Collaboration and Cooperation

I'm thinking about teamwork today, about reaching decisions based on mutually agreed upon terms that are themselves based on initial disagreement and the honest evaluation of information.

I'm thinking about seeing the big picture and bringing the expertise of many to the table to reach agreement.

I'm thinking about how we all have different perspectives to offer, so we all need to be heard, but then I'm thinking we need to reach conclusions and stand up for the group decision and for one another.

I'm thinking about how much we lose when we don't work together and build each other up.

I'm thinking that there is no place for pretense.

There's a lot to think about today.

Cooperation and Teamwork

Chromebooks

I am currently at the ITEC IT Conference in Ames, and I just came from a session put on by representatives from the Council Bluffs schools. They are completing a pilot project of Chromebooks and are prepared to roll out a grades 9 to 12 Chromebook 1:1 initiative this fall. I've tested a Chromebook myself, and they are great! There is little work that needs to be done to deploy them. They boot up in 8 seconds. The battery lasts 8 hours. They are designed to use Google Apps which we use in the district already.

However, you can't load programs or software on them. They don't do Java. They have only limited Flash capabilities. And, they are paperweights if they don't have a wireless Internet connection. As wonderful as it would be to get away from laptops and netbooks that sometimes take a minute or two to log in, I just don't think Chromebooks are the answer in a community where we have so many families without Internet access, let alone wireless Internet access at home.

What do you think?

Integrating the best technologies in the most educational ways

Thought for the day:

Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.--Clifford Stoll

We must continue to move the education of students from fact memorization to higher order thinking skills, and we must do it urgently and systematically. The use of technology in the classroom can be the catalyst for this process, or it can enable teachers to teach the way they've always taught, turning out students who are completely unprepared for the ways of our globally connected, technology rich world. We must continue to read the literature and study educational technology, and then we must continue to urgently work with teachers and administrators to both choose the best technologies and to also push students to their own active, authentic learning for life.

SLCSD YouTube

Our new SLCSD YouTube Channel:

Storm Lake CSD YouTube Channel

Take a look at the 6th Grade Book Trailers Playlist and stay tuned for more SLCSD videos!

SLCSD District March Newsletter

Central Office asked me to email their March SLCSD newsletter to all our families yesterday. If you didn't get the link, here it is:

March Newsletter

Take a look at all that's going on in our SLCSD family!

International Learning and Relationships

I spent my noon hour yesterday with our kindergarten teachers. They are all working very hard to share and collaborate with classrooms across the world. Using Skype when time zones allow and using shared presentations, web links, or email when asynchronous communication makes more sense, the teachers and their students are realizing the opportunities for learning outside the four walls of the Storm Lake Community School District. As the teachers, along with Juli Kwikkel and Michelle Huntress, all watched a presentation created for our kindergarten students by kindergarten students from an international school in China where pictures of each child were accompanied by recordings of each child introducing themselves was amazing. These teachers are "getting it." They realize that we live in a global world now and that communicating with others far away will lead to rich relationships and educational experiences for our students. The questions the teachers were asking about technology and how to best create the richest learning experiences for their young students was uplifting.

Don't let anyone ever say that EdTech professional development and time to work on EdTech integration is wasted. Teachers want to fly. They just need the tools and the time.

Devices for Students

Being both a tech director and a personal tech geek, I have access to lots of devices--A large beast of a laptop, an iPad, a Kindle Fire, an iPod Touch, a Chromebook, and my netbook. What's my go-to device? The lowly netbook. There is nothing that I do day to day that I can't do on my netbook; the size is right both for use and for portability; it has a keyboard that I can touch type on; and the price is economical.

I wonder if we don't aim too high when it comes to devices in the hands of our students and even our teachers. If we truly analyze what students and teachers use their personal devices for, I think we will find that less is more.