Filled With Regrets

Filled With Regrets

Every day that goes by in which we are immersed in social distancing and government-mandated forced shutdown of the schools and so many other businesses, I find myself wishing that I was still back as a consultant.  I spent the last eight years of my career in the board office as a consultant for technology integration. Of course, back then, it was referred to as integration computers into education but it was and still is the same thing.  As a consultant, I was instrumental in moving a few elementary and secondary teachers to try and use the Internet and web-enabled tools to go on line and meet up with other teachers and schools.  I did a project that brought together schools into a video-teleconferencing venue to collaborate with schools in Kent, England.  I taught teachers to use webcrafting tools to create their own websites and showed students how they could demonstrate new learning by using technology.  I pushed as much as I could and facilitated workshop after workshop about  collaboration across the wires and encouraged students who were in need of enrichment to find projects online that brought them together with experts of all kinds.  I close my eyes and I can see my former self advocating for online learning and suggesting that the best kind was blended with face-to-face learning so that students got to know who their teacher was and what he or she was all about.  I spent hours and  hours writing articles and visiting schools and that was at least 16 years ago and NOW, it is all coming into sharp relief.  More and more schools are going online so that their kids can keep connected while unable to be in school due to the corona virus.  I would love to be able to hang out my shingle now and offer my advice near and far about how to go online, how to reach out to students and how to make the interactions as meaningful as possible. I am so excited about all of this and YET.....I don't think I am  up to putting my name out there and trying to get involved.  I am too old for this and young teachers or students would find it hard to relate to me. The technology has passed me by in a way because some of these folks are on the cutting edge and I couldn't be...nor do I want to be. Still, I would give anything to still be a consultant and be online or using FaceTime or Zoom to help teacher learn to reach out.  I long advocated for "just in time" learning and now that timer has arrived.  I sure hope some enterprising young academics are tracing and tracking and doing reports on this change in action. So exciting and so regretful....both.

Trust Your Instincts

Trust Your Instincts

The older get, the more I reflect on what I have seen in education and what I have done, I realize that one thing I never did was push myself forward when I saw openings to show leadership.  Let me explain.  I have always been a reader and my professional practice has always been informed by my readings.  I automatically took an interest in reading pieces that confirmed my own vision of where my profession was going and how the classroom would be changed as a result. I was enamoured of technology from my years as a graduate student and there was always something between me and the computer. Of course, at the beginning, it was a mainframe which had no applicability to the classrooms of the end of the last century. But as soon as the desktop began to be more prominent in the news and in businesses and in high schools for  mathematics and book keeping, I paid close attention to what was evolving and knew the future had to include the personal computer because of its power and flexibility. I remember telling my adult students that the time would come when each of us would have a personal computer which would be not that different from the hand-held assistants that were prominent at the time. I used to say that the only question was how big or how small they would become. I was a pioneer in education in the use of distance education long before it became widespread.  I am not trying to toot my own horn here but pose a question of myself.  How did it happen that I was a pioneer in so many ways with technology and with, along the way, integration and actually what was to become STEAM, but why didn't I do anything about it?  I want my readers to know that, if they think something is important, talk about it, write about it, speak about it, teach to it and encourage others to follow your lead. Too many of us have great ideas but they get lost or buried because we underestimate ourselves and the power of our voices. I once read a book or saw a movie, can't remember which, that spoke about the power of one.  Each of us is a one and we ought not to think we are devoid of ideas that need spreading. I learned far too late in my career that our goal with our students ought to include making them into risk takers, not being afraid to go out on a limb if they think it is stable and jumping from that limb or perching from it. I often think that, had I been more or a risk taken when I was younger and in the prime of my career, some of my ideas might have found an audience and I might have made more of a difference and I look book and regret the lack of making that kind of a difference. It is all about finding once's voiced not being afraid to use it.

Virtual Learning

Virtual Learning

Since I wrote last week, pretty much every elementary and secondary school on the continent is closed for at least two or three weeks in the name of social distancing.  It is a drastic move but necessary since it is all about flattening the curve and attempting to prevent community spread of the Coroni Virus.  Naturally, in this day or enhanced use of technology, there have been increasing calls for the use of online learning to prevent students from losing ground in their studies and to keep them occupied during the many hours that everyone is forced to stay inside.  In a perfect world, it would be very easy for a lot of schools to pick up the slack quickly and mount massive online learning portals. But.....the truth of the matter is that there are large swaths of this continent that do not possess the capability to turn to online learning. They do not have the bandwidth necessary to support even the most rudimentary wireless communications. They do not have the wireless hardware or software to use to enable students to go online.  Th educators don't possess the knowledge, skills or affect to facilitate the online learning of their students.  I speak from experience.  It is not more than 18 years ago when I used technology and online learning to facilitate a  project that brought a group of students together  to create websites as culminating learning activities to demonstrate their new learning.  I went from school to school to work with students and their teachers.  These were highly motivated participants and even with desire to get on line, there were numerous problems.  I worked with a group of adults today who stabbed at an online communication tool that had been recommended to the leader of our group and it was a terrible product. I tried to suggest a much better tool for use but the president ignored my suggestions because the husband of a close friend had been consulted and he suggested this particular tool.  It was awful and I can just imagine how frustrated and unwilling to try again some of the participants were.  Sadly we are still stuck with tech tools that require a certain level of sophistication and some pre-learning and until such learning becomes a compulsory part of teacher education, it is not going to happen. Sadly, parts of the U. S. and Canada, through no fault of the students or their parents, will not be able to use technology because administrators have not made it a priority.  Sadly, we are now going to hear and see what happens when you don't take the advice of the sages in a profession and ignore their suggestions and keep your heads in the sand.  After this is all said and done, this social separation, it will be interesting to see just how various jurisdictions react and what changes will be made as a result.  

Coronavirus Closing

Coronavirus Closing

I was in an elementary classroom for over 20 years and then worked in schools and with schools for another ten years.  I always knew to expect to have a few colds and a couple of bouts of the flue each winter.  Now, when my grandchildren are home sick with something, I comment on the fact that is what comes from having kids in day care and in school. What is happening at school, comes home with the kids. But when I used to say that, it was meant in a lighthearted fashion.  However, today, this is hardly a joking matter but only now am I realizing why that is a truism.  Kids in classrooms and in schools are walking petrie dishes for diseases.  If one child gets a flue or a cold or the measles, they are all bound to end up, at  one point or another, developing the same illnesses.  I think it is obvious that they are in close contract with one another in every class. Schools seldom have windows open so the germs in the air circulate freely.  Kids have no sense of social distance and are often on top of one another, holding hands, putting arms on one another, sharing physical space without any thought that they ought not to.  Today, more so than a generation ago, they are coming together on buses too which is another breeding ground for germs.  During the winter, the kids are not made to get outside for fresh air and to run around and kill any germs just by playing.  So is it any wonder that governments are now shutting down schools for prolonged periods in the hope that by keeping kids away from the buildings they feel most at home in, the deadly virus will be halted more easily.  It's not that the kids will get sick.  It is that they will carry the germs with them home and out to other places.  However, by merely closing the schools, the door gets opened to lots of other issues. The biggest one yet to come, that the Americans for instance are totally unprepared for, is virtual school classes or online learning.  The U. S. has left those kinds of investments up to the states and many of them have not made those investments.  So there are huge discrepancies among and between the various states meaning the kids will suffer more in some than in others.  The Harris government might have had its problems with Education in Ontario but it is through them that the school boards were forced to amalgamate and that led to greater ease in extending technology more equitably.  Technological tools will be key to keeping kids safe and preoccupied and happy enough even though the schools will be closed.  However, the crucial thing is the germs will be kept isolated hopefully....and community spread will be diminished. That is all that matters now.

Use of Technology During Mandatory Isolation Periods

Use of Technology During Mandatory Isolation Periods

I get a lot of things sent to me by email because I read very widely on a lot of topics.  Obviously,  I get lots of stuff about Education and often note certain headlines because they trigger a memory or a response.  Today, something came via email about various districts in the U. S. mandating the use of technology in order to conduct lessons online when students are forced to stay in isolation because schools are closed due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.  What struck me as odd was the fact that this is being asked of large swaths of the country where there has been little investment in the kind of technology required or the bandwidth to carry lessons and their components across the distances.  I remember way back when, when webcams were just knew things and the idea of distance education was just breaking through into awareness. One of my colleagues asked me about the use of a webcam on his desk so that a student who was forced to stay home to recover from surgery could see him and her classmates during the day. The student was extremely lonely and agitated because she was missing her classes.  My colleague asked me what I thought and of course, it was a no-brainer in my mind.  He then reported what a huge difference the technology made to the student's morale and hence to her recovery time.  But we had the capability and the teacher had the knowledge and willingness to try it out. What will happen in large parts of the Continental United States where they do not have the infrastructure nor the knowledge level to facilitate a compulsory move like that right  now? We hope that things won't get as desperate in the U. S. as they have been in places like China, Italy, Japan and South Korea.  BUT....suppose they do.  Nothing would be more devastating to those places not able to conduct business through the wires and it would be no one else's fault than the politicians who have consistently denied the importance of public education and ensured it was funded properly. No one could be surprised if it raised issues of diversity, equality of opportunity and the necessity for proper funding.  A large part of me hopes it will  happen just like that and the buck will stop on the desk of Donald Trump.