K-12 Online Conference (Week 11 Entry)

The conference that I attended was given by a New Zealander named Derek Wenmoth called "Holding a Mirror to our Professional Practice". The theme of the "mirror" in the conference was meant to encourage teachers to reflect on their practice as educators. As the conference began I quickly became confused. The speaker continually referenced the term "ICT". He threw it out there like it was a term as easy to understand as "cat" or "doll". I had no clue what this was so I paused the conference and did some research...

I found out that ICT stands for Information and Communication Technology. Here is the wikipedia definition...

In the United Kingdom, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a subject in education, and a part of the National Curriculum. Other countries, such as the Philippines, also have ICT as an educational subject. In South Australia, ICT is not a subject until the final two years of schooling, and in Norway ICT is a course you can select for your second year of upper secondary school. From pre-school to Year 10 ICT is interwoven throughout the curriculum as part of the Essential Learning of Communication.

Once I understood what ICT was, the rest of the conference made much more sense. After Wenmoth taught school for 25 years he observed that he and his fellow colleagues would go to conferences (like the K-12 Conference) and return to their classroom all jazzed up about new technology ideas that they wanted to integrate into their curriculum. They felt excited about changes that they wanted to make in their classrooms, but when they arrived back to their schools they found that it was difficult to bring the new technology ideas into the class while trying to keep up with their districts set standardized educational goals. They felt conflict between their espoused theories of ICT integration and their actual theory in use. This prompted Wenmoth and a partner to conduct a three year research project on how successfully ICT is being integrated into classrooms. What they found was that poor teaching with old technology is being replaced by poor teaching with new technology.

What Wenmoth and his partner discovered is that teachers have no clue if they are teaching ICT to their students well. The main questions that teachers had were:

1) How do we effectively integrate ICT into the classroom?
2) How can we ensure that what were doing with ICTs has educational value?
3) What is educational value?

Teachers were fascinated with the use of blogs, wikis, flicker, and other software in their classrooms but were not sure if these devices held any educational value. They knew that they wanted to teach ICT to their students but were unsure if what they wanted to happen with ICT education was actually happening. Wenmoth and his partner learned that the teachers that they observed all wanted to teach ICT for these different reasons:

-economics
-curriculum
-learning
-change
-innovation
-attitudinal purposes

In other words, some teachers wanted students to learn ICT so that they could get a better job, some wanted it so their students could learn better communication, some wanted it to improve other areas of education (math, phonics, etc.), and others simply wanted it for the reason of hoping on the bandwagon of change.

After conducting the 3 years of research, Wenmoth created an online tool in the form of a questionnaire for teachers to fill out. The tool is called Educational Positioning System. This in-depth questionnaire requires teachers to think critically and reflect honestly on their core beliefs about education and their personal teaching practice. This reflection takes a lot of time. It is challenging and it requires other colleagues to input their opinions on ones teaching style. This is what a true reflection is according to Wenmoth. True self reflection cannot be done over a cup of coffee. It must take time and out-of-comfort-zone honesty if you really want to get somewhere.

The results of the questionnaire are given to the teacher in the form of a map with mountains, rocks, rivers, bushes, and so forth that all symbolize what kind of teacher you are. Once a teacher learns this information, the questionnaire gives them goals that they should implement into their teaching practice in order to teach ICT more effectively to their students. The main questions that the tool and Wenmoth encourage teachers to ask of themselves are:

1) What are the "mirrors" (tools of self reflection) that you hold in your teaching practice?
2) Who are your mentors you relate to on a regular basis?
3) What is your professional reading that keeps you informed?
4) What communities of practice do you belong to, online or face-to-face?
5) What does your blog look like and who do you collaborate with to share your thoughts on your blog?
6) What about regular RSS feeds that your subscribe to?
7) When did you last visit a class to observe how they integrate ICT?
8) When did you last attend a conference or a faculty meeting to share your thoughts and what you are learning about ICT integration?

This conference was a bit boring but full of good information for teachers combating how to effectively teach technology.