Mike Gwaltney says:

Here, here. Very well said.

Lori Sheldon says:

Amen! It is all about good teaching/learning. “It’s not about the technology..” has been my motto and I am a tech integrator helping k-12th grade teachers. Some of the tools we have at our fingertips can certainly enable collaboration, higher level thinking, and so forth, but, without an up to date, standards aligned curriculum, followed by everyone… and the other factors you described… we are lost. Thanks for raising this topic!

florence lyons says:

your post comes at the best time for our school. we are assessing how teachers use technology in their classes. brilliant post

sinikka says:

Thank you for this post, very relevant. I am definitely mulling over similar questions in my work. I totally agree with you about placing students and learning in the centre of education rather than technology. Then again, I also believe that “to better prepare and help students learn TODAY” cannot be done without meaningful engagement with technology. But sadly there are still too many teachers who simply refuse to integrate any new technology whatsoever in their teaching – and for whom your blog title is dangerously misleading – they would read it and triumphantly exclaim: “This is what I’ve always said!”

We have national curriculum guidelines, which are tailored locally to a small extent. They are from 2003, and hopelessly outdated. What’s more, teachers hardly know what is written in the guidelines, since they use the textbooks as their curriculum. (NB. In my country textbook industry is very different from most. Although commercially organized, the big author teams consist of active teachers and expert professors, who closely follow the national curriculum guidelines). Even though the guidelines vaguely mention ‘learning to learn’, ‘versatile use of ICT’, ‘collaboration skills’ and other important goals of today’s education, on the grassroots’ level business goes on as usual, and the majority of teachers teach in isolation, largely using methods that they were once taught with eons ago. Quite a few subject teachers in my country entrench themselves behind their own discipline and the great amount of autonomy that teachers have here, strongly protesting against any proposals of change while routinely covering lessons, raising a secure monthly salary (which doesn’t require any further training!) and counting the years till retirement (ours is a fast aging nation, so young teachers are a minority here!).

The points you raise about what would enhance student learning at the end of your post are really fundamental. But how to initiate the shift – that is the question! Curriculum alone is meaningless, if teachers don’t need to come together at the school level to interpret it and develop their own school culture accordingly. Teacher training plays an essential role, but there, too, a lot of cobwebs need to be blown away. Strong and wise administrators with a clear vision could achieve a lot, but then there is also an old-fashioned, but highly respected, almost awe-inspiring, system of national final exams here that binds everybody’s hands. The list of hurdles goes on and on.

To finish on a positive note, though, as an individual teacher, I trust I can make some difference, even if isolated from my face-to-face colleagues, and even if it’s only drops in the ocean without collaboration and a common goal for the whole school.
PS. As Cameron, I don’t get many of my colleagues either

Arcelina Santiago says:

Arcelina Santiago
June 19th, 2009 at 17.04
Of course I agree with the idea that ICT are good tools to motivate students but not the only one way to get it. The role of the teachers in the class and the relationship among students and teachers and school colleagues are essential as we are speaking about a peculiar organization that is a school where we work to and with persons (mainly helping each of our sutdents to become a “Person” in the whole sense of this word). The development of several aspects of a person and the promotion of the sucess is not only the Knowledge but also the personal and social aspects that are very important (even to the use of ICT correctly and with respect of civic rules). So the sucess of a good learning is not only throught the new techonolgy but to focus the teacher´s action as very important way to made the difference as the personal and interpersonal realtionship. Students need to find in their teachers a good professional (with good domain in scientifical, didatical and pedagogical way)but also a human being, prepared to help them in the learning travel. So teachers help students to develope several skills to be more and more prepared to the new challenges of the society. As you point in your article is impossible to get better results if the teaching process is based on those points. They are good topics to promote a reflection among the comunity of teachers.

Dr. Sanford Aranoff says:

Of course it is not about the technology, but the teacher understanding how students think, and building from there stressing the principles. See “Teaching and Helping Students Think and Do Better” on amazon.

Matt Townsley says:

@gailpotratz Well said. We all need to have signs like yours to keep us in check…