Technology for Teachers

If you could tell/ask your Principal (or building leader) one thing about technology, what would it be? Please use the comments option below to post your thoughts.

MP3 (Audio Podcast) File of this Posting

Yesterday, after a workshop that I’d attended, I had a list of books to order.  Well, the list totaled up to a bit more than I wanted to spend at the moment.  The books were in regard to educational leadership and it got me to thinking…. boy it’d be nice if I could list all the books I have (leadership specific) online for other educators  to borrow and in turn for them to list and share theirs with me.

I knew off hand that a few people I knew probably had the book that I was looking for…..  this in turn got me thinking about social networking and the possibility of there being a site that could do exactly this.  I really didn’t feel like digging through the billions of pages on the internet to look for this type of site, especially since I had no idea as to what exactly I was looking for.  So i hopped on to twitter (another social networking site) and asked my list of followers if they had any ideas, here’s  picture of that original question:

within minutes I had a response pointing me to a site called "Shelfari".

Right off the bat, the nice thing is that Krisitin (khokanson) saved me the time and effort needed to find and preview this site.  So far, with Shelfari, I’ve been able to create an online "bookshelf" that lists the books that I’ve read, I’m reading, I plan to read, I own, my wishlist, and my favorites.

Also, in the time that it would have taken me to locate this type of site, I’ve been able to create a group as well.  The group I created is called "K12 Administrators".  Time will tell how well this site will work but all indicators point to it being able to do exactly what I was looking for…. and that is provide an online place where a K12 Administrator could discuss and share professional resources.  If you have time I encourage you to check it out.   You can access my bookshelf and groups at the following page: http://www.shelfari.com/smartinson

Here’s my wish list:

A couple weeks ago I was fortunate enough to present information to area Principals about the possible uses of cell phones in the classroom.  This presentation was requested as many area schools are either banning or looking to ban the use of cell phones and other handheld technologies by students.  Having been a student when bans on TI-82 calculators were being enforced and now as an educator where they are a mainstream tool used daily in Math classrooms across my region I can’t help but enjoy the ongoing discourse in education in regards to new technological tools.

I think I’ll put in my 2 cents and leave the rest for further information.  I don’t believe that this banning movement is anything new, the cell phone (iPods, MP3 players, etc.) are simply the latest tools that we as educators are failing to embrace, failing to see the educational implications for their uses, and are thus failing to educate our students in the ethical uses of these tools for life long learning.  If we are going to ban said items let’s be honest with each other when we say, these are temporary bans and we are banning them because we as educators are failing to educate our students in the proper uses of these tools.  In turn, when we’ve figured out how to use them we’ll lift the ban….. that’s a lot easier for me to stomach than placing the blame on the shoulders of our students who are simply doing the same thing that kids have been doing for generations… and that’s simply figuring it out before the adults.

Links to further information (this information is referenced from Joseph Miller, Darren Draper, and a variety of others):

• A video of Karl Fisch’s "What If?" slideshow that I previously posted.
• Liz Kolb’s K12 Online Conference Session that I referenced for our area Principals.
  • iPod ready presentation
  • Cell Phones in Learning Website.
• Tony Vincent (who I originally heard about years back with his work with handheld devices and student podcasting)
  • Mobile Web
  • Learning in Hand
• A video I found through Twitter shared by Alec Courosa
  • "The Essay"
• An article from Mark Prensky entitled: What Can You Learn From a Cell Phone? – Almost Anything! (PDF)
  • This article was published in Innovate!
• Jeff VanDrimmelen’s 8 Ways to use Camera Phones in Education
• Pay Attention movie from T4 Jordan School District
• Ellen D. Wagner’s Enabling Mobile Learning (PDF)
  • This article was published in Educause.