09
April
April
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of working with a most dedicated and inspiring group of people.
Our district has a group of elementary teachers who agreed to participate in a two year project to use ipods to help young students improve in early literacy and/or math skills. In the fall, I did a one day training for them to teach the basics of how to create podcasts and to give ideas of how to use podcasts for instruction. Even though these teachers hadn’t received ipods to use yet and the possibility was that they might not receive any for their classrooms, they were anxious to come and learn anyway. They had already put in many hours on their own because they could see the possibilities. Their motivation was in what would be good for their kids and finding new and innovative ways to reach the struggling learners.
Yesterday, I led the follow-up, second day of training. By this time several of the teachers had received ipods for their classroom use. Some had taken the initiative to go ahead and create some of their own podcasts and others had downloaded free podcasts from iTunes (like Hooked on Phonics, etc.) and had begun using them with their students. The teachers shared their stories and ideas with each other and I was amazed at the creativity!
Who would have thought that kindergarten students could take ipods home with them for homework? The projects ranged from helping English Language Learners to improve language skills to helping upper elementary students memorize math facts and to help struggling readers improve fluency and sight-word skills. As each teacher talked of how they were using the ipods or their plans for using them in the future, you could see light bulbs going off all over the room. Each idea sparked a new idea and project for someone else.
In the afternoon the participants had some time to work on their projects while I was present to trouble-shoot and give technical support. Again, I was amazed at the collaboration that was happening. Teachers were helping each other and sharing resources with each other across grade levels, content areas and from different schools. This is what today’s teachers should be like, I thought.
Many of these teachers had put in hours and hours on their own to create material for use in their classrooms but didn’t hesitate at all to share with another teacher to save them the time. This unselfishness is one of the by-products I have noticed with the availability of the web today. This is probably why copyright and fair-use issues are a problem with today’s students. They don’t see a problem with using something that another person has put work and time into creating. I think they assume that if they put something up on YouTube or wherever and don’t mind if someone else uses it, why should someone else care if they use a performer’s music or content in one of their projects? There is a lot of negative press about the influence of today’s web world – like violation of fair use – but the positive side of that is that people in general have become less proprietary and willing to share. I witnessed that with these teachers yesterday.
The teachers knew they wouldn’t get paid for all the hours they would put into creating these projects for their students. (They do receive a small stipend-very small) They were not concerned about getting paid for their time. The sole focus was how this would help their students. How sad that some of the public perception of teachers seems to be that we are over-paid, inept, selfish or not up on current instructional practices. If only those people could see what I saw yesterday!
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Thank you for all that you have given to this project. It is a dream come true for me to see.
April 12, 2010 at 6:01 pm
What a beautiful recognition of teachers too! -
The teachers in this project and else where are taking a lead and putting good instructional practices in place that use technology. It’s so exciting to hear the stories about how kids and parents are impacted. Thanks for all your work in bringing podcasting to life in Thompson!
April 16, 2010 at 10:34 pm
With so many exciting things to learn, it is not surprising how engaged everyone was. I am so thrilled everytime we get more folks connected to tech so they can see the power it has on student engagement!
April 11, 2010 at 8:24 pm