From Pi day to Earth Day -- Feb. 24

A blog post on: Pi Day and the problem solving spirit. This could be a great way for math and science teachers to get something going from Pi Day in March to Earth Day in April!

Here's an interesting podcast from a teacher who is struggling with what he sees as a need for school districts to engage in a visioning process to create widespread change and articulate a vision for the future of education. Last week our district had such a meeting -- in fact looking ahead to 2020 -- but I'm wondering how far they'll get with the IT this department begins see themselves as part of a team with teachers offering their skills and creative problem solving strengths to 'helping make it happen' instead taking the 'you can't do that here because it's not on the list' stance, this kind of visioning will remain so much pie-in-the-sky for me.

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Permalink Reply by Lesley Edwards on February 24, 2009 at 10:21am

Sue, thanks so very much for the link to the podcast and your comments. We too are struggling in our district to promote the idea that we are all on the same team and that the IT techs should be enabling teachers rather than setting limits.
I was at the Northern Voice conference this past weekend and heard some interesting thoughts on bringing social media to large groups. The speaker suggested building on existing company policy and engaging all stakeholders to come up with guidelines for use. This made a whole lot of sense to me. Some of of are working to create blogging guidelines that we can present to senior admin. for their blessing and teachers who may be starting blogs with their students.

Permalink Reply by Gary McFarlane on February 24, 2009 at 2:20pm

I am a retired teacher and in some respects I think it was easier years ago when computer technology was first entering schools. The "geeks" (in my case I had some training with an IBM 360 main-frame with punch cards) had free rein to do what they wanted and did. Then committees were set up and of course we all volunteered to be on the committees. We quickly learned that others were advising the decision-makers and their advice indicated a lack of technology understanding. The committees dissolved, became inactive, or were ignored when IT "experts" were hired. Unfortunately they were not educators but they did have the ear of the decision-makers. This is slowly changing as the decision-makers are being replaced by administrators that understand the technology. This discussion was not possible only a few of years ago.

By the way, the "geeks" continued to do what they wanted and usually ignored the IT department. I am not sure if that was a good thing or not but the challenge was fun.

Thanks for the links.

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