Five Tips for Keeping Up

Education, technology,

I worked with a team of great educators to present a session related to Digital Age Learning with a focus on ISTE NETS A, Standard 3 at the recent ISTE Leadership Forum:

Educational Administrators promote an environment of professional learning and innovation that empowers educators to enhance student learning through the infusion of contemporary technologies and digital resources.

My focus was on indicator d, which I think of as the “keeping up” indicator:

Stay abreast of educational research and emerging trends regarding effective use of technology and encourage evaluation of new technologies for their potential to improve student learning

I had 30 minutes to offer up ideas for how to meet this indicator so focused on five tips:

  1. Know Your Tools
  2. Make Time
  3. Read Critically
  4. Include Your Teachers
  5. Consider the Complete Context

Know Your Tools:

Since David had already covered Twitter as a tool for building professional learning networks, I focused on other tools including Google alerts, Google Reader and its accompanying bundles, Zite and Flipboard for mobile devices, and Diigo as a way to share web-based resources easily. One of my bundles includes the RSS feeds for the various publications and blogs followed by the Horizon K-12 report. And thanks to the attendee who showed me Diigo Quick Note.  I had an account but had not seen the potential power in the tool as I’ve been using Evernote.  I’ll be experimenting.

Make Time:

This was quick: I just showed Covey’s important/urgent framework and reminded us all that we need to make Quadrant Two time: preparation and learning that is important even if it doesn’t seem urgent. I think that writing this blog each day has been really valuable Quadrant Two time for me and I recommended some kind of daily practice to them as well.

Read Critically:

Links to two research studies to show the wide range of what passes for research these days. I reminded them of Michael Fullan’s idea that practice drives theory:

I have come to the conclusion that practice drives theory. That is, focusing on improving practice uncovers the best specific ideas. What you learn along the way can be tested in the light of broader research, but practice – not research – should be the driver.

 Include Your Teachers:

This comes from Larry Cuban’s blog in a post from the summer:

Were teachers to become part of the decision-making process in determining access and use of new technologies would they eventually integrate these new technologies into classroom lessons? Yes, far more than occurs now.
Why? Because teachers would have thought through and learned connections between curriculum knowledge and skills and software applications, how lessons could be taught that use and not use the new devices and software, and a pool of expertise would have emerged among teachers that could be shared.

What seems great on paper doesn’t always turn out that way and it is easy to blame teachers since they are the connection between the technology and the classroom.  But what if it really was the technology, chosen for all sorts of reasons except its instructional use, that was to blame? Or the system of support? Or the type of professional development? Respect teacher knowledge, says Cuban, and use it to inform decisions.  Don’t DO technology to teachers.

Consider the Complete Context:

I ended with the TPACK model as a way to be sure technology decisions consider how technology can intersect with pedagogy and content and emphasized the need to focus on pedagogical change that integrates technology since technology integration driving pedagogical change is notoriously unsuccessful.

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