With each passing day I become more convinced that the true mindset for learning technology is a willingness to play, explore, and learn from mistakes. Oh, and to ask for help! While there might be step-by-step guides for software programs and help, these are no substitute for just getting into something and messing around with it--after all, you can't really break it!
When I first started playing around with technology, in 1990, I too wanted someone to teach me exactly how to do it. After all, that is how I was schooled--sit in rows, the teacher tells you exactly how to do things. I bought my first Acer computer so that I could use Word Perfect to word process graduate school papers. For me, it was a glorified typewriter.
When I became a public high school teacher, technology mostly passed me by. After all, Arizona isn't known for putting large funds into student learning, so schools couldn't really adopt alot of technology. Slowly, teachers received technology for email, attendance, productivity purposes. But technology for teaching? Who needed it? Except for research papers, of course, which were still done in the school library.
With the explosion of the Internet, I used technology to find lessons, share ideas, etc. I played around with my own blog, took a few workshops, but still couldn't imagine using technology in my own classroom. Technology was still a personal and productivity tool.
It wasn't until I became a teacher librarian and began working on a Masters in Language and Literacy that the power of teaching with technology became apparent. I was determined to learn everything I could about new technologies. Yet, when I went to workshops on more advanced tools, I found myself frustrated--the presenters weren't really teaching me to use the tools. So, I just started playing and figuring it out for myself. And started advancing very quickly through many different programs.
When I became an instructional technology coach, this lesson really hit home. We were asked to train teachers on five technologies without receiving much training ourselves. My team's response? We spent a week playing with it all and figuring it out for ourselves. We put together workshops for teachers and, mindful of my own experiences, tried to really "teach" the teachers how to use the technology. We also told the teachers that they needed to be willing to play. Their response--when are you coming back to teach us more? We're not going to play, we want you to teach us.
One teacher asked me how I had become a technology expert. I told her that I did not consider myself an expert--there is always so much more to learn. But I am willing to play with new things, so I learn them quickly. She did not like my answer and told me that she would not use technology in her lessons until she felt like an expert; she wasn't willing to show students that she might not know something. And she certainly wasn't willing to invite student expertise in as co-teachers if they did know the technology.
I see this "teach me" mindset with the undergraduate students in my current teacher education courses. Their teachers didn't use technology for learning, so why should they? After all, we teach how we were taught, right? And the students in an online basic technology course are really struggling as well--they want the exact directions, but they don't want to figure out how to get them from the help center in the course. Our students are used to being spoon-fed and they have a tremendous amount of learned helplessnes, a product of our test-driven teaching, in my opinion.
Yet one student told me tonight that he has been learning alot by playing around and figuring it out for himself. He said that he remembers it better. This is the mindset needed for successful technology integration. The future belongs to people who are willing to play. If our schools don't meet the need for this mindset, all of our students will be left behind when it comes to 21st century jobs.
When I first started playing around with technology, in 1990, I too wanted someone to teach me exactly how to do it. After all, that is how I was schooled--sit in rows, the teacher tells you exactly how to do things. I bought my first Acer computer so that I could use Word Perfect to word process graduate school papers. For me, it was a glorified typewriter.
When I became a public high school teacher, technology mostly passed me by. After all, Arizona isn't known for putting large funds into student learning, so schools couldn't really adopt alot of technology. Slowly, teachers received technology for email, attendance, productivity purposes. But technology for teaching? Who needed it? Except for research papers, of course, which were still done in the school library.
With the explosion of the Internet, I used technology to find lessons, share ideas, etc. I played around with my own blog, took a few workshops, but still couldn't imagine using technology in my own classroom. Technology was still a personal and productivity tool.
It wasn't until I became a teacher librarian and began working on a Masters in Language and Literacy that the power of teaching with technology became apparent. I was determined to learn everything I could about new technologies. Yet, when I went to workshops on more advanced tools, I found myself frustrated--the presenters weren't really teaching me to use the tools. So, I just started playing and figuring it out for myself. And started advancing very quickly through many different programs.
When I became an instructional technology coach, this lesson really hit home. We were asked to train teachers on five technologies without receiving much training ourselves. My team's response? We spent a week playing with it all and figuring it out for ourselves. We put together workshops for teachers and, mindful of my own experiences, tried to really "teach" the teachers how to use the technology. We also told the teachers that they needed to be willing to play. Their response--when are you coming back to teach us more? We're not going to play, we want you to teach us.
One teacher asked me how I had become a technology expert. I told her that I did not consider myself an expert--there is always so much more to learn. But I am willing to play with new things, so I learn them quickly. She did not like my answer and told me that she would not use technology in her lessons until she felt like an expert; she wasn't willing to show students that she might not know something. And she certainly wasn't willing to invite student expertise in as co-teachers if they did know the technology.
I see this "teach me" mindset with the undergraduate students in my current teacher education courses. Their teachers didn't use technology for learning, so why should they? After all, we teach how we were taught, right? And the students in an online basic technology course are really struggling as well--they want the exact directions, but they don't want to figure out how to get them from the help center in the course. Our students are used to being spoon-fed and they have a tremendous amount of learned helplessnes, a product of our test-driven teaching, in my opinion.
Yet one student told me tonight that he has been learning alot by playing around and figuring it out for himself. He said that he remembers it better. This is the mindset needed for successful technology integration. The future belongs to people who are willing to play. If our schools don't meet the need for this mindset, all of our students will be left behind when it comes to 21st century jobs.
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1 comment:
Great post, Fran! I couldn't agree with you more. To me, the best way to learn something, especially technology-related, is to dive in head first. This is how I design my courses, and I hope you have fun "playing" with some new and familiar tools!
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