Technology Tribulations

Technology at my school seems to be hit or miss at best.  We have a couple of teachers who are very tech savvy.  These few are the ones who are called on when things go wrong or someone needs an idea of a way to approach something.  Often these teachers are contacted about technology issues before the media specialist is contacted.  Most teachers are able to complete regular day to day task, however, when an issue arises, these same teachers are the first to send in a tech request for help.  Many of our older teachers have now retired.  These oldies, but goodies were the last of the teachers lacking the desire to venture into the technology age. 

Based on information I’ve gathered from other media centers, our school is lacking in technology.  Each classroom has four desktops, one full size iPad, and two iPad minis.  Each teacher has also been issued a laptop.  We no longer have classroom color printers; we instead have grade level printers (black ink only).  This year we did get a copier that is linked to our network allowing us to send items to be printed from our computers to the copier.  However, this too is black ink only.  When we want to print in color, we must ask to use the secretary’s or bookkeeper’s computers and printers.  Our media center has eight desktops and we also have a computer lab with 30 desktops.  Our media specialist has stated she would like to add more technology to our media center, however, funding has been an issue.  In talking with our media specialist, I’ve heard her say countless times that she really doesn’t even have enough money in the budget to cover print materials.  Funding is an issue everyone is facing, but it seems to be especially hard on small schools with low socioeconomic levels.

Sadly, technology training has been almost non-existent at our school – at the school level and the district level.  This is the first year in many I’ve seen the opportunity for technology training.  The technology department has offered a few technology classes covering the span of several weeks at the beginning of the school year.  These classes were geared more towards the lower grades.  We requested more classes be offered later as things are so hectic at the beginning of the school year.  Another offering will be presented after the first of the year – again geared toward elementary grades.  In the e-mail offering the classes, the technology department asked if there were any requests for training from the middle/high school level.  Since I teach at the elementary level I have been pleased with the training opportunities offered thus far. I plan to go to as many of the trainings as will allow with my teaching and SLM certification classes.  Once I attend the trainings I’ll know more about the quality of the material presented and the method of presenting.  Several years ago we had many more opportunities for staff development and training.  It seems that budget cuts took a toll all the way around.  This November, I am going to have the opportunity to attend the three day Georgia Educational Technology Conference which I am extremely excited about.

In the past when we have had training I found it to be very unproductive.  Training was usually presented as staff development where all teachers were required to attend.  The problem with this is that different teachers have different levels of ability.  Because of this, the training provided was either above or below the level needed.  In addition, since it was presented as required training the teachers who were not interested in the training didn’t focus and caused a distraction with their idle chatter.

Training is necessary, but I feel it could be done better.  Several years ago, teachers were asked to submit suggestions for ideas for staff development.  While it was nice to have the opportunity to offer suggestions, the training sessions were still required and the same issues arose – people not interested would cause a distraction and those interested in learning would have difficulty hearing because of the talking.  I personally prefer the way the technology department has done this year in offering the training and allowing teachers to sign up for training that interest them.  If a variety of training options are available and teachers have the opportunity to sign up for training that interests them then their focus would be greater.  To improve on this thought process I would suggest trying to offer different levels of training so that what is being taught is relevant to the attendees.  Perhaps have several days of training and begin with the basics and build.  People who are unfamiliar can begin with the basic training and progress on as far as they want and the more advanced users can begin the training later as the sessions become more detailed and specialized.  While I could be wrong, in my mind this process seems to have potential.  In addition, as difficult as it would be, I feel expectations should be set at the beginning of the training and those who cause a distraction would be discretely asked to leave.

Our current media specialist has some technological knowledge, but she admits she too has much to learn.  However, she doesn’t have an extensive amount of training.  When I talked with her before beginning the SLM program she didn’t recommend that I add the IT certification giving the explanation that technology changes quickly and that the district would send me to any training they thought I would need in order to do the job.  However, she is the only one I’ve spoken to who has discouraged me from adding the IT certification as well.  She doesn’t conduct in-service training.  Her main focus is on teaching a short lesson to students who come in for scheduled stories and then giving them the opportunity to check out books.  She will gladly assist teachers who come in to teach research segments to their students, but she doesn’t initiate any type of activity other than reading a story to the students.  As I have been adding my certification, she has been amazed and in awe of the many changes that have taken place in the program since she completed the program.  In my opinion, she is severely criticized by the faculty and staff at my school.  Not to make excuses for her, but I feel sometimes she is running into a brick wall.  The lack of training combined with the lack of respect from co-workers combined with the lack of funding creates a difficult work environment.  I know I will make mistakes of my own and I still have tremendous amount to learn, but I’m hoping I can bring about positive changes and let our school see some of the many opportunities that are available.

We have a very knowledgeable teacher in our computer lab.  As a media specialist, I feel it would be beneficial to form an alliance with the computer lab teacher.  I’m sure many teachers are like me and totally unaware of all the wonderful programs that are available.  I feel it would be beneficial to give teachers a brief overview of some of the programs that training will be made available for.  Next, I would like to survey teachers to see what their needs and interest are with technology training.  This would be a time it would be helpful to meet with teachers in their grade level meetings to get an idea and feeling of their needs and levels of knowledge.  Since we have a computer lab, training could be conducted for a fairly large group, if needed.  I feel multiple levels of training should be made available in order to maintain focus and interest.  It would also be beneficial to coordinate with the district office IT department to see if they have time to come to our school and provide some classes.  For example, it’s always an issue at the beginning of the year when teachers need to set classroom computers up.  This year we had new technology, but no training on how to connect everything.  It would have been very helpful if during our pre-planning meetings someone from the IT department had given a few minutes during one of our meetings to explain the new technology and the basics for connections.  This could help alleviate some of the confusion at the beginning of the school year.

While there will always be technology issues, I feel it is imperative to have proper training – and to pass the training on to faculty and staff members.  If teachers can be shown how technology can benefit their students while making teaching easier and more engaging, teachers will be more interested in training.  I’ve found in my teaching career I don’t mind going to a training if it is well planned and relevant to me.  Our media specialist is right in saying that technology changes quickly, but teaching the basics can go a long way.

 

Blog 6: Technology Training

The technology skills at my school have significantly increased in the last year in part because of a cohort of teachers who completed their specialist degrees in IT and have taken a leadership role in offering “Tech Tip Tuesday” emails and several PD sessions throughout the year. They try to tailor their tips to be relevant to the month; October was a PSAT preparation app, for example, since we gave the PSAT to more than half of our student population in mid-October. They also make themselves available any time via email and will gladly come down to a teacher’s room on their planning periods or before or after school to help. These efforts fit in with the assertion in the “Coaching Whitepaper” that coaching works best when it incorporates context, relevance, and ongoing as three essential components. With the renewed flow of money and consequential expansion of the central office staff, we now have technology integration specialists who work with clusters of schools. Their sessions follow this model as well, but they are less accessible as an in-house teacher. The media specialists could bridge this gap, but at our school there is little of this occurring, in part because they have been appropriated for other jobs such as manning the textbook room (an atrocity and waste of talent, in my opinion). Another way the media specialist could fulfill the duties is by joining, modeling, and encouraging social networks for professional development. Richard Dufour is quoted in the “Coaching Whitepaper” as follows: “To create a professional learning community, focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively, and hold yourself accountable for results.” Instead of trying to be the expert, delivering a how-to on the latest gadget or software, the media specialist can be a collaborative learner, working with teachers to produce technology-rich lessons and opportunities for creation of technology-rich products. The media specialist has the resources and the research expertise to bring to the table, and the teacher has the content knowledge and pedagogical expertise to develop a plan. Both should be learning something from the process of collaborating.

As I transition from teacher to media specialist, I do not want to lose the opportunity to teach, and the instructional coaching model would allow me to continue to do so. As teachers we often complain about PD where some “expert” tries to tell us how to do something magical in the classroom, but he or she hasn’t been in a classroom in a long time, and with no follow-up, we simply don’t bother to try to implement the new idea. Instructional coaching solves this problem by having the coach and teacher collaborate to plan, the coach model in the classroom, the coach then observe the teacher, and finally the two regroup and assess the efficacy of the new idea. It takes a visionary leader to make this happen, and a media specialist needs to take this leadership role. Likewise as Chris Lehman is quoted in the “Coaching Whitepaper,” “Technology should be like oxygen: Ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible.” Creating a Blackboard shell with a bunch of links for teachers to use when they have the time is like creating a filing cabinet in the media center for teachers to use when they have the time. It’s going to collect dust and be useful to no one. Integrating the social networks with a focus on collaborative learning makes the technology more like oxygen, and it becomes as effortless as breathing. It’s simply a part of life to consult the network for gathering and sharing ideas. Our media specialists complain that when they do schedule sessions, only a few come. If the PD is delivered with the technology that is already an extension of ourselves and so often that it becomes ubiquitous, then it better meets the needs and the lifestyles of today’s teachers than signing up for an arbitrary session does. I would create these structures through the media center website, wikis, Twitter, and any other technology I heard of so that it is not just once a month but every day that teacher’s see the integration of technology. I would also be out there observing classes, taking my media lessons to the classroom when possible, and establishing relationships with teachers as peer learners. I would troll their blogs and offer resources to enhance their current units of study or offer to teach a lesson when integration of research or technology was relevant. It’s an exciting role because I love learning and feared giving that up to be a custodian of books.

BLOG 6; Are the Technology Dinosaurs Really Extinct?

Are the Technology Dinosaurs Really Extinct??

Input? Output? Huh? Help!

By Sarita R. McGhee

The school location where I previously worked is where I decided to return to in order to complete my volunteer hours because I am very familiar with the media center and also the Media Specialist. However, I have a completely different approach and perspective as a SLM grad student and this has especially deepened my observations of the technological lacks at this particular high school. I have consideration for the reasons behind the lacks (budget, time and need for training to implement) because of the insights that I’ve learned from this program.

As an English teacher on this staff, technology development was always offered to us during in-services and seminars, but they were always far too brief. To be honest, I think that staff members usually would tune out because who were technologically savvy felt bored because they weren’t learning about anything that they were not already using and those who were not good with new technological advances felt overwhelmed with how brief and speedy the presentations would be. And this often left those particular faculty members hesitant about asking too many questions because they didn’t want to slow down the meeting.

I observed as a teacher that the audience of the entire teaching staff was too large for learning something new, and perhaps we should have been broken into smaller groups, by grade level, or even by grade level as well as subject content to keep our short attention spans engaged. Also, these meetings and seminars usually took place at the end of a long day and after school or on Clayton County’s famous early-release days when everyone is only pretty much repeatedly checking their watches and sitting anxiously with their fingers, legs and eyes crossed that nobody asks any questions at the end to hold up the process of being released to go home! So, I think that the way that technological staff development events were held were not fully effective simply because of how they were conducted.

The truth of the matter is that we must face is—yes—there is a great divide between those who love technology and those who avoid the technology dragon at all cost. People who are intimidated by technology, (and yes, there are still some of us dinosaurs out there!) never want to let others openly know, and usually don’t address that issue until it becomes an actual issue where we have to hook up or use something new and feel clueless and have to frantically seek help—and trust me, I am probably the Queen of this mad frenzy. But the bottom line is technology is somewhat like math—some of us are just not good with it and entirely gifted in that area. And even then sometimes us dinosaurs still don’t learn anything and come on out of the cave when we receive help, we just simply learn exactly who to ask whenever we need to use that technique or device. (I am definitely guilty of that!)

But all and all, there’s good news—I must say us technological dinosaurs do honestly aim to become extinct.  

So, what the solution? I think a good way to solve that problem, especially coming from someone who fits into the group of those technological dinosaurs, is to have optional in-services and professional development events that teachers can voluntarily sign up for and then have smaller groups so that everybody can feel comfortable to ask questions in the time allotted without feeling like they are holding up the entire group. This will help with increasing the confidence to learn.

This strategy of smaller learning groups for specific technology techniques that we are interesting in learning more about by choice definitely will make some of us become more open to learning as oppose to continuing to feel around in the dark when it comes to hooking up a new piece of equipment or trying to new device that students may already know how to use in their daily lives. And really, in the long-run, it benefits the entire school team to make sure that everyone is caught up on the most recent and innovative technological advances that our school communities can offer. It makes the whole team stronger in the academic messages that we deliver to our 21^st century technological-savvy students.

I’m sure we will all agree that the School Library Media Specialist is not the person who should be solely responsible for monitoring who knows what when it comes to teachers and technology, because that would be an unfairly, impossible feat, however, the Media Specialist definitely be a willing, patient, primary resource that teachers should be able to reach out to for assistance and guidance. I think it is our responsibility as Media Specialist to lend ourselves as someone confident that the teachers and staff feel comfortable coming to for help, and with this, we should remember that the more skills we equipped others with, the better we are as team to our investment—the students. It is a give-and-take process because learners (in this case, the teachers) have to be willing to learn and those who can do have to be willing to teach what they know to others, but in the outcome, everybody wins!

I would survey to find out what the teaching staff desires to know more about and what technological skills they seek to fulfill, then create informational and interactive in-services that serve those needs. I also would have more seminars that give teachers a chance to “do” after they are shown something new, because sometimes as a teacher I used to tune out and forget about what I was shown unless I had to actually show that I had learned something about the new application in a hands-on demo way. I would absorb the information more and also retain it in a more lasting manner that would actually translate to my classroom. As a Media Specialist, I want to be able to provide that kind of experience to the teaching staff that I service. I want the staff development experience to always feel like a two-way street that requires engaging, effective exchange between speaker and learner.

So, with all of these things combined, it is a definite that as a Media Specialist I will first make sure that I am patient and open with my teammates so that they feel comfortable coming to me with something technological that they make need help with. I also will collaborate with the technology staff member in my school to put together seminars for the varying groups of the teaching staff that we have based on their needs and technological levels. I think in order to remain engaged what a person is being introduced to must meet their level.

As Media Specialist we can fulfill our duties as technology coaches in our school environments by making certain what we have shared and solid vision and mission about what we are advocating for when it comes to technology. Ultimately, I believe meaningful implementation of technology should drive our goals because everybody knows that kids these days can really pick up on the method of using what I called “empty technology”, which in essence can be seen when a teacher has a bunch of upscale technology devices and fancy gadgets hooked up and handy, but it doesn’t actually add any more clarity to the assignments or instruction. We’ve all seen this at least once in our careers, and we all know the results—students still tune out.

So, as far as the ISTE standards go, I think the Media Specialist modeling and guiding teachers to use technology in a meaningful manner so that the message does not get lost in the sauce of the tech-geek sophistication is a great and simple notion. We don’t want our students to experience technology overload just for the sake of technology! Basically, don’t let technology substitute for good old-fashion teaching; instead allow it to enhance, accent and compliment the instructional message.   

Copyright Fair Use: Who Has the Last Word?

Myth: School system rules are the last word of fair use by educators.

The copyright law has been so broadly misinterpreted that not only are many educators afraid of using materials but many students are suffering from the inappropriate censorship others are imposing. As law professor Peter Jaszi from American University explains, the copyright law is no "charter for private censorship" and these "rigid, conservative, outmoded interpretations of the law [are] not the law itself"; in fact, they are "strangling educational practices rather than enabling it" (Intro Video). Media specialists with good intentions post guidelines over the copiers with rules of thumb like no more than 400 words of a print document or ten seconds of a video may be used even in an educational setting, but this practice is another myth. The fact remains that the law itself does not have definitive rules such as these, and fair use is purposefully broad. The intentions of the law acknowledge that creators rely on what has come before as they contribute to culture, so there must be a balance between protection for creators and their works to stimulate additional creation, and the opportunity for other creators to use established materials to create new cultural works. Essentially, we have to be able to use others' works to create new ones. Even Shakespeare drew from others' accounts as he wove his tales. While educational guidelines are made with good intentions "[they] have often hurt more than they have helped" (Code, 2008). With the widespread availability of creation software students have the incredible opportunity to make original works that draw from and transform published works, and teachers have incredible resources at their fingertips to help students develop these higher level thinking skills. Why would we let anyone stop us from the fair use to which we are entitled?

Well, most of us need our jobs, so let's say one of those handy rule sheets is actually a part of the school system's rules. While this might prove a dilemma for one's employment, it would also be a violation of the federal law, which school districts (last I checked) do not have the authority to supersede. So what's an educator to do? Stay informed. Arm oneself with an understanding of the law and what it allows, and be a leader. Try to change a district's misguided attempts to define that which is very intentionally undefined. (This could also apply to their efforts to quantify and define good teaching with arbitrary numbers, but I digress . . . ) Fair use is flexible for the benefit of the user, so be able to justify your use of materials. Guidelines such as the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education can help. This document reminds us of the "Four Factors" by which one judges fair use: nature of the use, nature of the work used, extent of the use, and economic effect. Educators have a lot of latitude here, and generally speaking, we are not significantly inhibiting a creator's economic gain by using their work in an educational setting. When I use Wayne's World to teach absurdity, I'm probably boosting their profits by introducing another generation to that slice of ridiculousness. However, it's easy to be intimidated by district policies, but the "concerns of commercial copyright holders" as well as the "risk-aversion of school system administrators and lawyers" have spread stifling restrictions on educators that have significant consequences for students. Educators are not facing copyright law-suits; there are not precedent cases piling up. In all likelihood, the worst that could happen to an educator acting in good faith would be to receive a "cease and desist" letter from a copyright owner, but even that might be violating the educator's right to fair use.

Fortunately, my district maintains a broad stance on copyright in their administrative rules:

Copyright Laws: a. Adherence to fair use guidelines and other relevant copyright stipulations shall be assured. In no instance shall library media materials and/or equipment be used in such a manner as to violate Board Policy, District Administrative Rules or state and federal law. b. The library media specialist shall be responsible for ensuring the availability of copyright information, dealing with copyright and clearance questions (Administrative Rule GBT-R [Professional Publishing] and Administrative Rule IFBG-R [Internet Acceptable Use]). Provisions for copyright clearance are outlined on Form IFBG-2 (Permission to Use a Third Party Work Copyright Permission Request).

Nevertheless, searching the district's website brings up a number of local school media centers who have published strict guidelines that reflect the conservative and misguided attempt to define the law.

The commercial world is grappling with increased difficulty in the copyright arena, but the educational world has even more need to fairly use materials to teach media literacy, "and like literacy in general, media literacy can be taught and learned" (Code, 2008). Teachers need to be able to model creating material, providing attribution and citations, and they need to allow students to create, using others' works with appropriate attribution and citations. Students need to learn to be more responsible consumers and producers of media within the safety of the protection afforded under fair use and the educational setting and without unnecessary restrictions.