Technology through Time

Many of you are wrapping up your ITLP’s and thinking about what’s next. In fact, many of you have thought about grants and other possibilities for funding. So I thought this week’s blog post would be about how to plan for technology needs and how to get funding.My best experience as a technology planner has been to pull together a group of teachers and put together a needs assessment. We surveyed the school, teachers staff and students and asked them what technology they used this year that was good, what technology was not so good and why. We also asked them what they needed to be more successful at their jobs. Now this may seem like a silly thing to ask since it does not have anything to do with technology, but remember we want technology to be a seamless part of our teaching and learning. This can only happen if we see the technology as a tool to reach our goal. Therefore, knowing what our goals are first will help us to identify the best fitting technology. There ar

Catching up on my Ted Talks, led me to this excellent Ted Talks worth watching and thinking about in terms of being an Ed Tech teacher: Kathyrn Schulz: On Being Wrong I remember having a math teacher who would express to me, over and over, that it is ok to come up with a different way to do a math problem to get to the same answer. This is the beauty of learning and education. Learning different perspectives or ways of learning is what makes us human. Kathryn Shulz, states “The miracle of our mind is seeing the world as it isn’t.” In educational technology, we should open our minds to the concept that “maybe I am wrong” as we approach teaching our students with technology. Allowing students to be as equal willing learners when using technology creates a classroom of cohesion, or a learning community. One in which we can endeavor to share ideas and understanding despite cultural or societal differences. So why not ask our selves, what wrong perspective do we have about our