Tag Archives: Changing Teachers

Too Much

Sitting at the blogger café unable to get online. The situation is dripping with irony, but I digress. People I should be connecting with surround me, but I find myself retreating back to where I feel safe. In words.

I have been plagued by a sense of bitterness and apathy since I arrived at NECC, and no matter how I try to shed my prejudices I find myself asking: What is all this hype? Surrounded by snake oil salesmen and product pushers, it all seems like it is too much, too big.

Ironically, I find it easier to make connections swimming the waters online rather than making connections than sitting face to face with someone and discussing yet again how kids learn differently today and need a new set of skills to succeed in the 21st job market. I see my role as an educator as bigger than this. How much longer do we need to discuss these ideas? I am only thinking out loud here, and I hope I do not offend, but I am ready for a new discussion. I am not sure what this conversation will look, but perhaps that is what we should be talking about.

I can quip about how it is not about the technology but the teaching, but then again that platitude is neither original nor progressing the issues. If anything this conference so far has made me less evangelical about educational technology. I don’t need a session sponsor by Cisco telling me how to use technology in my classroom.

Connection may be the name of the game here, but I still find myself the awkward teenager in a room full of cool kids pontificating about ideas that I would rather simply do than talk about.

For me, it all boils to down to a simple axiom, and while I feel like broken record and a bit of a simpleton when I express it, but learning need not be this complicated. Yes, there may be new skills. Yes there are new tools, but ultimately we simply need to be engaging students by creating authentic learning communities built around honest open relationships. These tools, these ideas are mere ways where we can create these communities. Students could careless about any of the ideas at NECC. They just want a teacher who is willing to be honest with them, respect them, and willing practice what they preach and learn along with them. The rest is all hype.

I have only been here for a day, but as a student here at NECC, I have not seen any communities like the ones I have described. I want to collaborate with others. I want to create a product. I want to use the tools, that so many companies seem hell bent on selling my school, to lean something new. Where is this happening at NECC? If these secessions exist, please show me the way.

Life as an Open Book

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On June 4th, I gave a talk called Life as an Open Book at Qatar Academy for the first ever Tedx event put together by Julie Lindsay.

I spent quite a bit of time planning the talk, but the execution was not exactly what I had in mind. I was plagued by repetition, false starts, and a general sense of incoherence. I have attempted to piece together as much of the original talk as I could.

The main idea is:

How can we encourage teachers to look beyond their fear, follow their passions and begin to create open honest online identities that reflect their true selves in order to better connect with their students for a more authentic learning environment. Eventually creating a system that not only allows for teacher creativity and expression but actively promotes and encourages it, so teachers are not too busy or scared to express themselves online, and actually given time to reflect, create, and share.

Life as an Open Book from Intrepid on Vimeo.

I would appreciate any and all comments.

Learning 2.008

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I am sitting in an unconference session called “Echo Chamber.” To my right Brian Crosby scratches his hair as Clarence Fischer, who sits to my left, proposes that an echo chamber may sometimes be a good thing, a source of rejuvenation. I can’t seem to articulate what I find disconcerting about the echo chamber. David Warlick occasionally peaks out from behind his laptop and offers some insight. I am a bit star-struck, sitting in this room with just the four of us; a few teachers from ISB stroll in and make me feel more knowledgeable. I want to say that communities need to be occasionally shaken up and infiltrated to keep them up to date. I am stuck in limbo between feeling respect and admiration for these men and then contemplating the fact that if I know that I am just as good of a teacher as any of them, then why do I feel inadequate in their presence. This back and forth plays with my emotions, rendering me unable to get my point across.

Don’t get me wrong; I immensely respect these men along with all of the presenters at Learning 2.008. An hour before I was listening to Ewan McIntosh talk about how tech tools are not transformative. Pedagogy is transformative. I have skimmed Ewan’s blog for months, but not until I saw him speak did I truly understand where he is coming from. Later, I would listen to Alan Levine discuss the Horizon project, and later still take notes on a back channel as Julie Lindsay extolled the virtue of mobile devices.

If Learning 2.008 taught me anything it is that digital networks are nothing more than real human beings trying to figure it all out. I am not sure I can define what “it” is exactly, but that is part of what we are trying to do. We can read each others blogs, talk on Skype, or follow Tweets, but these tools will only paint an abstract picture of who we really are. No matter how easy the new web makes it for people to communicate and build networks, we still need that authentic human interaction. We still need to watch body language, pay attention to tone of voice, and make people laugh to really connect with other human beings. Thank goodness for that.

It was refreshing to see that we are more than blog posts, avatars, and @names. The participants of this conference, by their presence alone proved that we are a group of diverse educators determined to find better ways to learn. No one truly knows the secret answer, because there is no secret answer. We, and I say we with pride because I learned that I too have ideas to offer, are simply trying to find ways to educate children as best we can. Technology is not the answer. It really doesn’t have much to do with technology at all. It has to do with community and the sharing of knowledge and ideas! Technology is simply a way for sharing ideas. The questions that kept resurfacing at every session I attended was- how can we convince teachers to use technology? I think we need to help teachers learn how they can become members of vibrant communities, so that they can teach their students to expand their social networks as well. This can be completely outside the scope of technology. Jennifer Jones says it best,

“Before we connect globally, we need to connect locally, whether we use technology, or just step outside. I feel this is critical to change in our systems.”

Technology is just a tool that at this time in our evolution is the most appropriate for creating wide, far-reaching, cooperative communities that foster, promote, and encourage learning. This conference taught me that communities take time to build and that they must be unique for each member. Session after session, time spent out at dinner with twitter friends, and time spent chatting over food with fellow tech enthusiasts, taught me that my network is like a garden, in that it constantly needs to be tended.

When I first started blogging I wanted nothing more than a robust interactive audience. I wanted the largest number of people to read by posts. Like my students, I wanted to watch the little red globs infect my cluster map like a cancer. I constantly examined by statistics to see how many people had read what I wrote. I wished that the “big” names would read my work, realize my genius, and catapult me into the upper echelon of the educational blogosphere. In short, I felt that the quantity of readers would directly reflect the quality of my network. To return to the garden analogy, I wanted to transplant myself into a pre-made heirloom garden of specialized thriving plants. I was reading the names I had been told to read. I was following the people I was told to follow on Twitter. I had been sold a perfect network, and I thought that all I had to do was sit back and let the learning community sweep me away.

The conference taught me that, I can read well-known bloggers, I can even sit with them in a room and discuss the echo-chamber, but to truly feel the power of the network I have to plant my own garden and tend it religiously. It is not enough to simply use twitter to get to know someone, you need to meet them, and laugh over Chinese food, take a walk in Golden Gate park, share a cab. This conference proved that I don’t need to be connected to the network, or a network, but that it is more important that I build my own functioning network of like-minded teachers and students.

“Audiences drive by while communities drop in.”

As Clarence’s quote elucidates, I learned that it is not enough to simply copy and paste the nodes of a generic network and expect it to be fruitful. We must build communities. This takes time. This takes honesty and passion. This takes effort and patience. This takes dedication and hard work.

“You write where people care! Small passionate communities matter.”

I am sure hundreds of blog posts have already been written about what Learning 2.008 meant to the various participants. What do I have to say that is any different? What do I have to say that is relevant or meaningful in anyway? These are questions I often find myself asking myself as I blog. The longer I swim around educational blogs, the more I realize that I am not as intelligent as I like to think. People articulate their thoughts more effectively than me; people write better than me, people comment more insightfully than me. In short, I often feel that the network would be fine without my little musings in this tiny corner of the Internet, which I have etched out for myself.

So why do I bother? I may not have the credentials or the talent, but after talking with teachers from around the world at this conference, I realized that I do have some things to say that others want to hear. This is the beauty of the network. Day in and day out I am threading my own narrative and trying to somehow tie it to others. I am carefully and deliberately tending my garden. Leaving Tweets about music and politics, never afraid to stand behind my ideas, using a raw and honest voice with an infectious enthusiasm, posting videos to youtube and photos to Flickr, I will keep sowing my seeds in my corner of the Web. Sometimes in a whisper, sometimes through a roar, I will wait patiently hoping that my tribe will find their way to my doorstep and together we will move forward.

Live, Reflect, Share, Communicate, Connect, Change, Grow…

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Earlier today, I popped into a meeting to talk with a few teachers about whether or not they would be interested in my new Blogging Club. They had expressed interest in the past, so I figured they would be a good starting point. We had a quick chat about the importance of teachers using the tools they are expected to use in the classrooms for their own learning. I felt they seemed genuinely interested, but one comment by one of the teachers really stuck in my head, and like any decent blogger I have been thinking about writing this post all day.

She said, “Yeah Jabiz but you seem to spend a lot of time on the computer. I want to have a life.” I am paraphrasing what she said. I know this teacher fairly well, so I didn’t take offense to her comment. I am quite certain that she wasn’t implying that I don’t have a life, and this post is not a defense of my behaviors, but it really got me thinking, do people really think that using technology is a choice to be made that opposes having a life? Do people think that tech-geeks choose the vacant lifeless draw of their screens over “real” life?

I see technology as a tool (How many times do we need to make this point?) that allows me to do the very things that make up my life. It is not my life itself. I decided to make a list of the aspects of my life that are important to me. In order to show that technology is simply a tool to enhance my “real” life I will share how I use a variety of these tools for each aspect of my life. The following is what having a life means to me, with or without technology.

First and foremost my number one priority is spending time with my 19-month-old daughter. Contrary to what many non-digital people believe, we techies value authentic “real” life experience just as much as others. I feel that people who are not comfortable with technology see those who are, as somehow lacking the ability to enjoy nature, or the non-digital experiences. Having said that the time I spend with my daughter is the single most important thing that I do. We play, we dance, we sing, we bathe, we eat, we are living in the truest sense of the word. When it comes to my daughter, we use Skype so that she can see her Grandparents on a weekly basis. She already says Grand Ma every time we bring out the laptop. I also use her blog to keep our family posted with pictures and videos. If I do not post pictures every week, I will hear it form several family members.

I have developed a strong love of gardening. I am awed by the organic nature of nature. I love spending time watering my garden, raising plants in my classroom, and simply playing in the dirt. Raising plants is probably the antithesis of technology, but I love using my blogs and video to try and share the satisfaction I get from this hobby. I spend much of my time weekend time monitoring my garden. I am currently growing tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers, and basil. The pictures I take and share make the experience more authentic for me.

I love to read. I am currently reading the seventh book in a series of seven books by Gore Vidal called the Narratives of Empire. I have been reading these books since June. I have been reading one book after another since I was nineteen. Reading is a fully integrated activity in my daily life. I would survive without books. While I love reading blogs and other websites, I have a profound love and respect for the written word in the form of books. I love the smell of the pages in a fresh book. I strongly believe that literature is the path to human understanding. However, I also see the value in using technology to share my thoughts on what I read and try to instigate healthy discussions. I also use Web tools to keep track of the books I read on sites like Librarything.

I love music. I listen to music every second I can. I love to strum my guitar and record my mediocre recordings. I use technology to share my music with friends and family on Facebook or complete strangers on Youtube. I use sites like Last FM to keep track of listening charts, so I can meet people with similar interests. I use my iPod so as to be sure that my entire collection goes where I go: in my classroom, my bike, or my trip to Tunis. I use my blogs to write on most of the subjects on this list. Music is no different.

I love photography. I enjoy my ability to capture my unique viewpoint through the lens. I use technology to enhance my photos on Photoshop to create CD covers, magazine covers, or to simply capture the beauty of places I have been and people I have seen. I use sites Flickr to store my work and JPG Magazine to share it with others.

I love traveling and delving into new cultures. I find comfort in writing about my experiences or documenting them in photographs.

I have recently discovered that I love to ride my bike, however limited around town, and I have developed an affinity for filmmaking. I have combined these two loves by using technology to share my work with over two thousand viewers on YouTube.

The point I am trying to make is that I do not see technology as something I do other than live my life; it is something I use in order to help do the things I love. I feel I have a very rich life raising my daughter, playing music, creating art, writing, reading, and finally the one thing I have yet to mention. Learning.

I use technology to help me find answers, create discussions, compare ideas, and ultimately as a tool for reflecting on how I process information. I use my network to help me form my own views, learn new skills, and better understand the world in which I live. I haven’t mentioned how I use technology in the classroom, because that is the point of this entire blog, but I hope it is obvious that I want my students to find ways that they can use technology to do the things they love. The point is not to use gadgets because they are the new hip thing to do. I am not advocating that people ignore their lives in order to use technology in their lives. The point is to have a “life.” Live it to the fullest and see if you can find ways for technology to enhance what you already do. Live, reflect, share, communicate, connect, change, grow…

Just so I am not misunderstood, I am not promoting that every human act can be enhanced by technology. A good meal at a NYC restaurant, or a quiet walk in the woods, sitting meditation under a tree, scuba diving in the Andaman Sea, or simply sharing a cup of tea with a friend come to mind as life experiences that need no technology to make them any better, but our choices need not be black or white. To respond to the teacher I spoke with today I say, we can use technology effectively and still have a life. It is a matter of understating which tools are right for each task.

The beauty is when I look at a post like the one I just wrote, I realize how these tools have actually helped link all of my interests together. When people ask me what I have been up to, I offer the trademark response: nothing. I say click here or here or here. As a writer, a learner, a teacher, an artist, or simply as a human being I am thrilled to have the tools that allow me this connectedness.

It is time to go play guitar, watch some TV with my wife, read a few pages of my book, and get a good night sleep. I will leave my RSS reader alone for tonight. I will not check on my student blogs or their wikis. I will not respond to emails or play on Facebook. I do have a life after all….

Blogging Club

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People are afraid of change, and experience has taught me that teachers in particular are no different. While we claim to be resolute in teaching our students how to discover the skills in becoming life long learners, realistically many of us seem to hit the occasional wall when it comes to our own learning. If we are learning we seldom hold ourselves to the same regimented reflection of our learning that we expect from our students. The pressures of the job: plodding through curriculum, grading papers, daily classroom administration, parents, students, and administrative pressures all weigh us down, slowly extinguish the very flames of inquiry we desperately try to stoke in our students.

Nowhere is this aversion to learning new skills more evident than in the field of technology and the classroom. Perhaps it is emergence of what seems to be daily innovations on the web, or the demands surrounding its use, or perhaps it is just the fear of not being the expert in our respective fields, but I have noticed a powerful mistrust and aversion by the majority of teachers to learning about technology.

Before I continue let me make clear that it is not my intention to offend or put down the teachers who are not technologically savvy. It has recently been brought to my attention that sometimes my tone can be harsh, one-sided, and non-inviting. Sometimes, it appears, my passion can alienate rather than bring people together. I need to be more sensitive to the feelings of my peers and colleagues, and while this sensitivity may not be obvious by the introduction of this post, I hope to end in a place of collegiality and a focused vision for growth. How can we help teachers use technology to help themselves learn, so they can better understand what the crazy tech-geek is constantly bleating about?

Unfortunately technology seems to often be the line drawn in the sand between the tech-oriented teachers and the “technologically challenged” as they sometimes times quaintly call themselves. Experience has taught me that forcing people to switch sides in this technological divide can be extremely divisive and bad for a school’s morale.

Upon reflection and reading Working With The Willing, I am realizing that until teachers use the tools for themselves, they will never effectively integrate them into their daily life in the classroom. So what to do? I have decided to start a Blogging Club with my peers to help them better understand the power of Web 2.0. I hope to start small and build our own network and then introduce them to the ever-expanding world of educators that I have had the pleasure of meeting online.

Here is the email I send out inviting teachers to join:

I have a tendency to be quite long winded. I started to type this email a few hours ago, and I metamorphosed into a two-page blog post. I have decided to consolidate my points in a more easily digestible email. Here goes:

After reading about some of my technological musing, several teachers in the Middle School have asked for more information or advice on what or how they can use technology to help them. I chose to end the previous sentence with a period intentionally, because I think often time we are worried about how to use new tools in our classrooms, but we overlook how the internet and computers can help us better organize, utilize, and synthesis information for ourselves as learners.

For me personally, I love to write. I love to read. I feel it is this process of textual communication that connects us as human beings and allows us to evolve. But I may be biased as a Language Arts teacher…I am drifting again. Here is my proposal:

I would like to create a low-pressure club for Middle School teachers to write about their interests, reflect on their teaching, and share their work with their peers. The point is not to inundate you with tools to use in your classrooms, but rather to establish a place for us to learn from each other; simply put this will be a place for us to read, write, and comment on each other’s work.

I hope to show members how to create a blog as a foundation for their own learning. Time and interests allowing, we will explore other useful tools like Delicious, RSS readers, Twitter, Nings etc…

Once we have established comfort within our own newly created network, I hope to look to see how we can connect with other educators worldwide. The ultimate goal is that once we are using these tools for our own learning, we will see how vital they are for our students as well.

I would like to meet once every few weeks, so we can establish the basics. But once established we will not need to meet too often. Our collaboration will occur mostly online in our comment boxes. Please reply to this email if you are interested in setting up a personal/professional blog and learning more about how technology can help you with your learning.

I hope that this will not turn into another school meeting that becomes a chore. I would like for us to have fun, so we can meet at any time you feel would engender this environment.

I will throw out an opening date and we can work on a regular schedule at the first meeting.

How does 2:00 pm on Tuesday, March 4th sound? Room 3208. We can tweak the time to work with other commitments, but I would love to meet at some point on that PACT day. I am also offering a parent workshop at 6:30 on the 27th if you are interested in a more formal presentation on Web 2.0 and 21t century literacy.

Final note. (I promise) I have sent this email to a few High School and Elementary school teachers who have shown interest, but feel free to pass it on to anyone you feel would be interested.

Jabiz

Do you have any advice for me or for these new pioneer teachers?