Through Barbara Ganley’s blog I got to this video that reflects upon our educational system as a whole with just some little oasis of true innovative, 21st century teaching and learning.
In fact, since yesterday I’ve been thinking of the best way to reply to Lilian’s Human Factor post about her Egyptian context of teachers not feeling the need or not willing to incorporate technology into the classroom, which is pretty similar to different corners of the world. Much has been said that it’s not about technology (which I read an interesting post of the need for it to be “invisible”). It’s about opening the doors and putting down the classroom walls. It’s about letting blind minds see light, with different tones of colors and cultures, adding different voices and perspectives. It’s reflecting on your own views and learning there are other opinions around. Not your teacher’s opinions or your classmates’ only, but totally different pictures of the world. These are the reasons for connecting. On the educators’ side, being connected to others lets us explore, develop, discover, play with our own teaching practices and become better souls and open-minded educators who are not in the classroom to control, but to facilitate change within one’s world, help eyes to spark, facilitate meaningful conversations.
That’s why I do my little part for the other educators trying to take the plunge into this brave new online world. I truly believe in the power of networking, connecting, exchanging, blogging.
There are simply no excuses to keep our students bored in a meaningless educational context. Fear can always be overcome with persistence, dedication and willingness to try.
Barbara Ganley, Barbara Sawhill, Leslie Madsen-Brooks, Martha Burtis, & Laura Blankenship's collection of videos on the Fear2.0 topicHow do you overcome the initial fear of starting?
Laura Blankneship’s
list gives us some interesting insights.
Hi Carla,
I do like you naming one of the things that in my belief lies behind the lack of usage of technolgy in educational contexts: FEAR. I think the first fear is not even if that approach is going to be successful, it is the fear of being placed in the place of learner. Sometimes, we teachers do not want to go out of our comfort zones and learn, it is more comfortable for us to believe we know it all. I think many times, it lies ahead of us the task of overcoming the fear of not knowing, of the many trials and errors necessary to acquire information or knowledge.
How do we deal with these fears? I confess, I do not have a ready magic answer, but the first step is admiting our ignorace and take an action in the direction of making it smaller and learn. Another approach, is getting rid of the all the jargon(blogs, wikis, podcasts,etc) and start seeing all these myriad of tools and applications as opportunities for conections and conversations. At the end of the line, we are just humans and we all strive to connect with our students, our colleagues, the things and people that matter to us in a certain way.
Thanks a lot for sharing such insightful, thought provoking post.
Jose Antonio (in a rainy BrasÃlia)
Dear José,
You’re right. We need to make our edtech world digestable to others. We cannot simply assume that everybody knows what we’re talking about. In fact, most of our colleagues don’t have a clue of what we say or what we’re doing, so that’s why I’m always reminding myself that we need to remember when we started, how we felt, the challenges we faced. By doing that, we can really help the ones around to overcome their own psychological, technical barriers to face this online brave new world. We can do our part, but that must also be willing to take their small little steps towards understanding the potential of developing their digital literacy in order to help their learners acquire their own set of 21st century literacies.
Let’s not hide behind the fear concept. We need to move forward and help our colleagues succeed in making micro changes towards the meaningful integration of technology in the classroom. We cannot change the world, but we can make a difference near us!
Dear Carla,
In my opinion, one of the reasons teachers may fear technology or not be comfortable embracing it is that it may fundamentally change the classroom dynamic. Traditionally, the teacher brings all of the content and knowledge to the classroom for the students to absorb; however, when technology is used, students are asked to create content and to participate in the construction of knowledge.
Furthermore, as we’ve seen from Konrad Glogowsky’s post and presentation this week for Blogging4Educators
http://blog4educators.blogspot.com/2008/02/note-from-konrad-glogowsy-our-special.html
when we bring blogging into the classroom, teachers need to think about assessment differently. No longer can we collect an assignment, give it a grade, and forget about it; as he said, we can choose to engage in a dialog with students and discuss their progress towards their specific learning goals. This could be scary stuff for some teachers: broadening not only our notions of content, materials, dynamics, but also assessment of student work.
Finally, as teachers, we can’t afford to wait until we know and understand “everything” about technology, and some teachers FEAR not being the expert in the classroom. Although we do need a certain skills, at some point, we just need to dive in and let our projects unfold. For all of these reasons, educators may be hesitant about integrating technology.
In order to use technology effectively and to overcome the initial fear of starting, we need to engage in reflection about our teaching philosophy, and consider whether using technology is appropriate for our teaching styles and contexts; then, we can venture out into this brave new world. With the help of supportive people in online communities of practice, taking this step can be more comfortable!
That’s exactly the point, Mary, giving support to the Educators who are willing to start, but don’t know how or fear the changes that will certainly occur in the classroom dynamics. When you integrate technology, you must be willing to give away authority and to accept the fact that, in most cases, your students may know more than you when it comes to “techie” things. What Erika and I try to do at our school is to give support to colleagues whom we see interest in going beyond, who look for us for advice. We do things in our own classes to be able to help the ones around us. We use our own networks to find partners for willing teachers. We show, we take little steps, we give what they need at their specific teaching moments and contexts. We have all these great ideas for the school in terms of edtech, but we don’t want to impose them to the teachers. By doing it, they would be even more scared, we could be establishing even a bigger digital divide among us. So, by taking little steps, we can help them see the online possibilities without being a “thing of another world”!