Vision-ary Committee

My thoughts were here that we can brainstorm some ways to help better support teachers as they are learning new technologies.  Obviously a few of us cannot do it all ourselves, but can we think of some creative, ingenious or systematic processes to help us all as new “tools” come into play?

I just participated in the K12 Online conference, which was the first education conference held entirely online.    Although frankly I think teachers prefer more face-to-face trainings, I found it really interesting.  Each session was posted online as a video or powerpoint or screencast, and you could pick and choose among sessions.  Plus, each session is saved so if you didn’t have time to view it during the two weeks of the “conference,” it is still there to read later.

I participated in some online discussions that were held during the conference about helping teachers incorporate some of the new web 2.0 technologies into their classrooms.   Joel and I have started a weekly workshop and are sharing things on our blogs.

I have had several teachers request more face-to-face time.  How can we facilitate that–any ideas?   Should we talk to the Staff Development Committee?  (I’ve joined that to help be a liason if we need one).

 Any comments, ideas, etc?

In listening to everyone at the last committee meeting, I think we do have a strike a balance between our excitement about future (and present) technologies and overwhelm.

This article in Technology and Learning is a good example–http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193200296

It provides a lot of ideas and a vision for what a technology-transformed campus could be like, but reading it seems overwhelming even to me!

How do we find that balance?

On another note, I was excited that our plan to bring something out of this committee to reality–our mini-workshops for teachers–is already happening!

We had our first one yesterday.  I do think “mini” approaches may be a good way to gradually bring in some of these technology tools to our teachers, so maybe that is one way to avoid overwhelm?  (I really didn’t plan to answer my own question–that just occurred to me as I was writing this!)

What are other ways we can help keep that overwhelm balanced as we move to a more technology rich classroom?

I’d like to brainstorm some creative ways we could help teachers learn or experience new technologies.   We have to be creative because obviously one or two people can’t work with every teacher on campus.  What are some creative, ingenious, time efficient, or streamlined ways we can get teachers to engage with new technology when we bring it into the school? 

One idea I think would be great was if we had some sort of process in place–like “mini workshops” and then longer workshops, and we had a “name” for the different types.

I think having a routine, like brown bag lunch, or whatever, would get people interested and make it more of a process.

We could have a continuous schedule and a rotation of people teaching them too, so one person wouldn’t have to bear the brunt of it.

Some tools are online and aren’t really things we have to purchase, so its just a matter of helping people spend time with them.  Of course time is always the problem, isn’t it?

Anyway, ideas anyone??