Each year in California, superintendents, assistant superintendents and district administrators meet at Asilomar in Monterey for the Curriculum Symposium. There is a theme each year, and this year, the theme is history-social science. Because I am the project director of a Teaching American History grant and utilize technology in the grant, I am invited to be part of this history-social science panel focusing on technology. I’ve got the history angle covered, but would love some input on what I might challenge these administrators to do regarding technology. So, what would you recommend I say to these district administrators about technology and education?
Archive for February, 2008
Superintendent chat – what should I say?
Published February 18, 2008 Professional Development 2 CommentsThis blog post from the Book Whisperer, Donalyn Miller, which is part of the Education Week website, clearly identifies the importance of school libraries, access to books, and adequate funding. Bottom line: access to books increases student achievement.
Doug Johnson writes today about interactions he has had with Technology and Curriculum specialists in the past week.
In the midst of interacting with them, he writes, “Until our profession sees its primary instructional focus as teaching information and technology literacy skills, we will lack both credibility and voice in technology implementation efforts. ” I certainly don’t have statistics to support this or deny this, but I think there are many shining examples where this is occurring. And, in the same way that teacher-librarians gain collaborative partners one-to-one, we need to do the same with the technology techs or specialists in the same way.
So, where are some of these examples? Well here are people and initiatives who do see their focus as teaching information and technology skills just to name a few…and I’m sure there are many others…name some more!
- School Library Learning 2.0 is now in it’s second version and now has a bevy of Massachusetts librarians participating in addition to our California group and countless others around the world. (I need to disclose that I was part of the team that put this together, but it is really taking off and making a difference for a lot of people).
- At Educon and Blog gatherings, people like Joyce Valenza continue to lead and participate in the conversation.
- Teacher-Librarians all over the place are the key people in their schools utilizing and integrating technology and transforming thinking. Just a couple – Annie Lokrantz in Fresno, John Volkman at Reedley High, and Doug Achterman in Hollister, and countless others who are leading the way in technology at their schools.
Doug does ask some interesting questions that are important for all of us to think about and define for ourselves. How do you answer these questions?
- who are we?
- What do we do?
- How do we do it?
P.S. I think the new AASL standards help to define this for those who are not sure.
Congratulations to the advocates in Washington State who are moving forward with legislation to ensure “that Washington students have full-time access to school libraries and a certified teacher librarian to provide a competitive education in information technology and literacy for all children of Washington State.”
Comes to us from Sara Kelly Johns, the AASL Blog and via the Fund our Future Blog.
Shows you the power of 3!
This article begins: “By the time you go home today, 7,000 more high school students will quit. But some educators are reversing this trend using the one tool that has proved powerful enough to stop them in their tracks.”
Here is the website where you can put in your state and high school to see the “drop out” factories where you live:
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives…ex.html?SITE=AP
Further in the article: “Here are three examples of how schools can leverage their technology assets to improve graduation rates by overcoming one or both of these criteria.”
And, then: “Florida Virtual School’s mission from day one was to transform education, not replicate it, says its president and CEO Julie Young. “There has long been a feeling that students are captives rather than customers. We looked at how to do this differently so we can engage and keep kids,” she says.”
Article in Ed Tech Magazine, Feb/March 2008.
http://www.edtechmag.com/k12/issues/februa…g-dropouts.html
The power of technology in education is being validated!
