Learning, Teaching & Technology

I started this session last October when it was first posted. Working daily with Alice and having access to Cheryl and Bob as southern Maine colleagues and participants in my personal learning network I was excited to see what they had prepared for us. At the time it was my introduction to podcasting and an early use of voicethread, gizmo project (now http://gizmo5.com/pc/) and a group ning. One thing that was striking about this session is that there were several tasks to be completed with great instructional resources on how to setup and use each tool. This presentation is full of examples I can share with teachers of expanding the conversations about learning using recording tools that are clearly presented in their tutorials.

As I listened this time to the podcast they created for this session it was interesting to reflect on the conversation that is now almost a year old. Bob talks some about our roles of supporting teachers and how the beginning of the year it seems to be all about supporting equipment and not even the tools the equipment can provide. Jeff Utecht references this flurry at the beginning of the year recently on his blog, “As we continue to support teachers using technology tools in their classrooms we need to realize that teachers’ use of technology is not the same as supporting teachers teaching with technology…Although it’s important to support teachers in the use of technology it’s much different then supporting teachers teaching with technology.” Our role as technology support educators is meant to be based on curricular knowledge and staff development skills to increase the learning of our students. The great thing is that we are not alone in this discussion about keeping the learning at the forefront of our work as we can create podcast shows, blogs and ways to keep each other fueled in our professional goals.