I’m lucky to enjoy my dream job!
My love for technology goes back to my third electric typewriter, which had interchangeable typefont “daisy” wheels and the astounding ability to correct up to 10 letters on a line simply by holding down the “backspace” key. In the days of Wite Out or starting whole pages over again, this progressive machine made typing profoundly faster, more efficient, and less tedious. In turn, my writing became more creative, more fluent, and more productive.
That’s what good tools do. They enhance and increase productivity.
I’m passionate about educating students in the most creative, inspiring, engaging, and effective ways possible. Sometimes that means using technology along with, or instead of, direct instruction. At other times, technology needs to step back and let humans interact, person-to-person, group-to-group, or in solitary contemplation. Whatever it takes, in every educational opportunity, I want to be sure that all the tools are on the table.
I am proud and honored to be a National Board Certified Teacher, and I believe the process of achieving certification taught me more about myself and about teaching than any college course or practicum ever could. Nothing rocks the status quo like watching yourself on video, critiquing and scrutinizing every nuance of your teaching style - along with measuring your students’ achievements and engagement against the most stringent standards and rigor imaginable!
I taught middle school social studies and language arts/English before becoming an instructional technology integrator in my public school district. I’m fortunate that I work for a manager with a far-sighted vision. He kept the end in mind, remaining focused on the overarching objective: teaching students.
Rather than hire IT experts who would know how to use technology tools but who were not experienced or knowledgeable about best teaching practices, he began in the mid-1990s to assemble a workforce of tech integrators who would put educational pedagogy above all other priorities.
There are now 55 of us in the county, serving 64 schools. I’m on one of two middle school teams, specializing in language arts. Also on my team are five other Tech Integrators who specialize in math, science, social studies, “noncore” areas (electives) and special ed, respectively. Our mission is to go directly into the teachers’ worlds - we plan lessons with them and suggest ways to take the activities “up a notch” using technology and/or other methods that promote inquiry-based learning. After planning, we go into a teacher’s classroom and work directly with the students, modeling the lessons for the teacher and, ultimately, leave the materials and plans behind so he or she can repeat the lesson next time without us.
We’ve had enormous success engaging both teachers and students in projects using digital storytelling, podcasting, claymation, and even creating and networking mock “mySpace” pages. We try not to focus on the tools or the software - we aren’t doing this just because “we can,” or just to play with cool tools. Always, our emphasis and focus is on learning. Real-world relevance and academic content are the overarching “big ideas” coloring everything we plan.
Children (and adults) learn by doing. We are constructivists, and we want to provide teachers and their students more opportunities to explore, dig deeper, collaborate, and create.
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Dear Sharon, I could not find your email address, so am using this space to write a note to you. I have taken the liberty of linking to your “list of 12″ reasons in a posting on my blog this morning (www.khanya.co.za/blogs). I believe we have a lot in common - striving for the same thing in different parts of the world. I would love to compare notes with you. Best regards. Kobus