Introverts and Extroverts in Classrooms

I've been reading the brand new book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain, and I just keep thinking about the implications for our schools. Our society and our schools are currently designed to reward extroverted behavior, and I've long believed that this is fundamentally unfair to our students who aren't natively wired to behave this way. As the book points out, introverts are very important to our society. We need both the talkers and the thinkers--the social butterflies and the readers--those who like to work in groups or speak in class and those who prefer to work on their own--those who deliver the message the best and those who quietly created that message.

Face to face groups can be intimidating for an introvert, and with so many well rewarded extroverts in classrooms, it can even become just plain difficult to get a word in edgewise. Technology offers us some wonderful tools to accommodate the needs of our students who are introverts. With email, discussion boards, shared documents, Twitter, blogging, chatting, and many other forms of technology for communicating, we can provide our introverted students with new tools to participate more fully in their education and to share their important insights, knowledge, and thoughts with their peers.

I am happy that Susan Cain has opened the conversation. I hope that we will come together as educators and think about whether some of our methods for educating give an unfair advantage to extroverts and whether we might be overlooking the introverts who have so much to share but have often not been given a comfortable outlet to do so.

Welcome, Jorge!

I ran into a quote on my iGoogle page today that seemed very appropriate:

"Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it."--Margaret Thatcher

Today was our new computer technician's first day, and boy, did he ever work! All the odds and ends of different brands and ages of individual computers that we haven't found the time to repair are first on his list. Some have hardware to fix or replace. Then, most don't have images to throw at them, so it's a process of loading Windows and all the other things that need to go on them. All in all, it's very time consuming. I can't tell you how great it is to know it's finally getting done.

Welcome to Jorge who has jumped right in and made SLCSD a better place for learning already!

Teachers and Students Sell the School Board

I am just so proud of the teachers and students who presented to the School Board tonight, showing how they are using the various technologies we've acquired in the district for learning. Both the students and teachers not only showed what projects they were doing, but they also showed their excitement. I have never been to Board presentations that were so full of exuberance!

Proud is an understatement.

Not Another Boring Presentation

Update: It looks like the privacy settings on this video were changed to "private" sometime since I posted this blog. Too bad. It was a great video.

I ran into this video on Twitter this morning and had to post it here. We have all been in presentations like this. Here is my question:

How many class periods a week do students have to deal with this exact scenario?



Technology integration is not the same thing as "using technology." We must change the way we teach. Give the students the technology. Set them free.

Equipment failures

We had our email spam filter malfunction starting sometime this weekend, and it is now replaced. Whew! We never know how dependent we are on various technologies until they don't work quite right. Email slow. Can you imagine? Luckily, the replacement unit is deployed and fast. I will reach a final verdict on success after a night of email goes uneventfully, but I am confident the crisis has passed. Like I said, whew!

What a great day of teacher learning!

All District Educational Technology Professional Development

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

More Pictures from the Day

All District EdTech Day

While we've done lots of professional development over the past couple of years on integrating technology in curriculum, we are just so excited about our upcoming all-district educational technology professional development day! It's the first time since I've been here that we've brought teachers from all over the district together to work with technology together. From 8:00 to 4:00 at the high school on January 4, 2012, we will be working with all of our district teachers to both learn more about various educational technologies for use by students in the classroom, but also to work collaboratively with other teachers and AEA experts on educational technology projects that will be implemented in classrooms across the district this spring.

Almost all of our teachers from all over the district are doing very creative things with technology for learning in their classrooms. The next step then is to expand the educational technology knowledge of all our teachers by giving them the opportunity to work together and learn from one another. Those who use Skype can help others use Skype. Those who use their SMARTBoards as student centers in their classroom can show others what that looks like. Those with classroom websites that students access regularly will help others create or expand their own classroom websites. Some will create classroom projects based on curriculum that will have students creating websites or presentations of various kinds themselves.

Take a look at the schedule:

Educational Technology Professional Development January 4 Schedule

While teachers may choose to work on their classroom websites or blogs, or decide to create a Moodle online component to their curriculum, or learn to use the SMARTBoard better, the ultimate focus of the professional development is how to help students use technology to learn. It's easy to use technology tools to teach like we've always taught. It takes a lot more time and effort to put the technologies in the hands of the students and let them become co-directors of their learning. We have spent a great deal of time and money on equipping the district with lots of different technologies for student use, and we want to give teachers more skills and knowledge to use technologies with students in ways they maybe never even thought about before.

Thanks so much to our teachers and AEA representatives who have agreed to facilitate this day of learning!