Cyberportfolio de Roberto Gauvin
directeur d'école au Centre d'@pprentissage du Haut-Madawaska situé à Clair au N.-B.
Je partage
17 août 2007
Back to work…
The end of August rhymes with teachers getting ready for a new year to begin. Student walk in classrooms with their bags full of new materials and ready for a new start…a fresh start…
My job as a principal is, to give and to create all the possible conditions to ensure student learning to its fullest. I have to make sure that the staff and students have the right tools in order to perform well and to reach their full potential. Our school is organised as a learning community and we tend to work together in sharing learning, reflecting on our practices and helping each others. Our projects are centred on the use of technology as a tool but we need to refine the idea that these tools are just that; tools. The goal is and will always be student learning. If the tool we use are helping us reaching this goal then let’s go for it…
In New Brunswick, four years ago, a laptop project with grade 7 and 8 student was put in place in order to learn if this tool would be a great asset in student learning. I was one of those and still in favour of this project. After four years, what have we learned? Well I guess it depends in what school you work at… In some school, the use of laptop computers was limited to word processing. In others, the use was push further and learning activities were presented to students in a wide variety of project in solving real life problems. Some educators were disappointed with the outcomes where others wouldn’t teach again without the laptops. This year, it seems that there a dark cloud on the project. We don not have much information on what will happen with the project and where to go from here. Some of us feels dans someone is getting out by the back door...slowly...
I feel that this project must be continued. Too much effort and energy have been spent on it. The day were every pupil will have access to a computer is close and sooner or later, the students will ask to bring them in the classroom. Some on the main problems with the actual project I think is that students were not allowed to bring his/her laptop at home. Many bureaucrats were probably scared of the impact of that decision. The choice of type of computers was also negative were the machine selected might have been attractive at the start might just not do the job in a school context. The choices of not trying Apples computers for example, make me believe that the machine was imposed. Fear of having to managed two platforms shouldn't be a factor... I think it was...
We as educator don’t have to waste time on nuts and bolts of making these machines working in our classroom. Some of the problems encountered might be the fact that the machines are set-up by technicians. Some of them don’t see the use of particular programs or configuration. Some educators have a real hard time in getting the machine do what he or she want's it to do. We need to create more collaboration and connections with all members of the organisation in other to ensure that theses machines remains tools but those teachers’ feels that can do with it whatever they need to do for better student learning.
In his blog, George Siemens writes;
It's the change underlying these tools that I'm trying to emphasize. Forget blogs...think open dialogue. Forget wikis...think collaboration. Forget podcasts...think democracy of voice. Forget RSS/aggregation...think personal networks. Forget any of the tools...and think instead of the fundamental restructuring of how knowledge is created, disseminated, shared, and validated.
I’m dreaming of the day that we will stop talking about the machines and that we wont even notice that they are in the classroom. Just like David Warlick would say… “We wouldn’t waste time to talk about chalk and blackboards…right?” We are going in that direction… When I meet the staff at the begining of the new school year, I want them to answer the five following questions for themselves:
1- Where am I with my teaching practices?
2- What is my vision of learning? Do I need to make any adjustments?
3- In what kind of classroom would I like my children to go to?
4- What do I have to do, will stop to do or won’t do to interfere with learning?
5- What are my strength, my needs and who can help me?
We need in the years to come to explore ways in empowering educators in choosing tools (any tools) they need to do the job.
Fear just won’t do it…
La discussion
RSS des billets avec commentaires.
RSS des commentaires seulement.
Cette création est mise à disposition sous un contrat Creative Commons.