Technology and Equity

Interesting discussion this evening facilitated by Steve Langford, CIO at Beaverton School District.  The concept of 3.8 students per computer being the national average seems amazing to me.  I consider our school to be in pretty good shape technology wise, and I'm certain we don't come even close to this number.  However, I do believe our richness is in how our building uses the technology we do have.  Each year more integration of technology into teaching and learning is taking place.  It has stepped beyond the word processing world.  We still have a long ways to go, but it's progress.

But does the use of technology get figured into the equity equation?  If you have a building full of "Robin's old teachers"  that don't want to use the technology anyway, should they be granted more "boxes",  just because the magic formula says they should?  I would like to see buildings do some prioritization activities on how they would use the technology and what is important to the building.  (in relationship to the building's vision and the district's)  This of course is assuming we still have funding for technology.  Maybe enough for those projector replacement bulbs this next year, at least.

But maybe if you replace one of "Robin's old teachers" with a new cheap teacher, (with enthusiasm, desire to use technology, and some teacher training on using technology in the classroom) the difference in salary could be made up for with some technology for the classroom/school.  Even a portion of this salary would provide some great technology.  These would be the catalysts to spread throughout.

Web sites in Review 2/12

I appreciated the opportunity (and guidance) to look at some pre-existing site web development sites.  In my brief review of them, they seem pretty straight forward and easy to use.  Somewhat limiting, though, when you compare them to the fancy websites.  I quickly found that I have nothing of interest to start my own web page.

Part 2 with Don Woodward, graphic designer, gave me some great things to think about when designing web pages.  I appreciated his examples and nonexamples and will continue to use this information to review our school and district website.  It seems so simple and obvious when he talked about it, but obviously it is missed by a lot of people.  Good stuff!

WEB as a tool

Paul Navarre a web developer from net interaction spoke to us this evening about using the web as a tool.  I appreciated his comment of just considering it a tool, and not, as an educator trying to figure out how to use the technology in the classroom.  I do think in the beginning just learning a form of technology, if has to be much more intentional, though.  Once a person become more used to the tool, and more comfortable, it can more easily be incorporated into an instructional tool.  Soon it becomes the white board in the classroom.  In my own building, I have watched this evolution of document cameras and smart boards.  They are becoming second nature in many of the classrooms.

The use of the web as a communication tool is invaluable.  If you visit my school's web page and go to the 7th grade team, check out Mrs. Wood.  She has many examples that Paul was recommending.  The challenge, is parents comparing teachers.  "Why does Mrs. Wood have all this information on their web page, but no other teachers do?" The question for many teachers is finding the balance between enabling students and teaching responsibility.  Even our current world, with so much information available, I can't believe this is enabling.  A lot of work, yes, but not enabling.