Opening a New School and Nurturing the Mindset

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Permalink Reply by Emory on August 1, 2009 at 6:20pm

Just a few thoughts...for what its worth :)
Emphasize the need for learning together- teachers as learners in ongoing process- and use the community of learners that is your school - unique because there is no culture/ climate established - no baggage. School as PLC.
"Working as a group will help us work smarter not harder".
Also your leadership needs to support the expectation that the technology in the classrooms will be used daily as a tool for learning and instruction. Doesn't mean they have to learn everything right away but the expectation must be understood .

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Permalink Reply by Sam Walker on August 1, 2009 at 9:32pm

Thanks - That's the direction I'm headed. Trying to come up with a creative, unique way of building excitement about connecting to each other - planning and teaching with each other.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Heidrich on August 2, 2009 at 11:47am

By all means put pedagogy first, but keep in mind that in order for technology to be embraced as a help and not a hindrance across a new teaching staff, it's paramount that there is as much of a consensus as possible around acceptable technology practices on campus amongst teaching staff - i.e. if you have teachers with drastically different perceptions around acceptable use of technology, those mixed messages can reach the students and give them the distinct impression that the school doesn't 'have it together' around technology use.

My experience is that a positive on-campus culture is a primary step towards any kind of lasting school improvement, and in a school with a close student:computer ratio (even moreso in a 1:1 environment), fostering a positive campus technology culture is a precursor to all of the above.

A good way to get on the right path down this road might be as follows:

- Set aside time at staff meetings to discuss issues encountered around technology use in the classroom and positive ways to address them.

- Use Google Docs or the discussion tool of your choice to collaboratively create a site-based acceptable use policy around technology use, fair and consistent ways to discipline network infractions, ways to encourage student ownership, pride, and buy-in around school technology

- Ensure that the staff presents a unified front around technology use - i.e. no teachers saying "oh, that was the principal's decision; you're right, I don't agree with it" or, "yeah, the I.T. guy made that policy, I disagree with the way he manages." You're all in it together, make sure everybody knows that.

- Implement a system for technology infractions such that the entire staff is made aware of technology abuses by particular students - that way, when student John Doe is abusing Internet privileges by repeatedly visiting a particular website in Class A, that teacher can notify fellow teachers so that when Johnny walks into class B, the teacher in class B can say "Hey John, you won't be going back to wastetime.com this period, will you?" The collective finger on the pulse of technology use between staff members goes a long way towards the stewardship of conscientious technology users in your student body. You want good netiquette to permeate outward from school and you want to avoid bad netiquette from permeating inward.

-As a corollary to the above, devise a counterpart system to commend/award positive technology use, and commend at least as many students as you criticize.

- Encourage I.T. staff and/or technology facilitation staff (i.e. you) to be out amongst the students and not in a back office. Integrate technology support staff into the campus culture such that students know and appreciate them. If your I.T. folks aren't of the personality type or inclination to make this happen, that is, which isn't always the case :-)

I've got more suggestions, if you're interested. Sorry if this is less from a teacher's point of view - I'm an I.T. guy. But I believe in 21st century schools and skills, and I believe in trusting students, and I believe that we need to show them how to be responsible users of technology without knee-jerk disciplinary reactions, and I believe that if you can't do these things you will find your idealism and pedagogy taking a backseat to simply managing technology use.

Cheers

Andy

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