Last week, I was fortunate to be invited to lunch with Stephanie Hamilton, one of Apple’s chief educators, based in Cupertino, California. What I found most profound was that her message echoed much of what we are trying to do in this project with our pilot schools. What was her key point? “We must lead with the learning and not with the technology.” She had a number of other pivotal messages but I want to reflect on the points that resonated for me.
“Mobile devices,” she stressed, “are intended to personalize learning.” We have the opportunity to support students, whatever their struggle, whatever their interests, in more personalized ways. Whatever their issue, there is likely an app or an application that can help them. Schools cannot provide a one size fits all approach. She touched on differentiated instruction and the need to move towards deep engagement for our students. Our district has the same focus for this project. She challenged us with important questions: How does technology change the nature of the task? How can we give students more control of their learning?
The use of technology is no longer about digital integration but about transforming the learning task. She used the work of Ruben Puentedura, a researcher from Maine, and his technology implementation continuum as a point of reference. The best part, however, was when she walked us through explicit examples of student tasks, describing how they looked for each of his four stages, from enhancement to transformation. I found that part the most valuable because that is what teachers need to see. We need real life examples of the transformative use of technology. These provide us with models to help chart our way.
“Teachers need to move from being master teachers to master learners,” she emphasized. I really liked her description of the future of schools. She described schools historically as factory models of learning with teachers as content experts and then contrasted that with schools in the knowledge economy where teachers are the providers of context and students have the opportunity to be “free agent learners.” Her quote from Seymour Papert seemed quite apropos, “ The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge.”
Finally, she made some pointed observations about our failure as educators to take advantage of the promise that technology offers. Some of the issues about technology and its integration were the same issues twenty, even thirty, years ago. She referenced the book Switch by Dan and Chip Heath: “For things to change, somebody somewhere has to start acting differently.” Fullan talks about this notion, too, “Research on attitudinal change has long found that most of us change our behaviors somewhat before we get insights into new beliefs. The implication for approaching new change is clear.” I realize that it isn’t about changing people’s beliefs, it isn’t about providing people with a list of reasons for why technology may help us, it really is about putting my own toe in the water. I have come kicking and screaming into the digital world because it became part of my portfolio. I knew I had a responsibility to model the way. I may not have wanted to learn about it but now it is become one of the most rewarding parts of my job. It has impacted my professional learning in a way I couldn’t have imagined. It had to start with me. I had to learn first. I am changing my behavior (trying out technology) and then letting the beliefs follow. We need to provide teachers with the support to do the same. It is about our behavior, our experimentation, and putting our toe in the water. What do you need to do? How can you support those that are willing to take the first step? It is when we learn ourselves, that we can transform the learning of our students.
Sometimes we teachers cling to the premise “change is good for everybody except for me” and this blocks us from seeing how our role is shifting like the strongest quick sand from sage on the stage to facilitator in a classroom of a community of learners. Can this be scary? Of course if you think that your role as educator is one of control. When I shifted from being a non-formal educator in my work in Latin America to the traditional high school, I knew in my educator gut that something was fundamentally wrong with the classroom. What happened to educational choice for students and how could they collaborate in sterile rows oriented to the “expert” at the front of the room? I’ve been working on shifting my practice for years as I knew in my gut that my students were bored to death with my first year teaching “worksheet world”. They want to converse, collaborate and communicate. They are teenagers for pete’s sake! We need to shift our collective practice in our own special, unique ways as educators. Choose the tools with your students that will engage your students and yourself. That tool could be an iPad, a pencil and paper and/or a conversation. Examine how you learn in order to become a master learner as this learning will enrich your teaching and your students will be will pleasantly surprised with your flexible, messy, innovative classroom. Students now have choice where they will learn. Are they going to choose us or someone else to learn with? This world needs innovation and I don’t want to be an educator that causes students to stifle their ideas and then explore them outside of the school house. The library students at Clayton Heights Secondary where I work as a Teacher Librarian are learning web2.0 applications and then teaching these skills to teachers in their preps. When did I come up with this wacky idea? I used some of my “dream space” to come up with one possible solution to the challenge of teachings not having time to learn new skills. That is what we do as Teacher Librarians and educational leaders in our schools, we support the work that teachers do in their classrooms. The “Nerd Herd” Library Science Pilot Project, now being sustained by my TOC Jennifer McLean as I work as a Helping Teacher, evolved with the effort and magic that our students brought to the educational table. They continue to amaze and dazzle me every day. I could have controlled the learning but that would have destroyed it. I don’t want to be a kill joy educator. This world needs our creative, flexible students to wrestle with the challenges facing us today and tomorrow. Are we helping or hindering them?
Everywhere I look there is someone texting Twittering and asking if they can find you on Facebook. Last night watching the ‘too much testosterone’ riots people were texting Twittering and taking pictures on their cell phones. ( Can you believe some of the ape like poses the young men were taking for the screen?) Yet you walk into a school and technology is barely there. My son taught me how to use Power Point and he was not allowed to use his laptop to show a PowerPoint he used to to complete an assignment. And, last night at my circuit training class, a teacher from another district strongly disagreed with my enthusiasm over Surrey’s progressive attitude towards learning and technology. She shouted, “What’s wrong with a pencil? They need to know how to hold a pencil!” This morning I am safe from reprimand as I dip my toe into blogging, Twittering and maybe even Facebooking. Although, I find it ironic that the highly successful Social Media giant, Facebook, was the idea of a socially inappropriate but brilliant University student.