Missouri District Educator's Conference Day 2 Take-a-way.

Pretty seamless day. A bit hectic. A little running. A little last minute stuff, but over all it was a great day.

Cindy Lane did an awesome job with her Google Tools Presentation. I learned some of the little things that just makes Google an awesome partner for teachers (Show Options is my friend!). Besides her sectional, I enjoyed just hanging out with her at lunch and swapping stories and sites.

The Technology Open House, I've decided, was a success! After spending forty-five minutes with a teacher getting the Bible on his Blackberry, I feel pretty good. Especially since I don't have a

Blackberry and don't have a Bible app on my phone.

A lot of great questions came our way from colleagues: What firewall do you use? How do you handle content filtering? What websites can I use with my first graders with an LCD projector in my room! We also spent time talking with an administrator or two about how they can incorporate connected learning into their own professional life.

I've also spent more time thinking about value. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that teachers need to find personal value in their own learning, before we can expect them embrace self-learning using technology. That sounds backwards...seeing is how they are teachers...but old habits die hard.

Looking forward to our virtual keynote with Will Richardson tomorrow morning. We'll see how well that will be received. There will likely be some skeptical listeners, but we are hoping that some ears and minds will be open to confront the issues facing 21st century education!

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You can lead a horse to water....

I love the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." It's probably the most appropriate saying for professional development as well. There is no way you can make a teacher want to learn. If they don't want to, then they don't want to! But I do wonder if there is a way to help make them "thirsty" enough to recognize a nice cool "drink" when it's placed in front of them?

Honestly speaking, I'm not exactly sure how to do that! Well, that's not totally true. I do find myself agreeing with Will Richardson's last blog post at Weblog-ed on this point. Will suggests that the best way to engage teachers in learning is to encourage them to first be selfish learners. Selfish not in terms of ignoring the needs of others, but rather, first encouraging them to use tools to learn about something that is of maximum value for them.

In my previous post, I talked about how value needs to be created and engaged before any learning takes place. Inevitabley if you as a teacher do not find value in learning a new skill, then frankly you won't extend the effort needed to learn it. There is way too much other stuff going on to waste time learning something that has no value. But if a teacher can find value (in this case value would be attained by engaging teachers in something non-profession related) that they will begin to use those personal tools in the professional realm as well.

So again, how can you do this?

Besides making learning completely personalized, which I believe to be the best option, I envision removing the stuffines of a traditional learning environment and replacing it with a more relaxed gathering place.

At the upcoming Missouri District Teacher's Conference, which by the way is going to be a drastic departure for us in terms of what we've done before, we are organizing a kind of technology information booth. I got the idea from the work that Amy Vejraska (and other colleagues...sorry I don't remember names) did at the Midwest Educational Technology Conference last year. It seemed like a great idea, so we are going to give it a shot!

The information booth with be staffed with knowlegable teachers who can answer questions about wikis, blogs, Delicious, Diigo, Twitter, Second Life...you name it! Our hope is that the non-threatening, "Hey, come check us out" atmosphere, that most teachers will let down their guard and feel comfortable enough to ask questions, share ideas, or try out some different tools.

Will that help create value? I don't know, but we hope that the relaxed atmosphere will help break down any barriers to potentially finding out if something can have value for them.

Personalized and Non-threatening...I guess you've got to start somewhere!

Image "Thirsty Horse" by Flickr user: [alxandr]

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The "Value" of Learning

The original title I had for the blog was, "Are you a Learner?" I could hear in the back of my mind Lisa Durff screaming...."YES!" For I know no better advocate for teacher learning than she! Thanks for your passion my co-learning friend.

Being a learner I think is one of the first callings an educator has. How can you stand if front of a class and exalt the virtue of life long learning when you yourself don't find value in learning?

I don't know, maybe you think you are too old? Maybe you think it's too hard? Maybe you find the tools too intimidating? I mean, really, what did you think teaching was going to be like?What ever the excuse, I think it boils down to do you find value in learning? Of course on this blog I'm speaking specifically about teachers learning the art of implementing digital tools into the educational process. For me, teacher technology use is a life long learning issue.

Recently, I've been thinking more about how to motivate teachers to want to utilize more technology tools in the classroom. Motivation I believe is the key to successful integration and implementation. I often run into teachers whom I am tasked with helping, who do not have the motivation to want to learn new things. I'm nearly convinced that being a good technology coordinator is like being a good used car salesman. If I could just "sell" you on why this tool would be good for you to use, or why this teaching strategy is better than the one you've been utilizing for the past 25 years, or why it's important to engage children in a "digital" process along side the hands-on process. Then they would get it! You've got to sell it!

Can I make someone find value in the learning of new skills? I partially agree with Dennis Grice's twitter post today, "To accept something as valuable depends on one's trust in the authority & reliability of the source." Maybe the teachers we try to lead frankly just don't trust us! I would hope that's not the case, but it could very well be.

Do some people not choose to engage in ongoing learning because they don't have "an attitude or openness" to learning new things, as put by Dave Black in a like-minded tweet?

For what ever the reason, I'm more and more convinced that learning is tied tightly to the concept of value. If you don't value it, you won't engage or learn it.

So...how then, as someone who says he takes professional development seriously, do I help my staff "value" the technology tools available to them? How do I reach the teacher at the conference sectional who comes up to me after the presentation and says, "that was all well in good, but....(insert obstacle or excuse here)?" Is it my job to sell life long learning to teachers? How do you convince someone that technology tools have changed education....dare I say, have changed learning forever!

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I find a critical and deep connection between a teacher's technology adoption and their view of life long learning. Is that too simplistic?

Image: "It is the work." fromFlickr user shareski

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