| SHIFT begins NOW! |
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| Written by Ken Task | |||
| Tuesday, 17 June 2008 15:15 | |||
What changes are about to take place? Are you around 39 years of age? See: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=623 See also: War of the Worlds: The Human Side of Moore’s Law http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080321_004574.html The five P's of IT are Pride, Prejudice, Politics, Price, and Performance. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080516_004925.html Audio: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/media/pulpit_audio_20080516_004925.mp3 {play}pulpit_audio_20080516_004925.mp3{/play} Let's say that IT (both networking and instructional) positions are gone ... hey, finances are tight, right? If one looks at budgets for public schools "non-essential personnel" might include IT! IF someone on the school board (a Millennial) thinks that IT positions in public schools ARE the problem, then what better way to force a change and save public dollars at the same time? Some of you might think that crazy ... it will never happen, however, consider this ... for years now 30% of any grant has be earmarked for training. Teachers have rec. tons of training, but where's the beef? Has all this investment in technology actually led to improvements in instruction? student performance? Recent survey's indicate Teachers are still asking for better training!!!??? Huh, what? Just an observation ... the best/on-going training they get is in the area of administriva task. Gradebooks and the like. But what about the day-to-day instruction? Ok, there are teacher workstations hooked to projectors/smart boards, internet connected, etc.. ISD's have spent tons of money for caddy software that promises (based upon research, of course) but has it REALLY delivered? What's going on here? It's outsourcing instruction in a way. Keep that up and when the Millennials really start to run the show, you'd better be retired OR very near it cause "shift" will begin to occur in earnest at that time. Put simply, you could outsource instruction such that you outsource yourself out of a job!!! How much of the materials students use is actually constructed by their teacher today? Here's a quote (free advertising for those who read and believe) from a well known text book publisher: "Connected Tech is the K-8, Web-based instructional program PROVEN to increase students' technology skills while building core subject knowledge in reading and language arts, math, science and social studies." http://corporate.classroom.com/eti.html In the study highlights which address the instructional effectiveness, these two statements: Connected Tech appears to be very effective in increasing students’ scores in the application of technology skills. The scores of a randomly selected group of students on a performance test of the application of technology skills also improved statistically significantly. Content knowledge test scores improved an average of 6 percent among the lower performing students in the grades tested. The increases in lower performing students’ scores in content knowledge were statistically significant at grades 1 and 4. Study included 549 randomly selected students in grades 1, 4, and 7 from six schools in Texas and New York City. I want to know which Texas schools? Did the students have access to such resources before Connected Tech? Did their teachers use technology in lessons prior? Obviously one gets better at certain technology (applications) that one uses in a repetitive fashion - which is a goal, but what of higher order thinking? So what is the author trying to say here ... GET a MOODLE! START learning how to make a transition from traditional methods of teaching to one that is on-line - 24 hrs a day - 7 days a week!
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