A recent chat with @snbeach, @baldy7, @datruss and Rob from NH on a PLP info session has me thinking. I mentioned that I got “into all this” (never sure how to categorize these huge shifts in thinking and learning anymore) because I loved playing with “tools.”
Tony said that wasn’t the case for him. But I wonder how many are more like me?
I remember the first time I put my hands on a computer. I was taking a re-certification in 1985 to teach high school again after taking off a few years with my children. A local college offered a class in Basic programming, so I signed up without fully understanding what I was getting into.
Actually, I had never touched a computer, and I was an English major (fully avoiding math and science whenever possible).
Three weeks later, I remember the frustration, the uncertainty, and the exhaustion I felt, trying to use the left side of by brain to logically determine what a loop was and how to write a simple piece of code. On my own for the most part, there was no hand-holding in this course.
By the time I finished, though, I had learned to write a short grading program that worked.
And I felt a sense of accomplishment.
That one step took me to the next: buying my own computer, figuring out how to manage DOS and Windows apps, and installing peripherals. I was having so much fun figuring it all out and learning something new, totally in the flow.
And then something amazing happened. I was given a Mac to use in my journalism class, the first computer to be used in the county for any instruction. I began to see the power of turning kids loose and taking control of their own learning. One boy learned Illustrator and shared it with the class; another became a graphics design expert and landed an after-school job. Many began finding other strengths in writing, publishing, and advertising.
In a few short years, I was online in a text-based web, texting with someone from Europe, who jumped onto my screen. The possibilities for my classroom were rumbling around in my head. By 2000, I was back in school in a M.Ed program in Instructional Tech. In 2004, I started blogging (first trying to install Manilla on our school server); then I discovered Twitter in 2007, and my world shifted.
Isn’t this what we want for our students today? To want to work through problems, concepts, or issues? To be curious enough to see how things work? To create?
My circuitous path led me to new ways of thinking about how my students learn and what I want schools to “look like” (if, indeed, we need to have schools at all). It all started with an interest in figuring out a tool, but it’s moved to how these tools–or now these online social technologies–change the way we live in this networked world.
What has changed your thinking? How can our interactions with each other and the tools make meaningful change in the life of our students?
Uploaded on January 16, 2008
by seeks2dream
Susan, I think you are right on here, except one thing – I love new tools and I “geek” out with the best of them. However, I love new tools in that they have the ability to facilitate the shift you wrote of above. I worry that professional development that focuses on tools and their immediate use as a classroom tool do not focus enough of the personal development that these tools can cause. Since my experience with PLP has started, I am more convinced than ever that I need to focus on my personal development in a way that allows me to own that shift – that change in behavior – so that I may pass it along to others. For that reason, I shy away from tool-dependent PD, instead looking to be involved in behavior-dependent PD.
Yes, Tony. I am with you there. In fact, as an instructional tech coordinator, I found I could no longer offer the types of “training” (trying to avoid that word!) my school wanted me to offer. We ended up in loud discussions about our lack of discussions on not only personal development but also the larger issues of how social learning affects us. I like your phrase: behavior-dependent PD.
Tony and Susan. I couldn’t agree more. Personally as I mentioned in the PLP info session the sense of being overwhelmed in scary. The initial efforts to learn seem futile at times, and I think that is why traditional PD is the way it is. It seems easier for administration (or teachers for that matter) to implement the instruction or teaching of a “tool”, and state that learning has occurred. Instead of assisting the individual in understanding how these tools can assist, and providing a framework of assistance in overcoming the challenges that are faced.
Hey Rob,
So glad you found this. (I didn’t know your Twitter name) This is one of the reasons I value what PLP does for teachers and administrators in helping them see the big picture yet connect people to share and learn so the practical makes sense. As you said, it is too easy to fall back on teaching “how” to twitter instead of “why” (as @willrich45 pointed out in his blog the other day). Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts. (and I think I called you Rob from NH instead of Rob from NY :) sorry!)
Hi Susan,
As I read your post I really wonder if it was the playing with the “tools” that got you. What struck me wasn’t that you were learning “tools” but were curious, and engaged by the opportunity to solve problems–you mentioned without handholding–which is exactly what you mention we want for our students– Were you perhaps tinkering and working through an inquiry process?
I guess I’m thinking that working to understand issues, concepts, and solve problems collaboratively in an inquiry based environment that encourages just in time learning of tools that will enable understanding and finding of solutions and engender the learning we want to see for ourselves and our students–
Sounds familiar?
Lani
Hi Lani
Hmm, I guess that’s what I was trying to say (but perhaps not well!) For me, the realization that I could be (and wanted to be) an independent learner, one who wanted to work through issues and concepts and solve problems, came through an introduction to tools. Once I realized the power of the social web (and its tools), I was hooked. Because, yes,that tinkering is what we do want our students to do, too. Thanks for visiting:)