Tek Zeno/Jacqueline Derby, Ph.D.

I have decided to sign up for the Connect! Your PLN Lab and jump back into my blog, twitter, plurk, etc.  This had me thinking about my PLN.  I had recently heard about Twitter mosaics and I decided to give it a try.  Here are my Twitter friends in Mosaic form!

Get your twitter mosaic here.

How come every time I mention the words “professional development” to a group of teachers they roll their eyes?   I hear comments such as “we don’t have time for professional development” or “we don’t have money for professional development“.

There are two kinds of professional development that can take place: formal and informal.

Formal professional development is something that is developed to present to teachers.  The presentation can be in person or online.  Informal professional development takes place all of time.  When teachers share ideas, help each other, or collaborate informal professional development is taking place. 

Informal professional development is also when a teacher takes the initiative and learns about something they are interested in by researching it or developing something.

When I ask teachers about professional development it seems that the first images that come to them are formal professional development opportunities but these are not always effective.  Many studies have found that effective professional development needs to be relevant to the teacher’s teaching situation, ongoing, collaborative and reflective. 

One thing I feel that these studies are missing is that educators need to implement what they are learning right away in a non-threatening nurturing environment. If teachers do not have a chance to implement what they are learning and talk about the advantages, disadvantages, challenges and successes then the professional development opportunity was worthless.

This leads me to wonder… What is the most effective professional development you have taken part in?

Preparing students for the workplace is one of the goals of education but as I look around it seems that instead of concentrating on the skills students need for the future we are teaching students skills for the past.

One common complaint I hear from teachers concerns the dreaded cell phone.  I think most of us agree that a cell phone is something students will need to know how to use for the future.  This includes physically using one as well as cell phone etiquette.  Many of the issues educators have in the classroom are due to students not using proper cell phone etiquette.  I also see this in the work place.  Employers are constantly battling with their employees over the use of a cell phone.  This leads me to the conclusion that this is something we should teach our students beginning in Kindergarten. 

Teaching students when they should text and talk on a cell phone is as important has how to line up for lunch.  This should be part of our curriculum and/or classroom rules.  It needs to be taught and reinforced.  If students learn the proper use of cell phones at the beginning of the educational career then, instead of banning the use of cell phones, we can embrace the technology that students have. 

This leads me to wonder why schools do not teach students etiquette when it comes to using technology.  We teach students etiquette items such as not to hit other people, blow their nose in a tissue, raise their hand to ask to sharpen their pencil, and line up in a straight row to go to recess but we do not teach students when and where it is appropriate to use their cell phone.  Why not?  What is your school doing to teach students proper etiquette when it comes to using technology?

Links worth sharing:

“Online education expert calls for a new approach to teaching” http://www.advance.uconn.edu/2009/090202/09020204.htm

“Ken Robinson’s The Element: reincarnating creativity” http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2009/02/ken-robinsons-the-element-reincarnating-creativity.html

Embrace the future: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyPQ4Qr8xks

Tech Tools for teachers: http://www.superteachertools.com/index.php

Intel’s K-12 Teaching Tools: http://www.intel.com/education/tools/index.htm?iid=ed_nav+k12tools

Library of Congress site for teachers: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

Directory of Web 2.0 sites: http://www.go2web20.net/

Each week I read many papers about integrating technology into classroom instruction.  The more I read the more I realize that the real “enemy” to integrating technology in a meaningful way is time.  There never seems to be enough time for teachers to use meaningful methods of instruction.

I remember going on a field trip for gifted students with my daughter.  We went to a museum with many exciting historical objects.  What was the first things the kids did when they arrive?  They pulled out their cell phone cameras and began to take pictures of everything that caught their attention.  I turned to the teacher and said “Wouldn’t it be great if the students created powerpoint presentation about their experiences on this trip”.  The reply was that it would be wonderful if only there were enough time to do that.  The problem was that the gifted teacher is only able to spend about ½ hour each week with the gifted students.

Many studies have determined that discovery and inquiry learning makes content meaningful and relevant for students.  Students are actively engaged and interested but it takes time to plan these types of lesson and time to implement them.  This leaves me to ponder what type of educational model best supports this type of learning?  Block scheduling, Montessori, year round school, traditional, online learning….?  What is the most effective model to organizing the time we have with our students?  Any thoughts?

Here are some sites that sites I want to share!

Create a whiteboard using your wii remote: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Looking for teaching ideas using technology: http://edtechteacher.org/ and http://www.edutopia.org/

Looking for a fun game to waste time : http://magic.pen.fizzlebot.com/

How much technology is too much?

My family and I are “gadget” people.  We have it all!  We have a: iRobot Roomba, iRobot Scooba , Amazon Kindle , iPod , Zune , Amazon kindle , Sony Ebook Reader  , Slacker , Spacenavigator , Wii , Playstation 3 , Tablet PCs , HP TouchSmart PC , Roku  as well as countless other gadgets that are designed to do things for us.  The list could go on forever!

About 2.5 years ago my husband bought me a PocketPC from Alltel and it promised wonderful things.  I could surf the Internet, view Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.  I could keep track of my schedule and my contacts.  The world was literally at my fingertips.

For 2 years I owned the Pocket PC and we paid the monthly fee.  I found that I used it as a phone.  I didn’t use it for anything else!  When it came time to trade it in I decided on an Alltel Scoop and I loved it….. until now.  What happened?  My daughter and husband each brought home a HTC Touch pro.

Now I feel left out.  They navigate the internet, watch videos, and use their phones for so many things.  Now I ask myself why didn’t I use my PocketPC.  Was it too much technology for my needs?  Then why do I want one now?

I had the world at my fingertips but I did not use it.  Should our technology WANTS fit our technology NEEDs?   I know I am going to go out and upgrade soon…  I can feel it….  The “I wants” have struck but I also wonder how often I will use the technology that I will have at my fingertips.

I know that there will be continued debate on whether or not turnitin.com should be used and if students should be required to submit their papers.  There are two ways to use turnitin.com.  One is to be reactive.  Using this method the teacher submits a student’s paper to turnitin when the teacher has questions about the integrity of the paper. The other way is to be proactive in which the teacher requires students, for each assignment, to submit their own papers.  I have chosen to take the proactive approach. 

How do you use your plagiarism program?

Yesterday my daughter received her report card.  She was very proud of the grades on the paper and her dad and I were also proud of her accomplishments.  To celebrate we are going to take her out to eat anywhere she wants.

As a teacher I understand that the grades expressed on the report card are not very important and that true learning and understanding is more than what is on the report card but as a parent the report card is important.  How would I feel if my daughter brought home a report card with low grades?  This leads to a type of conflict. 

I ask myself if we should celebrate the grades on the report card.  Will this lead my daughter to feel that grades are more important than learning?  Learning should be the main goal but how do you measure and celebrate learning in a way that the student understands that learning and understanding is what is important, not a grade.

I also have this conflict when it comes to the standardized test.  As an educator I respond that the standardized test does not determine anything except the students test taking ability.  Students that understand the material are not always successful test takers.  I could go on and on with reasons why but that is another blog posting.  Now, as a parent, I want to know my student’s test results and I make sure I understand the report that I receive.   Hummmm, will this conflict ever be resolved? 

Today I listened to a principal state that a lot of money is being put into new programs without proper professional development. This is something that I hear all of the time so I am wondering why districts don’t follow up with professional development.  Districts start new initiatives and then drop the ball when it comes to teacher training.  Why?

Studies have shown that one-shot professional development doesn’t work and I have seen this in action.  A school district will provide 1 day of training and then they let the teachers (and students) sink or swim.  The result is a group of teachers that end up becoming frustrated when their questions are not answered and they eventually stop using the new program, teaching strategy, or initiative.  Professional development needs to be ongoing so that teachers come back, reflect, discuss and then implement.  This should be circular not linear.Everett Rogers provides us with a way to determine how people will adapt when there is a new innovation being implemented (25% will be innovators, 13.5% will be early adapters, 34% will be the early majority, 34% will be the late majority and 16% will be laggards).  What I wonder is how long is “enough” when it comes to professional development.  One year?   Six months?  Of course it depends on the type of program that is being implemented but how do you determine the amount of time that is required to properly training teachers so that change takes place?