Tech for Teachers

I’m not entirely sure I understand Race to the Top.  My district is participating as part of our state participation in this large federal project.  Here’s what I think is going on:

• RttT seems to have a drive toward common academic standards among participating states.  Some of these standards are driven by organizations that are publishers and sellers of school materials, not educators.
• RttT also seems to focus on common teacher preparation programs.  There seems to be the idea that if state certifying organizations have people go through x,y and z programs they will become good teachers who will stay in the field.  I don’t think it works that way.
• Another focus of RttT seems to be how teachers are assessed as to their quality.  It seems like it will work out that how students perform on testing will be a major component of our review.  Will this keep teachers from wanting to teach in schools or communities where students struggle?  Will good teachers shy away from grade levels that have more challenging curriculum?
• I can’t tell if this is a part of RttT or not, but our district is beginning a push toward a technology rich “blended learning.”  It seems to have an emphasis on the teacher as a facilitator.  While I understand the facilitation model, I also believe strongly that it is only a part of the pie that makes up good teaching.

The part of RttT that I am worried about the most is what seems to be a push toward “sameness.”  I don’t think that schools in different areas ought to be the same.  We should not operate the same way, we should not fund the same way, we should not train teachers the same way.

Students and families in different parts of the country are distinct from each other and should be so.  I grew up knowing nothing about Casimir Pulaski Day even though here in Georgia we have a Fort Pulaski and he died in Georgia during the Battle of Savannah.  But schools in Illinois and Wisconsin celebrate it as a school holiday and they should.  I worry that a federalization of our local schools will strip away that local flavor.

My greatest fear is that we are setting up a beauracracy whose main goal will be to sustain itself even as it becomes irrelevant.  Already in my district and state, we have created administrative positions whose job is to manage funds and mandates so we can keep getting this federal money.  Then they assign me extra jobs to make sure we are following the mandates.  This takes away from the time I have for good teaching.

One thing I have learned about federal programs is that local districts who participate first have to spend their own money then apply for a reimbursement grant.  I am sure this adds a couple of layers of mangement which only soaks up money and time and you don’t always get your funds back.

I think Race to the Top is really just another “Race to the Middle” strategy designed to keep good and excellent teachers from standing out too much.  I hope we don’t ruin too many schools and students before we abandon this approach.

If you know more about RttT, please comment and share your knowledge.  These are only my thoughts.

Over the last few weeks I have been following the problems of a Pennsylvannia teacher who was blogging poorly.  After thinking through where she went wrong, I have developed a few thoughts on what good blogging should be about.

• A teacher blog should be personal, but not a vent.  It should give readers a view of who I am without showing all that I am.
• A teacher blog should represent what I do in the classroom.  If I shouldn’t say it in front of 25 14 year-olds, it shouldn’t be in my blog.
• My blog should celebrate the successes of my students.  I shouldn’t use it as a forum to mock or ridicule them, even if annonymously.
• I should post often.  This is one I don’t do.  I go through spells where I post a lot, then not as much.  Posting often lets the reader in on what we are doing in class.
• Keep above the fray.  It is easier to be pulled down that to pull someone up.  I should follow the classroom rule: “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anyting at all.”

This year, our principal wants us to blog at our school.  Not only does she want teachers to blog, she blogs herself and she wants us to get students to blog.  While I’m not really good at blogging regularly enough, I think it is a good idea and think about how I’ll share my ideas with the world (or at least some of my students).

When I read about the teacher in Pennsylvannia who was recently suspended for her blog, I’m reminded of how often we teachers are judged by our less-abled peers.  Will her story cause administrators to caution teachers from sharing their thoughts as I’m doing here?  I hope not.  It does remind me that not all teachers have good sense.

If you read some excerpts from her blog, you may ask, “What did she say that wasn’t true” or “My co-workers and I were just talking about that.”  You may attempt to defend her by clarifying that she didn’t name student names, she was just sharing her thoughts.  I’ve read some news articles where she is actually praised for her words.  Truthfully, most of her blog is not about her students, but the happenings of her life, including some humorous commentary on real situations.  She didn’t name any student names, she didn’t even call them out by class period.  You could even argue that any profanity used is contextual and far less than you would hear in a high school hallway

But the story illustrates the dangers of the internet. It is too easy to post in haste and you don’t notice the expressions of others who let you know you have gone too far.  In fact, you can post annonymously that you agree and no one knows who you are.  Many of her postings remind me of faded copies of “teacherisms” that would get taped up in the teacher lounge when we still had such a thing.  No one was sure who put it up and it didn’t have context with the rest of their life.

I often warn students that when they are having a conflict with another to not write things down in a note.  Their written words out of context can be inflamed and cause more harm than good.  The same words said to someone’s become much more harmful when you write them down.

The other danger is that the internet is permanent.  Everything on the internet is being recorded and stored away.  I can find my first website that I made 12 years ago on the “wayback machine.”  I have been able to read many of her posts even though her blog has been “taken down.”  Taken down doesn’t exist in the internet word, those postings are permanent. 

Here is a reality, everything I do teaches.  Everywhere I go, I am a teacher.  I can’t curse at the cashier at OfficeMax because she was my student in 8th grade.  I can’t show up at Kroger intoxicated, because I see too many parents there.  I have parent conferences at McDonalds.  So here is my advice:  If you have something to say and it isn’t nice, don’t put it on the internet.

DeKalb yanks 24 teachers from classroom on cheating allegations  | ajc.com.

One thing I don’t understand about this article:  None of the teachers that are described seem like especially good teachers.  Clearly, teachers involved in the scandal were wrong, cheated their students out of good results and painted teachers in a bad light.

However, the teachers who “turned them in” don’t exactly seem like a picnic either.  I’m not exactly sure I’d want to teach next door to them.  Too many of them seem like they are just one more issue from not having their contract renewed.

So what gives?  What about the good teachers?  Were they not even approached to “clean up erasures?”  Were the careful to avoid the room where the tests are stored and also the teachers who didn’t avoid those rooms?  Were they just so busy teaching that they didn’t notice what was going on around them?

If a teacher is teaching and their students are learning, I think someone would be less likely to suggest that they need “extra help” to pass the tests.  I also think that if I generally work hard and am involved in the positive things around school, no one would think to drop off a stack of tests and suggest that I “clean up erasures.”

Maybe I live in an ideal world where hard-working teachers are respected by their administrators and administrators understand that despite a teacher’s best practices, not all students will measure up to the standards of the test.  The end result is that if educators are cheating on the test, struggling students are the ones who will suffer the most.

After focusing for so long on what it means for schools to “think outside the box,” the challenge facing educators is how to “think inside the box.”  What I mean is, it is time for us to rethink our filing cabinets, storage crates, and boxes of work to be graded.

For the first phase of my teaching career, the hallmark of an experienced teacher was the ability to reach into the filing cabinet and pull out an activity, assignment or teaching idea for almost any topic.  Efficient teacher were known for having their filing cabinets well organized with lesson plans, transparencies and activities all carefully filed.  These teachers would reward students who had finished early with allowing them to re-file lessons that had been completed.

That has changed.  Recently, I handed a colleague a copy of a well used lab activity and their question was “do you have an electronic copy?”  I also emptied two drawers of materials that I was hanging onto “just in case” I teach that subject again.  Why?  Because I can find most of that information online now.  If it isn’t already online, then my thought is, “maybe I should put it online.”

Two services have really made this possible.  The first is DropBox.  You sign up for the service and then download the software to the computers you use.  There is a free and a paid version, but only the most voracious of storage users should need to pay for the service.  The program installs a folder in your “my documents” called “my dropbox.”

I am in the process of moving everything from my documents folders into folders in the dropbox.  The program synchronizes with your account on “the cloud”, but you also have copies on each of the computers.  My next task is to find out how I can share this folder with my teaching partners so I don’t have to email documents.

The next program is one I am just trying out.  It is called Let’s Crate.  I’m not entirely sure it will be as useful as DropBox for these reasons:

1. the storage space is smaller.  I can actually earn more space on Dropbox by referring people who sign up.
2. Let’s Crate is entirely on the cloud.  As we see recently, cloud companies may go out of business or disappear.  With Dropbox, I still have a physical copy of my files on my computers.
3. Dropbox has a physical folder on my computer.  I can use the files even if I am not connected to the web.

What are your thoughts?  Have you tried either one?  I have heard that some districts block Dropbox since it is a file-sharing program.  I would imagine that the proper persons would see the light after they have tried the program.

Just as paper and pencils are essential tools in the classroom, so are technology tools in the hands of the students and teachers.  Technology tools can open up a world for students to connect with the world around them and build knowledge in a way that was never before possible.

This blog will be a record of some of the ways I attempt to use technology in the classroom to motivate and to reach students to learn to their greatest potential.  Learning is a journey.  Travel with us.