underpaid for what they have to do, which is teach our kids how to read, write, count, be prepared for higher education and be a productive member of society if they don’t go onto higher education.

Technorati tags: Education, K12

 We’ve had some interesting commentary on my last blog about teachers coming into the 21st century with their teaching methods. I thought long and hard about some of the reply’s, emails and even a trackback about the post. So, as I was reading Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed blog today, this quote from his post on Tuesday, October 10th struck me with interest.

“We need to keep teaching writing with pen and paper if for no other reason that the kids need to have the physical strength to handwrite the 90 minute Regents exam.” (Comment heard during a recent workshop.)

That might be the most depressing thing I’ve heard in a long time, but it epitomizes, I think, the depth of the resistance that many teachers are feeling about the shifts that are occurring. It’s a legitimate concern, I know, in an environment where passing the test is at the end of the day what it’s all about. (Even though you know that in a few years, the Regents and the SAT are going to have to start providing kids with digital ways to take tests.) Our resistance, our inability to see new ways of learning is going to get us into very desperate times.

Please take the time to read Will’s blog. He is one of the most respected educators in our country today, you will not be disappointed.

That’s what I think….What about you?

The title of this blog entry says it all. We have so many new and exciting technology based learning aids, but not enough teachers that want to use them. As I’ve written in many of my posts, I do not like all the mandated testing because I feel it leads teachers to stop being creative, stops students from learning to be creative while creating average graduates. Reading and writing blocks are good things if they are used with new technology to keep the students interested.

The children of today are being brought up in an internet, media world. They have a different understanding, a different way of learning than we did growing up. Pong versus Xbox, playing outside versus going to the mall, Little League versus Soccer & Martial Arts classes and the biggest difference….computers, ipods, MySpace, Facebook. Most kids today can do more with a computer than the adult teaching them. This is unfortunate and it is even more unfortunate that more teachers are not trying to learn how to use these new technology advances to stay ahead of their students and give them the education they deserve.

At our school the Instructional Technology Coach has set up training classes at least two times a week for all the different technology available to the teachers. This year to date I’ve seen a few of the classes and while they are attended by 8 to 10 teachers out of 44 classroom teachers, it is always the same teachers. That is about a 25 percent attendance rate, which might seem good, but I consider it extremely low. I consider 75 percent a good rate of attendance, but I might be looking through rose colored glasses. The teachers attending are all teachers that have been teaching for less than 10 years and are willing to grow, to learn new things.

The teachers that really need this training are the old bloods that have been teaching for 15, 20, 25 years. They are set in their ways, they “know what we should be teaching”. I’ve run into these types of teachers in my effort to get them to stop using 10 to 15 year old CD’s to teach students how to read and write. We are here for the kids. They need to either jump into the 21st Century or retire so that we can get teachers who want to grow and use the new technology. We need people who want to teach the kids what they need, what they deserve.

That’s what I think…What about you?