My school climate is such that I would feel comfortable integrating media literacy ideas into my classroom or advisory. I really feel it can and will become a powerful teaching tool in the future. I would have enthusiastic support from my administration, to try new things to get the students active in their own learning. Once students can become active in their own learning they can find themselves engrossed in their work. I see this in my own children, for example this evening I was trying to get my younger daughter to learn new music. She did not want to, so she practiced reluctantly going through the songs in the normal way. Than I thought maybe we could use Youtube. We had started at 8:00 intending 15 minutes of practice and ended at 10:00. She would play the pieces over an over to learn the words and she liked being able to add images to the words. Here is one of the songs she has to learn for camp. I thought the theme of the song, some of you would find interesting. So here it is.
The point is she took control of her learning and became engrossed and learned a lot more than she would of. Some of it I am sure is the novelty, but it is now another tool in her belt on how to learn new music.
The main problem in getting the students to the point of fully using technology in the classroom is not the administration but the infrastructure itself. I would love to transplant the room we are working in now that a 12 million dollar grant helped provide and transfer that to my school. The truth is my school district can not run 50 computers simultaneously on the server with out it slowing to a crawl. The server services the entire district's elementary, middle and high schools. We are overcrowded, which means the computer labs are often used for classrooms. It is not possible for me to schedule my students to use the computer labs. I can get some classes but not others. Much like a boat builder stranded on an island filled with trees, I have the knowledge but no tools.
Technology is great in the classroom when it works smoothly. In order for schools to do that they have to be willing to invest in personnel to fix, debug, service, devandalize, etc the computers. The tech people I think are what keeps the boat a float once it is built. You need good tech support to keep such a complex system of computers operating smoothly. It is great to get computers, Lap tops, projectors, smartboards into classrooms but they have to be maintained. If they are not reliable teachers will not use them. Teachers need to be able to use it as a tool in the classroom, a carpenter could not work if he had to spend most of the day fixing his hammer or saw.
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John - it is so interesting to read your comments on the school district that both my children graduated from. I was always impressed with the teachers and the administration (well most of them), but I expected our school to have the top and the best technology. It surprises me to find out we don't. I did vote every time in favor of the major construction or reconstructions but not everything went through. Perhaps with Larry at the helm you might get more - he is the type that seems to look for grants, etc. to help renovate the servers, etc. I attended a workshop at Cranston East this past winter and they had a brand new tech room that was out of this world - similar to what we used all week. AND, it came mostly from a grant. Interesting considering it was Cranston East that made out, as they usually are left out of the loop. Hopefully, Scituate will get what they need - get the word out to parents. They can be your biggest advocates - or at least they were when we had our kids there.
ReplyDeleteThe image of the boat builder on an island with no tools is so powerful. So true!
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