“What learning communities do you belong to outside of the ones that you belong to here in our school?”

sorry, I think I will give another one…

“What contributions have you made to that Learning Community?”

or

“How has your involvement in that learning community helped your students?”

Standard 5a
“Teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources. Teachers:

a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.”

I am not sure how you plan on doing the survey monkey, but I like reading the surveys that require comments…they take more time to complete…but the responses are fun to read…I am becoming a rambler…ramble on…

I agree, IT seems to be focused on keeping a system running, rather than looking at what it could do. But that involves a fundamental change and recognition that change is needed. Directing IT to me is about observing how fast technology is changing learning. It is no longer two things, one facilitating the other.

I think administrators are really struggling to understand this, and really want to have some one acting as a mediator between school and IT. In fact they need someone who can bring the two together, not just pass messages back and forth.

The classroom teacher has an amazing opportunity to deliver powerful practice, but poor use gives kids bad habits, and further fuels the arguement that ‘teachers’ (as a group) are unable to understand technology’s finer technical aspects. The truth is, we don’t need to anymore. QA is a great example of that and in middle school, I think your passion will engage students, and you have a new array of tools to deliver it.

Just don’t expect everyone to go ‘wow’. It takes a lot of time to even bring a few teachers on board, but no time to get the kids interested.

Its always about the learning, never the bling for me, and extending my classroom – beyond the physical space, and the time spent in class. Its now almost midnight, and I’ve ‘taught’ half a dozen kids tonight via classroom technology I’ve put in place this week.

And I’m happy to do it and keep doing it. An hour spent ‘googling and pasting’ is a waste of everyones time. Maybe this is why so many students are not choosing IT subjects … they are over low level activities at school, when at home they are engaged in activities and social networks that actually form part of their lives.

Hope this helps.

What tech tool helps you collaborate best with you colleagues / classmates?

you are getting them to consider to reflect on collaboration but also finding out what sort of stuff the teachers are getting them to do – ie banging out a word document with their Shaklepeare play is not really a skirt lifting idea.

Of course, you would have to follow it up with a question like:
Which tools do you feel most skilled at using? and give them a few options – good way to gauge which ones they doo and do not know. Also, put ion a few fake ones as a measure to help validate responses.

How’s that?

Does your system have its own ICT tool? This would guide.

Also, you can use the Institute of Teacher’s material. There must be some ICT refs.

Finally, what about guidance given by Board of Studies in ICT docs and syllabuses, various tests.

Elaine