I continue to be amazed by the affect that blogging has on my thinking. Everything I do and see and experience is filed away as a potential blog post. I make meaning of my world in ways I never did before. I am constantly composing posts in my head. It makes for some incredible learning experiences, but can also make it hard to sleep.I haven't posted in a while. I've been finishing up the school year and just ended 4 days of teaching a professional development class for teachers. There are lots of things bouncing around in my head that I plan to blog about. I thought I would give you just a taste of things to come and, in doing so, force myself to follow up on my ideas.
I have a new job! I just accepted the position of Director of Academic Technology at The Belmont Hill School in Belmont, MA. I am thrilled to be given the opportunity to help define and lead this extraordinary school in a quest to prepare students to succeed and excel in the 21st century. I am honored by the confidence in me that the leadership team of this school has expressed. It is truly an exciting new adventure that I can't wait to start.
Top Down or Bottom Up? Should every teacher in a school have a basic technology proficiency? Is it more important to focus on complex and creative technology projects with a few teachers and let the excitement and rewards spill down through the faculty, or should the focus be on making sure every teacher is at least proficient in using a mouse, a browser and setting up a Web page? I think there is a choice to be made, because I don't think there is enough time to focus on both.
Professional Development that works. I just finished teaching a 4 days professional development course titled Using 21st Century Technology Tools to Improve and Inspire Student Writing. I co-taught this course with an English teacher with whom I have worked a lot this year. I think our model overall really worked. We focused first on the learning goals and then on how different technology tools could help teachers achieve these goals and objectives. It was wonderful to have a teacher working with me who could really speak to the realities of using these tools in the classroom.
Professional Development Meme. I haven't forgotten that I was tagged for this meme a while back. I have a lot of things on my list - one of them being working on this blog. I do plan to dedicate an entire post to laying out my professional goals for the summer.
Trying out a new tool. In just the last two days I have been playing with a new Twitter like tool called Plurk. I'm not sure yet what I think of the tool, but I have been loving learning to use it. For me it has been a true constructivist experience. Together with my network, we've been working out how things work. Plurk may or may not be the hot new tool, but just learning to use it has been a great experience for me.
Here is a screencast of what I have learned so far.
So stay tuned for more on at least a few of these topics (let me know if you have a preference for where you would like me to start).
OK - now I just have to figure out when I'm going to take a vacation...
Photo Credit: Life Through Rose Colored Glasses from pangalactic gargleblaster's photostream on Flickr.
8 comments:
Congratulations on the new job! An all boys school! Maybe you could organize some PD thru AISNE or NEASC that I could convince some of my teachers to go to.
Congratulations on your new job - you very generously share your knowledge and deserve this new position.
With regard to the decision you have to make, you mentioned that the ‘quest’ for the new job is to ‘prepare students’ for the 21st century. That said, (IMHO _I’m new to learning these skills) wouldn’t it move the students’ learning further if you created projects with the already-tech savvy teachers and let the interest filter down?
Going the other way may pause the student learning while the teachers catch-up on how to use the tools. The interest this brings may compel other teachers to ask you for links on where to go to learn these tools (you've made great screencasts they could use) and then they might voluntarily spend their own time in learning ‘how-to’.
Grace
How exciting about your new job! I know they are lucky to have you there! As for top down or bottom up, I would focus on the few teachers and let their successes spill over to others. Sometimes this is better than spreading your self too thin and trying to make everyone successful (which is an impossible task). Then the next year, you can build on to that.
Liz,
Congratulations to you! Belmont Hill will certainly benefit from the skills you bring to the school.
Looking forward to seeing you again at the Edublogger Con before BLC.
Are you taking notes from the discussions atNECC? It seems that the unscheduled times are seen as the best.
¡Felicidades! on the new position Liz, sounds really exciting. And thanks for the early sneak preview of Plurk. It's plurklicious! Have been enjoying plurking with others during NECC (although I am a tad further south than they are, he he he). Looking forward to reading your blog as you move through the next school year.
Frank
@Liz
I always enjoy reading your blog. Congratulations on the new job I think you are going to do great! We've recently created the exact same position at our school so if you want someone to dialogue with feel free to call / skype / email us. We are new to the whole position at our school and are excited to see what comes of it.
Thanks everyone. I am definitely excited about the new job. I'm sure I will be blogging about it.
Grace and Loony Hiker - I agree, I am definitely of the Spill Down opinion. I'm trying to gather my thoughts to articulate that point of view more clearly.
Charlie - where are you from? I'm open to all the support I can get.
Top down or bottom up? Knowing the people in my building, I think I would look at the top down approach. We have some staff that just don't see the need for all this 'tech stuff.' :-(
I would have liked to been able to attend your professional development course to see what I could add in my class. I started doing some podcasting with my reading & writing students last year and the quality of the writing shot through the roof. It was exciting to see the students go back and revise their writing after how 'not so good' they sounded on their podcast. Two of my students won $250 scholarships through our GearUp program.
Congrats on your position. I have a similar type position but have to figure out how to squeeze it in between classes and prep.
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