As I mentioned in my first blog, my intention is to chronicle the tech journey of my group of educational leaders and myself. Part of my motivation is to satisfy the requirements for a course but the other part of my motivation is so we have a record of our journey. Because the record of our journey is for a course there will have to be some sequence to the postings and some definite ties to research but tonight's blog is just for me.
I don't think that I have been as excited or as energized about an educational possibility as I am about the potential power of technology to redefine our work. The interesting thing about technology is that it doesn't just present potentials for the classroom and learning but it also has the power to change our definition of collaboration to a world-wide meeting of minds with the express goal of improving what we do for kids in every corner of the world. If we believe the world is getting smaller and that we are truly moving to a global way of doing and thinking then we need to expand our goals beyond our classroom, beyond our school, beyond our school district to goals that effect how we practice education period.
I am not a tech expert, I am a tech newbie. Sure I do email, documents and power points but until very recently I hadn't branched out and really examined how technology could change what I do, what my schools do and how it could exponentially impact the students who we are responsible for educating. Notice I said educate, not teach, because I think the more we embrace technology the definition of what we do in the classroom will begin to change.
I want to give a call out to three individuals who have really made me change direction over the past three months and begin to challenge myself and the instructional leaders in my Unit. The three gentlemen responsible for throwing down the gauntlet are Will Richardson, Chris Kennedy and Justin Tarte. In this blog I would like to focus on Justin.
Justin is about to start his first Vice Principalship or as they say in the States, his first Assistant Principalship. Through Twitter I, along with others, have watched him prepare for his new assignment and think about what his entry plan should look like. Justin uses Twitter as a way to challenge himself, to learn, to question, to inquire and to float ideas for feedback. Tonight I watched the video that he has prepared for the first day of school to inspire and energize his teachers. Justin and others have shown me that by being on Twitter I can be inspired, I can learn and I can engage in educational debate all from the comfort of my home office. Incredible.
When I talk to other educators they ask me where I get the time to play with all of this stuff. Well, where do we get the time to read? Where do we get the time to take courses? Where do we get the time to go to conferences? If it is important then you make the time to do it and to quote Will Richardson, "Learning is life-long and life-wide."
My journey is just beginning but I believe that it is a journey that is going to make a fundamental difference in teaching and learning in the schools that I serve. That is worth whatever time it takes.
Monday 11 July 2011
Saturday 2 July 2011
My first blog entry
I am taking the next step in my technology journey by creating my own blog. I have just completed my first year as Superintendent of Education with the Peel District School Board and I have decided to use this blog to chronicle the journey of my Principals, Vice Principals, Resource staff and myself to fully integrating technology into what we do.
As a group we decided to start with our own journey first because we felt we couldn't ask teachers to radically change their practice unless we had changed ours too. As of now at all of our meetings pens and paper are not allowed. All members of our team must bring an electronic devise to meetings and all agendas, documents and presentations will be provided via technology. There will be no hard copies. Each member of our team is allowed to pick the technology device that best fits their learning style, again modeling how we will move forward into the classrooms. We have laptops, net books, I-pads, I-phones and blackberries. Whatever device fits the need that is okay.
I suppose it is important to talk about what got us to this focus. In Ontario we are a regular testing program to check on the progress of our student success plan as a Province. The testing is called EQAO and it is applied at grade 3, 6, 9, and there is a literacy test given in grade 10 that must be passed before students can be awarded their High School Diploma. The tests are based on the curriculum so provide one indication to us as educators of how well we are teaching and how well our students are learning.
A piece of data that is Province wide but particularly evident in my Superintendency is the gap in success between boys and girls. In some cases there is as much as a 40% spread. Another piece of data that also got the attention of my group is the fact that Ontario is in the top 5 for student achievement according to International tests but in the bottom 5 for engagement. How does that tie into the poor results we are seeing with our boys?
As we begun our investigation of student engagement, particularly the engagement of boys, technology continued to be raised as an instructional strategy that needed to be considered and better applied in classrooms. From there we began to look at research on the 21st century classroom and the same issue kept coming up.
I then attended the Ontario Provincial Supervisory Officer's Association conference and listened to presentations by Will Richardson and Chris Kennedy and I decided that technology had to become part of what we embraced as administrators to move our classrooms to the next level, to truly begin to prepare our students for the 21st century and to better engage our boys in the educational process.
From that moment the journey began!
As a group we decided to start with our own journey first because we felt we couldn't ask teachers to radically change their practice unless we had changed ours too. As of now at all of our meetings pens and paper are not allowed. All members of our team must bring an electronic devise to meetings and all agendas, documents and presentations will be provided via technology. There will be no hard copies. Each member of our team is allowed to pick the technology device that best fits their learning style, again modeling how we will move forward into the classrooms. We have laptops, net books, I-pads, I-phones and blackberries. Whatever device fits the need that is okay.
I suppose it is important to talk about what got us to this focus. In Ontario we are a regular testing program to check on the progress of our student success plan as a Province. The testing is called EQAO and it is applied at grade 3, 6, 9, and there is a literacy test given in grade 10 that must be passed before students can be awarded their High School Diploma. The tests are based on the curriculum so provide one indication to us as educators of how well we are teaching and how well our students are learning.
A piece of data that is Province wide but particularly evident in my Superintendency is the gap in success between boys and girls. In some cases there is as much as a 40% spread. Another piece of data that also got the attention of my group is the fact that Ontario is in the top 5 for student achievement according to International tests but in the bottom 5 for engagement. How does that tie into the poor results we are seeing with our boys?
As we begun our investigation of student engagement, particularly the engagement of boys, technology continued to be raised as an instructional strategy that needed to be considered and better applied in classrooms. From there we began to look at research on the 21st century classroom and the same issue kept coming up.
I then attended the Ontario Provincial Supervisory Officer's Association conference and listened to presentations by Will Richardson and Chris Kennedy and I decided that technology had to become part of what we embraced as administrators to move our classrooms to the next level, to truly begin to prepare our students for the 21st century and to better engage our boys in the educational process.
From that moment the journey began!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)