4 Time to socialize?

I'm on a journey to find my voice. In my last blog post, I explored the idea that I am moving through phases in my journey as a TLL (Technology Language Learner) and a LLL (Leadership Language Learner). As part of my learning journey, I have begun again (after my transitional silent phase) to use my blog as a learning and reflecting tool. To this end I have found myself stumbling over a very important question: Should I schedule time during my work hours to use social network and blogging platforms to further my connections and reflections?

As a TLL, I need to continue to expand my use of twitter and blogging as a tool for my job for connection and reflection purposes. Those in Ed Tech recognize how important these tools are in developing and maintaining current practices for students. As a LLL, I need to work on finding my voice and being a model of my expectations to others. Considering these two arguments then, shouldn't I be able to schedule time to tweet and blog during my work time?

Click below to read more!

9 Lifelong Learners: A Dangerous Assumption

"Teachers are lifelong learners, that's why they teach students to learn."

Have you heard this before? Have you thought this before? Have you said this before?

I have...and now I realise that it's a dangerous assumption to make; in fact, one that may be getting many of us in trouble without realising it.  You see, all this time I've been thinking that the majority of the teachers in the world WANT to improve education and WANT to be up to date and relevant in their professional practice but don't have access to the resources that they need to implement the change.  I've been angry at districts and school boards for not giving teachers the resources needed to make change happen.  Unfortunately, I never stopped to ask myself if the teachers really WANTED to learn anything new or LIKED learning new things to make the change happen.  I had assumed, as I mentioned above, that they were inherently lifelong learners who were just in a situation that didn't allow them access to resources.

The realisation that this is a dangerous assumption hit me after a number of recent surveys with teachers alluded to the fact that they didn't have extra personal time, didn't want to give their personal time or thought it was inappropriate to give their personal time to learn anything new for work outside their contract hours.  In addition, I had a few teacher comments indirectly imply that "at their age they couldn't learn anything new, or at least it would be a lot more difficult and probably not worth the time."  I was disappointed when it finally occurred to me that what these survey results were really saying was that these teachers weren't interested in being professional learners.  For these teachers, no amount of curated internet resources, professional articles, personal learning networks or free webinars are going to make a difference since their inherent desire to learn as a professional is diminished.

Click below to read more!

0 Great (Education) Expectations

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about expectations.  There are a number of reasons why this has been occurring, but most likely it's because I actually have time to take a moment and reflect now that I have a few weeks off for my winter holidays (or North American summer holidays however you like to view it!).  With all of this reflecting, I've come a few conclusions about expectations and their implications in my professional contexts.  I've realised that it boils down to three types of problems that occur with expectations: too low, not clear, or too high.

Too low- I've been doing a lot of reflecting and thinking about change and how to encourage change in my work context (see my previous post on change here).  I've come to realise that we as educators have our expectations TOO LOW for our profession.  I cannot count the number of times that I have discussed WHY education doesn't seem to be changing to help our students gain the needed 21st century skills for the future and the answer I almost always receive is "change is slow in education."  I disagree. I don't think change is slow in education; I think we have our expectations too low for what we can do as a profession.  Plenty of other professions, business, health, marketing for example, change to accomodate the needs of their clients and customers in a timely manner... why can't we? It's not impossible.... I think "education" just accepts the status-quo that has been passed along for far too long.  We can change.  We should change.  We need to raise our expectations and expect that change to happen. Now.

Click below to read more!