Open Monologue
Just because I'm making it up as I go along doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing

I’m very lucky to work in a high school in which the principal has seen a need to have an educational technologist in the building. I’ve had the position for a couple of years and I’ve worked very closely with a couple of teachers, but I’d had problems trying to extend beyond them. I tried after school workshops, presentations at staff meetings, showing different tools to individual teachers – you name it, I tried it. I have had moments of despair and frustration although I try to be optimistic and enthusiastic. I was showing relevant, useful tools that could enhance student learning but there seemed to be little interest.

This morning I had an ‘a-ha’ moment while talking to a math teacher at the school. He came with me to TLt last week to present about the school’s online learning courses. While there, he had a chance to talk to Dan Schellenberg. Dan had some questions about teaching calculus online, and Bruce had some questions about Dan’s online math resources.Bruce and I had a lengthy discussion that started with interactive whiteboards but ended up with some of the tools he might use so he could find, put or link to resources online. We talked about the uses of blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and RSS aggregation. We did not spend too much time talking about the technologies but their uses. After our conversation, I did a little happy dance. A few thoughts occurred to me and I thought it would be a good idea to share them (inspired by Dean, and I wanted them articulated/written out before I forget them).

• The best way, maybe the only way at my school, to motivate teachers to try something new is to let them see or talk to what another subject specialist teacher is doing. The math teachers don’t want to hear from me – they need to see or hear from other math teachers. My job is to make the connection to those who are leading the way.
• In a large, heterogeneous group of teachers/instructors, viral professional development is the only
  way to go. The PD needs to be one-to-one between the teacher and the
  educational technologist. There are too many tools to keep track of and
  too many use cases for the instructors to keep track of. That’s my job. Jen has written much more articulately than I could about viral professional development. Go read what she has written.
• There was a dynamic theme at TLt – “It’s about the technology” and “It’s not about the technology“. Both are right – it is a dessert topping and a floor wax! When we’re talking about educational objectives and what teachers want students to learn, it’s not about the technology. When we’re talking about the process of reaching those objectives, it most definitely is about the technology. If I want to build a house, I need to select the right tools for the right job. Saws are used to cut wood, hammer and nails to join wood together. The process is not entirely linear since available technology defines or limits what can be done with it.