It's Not About the Tool

I'm listening to and watching a presentation Will Richardson gave at Manhattan High School yesterday I wish I could tag the video and write notes (tag) in places as I watch it like you can on Viddler which Ryan showed me the other day.

[Twitter Moment: I couldn't remember the name of the taggable, shareable video site and unfortunately I didn't post it to my delicious, so I just sent Ryan a message via my new Twitter network. He replied within minutes. Incredible.]

Richardson says we should start with what teachers love to teach and then find what tool fits it. He goes on with words that really stopped me in my tracks:

We've been doing this the wrong way for about 30 years. Come and learn wikis. Come and learn blogging. Come and learn podcasting. We should have said, 'what do you love to teach?' The next question I would ask and see if we got any traction is 'where do your kids struggle the most in the
curriculum'? . . . We can't have technology lead staff development.

That's a lot to think about especially after the series of Tech Thursdays I've just finished. Hmmm... When you're a beginner, what do you begin with? For those newly invited to the techno-party, where do they start?

What happens after HE helps the teacher select the tool after the teachers divulge what they love to teach. What happened to teaching a man to fish? What happens when you let the kids dive in to the tools themselves? Is this empowering or disempowering teachers? I have to listen more and read more before I speak out of turn, but I do know that as a learner and a teacher, I have to be doing it-. Like walking the talk or showing students by example that I value something (reading, assignment, tool, whichever) . I have to know how to post to a blog, or comment on a wiki or record using Audacity in order to help my students when they don't know what to do. I just have to--that's the reality of my classroom where only 1 out of more than 400 students had ever used Audacity before this year and that is me as a learner.