What’s the Difference?

What is the difference among educators? I work with educators in the area of educational technology within an urban school division and every day I consider this question and its plethora of possible answers. What makes some educators reach out for new strategies and approaches while others just shake their heads and say “I don’t have time”?

What made a difference in me? I am not a techie. In fact, ten years ago, the first workshop I ever attended I had to ask the person next to me, “How do you turn this thing on?” Of course that was in a hushed voice so that no one else knew of my technical ignorance. However, over time, I began to experience new roles – the one with stories and experiences to share of student learning supported by technology and the one who could pose questions about learning that I would never have considered before.

One of the keys for me as I began to learn about educational technology ten years ago, was that I knew this was not another educational bandwagon. Technology was changing so many aspects of society – if it could help me in my teaching and my students learning, then I wanted to be informed of how I could use the tools. For me, the many hours I spent on my own time (with young children at home) was a window to the world. I liked the idea of doing things differently, of hooking kids in new ways and of seeing them “take off” in their learning when I gave up the control at the front of the room. For me, incorporating technology into the classroom was a journey from teacher-directed instruction to more student-centered learning. At first, I got caught up in the technology. And slowly I learned to step back and be more critical and ask the question, “How can this improve and support student learning?” “How are the students learning, and what are they learning?”

Ten years later, I now support educators as they learn how to use technology to support student achievement. While I try to respect the varying points that educators are at in their learning journey, I can’t understand the choice to step back and not learn, the choice to claim ignorance and be comfortable doing so, the choice to believe that today’s classrooms do not need to be different that they were 10, 20 or 30 years ago (okay, 100 years ago), or the choice to wait for someone else to create the time for their learning to take place.

If you know what the difference is….please, do tell!

~ by search4understanding on January 29, 2008.