Leading From The Heart

by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.

Category: Tech

  • Adventures of a Paradigm Shifter

    Guest Post – an educational consultant and staff leader reflects on using an iPad for the first time. This post is cross-posted at Maria’s iPad Blog.

    Yes...

    The iPad came out of its box looking simple, unassuming and seemingly without controls – using this, I was promised, would become a “paradigm shift” for me: it would simplify my computer tasks when away from the office. I was dubious at best and not a little bewildered — you see, I was one of those (few?) who made it a point not to use a computer when not at work – yes, I’m a 50 something technical neophyte who uses a computer because I have to in my work as an educational consultant and staff leader in the Adult General Education programme at our centre. It was becoming obvious, though, that I needed another tool to help me easily access the ever-growing mass of documents and information overload when away from my desk — a different kind of laptop? I wondered (I envisioned myself easily clicking away on a slimmer, lighter version…). My director, however, convinced me to try a tablet instead…tablet? As in Moses and the tablets? Gaming tablets? (I felt like Moses!) So I did a bit of research and discovered that a tablet “combines the features and portability of a smartphone” (I have a cell phone, but it’s not one of the smart ones) “with the power of a laptop – the best of both worlds in one sleek device” — so there it was in front of me, a sleek device that I wasn’t sure what to do with.

    Moses and tablets
    Image from Contracast, click for source.
    In a previous mini-introduction to the iPad, I had learned that it used touch-screen capability so I anticipated problems for work-related use. Luckily, an important tool that helped me transition to using the iPad tablet was a separate keyboard – in my case, the Zagg 2012 version. Setting up the keyboard to “recognize” my iPad turned out to be satisfyingly easy (I accomplished this myself!), and after that, it looked like I had a mini-laptop in my hands.

    The first thing that really impressed me was how quickly my iPad turned on: a light press of the side button and a “slide to unlock” (though at first, being left-handed I tried to slide left…) revealed a screen full of intriguing “apps” (I had heard about those) such as “Notes,” “Calendar,” “Reminders,” “Camera,” and “Safari” – I started feeling optimistic…these sounded like promising allies in my technical adventure. I had been instructed to go to “Settings” and enter my password in order to access wireless internet at home and I was nervous about that…what if it didn’t work? But it did – the indicators were clear and simple. I was also encouraged to start exploring on my own, so I cautiously began: what better app to start with, I thought, than “Safari” — a light touch of the compass symbol and I was immediately brought to a screen that offered a Google search. Okay, then – what to look up first? I had just been talking to my husband, Gerry, at our kitchen table about how communication technology was changing so quickly (social networking and Twitter), and he expressed his view that even someone like F. Scott Fitzgerald (one of my favorite writers) had been kind of “tweeting” almost a century ago, as evidenced in his notebooks. Notebooks? I had read all of his novels and short stories – how could I have missed his notebooks! So I typed in “Fitzgerald notebooks” and got a list of several options: I touched the entry “The Notebooks of F. Scott Fitzgerald” and was rewarded (at our kitchen table) with the complete text of this work! Also, I was able to manipulate the size of the print by touching the screen with two fingers and spreading or narrowing the distance between. Gerry had made an interesting point: Fitzgerald’s entries in his “Notebooks” were similar in nature to what you could find on Twitter today – reflections, comments, observations – imagine, I added, what he could have done with a tablet…

    postscript – the author tells me this post was written using Evernote on her iPad.

  • First day as RÉCIT consultant for general adult education

    Yesterday was (unofficially) my first day as a local RÉCIT consultant for general adult education.

    What does this mean? RÉCIT is a French acronym, standing for “réseau de personnes-ressources pour le développement des compétences des élèves par l’intégration des technologies.”

    (and now in English) What does this mean? “a network of resource people for the development of student competencies through the integration of technologies.” (definitions found here)

    (and now, what does that really mean?) My role is as a helping professional, and it is two-fold:

    • to help and support the teachers at two Adult Education centres as they integrate technology into their teaching practices in purposeful ways.
    • to help the centres refine their plans for purposeful integration of technology into their programs.

    Purposeful is key here. There is no sense integrating technology for the sake of flashing shiny new gadgets around a building. Those of you who have read some of what I have been writing for the past 6 years or so know that, though I use a lot of technology in my own teaching and reflective practice,

    One of the reasons I went in before my official first day of work (Monday) was that Avi Spector, the (yes, the. If I understood correctly, the English system has 1 regional RÉCIT consultant, the French system has 17 for the same region…) regional RÉCIT consultant for Adult Education was visiting and I had a wonderful 1/2 hour (ok, maybe it lasted closer to an hour?) scheduled to talk with him. My biggest takeaways from meeting with him were that

    • a) he loves what he does,
    • b) he is extremely helpful
    • and c) he shares my belief that pedagogy comes first. Techno bling is not worth much if doesn’t enhance good, solid pedagogy.

    I had a lot of fun meeting the people I will be working with for the next 4 months. I spent yesterday at one of the centres, I will visit the other centre on Wednesday. So far everyone I have met seems to love what they do, so that is already a bonus! How lucky am I that I get to work with a group of people who love what they do? Talk about inspiring.

  • Teaching in the dark

    Lately I have been teaching in the dark.

    Our school has no Internet access. The students have none at home, either.

    What do we do? We read. We have conversations, live conversations, about what we read. We look for solutions together and they are made from the stuff of our brains.

    Did I mention that we read? My students in Grades 7 through 11 love to read. All of them. And they can have and do have conversations about the books they read. They can even make connections between them. They jump up and down with pure joy about some of the books they are reading. I actually have to tell students to stop reading.

    I see the Science teacher outside, collecting insects with the students, examining them under microscopes and in their terrariums. I see evidence of writing in French when they students laboriously and lovingly work on their scrapbooks by hand and write letters describing why they included what they did.

    At lunch time students play with each other. Yes. Even the boys in Grade 11.

    Lately I have been teaching in the dark and I’m surprised to say it has been illuminating.

  • Trusting your teachers should trump tech savvy in administration

    Scott asks:

    Do administrators have to be technology-savvy themselves in order to be effective technology leaders in their organizations?

    I used to think yes, now I think not so much.

    What administrators need to be is trusting of their teachers. Technological change happens in the classroom. It won’t happen if it is dictated from above, it will happen if teachers are allowed to use what they see fit for their classroom, their students.

    Granted, administrators need to ok the purchase of expensive hardware but once that is in place so much can be done at the discretion of the teacher! If administrators have to know how to use each and every bit of technology, each and every app, before it is implemented in the classroom things will be slow.

    Trusting of your teachers. That is what administrators have to be.

  • Why I don’t believe in putting marbles into jars

    Anna Palmer was not happy with my recent review of Marble Jar. She wrote a rebuttal to the review here and it led me to ponder the underlying reason for my dissatisfaction with it.

    In my review I focused on the technical aspects – for an app that advertises itself as being iPad ready it really isn’t though I imagine it works as it should on the iPhone – and touched on its added value as an app, which I felt was small as it doesn’t do anything a real container and marbles can do.

    The more Anna tries to show me workarounds for the technical difficulties via blog comments and the more she tries to point me towards others who gave her positive feedback about Marble Jar on twitter, the more I feel as if I am being told – look, you made a mistake with your review. See, other people like it! The way I see it, it’s ok for me to not like the app and it’s ok for others to like it. A review is based on a variety of things, a big one being opinion.

    Let me give you some background as to how I formed my opinion – the underlying reasons for my dissatisfaction with Marble Jar. Fundamentally, they point towards my essential beliefs to do with teaching and learning: the appropriate use of technology to enhance learning and the fostering of logical consequences rather than reward systems.

    The appropriate use of technology to enhance learning
    What do I mean by that? Some of the answer touches on a recent question I posed around using technology with children. In that post, I described how unsettled I was by my young son’s vacant gaze as he stared at a slide show in a waiting room. I was reminded of that in a comment to my review of Marble Jar, “As we know, for better or worse, kids love the screen.” If the only reason we are using something is due to its technological novelty it will soon lose its glamour. I still do not see how tapping virtual marbles into a jar on a screen can enhance learning about goal setting. As I conclude in my post (and comments) about children and tech, it is essential for me to ensure that technology is used purposefully, mindfully, and not merely for the wow factor. For me, technology is about making connections in ways that we otherwise can not. This app simply doesn’t do that.


    The use of logical consequences and external reward systems
    At the heart of this app is the setting of goals and the actions that are necessary to achieve the goals: essentially a behaviour modification program based on action and reward – an example given on the app’s website is if I brush my teeth x amount of times I will be able to go on a camping trip. This is no different than using real jars of marbles (or stickers on a chart or any other tracking system) in which I don’t believe, either. Why does a child have to perform unrelated activities in order to earn the right to go camping(or whatever their goal is)? And what does marbles (or stickers) have to do with it? The consequence of brushing your teeth is that you’ll have good oral hygiene and has nothing to do with camping. These are not logical consequences and don’t jive with my belief system around that. Motivation theories all point towards the concept that in order for real change to happen motivation needs to be intrinsic – coming from inside. When we try to get people (kids) to do certain actions while holding an unrelated goal as a carrot, we are more often than not either a) disappointed that the child gave up before achieving their goal and/or b) not teaching anything transferable about motivating oneself to achieve anything. Indeed, the child is working for the reward and each subsequent reward often needs to be bigger and better for the child not to get tired of it. Again, no logical connection between the what (brushing the teeth) and the why (going camping), and certainly not the how of it all (putting virtual marbles into a virtual jar).

    Having written all of this I know that there are many people who do believe in the use of external reward systems to get all kinds of things done. For them, this app may very likely be useful. For me, based on my beliefs around learning, it isn’t.

    I’d love to hear what others think about this!