The Computer Won't Let Me...

• login
• use the software
• create an account"

I hear this from adults as well as kids. There are almost metaphysical realms at work when this attitude is in full gear. It seems that if there is an expectation of failure, it WILL fail. This attitude gets projected at technology. ALOT.

I recently assisted our school in developing a paperless calendar system using
a simple Google-based online, embeddable calendar. Events could be submitted online using a Google Docs Form. The Administrative Assistant and Principal can review the request and approve it within a few hours in most cases. The event will go 'live' on the calendar usually within 24 hours with no paper involved and with strict oversight of any possible conflicts.

Sounds great. Sounds simple. And it is!
BUT.
There are two factors that immediately made this simplicity problematic:

1-It involved technology
2-It required CHANGE

These two seem to be dreaded by many in the Education Profession. In our case, there was much anxious buzz about the new system mostly because people had to give up the 'tangibility' that the paper calendar seemed to represent. And they would try to do
strange things like attempt to migrate the new online calendar to Microsoft Office as if THAT was where a calendar "belongs". It is very frustrating at first to be confronted with this resistance. Very! But that's only the first reaction. Upon reflection, one realizes
(as Michael Fullan reminds us) that change comes slow (in schools especially) and resistance is a natural part of ANY change.

Also-Ours is a tactile and visual culture: 'If I can't see it and touch it, it doesn't exist". Unless your a 'techie'. Then you know the great value of going paperless, subscribing to feeds, using apps, embeddable files, blogs, etc...So until one is and understands that the
paradigm has changed (everything, everywhere all the time; digitally), it will be slow going.

I began blogging about Web 2.0 and using tech in education 3 years ago using videos such as Are you Paying Attention and Shift Happens as support for my claims. If I were to predict that most Education Professionals still haven't caught on in 2010, I would say your'e crazy.

But here we are. Those of us tweeting and blogging mostly get reinforcement from each other..We speak to the choir. We are NOT the majority, however.

So, I believe in both Scott AND Darren's arguments.

Tech has great value in transforming teaching and learning and SHOULD be adopted but
Education Professionals need a great deal of empathy, encouragement and patience to get moving in a direction of adopting tech.

Any adoption of technology should only be done to support learning and teaching goals that are already established to empower students by allowing more or better avenues for creativity, collaboration, communication, critical thinking, assessment and differentiation- to reflect our new and ever-changing 21st Century World.

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5 Easy Ways to Find $ for School Programs

• Donors Choose-Hatch an idea. Write about it. State what you need. Wait. View other successful projects. Keep it simple and keep it cheap. Requests at or under $200 are usually funded quickly. Repeat as needed
• Get what you need for Free at iLoveSchools. Create a wishlist and see what happens.
• For technology to support education programs try DigitalWish
• Access and download free classroom resources and lesson plans including primary documents at Free Resources for Educational Excellence
• Go grant shopping and sign up to receive up to date grant info from the NEA Foundation.

So there's a good start. Best advice for grant seekers is to start small. Where to find more information about grants? Join Education-Based Social Networks such as Classroom2.0, the Educator's PLN or Fireside Learning and post a question to one of the Forums. Most teachers are more than willing to help a fellow educator in need.

Good Luck and post comments with you success stories below.

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Defining a PLN: What PLN? Whose PLN?

If you teach, at some point you realize there is no such thing as a "class" to a student. If you address any assembled group of students as "the class", you've already communicated to your students that you are out of touch with them.

Now we have the way-too-often-used term "PLN" or "Personal Learning Network" which, to me, is synonymous with the misnomer "class". Let me be clear-->There IS NO SUCH THING AS A P.L.N. just as there is no such thing as a class. The way one goes about learning online is personal. One may belong to a handful of social networks, subscribe to a handful of feeds, do some bookmarking, use Twitter, or not. A PLN is not a thing. It's not something you go and "get" (as in: "Why you need to get a PLN").


Go ahead and use the term if you want to but realize that it means absolutely nothing to anyone who is not YOU. Using 'PLN' with the first person possessive determiner "my" is even worse, as in, "I love MY PLN". What? Might as well say, "I love my REALITY! Thank you, REALITY!". The point is that a PLN is exactly that: a PERSONAL. LEARNING. NETWORK. which is defined specifically and exclusively by the one who is doing the surfing of the networks that make up the specific PLN. It doesn't have an absolute reality that can be defined or fixed. Which makes it's use problematic.

I am genuinely glad that so many educators are finding their way to social media, tools and technologies that may help them be better, more informed, relevant teachers. But so many have recently been deceived into thinking they have to bind their learning inside a cocoon of this thing called a PLN (which usually means Twitter and one other Social Network). It's like thinking New York is the United States. It's not about individuals or groups of individuals controlling information. Information is free and you should be able to gather it wherever you like without feeling that you stepped outside the bounds of "your" "PLN".

It's about learning, after all--yours and your students. OK- AND the learning of your colleagues and peers. Go ahead, though, and drop the acronym PLN once and for all and you will discover this thing called the Internet. On the Internet there are multiple, unbounded places to learn anything, anytime, anywhere--from anyone. You can share what you discover if you want to but you don't owe anyone anything. You should be free to go where you like, when you like. And that's the way it should be.

Go ahead:

• Join conversations on Twitter
• Participate in Social Bookmarking and Annotating
• Create blogs and write blog posts
• Jump In on Twitter 'Chats'
• Join Social Networks (note: NetworkS is plural)
• Subscribe to podcasts
• Watch and comment on videos
• Connect with people at conferences who you met online

Just, please, don't call doing these things your P L N (Awesome video, by the way). It's just you learning and contributing in the world of ideas and information.

So. Be polite. Give credit where credit is due but if you win Teacher of the Year, please...please don't thank 'your PLN' while tears run down your grateful face. It would be like thanking 'Your' Consumer Goods Network for all of the material possessions you have acquired in your lifetime. It's like thanking your 'Reality'. Try defining THAT.

Twitter As Professional Learning Resource

When I first tried to wrap my mind around twitter, I had the same reaction as many--what a trivial waste of time!
It's true that some use twitter to share every and any banal event of their lives. However there is real PLN (Professional-or 'Personal'- Learning Network) potential on Twitter. Many forward-thinking teachers and administrators use Twitter to post links to excellent learning resources.

I highly recommend giving Twitter a shot. Do a twitter search about your subject or curriculum interests and see what comes up. You can then choose to 'Follow' people who 'tweet' useful links. Once you're following a dozen or so people, you have created and are a part of a dynamic PLN.

I can be found @berkshirecat (twitter.com/berkshirecat)