Teaching & Learning

Technology offers new tools for improving both the instructional and the learning process, resulting in greater student achievement and development of student thinking skills.

Communications

Digital communication tools enable personal and organizational improvement among all of a school's constituencies for learning, operations, marketing, and development.

Productivity

The efficient operation of the school and each employee's work can be increased with streamlined processes for electronic data collection/analysis, document production/distribution, and institutional knowledge management.

For more details, see: Why Technology in Schools?

Four Elements Contributing to Technology Success

1) Network infrastructure which is stable, robust, and ubiquitous.
2) Curricular integration of technology focusing on media literacy, creativity, collaboration, adaptability, &  systems-thinking.
3) Operational integration of technology which supports productivity, communications, data-driven decision-making, and organizational improvement.
4) Professional development based on teacher-teacher sharing of lessons and best practices for technology integration.

Educators, like other craftsmen, gather tools over time. My "pedagogical toolbox" is filled by curricular knowledge, instructional strategies, people-skills, management strategies, motivation/engagement tactics, and assessment approaches. This repertoire of tools is necessary for the variety of teachable moments encountered each day. These tools help me articulate the questions which stimulate student thinking. I am constantly honing these tools and seeking useful new ones. The ability to manipulate these tools shapes my craft.

I believe a learning environment which minimizes fear and maximizes engagement will accelerate "deep-learning" as students are motivated from intrinsic not extrinsic forces. I strive for honest, supportive, and interesting classroom communication, whether I am teaching kindergartners, adolescents, or adults. I want learners to feel comfortable asking any question. A safe and stimulating environment - intellectually, socially, and emotionally - is necessary because people learn by doing, by taking risks, and by making mistakes. I help students learn how to answer their own questions by teaching them how to pursue paths to solutions. This approach is based on the theories of Dewey & Bruner, as it leads students to construct their own knowledge based on inquiry, experience, and experimentation.

The relationship which comes from knowing students over time is very valuable. In recognizing and celebrating each learner as an individual, I become attuned to what Vygotsky described as their "zone of proximal development." This helps me scaffold learning experiences towards optimal achievement for each individual. The capabilities of one-to-one computing allow me to engage each learner in his/her own zone and also enables diverse means of communication. I believe in helping students work from their strengths, interests, and multiple intelligences, so I structure projects and assignments to enable multiple paths to success. I take advantage of multimedia tools to engage learners' visual, auditory, oral, and kinesthetic modes of knowledge-acquisition.

Assessment is the teacher's diagnostic tool, and is essential to good instruction.  I strive to make this evaluation process meaningful to the learner. The unique capabilities of technology allow instant feedback with self-paced and branching loops between instruction and evaluation. Educational applications and well-planned lessons deliver differentiated instruction by allowing students to take divergent and self-paced paths to success. Electronic portfolios offer efficient and organized access to student work, and open new possibilities for authentic assessment. Ultimately, I want students to become flexible, agile learners, with the metacognitive ability to self-assess.

I continue to appreciate Bloom's Taxonomy, which helps us focus on higher-order thinking skills including critical-thinking, problem-solving, and metacognition. Information and communication technologies are powerful tools in this endeavor, extending learning experiences beyond the walls of school and beyond the timeframe of a class period. These technologies enable robust learning experiences by connecting people across time and distance, with each other, and with a flood of resources which require strong information-literacy skills. I seek to harness these new tools with my students, and have a positive impact on their day-to-day lives as they develop their own tool-box of strategies for learning.

Directing a school’s use of technology requires clear vision, patient commitment, and a strong ability to build collaborative relationships with all stakeholders. This leader must possess diverse talents including project management, supervisory skills, analytical expertise, educational and technical mastery. I have developed these talents over many years by helping schools use technology to support their missions. I have worked with all constituencies - students, teachers, administrators, parents, & trustees - implementing technology to maximize the return on investment.

I strive towards a vision of all students collaboratively engaged in active learning, knowledge-construction, and development of higher-order thinking skills. Properly integrated technology helps deliver differentiated instruction by allowing students to take divergent and self-paced paths to success. Skilled teachers, who are themselves lifelong learners, are the most important piece of this educational equation. I have worked with teachers in every subject area and grade level to maximize learning outcomes while building a professional-development culture that supports exploration and rewards creativity. Faculty meetings in which teachers share successful strategies are essential to this process. School should be a place in which all constituencies are learning, developing, and improving the institution and themselves together.

Key stakeholders must be engaged in refining and communicating the shared vision for technology use based on awareness of how it will improve student-learning and operational efficiency. The school's technology leader must ensure successful execution of action items and longer-term goals based on this planning, consensus-building, attention to detail, and ongoing assessment. Ultimately, technology becomes both an operational necessity and a strategic asset for schools.

I pursue organizational excellence through management by objectives and critical evaluation of goals, systems, and processes. This data-driven methodology enables shared understanding of mission success and benchmarks in pursuit of that goal. One of technology's powerful uses is the storage, analysis, and dissemination of all kinds of data. This information-processing enables evidence-based decision-making so that teachers and administrators can identify both individual needs and larger trends. I believe we value that which we measure, and we should measure that which we value, even if it is intangible.

 

How does this technology improve either learning outcomes or the school's operational efficiency?

Does this technology help engage the student fully in the learning activity or is it just another way to deliver instruction?

How invisible is the use of the technology from the students’ point of view: Does the activity bring the students’ attention to the technology or to the content/curricular goals?

Please click here to access my conceptual framework for educational technology.