Part Deux: Rebooting Digital Natives

The other week I lamented about the lack of technological "know how" demonstrated by my students when starting to integrate Google Drive into class along with Google Forms on top of Moodle. The frustrations experienced were based upon the assumption that students would have a better background then they did.

Reflecting upon where to go after this initial experience, I went back to the drawing board as the first problem based learning project was introduced this week. By ensuring that I better model and demonstrate the technological tools that are being pushed in class, it is hoped that students will become more comfortable using technology for academic purposes.
Thus this project will have students use Google Ed Apps for writing their annotated bibliographies and writing their argumentative paper, and building a site that will host their pieces of propaganda. In terms of research students will utilize the databases that are subscribed to through our library.
Despite the recalibration of how this was delivered there were still frustrations from my perspective in getting students to effectively use Google Ed Apps and perform formal research instead of simply "googling" it. My oft-repeated mantra is that this is a new experience for most of these students and that we are on a journey towards where they need to be at the end of the year. Having students solve "low hurdle" problems is part of this frustration, where if there isn't an answer/solution immediately then they give up.
After this initial first week, I am looking forward to seeing what they have come our first conferences this week and how this project continues to unfold.

Putting the Professional in Teaching Part II

In my previous post, I suggested a potential model for teacher compensation that took ideas from the professional sports landscape. Before I began to put words to the digital page, I knew there would be issues with such a model because it would be a radical shift from the current model and today I want to address some of those issues.  I don't necessarily have suggestions, but want to identify the holes in my thoughts and maybe there is someone else who can provide further ideas.

Funding
Under the current system of funding schools, there is no way that this system would be tenable. What a great thing though if we could forecast the actual amount of money that schools would be allocated for a period of five years. The long range planning that a school could do would allow for a true vision to take shape and allow a pool of money to be saved for those years in the future when a shortfall is envisioned.
As with "market based pay plans" funding is going to be an issue. When I hear of this market based pay in our district, I question where the money is going to come from when teachers hit the benchmarks that trigger a pay increase when there is no money in the district to begin with! 
Does the proposed system potentially set up a rationed education in subject areas that aren't considered as important as another subject?

Subjective Negotiations
How we evaluate teachers would have to be reconsidered, I am not a proponent of standardized testing that suggests the effectiveness of a teacher merely upon a test(s) that students may or may not have an incentive/buy-in to perform well on. Another part of this would rely upon Admin to be very aware of their staff and perhaps bias would infiltrate this examination about the importance of one teacher versus another.
Another aspect of this that is potentially flawed is that by offering contracts to teachers is it based upon their abilities as a teacher or is it for additional credentials that they bring with them (say coaching). However, one's involvement in activities that extend beyond the school day should/could be valued under this system in that they are helping to mentor students beyond the classroom. The glaring issue with this though would be a potential loophole that leads to schools rewarding say their football coach with an excessive teaching contract that isn't necessarily "earned" for their performance between the first and last bell of the day!

Union
This might be the big obstacle, having been a member as a teacher and as a former professional lacrosse player change is always difficult. If pro sports can have differentiated salaries based upon an agreed upon pay scale system, why can't teachers? As a Social Studies teacher, I realize that I am very unlikely to ever top out with a "maximum dollar" contract in the proposed system, but feel confident in the abilities that I demonstrate that I would warrant a quality salary.

Simply put these are a few issues that I have with my own proposed system. Could it work if we really worked on ironing out the issues? Why not, however the first step is getting a funding system that doesn't limit the education that we provide our students. To remain at the top, we cannot simply rely upon a small percentage of our students to achieve, the better educated a society the more productive it can be.

Let's Get Digital

In the past few days conversations with colleagues about where we are with technology in our building have been bothersome as our building which was opened six years ago with the idea of being a 21st Century school remains behind the curve of integrating technology into our classrooms.  During our PLC time over the years it seems like the word technology is taboo even with younger teachers who should be part of this "digital age".  Yet, like many Social Studies teachers they continue to lecture like many of our professors did in undergrad.
Having studied e-learning during grad school, I have been a large proponent of integrating more technology into our classrooms.  Cellphones, I used to confiscate all the time, fast forward to today and they play a role within my room.  This article from the Washington Post's Answer Sheet discusses the alleged "digital natives" and the fact that they are vast consumers, but not creators or curators of content.  Teachers are no better in this area either as we seem to either consume or control with our use of technology. If we want them to use it effectively and efficiently then we cannot assume that students are technologically able to do everything we ask of them from creating a presentation riddled with bullets and as much text as possible to discussion forums for class where "I agree with..." is considered a post.
Thus my building goal is to integrate more teachers into integrating technology by continuing to put the bug in Admin's ear about mandating a teacher technology boot camp for our staff.  Likely this will face resistance from some colleagues, but if we as teachers who are supposed to be lead learners will not model life long learning, why should the same be expected of students!