Tools for Teachers
On a positive note, some of the teachers I work with requested that I teach a 1 credit professional development course about web authoring tools. So the other night I wrote up a course proposal and presented it to the staff yesterday at the end of a meeting. I spent about 15 minutes explaining to them that I’d show them what I know, and help them develop web projects for whatever purposes they might have in mind. Mostly I tried to explain that the Internet was more interesting and useful when you see it as a participatory environment.
The course description:
Participants will gain a basic knowledge of free web services such as blogs, wikis, podcasting, social bookmarking, photo and video sharing, and electronic portfolios that have the potential to support a variety of professional and personal goals. Additionally, course participants will discuss Internet safety and identity management for web publishing, and copyright. Participants will develop a project that promotes reading, writing and publishing on the Internet.
Over a dozen people signed up for it, so it looks like it’s a Go. I’ll set it up online somewhere as soon as I can.
We’re going to have some fun.
Eric Hoefler wrote,
Hi Doug … congratulations! That sounds great. I ran a four-day workshop with similar (though obviously shorter) goals. My notes are here (mainly the Google Docs on that page). Feel free to use them if they’ll be any help!
Link | September 14th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Michaele wrote,
And I’m not able to take it?!?!?
Sounds like a great course Doug!
Link | September 14th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Chris L wrote,
Looks like a lot of fun in what is sure to be a credit crammed full of good stuff…
Link | September 14th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Doug Noon wrote,
Chris, I looked back at the wiki you used for the Commweb class I was part of, and I may mine some of those resources for this effort. Any other suggestions you’d like to offer, I’m ready to hear them.
Link | September 14th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Kristian Still wrote,
Doug, for what its worth, I enjoy reading your posts - not that I always fully understand all of them if I am honest.
Edtech - Purely by chance, I helped construct an ‘Edtech’ programme with an online colleague (Mary Hricko) at Kent State University. We bounced ideas about content over the summer months and Mary launched the resoucese as one component of her class just recently. Please feel free to use / adapt / join the project - it would be gratifying if more people got to use the resource.
I am not fully familiar with US education (teaching in UK) but I am trying too, the spin off is an attempt to broaden the horizons of respective learners but to also “walk the walk.”
http://educationaltechology101.wikispaces.com/
Link | September 14th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Doug Noon wrote,
Kristian, thanks for the pointer to your online resource. I’ll make use of it, I am sure.
Sorry about the clarity of my writing, I’ll try a little harder to get it right.
Link | September 14th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Kristian Still wrote,
Doug, for sure, the clarity of your writer is crystal. Its the complexity of some of the articles that challenges me to keep pace. I am on the running machine almost everyday now. As for the resource, it would be fun to get more teachers in there using it. Its not particularly advance nor is it designed to be. It is however, only going to help those, that are by some miraculous chance signposted that way.
thanks, Kristian
Link | September 15th, 2007 at 12:02 am
Doug Noon wrote,
Me, too. I’m challenged getting up to speed with new ideas. Writing about things that I’m only just beginning to learn about helps me make sense. One of the interesting things about reading and writing on the web is that we’re collectively generating intellectual pathways for each other. I’m anxious to begin working with the other teachers in my building on this project because I know that we’re all going to learn something.
Thanks for the feedback.
Link | September 15th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Chris L wrote,
Hi Doug– there’s been a more recent version of that class, at: http://community.uaf.edu/~chris/wiki/CIOS246/Materials
Also, *some* materials from our week long seminar series on education and technology are available at: http://community.uaf.edu/~chris/wiki/CIOS246/Materials
Of course some of the more recent wiki support sites by Brian Lamb and Alan Levine, among others, will yield many riches as well. For my money the toughest part is keeping such classes, presentations, and seminars from devolving into just “cool tools” talks, focusing instead on the common needs that the toolbox works to meet and having some kind of relatively coherent thread through the whole thing. My emphases lately have been on learning community, personal learning environments (not just for students!) and social network/web2 environments as Third Places…
Link | September 15th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Doug Noon wrote,
Chris, I remember somewhere you saying (or writing) that you think that flickr and del.icio.us are good intro points for people, and this is what I’m planning to do. I haven’t looked at the links you just posted, so forgive me if this issue is covered in them. I’m completely behind the idea of avoiding the “cool tools” show and tell.
The thing I see is that people who haven’t experienced it, need to find (or discover) some reason to rethink their concept of what the web can do for them. They look at the static web as something “out there” or “over there” that they can go to. As I’ve been talking about this the last few days I realized the web is something that I’ve gradually set up around myself, customizing it to suit my needs and interests.
I don’t know how to explain to anyone what it means to create something and have people respond to that. I was thinking that this blog thread is a perfect example of what can happen. I mentioned something I want to do, and people (most of whom I’ve never met) have generously responded with encouragement and suggestions. What a powerful thing that is!
An interesting thing about this particular course is that the community of teachers who’ll participate is already a community, and will continue to be one after the course is over. It seems like we might be able to capitalize on that. I’ve got a wikispaces wiki set up for the school right now. It’s been there for a year. But only a couple of teachers have made any use of it. Seems to me that having them set up teacher pages there, early in the game, might be helpful. One of the teachers was really interested in the idea of publishing a parent newsletter. Simple, I told her.
It stuns me to find out that they think this might be hard, and they’re participating because they want to learn, and they trust me to not treat them as if they were dumb for not knowing something. They’re right about the trust part (not the “hard” part).
Identifying the common needs is a good starting point, but I’d like to move beyond that, and also identify possibilities that we’d never imagined. I wonder how we might get to that point.
Link | September 15th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Brian Crosby wrote,
Doug: I have a feeling you have more resources than you have time to use already. But just in case it helps - here are links to my wiki pages in case you can use anything on them. You’ll note your class blog is on them. Brian
My class wiki page:
http://crosbyclass.wikispaces.com/
Presentation wiki page
http://crosbyclass.wikispaces.com/Presentation
A project my class did last year .. each group of 3 or 4 students made 3 of these wiki pages:
http://crosbyprojects.wikispaces.com/Animal+Ark
Link | September 15th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Chris L wrote,
Lately my method has been to pair up explanation through a particular tool (yes, I do think flickr is particularly good for this– and del.icio.us is something that becomes useful quickly, so they make a good pair). Along with the hands-on I also focus a lot on using something like Google Reader or PageFlakes or whatever aggregator makes sense in their scenario, get the participants working together that way. I’ve come to believe that if the power of the environment from the facilitation and management perspective is ignored, the possibilities for learning become overwhelmed by the mechanics of keeping track– and keeping up– in what is for most people a new kind of learning chaos!
I don’t actually think we are really talking about different things when I talk about “needs” and you want to get to “possibilities”– they’re aspects of the same thing to my mind: desire… which manifests itself in all kinds of ways…
Link | September 15th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Doug Noon wrote,
Desires change and grow with experience, and I’m thinking about how to help everyone find things that will help them accomplish their initial goals and to then begin building from there.
Maybe the best thing for me to do right now - we start in two weeks - is to get people thinking about their goals, and have them tell me what they hope to accomplish. But they may not really know yet.
(To anyone who is on the list, and happens to be reading this, please feel free to comment here
That sentence “if the power of the environment from the facilitation and management perspective is ignored, the possibilities for learning become overwhelmed by the mechanics of keeping track– and keeping up– in what is for most people a new kind of learning chaos!” has me a little bit worried. I want to avoid overwhelming people.
Link | September 16th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Doug Noon wrote,
Brian, the links to your wiki pages will come in handy. Thanks. I’m going to look through all this stuff, and use it as a jumping off point for my own effort.
Link | September 16th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Chris L wrote,
What it boils down to, in my experience, is not ignoring the educators’ own use of the tools– but instead of presenting it as a learning resource, which is many-headed, I present it as a way to help them manage the expansion of the learning environment. It’s a fine line– I understand not wanting to overwhelm people up front, but I also see many people’s enthusiasm die quickly when they don’t have the tools to reap the whirlwind.
Link | September 16th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Doug Noon wrote,
I value your experience here, and I’m paying close attention. I like the idea of presenting things as tools for “managing the learning environment.” That makes sense.
What you’re pointing to is that the needs do change, and as the repertoire of skills expands, so will the need to keep track, and organize the products of our efforts.
Link | September 16th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Unlocking Teacher Creativity: An Approach to Staff Development? | Beyond School wrote,
[...] remark recently - Doug Noon’s, maybe? who has some great thoughts and comment-resources about staff development on this post, by the way - that learning and teaching are “always in beta” helps. I’ll make [...]
Link | November 2nd, 2007 at 5:44 pm