Think Like a Teacher

Should every web tool try to be all things to all people in order to help the teachers (and school admin) who do not have the time to explore and understand which tool is best suited for which task? In an ideal world, each student, teacher, parent, and administrator (who determines which tools are blocked!),  would select from an endless line of tools so each of us could choose a la Amazon: “those who liked this wiki tool also liked this graphic organizer.” But the reality of eduland is that schools (and reticent teachers just starting to “get on board with technology”) cease upon the first tool introduced/endorsed/unblocked and use that one tool to solve far more than its share of tasks. A wiki ends up being asked to act as a blog, a graphic organizer, a microblogging tool, an individual student portfolio, a group project platform, a parent communication tool, a classroom policy page, an embedding host for endless web-based projects, and a calendar (add your uses here). Somewhere in there, the students ask whether they can use another tool, and they are told, “just use the wiki.” Since the wiki CAN hold unlimited embeds, it can easily be that one-tool-fits-all, but should the tool developers feel obligated to be everything to everyone?

Meanwhile not every web-based tool is going to survive. The rich diversity of tools (look at the number of online comic  makers or presentation/slideshow tools out there!) will eventually diminish as economics run their course. So maybe having some tools try to be all things to all people is a good idea, just so we don’t have to hep people migrate their content to a new place when their favorite tool(s) die.

My personal opinion is that in the next 2-3 years we will see many tools disappear and only the strong survive. The strong may not be the best tools, but rather the ones that are accessible for the one-stop-shoppers who want to learn only one place. Back in the 90s, AOL was all the rage for people who really didn’t “get” the Internet. After 6-7 years, AOL was no longer needed. The one stop tools will help teacher through the transition as education figures out how to get MOST teachers and kids connected and fluent with technologies. Then users will once again vote with their feet and move to the boutique tools.

Walmarts once popped up and thrilled consumers with their easy prices and approximation of meeting consumer “needs,” then the cycle moved on as selected consumers move to the boutiques and specialty options. Right now education is still in the Walmart phase.Teachers and school don’t understand that it all works together. We still have to help all of them, not just the ones who shop with us.

One week from today I will be presenting at ISTE on Dimensions of Creativity. Wish me luck! See more about the presentation  on the web page support for it here, as soon as I finish it. I hope the people who come have read Jen W’s post on how to attend ISTE.

Between now and then, I will be busy with a board meeting , travel, and one of my favorite events, EduBloggerCon. I had to at least mention it here, since this is the blog I share with folks there. Too bad I am so busy getting ready I can’t  write more about it! Maybe while I am there…

A tweet and blog post by another teacher this busy morning brought me up short. As teachers, we make job changes less often than many, and this time of year brings many reflective moments among those who are making changes. So focused on learning, no teacher can make a change asking, “What have I learned from this place I am leaving?”

Four years ago this week, I made a major change. After 27 years as a teacher, I moved into year-round mode running TeachersFirst (previously my favorite moonlighting job) and out of the immediate cocoon culture of K12Land. It is only right that I stop after 4 years to reflect on what I have learned here in Nonprofitland.And, like the teacher above, I wonder a little about whether I have sold out.

Top five things I have learned after 4 years “on the outside” (sort of):

5. Moving on should not make you feel guilty. Once you get past the guilt for being able to go to the bathroom when you please and no longer helping 150 kids each and every day, you start to notice the reach you do have from your new place. Once you stop labeling your changed constituencies: “at risk population,” “sell out,” etc., you realize that every population needs you. The immediate impact on kids is far less obvious in Nonprofitland, yes, but after a couple of years, you start to see new root systems for growth developing because of the things you have planted. In today’s world, Twitter and rss feeds help us see that extending growth.

4. Teachers trust those who still hear them. Not every teacher has the opportunity or motivation to move out of the classroom to Nonprofitland (or Profitland– yuck!).  Teachers will continue to trust those on the other side of the fence as long as we still listen and feel what classroom life is like. I don’t think I can ever forget being in the classroom. At least I hope not. (My husband says I will talk like an 8th grader for life.)

3.  Kids are the best alternative energy in the world. Outside the classroom, you have to find other sources to generate the electric moments, and they are MUCH harder to find. I find myself talking to the kids at the neighborhood pool or reading and commenting on class blogs, etc. just to connect to that power source. When my energy runs low, it is one of the few places I can recharge.

2. Teachers conduct the energy their students generate. Since I no longer have contact with the kids every day, I rely on contact with their teachers. OK2Ask, in particular, acts as conductive material passing along the electricity. But I can talk to any teacher in person, in email, on Twitter, or through blogs and feel the buzz again. Like my iPhone, I need regular charging.

1. It is much lonelier outside of school. No amount of electronic contact will ever make up for the camaraderie of bitter, stale coffee and peanut M&Ms after school in the faculty room. Don’t say, “Misery loves company,” because that’s not it. Know that you — as a teacher — are living in a place no non-teacher will ever understand. The roots you cultivate daily are hopelessly tangled with many others. Even if you move to a different school/garden, those roots are as persistent as crabgrass, and they love entwining with others. Outside of school is a manicured, landscaped, well-mulched world that is not weed-friendly. When you first find yourself the only crabgrass in a bed of azaleas, you will need to find new ways to feel that you belong. There is nobility in crabgrass.

A few days ago, we had an earthquake. At the time, I thought it was the concussion of a distant explosion or possibly  a serious malfunction in one of the systems located beneath my feet in the basement of a house I still do not entirely trust. When I talked with neighbors and others who felt it, each had a different description, but none of us knew at the time that it was an earthquake. Having lived in the San Francisco Bay area as a child, I recalled the rolling tremors that had shaken my toys and books. By comparison,  this was not an earthquake to me.

A short while later, the text messages and phone calls began to roll in. “You just had an earthquake, you idiot!”  pointed out my well-connected but distant offspring. They had the data and coordinates to prove it. The NGS confirmed it. Google Earth measured it: 2.9, centered 6.8 miles from here and 5 miles deep. Cold, hard data. There’s an app for that

Next came the questions: what should we be doing about this? What does the data tell us to do? Are there things we should check? Did it damage anything I/we are responsible for?  What about the dam that holds in the lake we live on? Is there a contingency plan to go with this data?

Shortly after that, a final question: did this earthquake even matter?  We have all sorts of accounts, impressions, and hard data. We have post-surveys, inspections, and discussions. And, when it comes down to it, it really does not matter. But at the time, it did. For a brief period, we needed the data to answer our questions and confirm/deny our worries. Without a more distant perspective, we did not even realize the truth about something potentially major. (BP certainly knows about lacking  perspective from up-close at the time of an event.)

I still wonder which experience is more real: feeling it or measuring it..or combining the feeling with the data after the fact? In a classroom, how do a teacher and a student feel  and measure the earthquakes of learning and know whether they matter?