Change that leads to new learning opportunities and improved outcomes must utilise the human resource in schools, embrace technology that redefines learning and engages the wisdom and experience of others. If we were to think more like bees when doing the buzziness, we’d actually manage the change organically just like they do
Is your school looking at developing a STEAM Learning program? In today’s environment of limited resources, It’s crucial that schools are very intentional about which tools they invest in and choose those which are right for their students. Here are 5 things we suggest you do to help make those important decisions.
One way for your school to grow the digital learning capacity of its students, teachers and community is to have a student leadership group, often called ‘The Tech Team’ or even, ‘Digital Ninjas.’ Here are 5 ways that these teams can supercharge the digital learning environment in your school.
It’s naive to think that any educational change doesn’t have drawbacks of some sort. While the drawbacks won’t necessarily be a reason not to encourage change, they should always be taken into consideration and made transparent. However, in an effort to ‘sell’ a new tool, technology or teaching approach, many change advocates focus only on the upsides.
When things don’t go to plan with technology in the classroom, educators need to know they can rely on someone to help them out. They also need to be confident that their technology environment won’t suddenly change unexpectedly. Having a customer-focussed, well-resourced and supportive IT department is the keystone to creating this type of confidence. Yet, too often, IT support in schools is seen as a necessary evil. Here are my four key improvements to help change that.
When you see or read about something new being done in education, there is a tendency of getting excited and changing direction to explore a new pedagogy. There’s nothing wrong with changing direction, but it is good to be mindful of a couple of things.
Innovators and early adopters of technology can become frustrated when their colleagues aren’t enthusiastically embracing the new world of learning and teaching with technology. In some cases, this frustration leads to the negative labelling and stereotyping of these colleagues. In this post I share a few examples of what these labels and stereotypes might look like and the problems associated with them. Along the way I’ll also give a few suggestions for practical strategies that might be more effective in helping to achieve widespread change.
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), generally means your staff and students are bringing their personal devices to school. However BYOD can also include models where schools purchase the devices and lease them to students, schools mandate a device for parents to buy (BYODD) and everything in between.
In many schools BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Disaster, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
[podcast] In this video clip, Alice and I discuss how we can help resistant teachers change their mind about technology. This video was part of an hour long Google hangout. You can watch the whole hangout here Transcript: How To Help Resistant Teachers Adopt Technology __ Download PDF Version Alice: When you’re working with teachers and
A BYOD plan is effective only if it ensures a school’s unique educational goals will be achieved. It shouldn’t just help figure out the best educational technology to use.
One of the watershed moments in my teaching career was when I was reflecting on my struggles with a particularly hard class. This class were close to be uncontrollable and I felt like much of my time was spent being a juvenile justice officer. I felt like I did very little teaching and a lot of disciplining.
As I reflected on those students, it occurred to me, that those students didn’t wake up each morning strategizing how to fail more. They really did want to be successful at something.
So if they wanted to be successful, why were they acting this way?
Does your IT Support company think that they are there to support I.T or teaching and learning?
Here is how you can tell and what to do about it
