Rewriting the Plan

Today was one of those days when technology threatened to undermine a whole lot of thinking and planning.

"What are we going to do now, Mr. Olivo?" one student whined predictably.

"Everyone back to the classroom. We'll rearrange the room and set up our conversations in groups," I responded while quickly rewriting my lesson plans in my head.

"You mean like the old way?"

Exactly.

I've been thinking and reading a lot lately about teaching and learning - well, more than usual, that is, and with everything I've come across, there is one common thread. We are in the middle of a shift from an old way of doing things to a new way of delivering instruction and providing access to the curriculum for students. And, clearly technology is an important component.

I think many teachers and principals, and schools and districts are more than aware of the need to start including more current technology in their schools. However, many seem to be caught up in a frenzy to upgrade our classrooms and schools by latching on to the latest technological trends without really understanding exactly how things will be different or better.

Think about this statement from Will Richardson in his blog post "So What is the Future of Schools?".

"We have to first change our understanding of what it means to teach in this moment. That doesn’t mean than we throw out all of the good pedagogy that we’ve developed over the years and make everything about technology. But it does mean, I think, that technology has to be a part of the way we do our learning business these days."

Read Evan Abby's post about common pitfalls with technology professional development, the 21st century schools report from the Ontario Public Schools, or the many comments from a host of blog posts out there -- "Open Letter to a 21st Century School" and Scott McLeod's "Help Wanted - Building a New Secondary School" to name a few. There is a common theme to all of them.

It's about changing the way that we teach rather than adding technology to what we do.

Schools not only believe that they need the latest and greatest instructional technology, but they also believe that it must be distributed equitably among the classrooms. This is another trap. Wes Fryer writes:

As educational leaders, we often want and strive for systemic, scalable change across entire organizations. Educational technology innovation generally tends to take place in isolated pockets, however...
ISTEConnects.org "Focusing on Classrooms Rather Than Schools"

His article also cites a post from Clarence Fisher about the dangers of spending thousands of dollars on technology to create uniform classrooms where teachers are forced to adapt to the new technology that is available to them rather than allow teachers to individualize their own presentation styles and methods. The majority of comments in a Ben Grey post support this idea, as well.

Again, it's about changing the way that we teach rather than adding technology to what we do.