Roadblocks+Post



= Roadblocks = I had an experience on Friday that has crushed my spirit a little bit. I have waited until today to blog about it because I wanted to digest it for a while before I begin to rant about it. I also spent time reading other classmate’s blogs before I began to write and I noticed that I now approach them with a little cynicism and disappointment. I hope that like other bad news that I receive, I am able to work past it soon, otherwise I might as well just give up now and stop working so hard to make things different. In fact, if things remain this way, I might as well give up teaching because I don’t want to work in schools if I can not help change the face of education because, well, it’s kind of my thing. I love to push the envelope. That is why I am in this class. Aren’t we all? Friday was our PD day. Our board office is strongly encouraging teachers to use the Blog and websites that we have been provided. As most of our teachers do not know where to begin with this our principal arranged for one of our consultants, a tech expert, to come and help them get started. Later in the session he began talking to us about the importance of using only board supported tools and web 2.0 tools that allow for only account administer tracking. He suggested using only Classblogmeister, iGo (that is set up by RPS) and our classroom websites. Everything else, and he meant everything, should be used with caution and with written parent consent. This means no Wikispaces, Prezi, Amimoto and the list goes on and on. He also said, under no circumstances should we ever use any kind of social networking with our students especially Facebook and Twitter. As he was talking, I felt my heart sink and my face turn red. My colleagues all turned to look at me as I had told a lot of them about |my project for this class. The whole thing centers around the most effective, useful and authentic communication tool between parents and students and teachers and my hypothesis is that Facebook will prove to be the victor. And here I was listening to a consultant from my board tell me that I could get in big trouble for what I had already sent the permission slips home for. My spirit was crushed. What was most troubling about this was that the man who was telling me to be very cautious with exploring most forms of technology with my students is one of the people who first encouraged and inspired me to do so. If he, who supports educational technology and believes that “connectivism will save education” (direct quote from him on Friday. P.S. I was super excited that I knew what he was talking about while the rest of the teachers stared blankly) is telling me that our schools are not ready yet and I have no board office support, what hope do I have? What is the point of being excited and inspired from this class when I may have to wait 10 years for the head honchos downtown to catch up to the technological possibilities of education? As he was packing up to leave, I approached him and told him what I was doing for this class and that I was afraid to do it now, I mean, the assistant director’s daughter is in my class! Am I going to get fired for posting homework and permission slip reminders on a school only Facebook account? He told me that he was on my side and personally supports the use of Social Networking and Web 2.0 tools in the classroom, in fact all of his Graduate work centered around Connectivism and PLNs, but that it was his job to warn me that our school board is just not there yet and that I should proceed with caution because if something were to happen during these communications, I would have no support from the school board. He could certainly tell that I was discouraged and frustrated. Later, that night I received an email from him encouraging me to keep going and telling me that my students were privileged to have me. That helped a lot but I still have been left with a bad taste in my mouth. After reading Angela’s blog today I see that my school board is not the only one uncomfortable with the openness of the technology available to our students as she wrote: //“I am not ready to give free reign to the students I teach, especially when the media is used within the school or as part of a school assignment. When my students blog at school, I want to have control over the blogs themselves as well as the comments that can be posted on the blogs. Legally, I am not sure of the ramifications if something bad was to happen (and I know that likely, nothing would, but there is a chance). I am just not ready to give up that total control.”// I agree that her concerns are valid but what about those of us that are ready to relinquish control? We are in graduate studies because we want to learn new things are we not? I want to be able to take my new knowledge to my students and share and experience it right away. I am told that I have a reputation for being an innovative and non conventional teacher and I am damn proud of that. How do I continue to innovate when my support system is scared to move forward? And the reason for their fear is only that they do not understand. Can there be some kind of connection between the innovation that is taught at the university and what our school board personnel can expect to see from their teachers that are continuing their education? What about the new teachers finishing their undergraduate degrees expecting to be able to use what they learned about in school? Is it fair to crush their enthusiasm before they even have a chance to begin? I think that my most important question from all of this is, how long do we have to wait for theory and practice to catch up? This is an especially important question given the nature of ever-changing technology. Chances are that if five, ten years from now directors start encouraging PLN and networking with teachers outside of school, there will be something new and terrifying for them to discourage and I will be right back in the same position; frustrated and disheartened. I don’t know what the answers to my questions are but I would sure appreciate some insight.