Should we make the commitment to change the way we teach now or just wait for everything to change around us? Which do you think is easier? Do you want to change at all? For those of you that have embraced instructional technology in your classrooms, think back to the time when you began integrating technology. It was the first day you had that projector in your room or the first day you had your SMART Board. Do you remember what your first thoughts were? Were they something like, “I am so excited about how this awesome tool is going to engage my students and help me grow professionally!” Or were you thinking, “Ugh, this thing is a pain to hook it up and it probably won’t work right. Do I have to use this?”
If you’re waiting on the world to change, don’t worry; it is. It’s charging forward. Students are charging forward outside of school. Let’s lead the charge while we have them at school.
Please watch this great video from COSN - Learning to Change, Changing to Learn. Thanks for reading. I welcome your comments.
January 27, 2010 at 11:34 pm
I found some of the comments very telling, especially when they came from such a variety of backgrounds!
January 27, 2010 at 11:48 pm
My first year teaching in South Central L.A. back in 1991 I brought in my Tandy laptop and used it as a center to have kids word process their stories. A few years later I got a grant and connected kids with my AOL account where we traded videos with a school in Maine! (Via VHS through snail mail of course.)
I have always been so excited when I get any new tech to use with kids! I can’t believe others don’t get excited! Sure you gotta learn how to set it up and how to use it, and there will be problems. So? Aren’t we life-long learners and problem solvers? Did educators refuse to use books at the advent of the printing press?!?
@educatoral
January 28, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Your enthusiasm should be infectious to others. As colleagues see the impact you have on learning using tech, they will be more curious and more open to try things themselves. That is the price of leadership, doing what others avoid, and leading the others when they decide they should, or must do it.
January 28, 2010 at 8:01 pm
I just listened to a podcast about lamenting and how everyone goes through a period of lamenting with any change, this is healthy. What is not healthy is to resist change all together. Even good change can cause some lament because things as we know them and have become comfortable with them will be different. I wonder if teachers who resist change in education would handle it better if we built in a period of lament. The “I know that we will really miss xyz because we have history with it, but look at what this new xyz will allow us.” It is hard to let go of the familiar but change is inevitable. Perhaps we need to take a look at how we are asking people to change, perhaps all they need is someone to acknowledge that the familiar is something to lament before we move on?
January 31, 2010 at 7:16 pm
I have a quote in my office – “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” Change isn’t easy, but it is necessary. It does need to be tempered with reasoning – change for change alone is not the answer, either. As educators, we do need to study the benefits and make decisions about change, but one of the decisions shouldn’t be NOT to change at all.
Keep up the good work, Kyle!
February 2, 2010 at 5:44 pm
This is a really good video, thanks for posting. One thing I am wondering with content such as this (because I am on the verge of making some) is who is watching it?
I think perhaps those that need to don’t, which is a shame because by ignoring what is going on in the society around them , teachers who refuse to adapt their teaching practice to be more reflective of what is going on in the society around them are an endangered species…
A good post, I enjoyed it immensely.
February 2, 2010 at 6:47 pm
[...] } I was reading a recent blog post by Kyle Pace which was discussing the issue of choosing to adapt your teaching practice now to be more inclusive [...]
February 6, 2010 at 3:23 pm
“The longest journey begins with a single step.” Once teachers infuse technology into their lessons they will find that it will bring the subject much more alive to their students.