Be of Use

Will Richardson and Chris Lehman shined a light  on what I found to be horrifying statements. At the Education Innovation Summit Lehman reported defeated former Mayor of Washington DC Adrian Fenty said "if we fire more teachers, we'll have more money for technology."This happened a while ago - back in April, but this morning it came back to me as I contemplated the future of technology funding and support in schools in the face of ever-decreasing budgets. In my opinion, people are more important than machines for our kids. I can buy an iPad or laptop, but a personal teacher/mentor/advisor that's a little more pricey. Can we find ways to use technology to lighten the load for teachers - of course - but as a parent, a school flush with laptops and tablets, but devoid the necessary number of caring professionals to support learning is not a school I want my kids in. To contradict Mr. Fenty, "the more technology we don't buy, the more caring professionals we ...

Right now my bosses are pitching a 1:1 initiative to the BoE. The hope is to grow the media specialist and instructional technology department to support a roll out starting in 6th grade for the 2012-2013 school year. Each year they'll add a grade until it moves up to high school. Both job embedded professional development and summer workshops are a part of the plan. They've put a lot of work into the plan...just hope it pays off.

I always appreciate it when teachers and administrators ask me "what should we buy" when it comes to instructional technologies. It's flattering to feel that your opinion matters, but it's almost always the wrong question. Here's an example. I'm presenting to a staff on interactive whiteboards per the principal's request. At the end the principal asks, "we have X dollars, should we be buying these boards?" My response was "what are your goals? How can the boards help meet those goals?" He didn't appreciate my response, even though it was the right question to ask. I feel like over my career a lot of money has been tossed around based on what's latest/greatest or there's money burning a hole in our pocket. Over the last few years there's finally been a change in a focus toward training to go along with major purchases, but that's only part of the problem. Even if you know all the ins and outs of an iPad, it isn...