Striking a Balance Between Showing and Guiding

Over the past 15 years, I have provided a lot of technology staff development for educators.  Originally, I would create step-by-step handouts for the participants.  This was more in teaching like the "sage on the stage".  I would guide them through with "click here" and "click there".  What I found was that the educators generally felt very comfortable in the initial training and liked the step-by-step directions.  It seemed to work!

But....after they left the training, I found that they were very attached to their step-by-step directions. If they wanted to do something that wasn't in the instructions, they usually felt like they needed help from someone to do the task.  In the long run, this is not effective.  It might have worked OK when we bought static programs like Office 2000 and we kept the same program with the same features for several years.

Enter Web 2.0.......things are constantly changing like the leaves in the fall.  There are new tools each day.  There are updates to existing tools.  Take Google Apps for Education as an example. Google continues to update the product.  If I create step-by-step handouts this month, the screen shots and menu items may be different in one month.  How do I effectively teach educators about these tools?

I started to go the route of teaching them the very basics of a tool and then focusing more on how to find their answers within the help options of the program.  This seemed to work very well with educators who were comfortable with learning new technologies....those who were not afraid to try something.  I did, however, find a portion of the teachers who were less comfortable with technology who still wanted the step-by-step directions.  While I still strongly believed that I wanted them to learn how to "think technology" and figure out how to find the help themselves, I also recognized that some need the step-by-step to get past the uncomfortable feeling of learning a new technology.

I have now changed to doing a combination of demonstrating how to use a technology, providing some handouts (but just for the basics), and spending time teaching others how to learn new skills on their own.  I am finding that this approach differentiates the needs of educators just like we differentiate for the needs of our own students in our classrooms.

How do you best learn technology?  Please take my poll to let me know what works for you.

Learning With Your PLN

I often get asked how I learned what I know about technology.  That is not a simple question to answer as there are so many different avenues I use to learn about new technologies or how to use older technologies in newer ways.  I think of the Beatles song "With a Little Help From My Friends".  Now, not all the lyrics support my process but the "help from my friends' part definitely is.  "My friends" are the people in my Personal Learning Network, my PLN.

I use a few different sites to connect with others interested in how to use technology to improve teaching and learning.  The most effective one for me right now is Linked In Groups. I have joined three groups: International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Technology Integration in Education (TIE), and Wisconsin Educational Media and Technology Association (WEMTA). These three groups provide me with answers to questions I post as well as allows me to learn from others' postings and questions.  If you have not already joined these groups, I suggest you give them a try.  Create yourself an account at Linked In, join these groups, and start adding colleagues into your professional circle.

Another way that I learn about ed tech tools is to search sites like Slideshare and Prezi to find presentations created by others.  Often times, there are wonderful presentations posted there that make it easy for me to quickly scroll through the presentation, stopping only at the points where I will learn something new.

YouTube is another great place to search for tutorials and presentations to learn about any new ed tech tools. Create an account for yourself and you can save favorites as well as subscribe to "channels".  These channels are created by individuals or organizations and are gold mines for learning about ed tech.  For instance, if you subscribe to Google Apps channel, you can get an email each time a new video is uploaded. The same is true for TED talks and many other great YouTube channels.  Check out Michael Welsh's video on Reinventing Education.  It took me two minutes to find this on YouTube.

At times, I use Twitter to find information, although, I have to admit that it is less productive for me.  I use Tweet Deck to easily see others' tweets as well as to follow specific hashtags such as #edtech.  I also contribute by tweeting things I find on the Internet as well as retweeting posts that I think others will find valuable.

While these tools are not the only tools I use to learn on my own "with a little help from my friends", these are some of the key ones.  Look for a future post about how to use Google Reader to stay on top of the blogs you want to read the most.

Staying Connected

As the school year begins, I am reflecting on how I stayed connected with colleagues this summer. I used Facebook almost every day to see what others were doing and share what I was up to. This may sound like a simple thing, but it really has helped me to feel connected with the other staff who work in my building. I look forward to seeing them at inservice and working with them this year.

What I am pondering is how I can use this to connect with parents and students. Is this an appropriate medium to have a "professional" account which would be separate from my "personal" account that I use with family and friends? I would appreciate your thoughts and comments on this. What do you think?