As a teacher/techcoordinator, I was thrilled to go to IL-TCE every year. That was my ‘treat’, and the only conference I could count on. If grant money came through, a trip to NECC was an extra special treat.
In the last month, I have been to FETC, an internal Discovery conference, hosted the DEN Virtual Conference, METC, and PETE&C.
Yeesh! And the last time I checked, ‘travel’ still wasn’t even listed in my job description. However, as exhausted as I am, I do have to admit that it has been a fantastic month. It’s given me the chance to get a ‘taste’ of the state of education all across the country. And I have to admit, I feel pretty darn good about the state of education on the whole.
When you go to a conference, you always find people who are excited to be learning new things. That’s nothing new. But what I’m seeing more and more often are educators who are taking things into their own hands and not letting obstacles get in their way. In the last 30 days I’ve met hundreds of educators who have decided not to let things like NCLB prevent them from doing what’s right for students. Who have realized that sometimes the best way to enact widespread change is to start with your own classroom. Who have made an active commitment to sharing the things that they are learning.
I’ll be honest, for a while I was starting to get pretty pessimistic. There are still thousands of educators who have no idea what a wiki is. But that’s OK. What I’m finding is that the vast majority of those people have recognized that they need to understand what it is, so they determine if it fits into their own curriculum. More and more educators are joining online communities, and the people that have are turning around and dragging their colleagues in with them.
In short, I’m seeing signs that the educational community is changing at a much more rapid pace than I’ve ever seen before. Does that mean that we’ll be seeing wholesale widespread change in the next year or two? Probably not. It’s clearly an uphill battle. But the right conversations seem to be popping up everywhere. And best of all, they’re being documented and shared throughout the world.
It truly is an exciting time to be an educator.
Thanks for writing this!
Our first teacher inservice day this school year, we were warned of the dangers of social networking, and blogging, and essentially advised against it.
So, I feel there’s a silent fear amongst our faculty. Many of us DO blog, and network regularly. Hopefully, our projects and use of these great new tools will prove their validity in education.
2/15/2008
Hi Steve
My question always is, how do we make it viral? Yes, at conferences or other gatherings of like-minded people we encounter those who are doing exciting things, or who are interested in doing so. But those hundreds or thousands are still a vast minority. Whenever I work with groups of teachers I ask them “how many have heard of blogs” and “how many have read, written or commented on a blog.” While by far most have heard of blogs, usually only 1 or 2 out of 30-40 have read, written or commented. This happens every time. And that’s just blogs, not wikis, podcasts, etc. How do we reach the tipping point? And when?
Seems to me that by the time the majority of teachers are ready to adopt new tech ideas, those ideas are 2 or 3 generations behind. Consider PowerPoint. Most who have never used a blog have used PowerPoint. And Web 2.0? Most have not evolved beyond Web 0.5 or Web 1.0.
But maybe that’s just the natural evolutionary process. Too bad we can’t get some intelligent design going.
I too have felt pessimistic, but over the last year or so I have been able to see progress in my district and neighboring ones. EduCon 2.0 reminded me there are educators out there striving for excellence, and working with new tools and strategies to foster learning. These teachers are sharing not only with those in the networked community but with the teachers down the hall. Over time these pockets of excellence shall spread. I am just hoping they spread quickly.
2/18/2008
So get your rest for a few weeks, see you at IL-TCE - and you can share your knowledge with IL teachers and keep those converstations going.
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