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Posts Tagged ‘Technology’

Can Students Expect a Relevant Education to be Delivered by Irrelevant Educators?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged AI, Education, learning, PD, Professional Development, Reform, teachers, teaching, Technology on March 11, 2025| 1 Comment »

As a veteran teacher of forty years in the classroom, let me be clear, teachers are not completely at fault for becoming irrelevant in their profession. It results from a system that doesn’t prioritize Professional Development for its teachers. It is a system developed in the eighteenth century that devised a way to teach its teachers and the model has been carried on ever since.

At this point in this post, I imagine most educators are “screen screaming” in rage against the idiot who posted it. Then there are some teachers thinking that the post is addressing all those other educators in other districts. If you are still with me on this, I would ask you to consider what I am about to say and self-reflect, considering your own personal educator experiences as they apply to my observations.

I have had a considerable social media presence in education for over a decade. These connections have afforded me relationships with thousands of educators all over the world, but mainly in the USA. This has given me a perspective on many common practices in Professional Development for teachers. One common bond with teachers is their discontent with professional development. Many have experienced large group PD that they were required to attend that did not address their personal needs. Some teachers have had to pay not only for their own PD but they had to absorb having to pay for their own substitute. Most of the PD curriculum is delivered by instructors who lack experience with Andrgogy, adult learning. The biggest complaint is that there is no time provided to teachers for PD. There is also little, if any, follow-up to assess the impact of the PD on learning. There are still a great many schools that do not follow through with a coaching staff directly responsible for aiding teachers in newly learned skills and applications. The list goes on. They didn’t consider these practices in the eighteenth century, so why change things now?

Now in 2025 in the 21st Century, we are faced with a new challenge: Rapidly changing and evolving technology at a rate never encountered before. Most tech from the eighteenth Century until now was long in developing. It was okay to slowly adjust and teach accordingly. “That’s how I learned, so it’s good enough to teach that way” is something we can’t say today and be taken seriously. AI has changed that forever.

Here is the important part: Kids are not digital natives. There is no such thing. It was a term that people uncomfortable with tech made up to feel better about their tech skills when compared to many kids. Yes, kids are comfortable on a computer. They use it to learn things that they like. They are not teaching themselves what they need. They are social media savvy. They download and store music and movies and follow blogs and podcasts. Most don’t go beyond that. They don’t explore the ethics and responsibility of computer use. They don’t understand the real educational uses of Artificial Intelligence and the whole idea of what critical thinking is and how to apply it to their lives. This is where an, educated, understanding and aware educator is needed.

The big obvious problem here, the elephant in the classroom is that many teachers lack the education understanding and awareness that is needed for a 21st Century educator. Here is the important point that must be made: It is not the fault of the educator. AI was not any part of education when these educators went to school. So, if a majority of the teachers in our country’s school system have not been educated in the use, ethics, or impact of what will become a primary teaching tool that will be carried into every aspect of our students’ lives in a world in which they will live, we need to fix it? How do we fix that? Essential, effective, and supported Professional Development that is provided for with both money and time. It must be part of a teacher’s work week and supported by a well-trained coaching staff.

Please make no mistake, AI is going nowhere but more and more embedded in all we do. This is the problem we have in a technology-based culture. Too many teachers are wasting time talking about whether or not AI belongs in school. Of course it does! It’s a tool that workers will need to have the right skills for in order to have more choices in jobs.

Let us stop talking about kids cheating at what they do. We put them in that position. If you feel they will cheat on their homework with AI, stop giving homework. Have them work with you in class developing brainstorming, critical thinking, refinement and a dozen other skills using AI. Model what you do in class in your personal use of AI. In order to do that teachers need an understanding of AI to see how it applies to their subject and their everyday tasks. If they don’t I am sure their students will on their own. If a teacher is irrelevant and not meeting the needs of the student, the kid can learn on his or her own. Left to their own devices however, the outcome could be akin to that of what we now have with social media. That could be disasterous.

This is not to say that we can’t teach the basics of what we need to teach. An understanding of PD has become essential in education. It does mean that the job will become more labor intensive in an already stressed environment. It is up to administrators to recognize this and adjust accordingly with time support and money. If better PD is to work it won’t work without major changes. The first thing is to make it something of value for teachers and not mandated BS to check-off-the-box with a provided lecture. Develop a PD program with faculty and education experts. Be careful! We have too many AI experts for a tool that has only been here for about three years.

If teachers are irrelevant it is mostly the fault of the districts. They are being required to teach with tools that were not available in their own education. That is where valuable professional Development pays off. We can change things for the 21st Century and benefit from all it has to offer. It is way more than they had back in the eighteenth Century. If we are to better educate our kids, we need first to better educate their educators.

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“Ideas Are Easy, It Is Their Implementation That Is Hard”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Education, learning, teachers, teaching, Technology on January 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I recently attended a most fulfilling education conference, FETC, The Future of Education Technology Conference. It was enlightening, uplifting, and inspiring. This international conference is a premiere showcase for the latest and greatest in education technology with the best tech advocates, and evangelist educators speaking and presenting for three days. Any educator in attendance had to have benefitted from the shared information and collaboration by all in attendance. Unfortunately, Even with thousands of educators in attendance, very few educators nationwide get to attend such conferences. Most schools do not budget for classroom teachers to participate in such conferences because of the price tag attached for each individual. The cost of attendance, travel, food, and lodging all add up fast.

I started the conference with an early presentation by Phil Hintz, a friend and social media connection for many years. He explained the differences between AI, VR, XR, AR, and MR so that I would have some understanding of what I would be looking at with many of the vendors at the conference. It was most helpful when I attended the reality “playground” where I experienced all of those realities from several companies in one location.

I saw objects in 3D that were totally moveable to see them from any perspective. I saw a full-sized dinosaur standing in the room as I walked around and underneath it. I observed a life-sized Howie Mandel standing inside an eight-foot box talking to me as if he was really there. I even had the opportunity to dissect a heart. It was truly a wonderful technological experience. This is the point that got me thinking about all of the potential of these products in the classroom. AI, VR, XR, AR, and MR are all great technologies that are impressive and even gobsmacking, but unless real learning is attached, they are all just very impressive illusions.

To further add to my thinking on this subject, I was fortified by what the keynote speaker who said to me, and the packed auditorium of educators. Guy Kawasaki is an author and technology advocate in education. I first experienced a keynote from him 30 years ago at a NYSCATE conference in New York. I have been a fan ever since and found myself fortunate to hear him again. I was not disappointed. My big takeaway came when said, “Ideas are easy, it is their implementation that is hard”.

Implementation of anything new in education is the most difficult. Changes in education are slow especially when it comes to technology. As a former English teacher from the 70’s I remember how difficult it was convincing people that writing and editing on a word processor was more effective and productive than handwriting rough drafts and final copies. it was solidly backed up by the research. It took years to get that accepted. As an educator trained in the last century, I never understood why my colleagues resisted change as the world changed around them. PD is supposed to keep us relevant. We do not need irrelevant educators.

For any tech to be implemented in a classroom two things must be clear. First, what learning does the teacher want to take place? Second, how does the tech enable that learning to happen more effectively than previous non-tech methods? This takes a knowledge of specific lessons in the curriculum and a specific knowledge of the use of the technology. Can lessons be tailored to utilize the tech, or is a new approach to the lesson required to benefit from the tech?

None of this can be done in the limited time that people have at a conference. That is what professional development is for. A conference is to better inform educators of what they don’t yet know. Like anything else, you don’t know what you don’t know. Seeing tech at a conference will never inform teachers of its effect in their own classrooms. The very best education conferences do not get technology implemented in schools, teachers do.

This is where I fall back on all of the shortcomings of Education in its professional development which I have been so critical of for decades. Is enough time provided for PD? Is there follow-up and support to assess the impact of that PD? Is there staff dedicated to coaching and supporting classroom teachers in using tech in the classroom? Are teachers being treated as adults? Androgogy is adult learning which is different from pedagogy, children’s learning. Are districts sending the same people to conferences year after year with little change in relevant tech in the district? Are teachers being tested in their knowledge and experience in technology to better personalize their needs in tech? Are districts still doing limited one-day “sit and get” conferences to check off their PD to-do list of things that must be done? Most importantly, does your school have a culture of support for a growth mindset? Without changes in methods and priorities of professional development implementation of new tech will be slowed or non-existent. It is time to assess what we do and how we do it in PD.

Implementation of technology is not going to happen spontaneously. Teachers are resistant for a boatload of reasons. Districts are resistant because of the almighty dollar required. This is all part of the reality we face. To remain stagnant should not be our goal. Ignoring progress will not serve our students well. How PD is scheduled, how PD is prioritized, how PD is supported, and how individual staff needs are addressed in PD are all questions that must be considered. We should not support reasons for not implementing tech but rather devise and foster reasons why it must be a reality.

Technology is now a fact of life and embedded in our culture and infrastructure. It is not going away and our kids need more than a familiarity of it. They need to understand it and use it ethically, efficiently, and effectively to thrive in our society. No, there is no such thing as a digital native. Technology use must be learned. We can take on that challenge and do it as responsible, relevant educators, or leave it up to our kids to figure it out on their own. Either way, it will be part of everyone’s life. Yes, technology is just one more thing educators need to do to be relevant. Let’s not get stuck in the last century. We are a quarter of the way into this new century. If we are to better educate our kids, we need first to better educate their educators.