As a techie, I want to provide people resources to make their job more effective. Sometimes this means a job becomes obsolete because of the technology, but that has happened throughout history with new advances. So when I am paid to help an organisation's technology, my ultimate goal is to provide the organisation the best tools for their budget and company culture.
A few years ago I was working for the education sector with a large organisation which was in charge of several schools ranging from Kindie to Year 12. It was a difficult assignment for a few reasons. I was (and remain) passionate about kids having an opportunity to learn. So the decisions made based on cost or work load frustrated me. After all, this is one of the most important things we do for our world--educate the next generation(s).
Another frustrating factor was the technological incompetence of the teachers. Now I have the utmost respect for teachers, so when I say incompetence, it is not in condemnation of a teacher. I mean the word according to its definition: "lack of physical or intellectual ability or qualifications." (dictionary.com). Yes, there were examples of some teachers who just did not have the intellectual ability to understand how technology could be used as a tool for education. But for most teachers, it was the absence of the intellectual qualification. For many of those people, they could not be bothered to learn how technology could impact their teaching abilities.
I also found that any change in an educational system seems like a culture change. Which implied for me, small technology changes would (and did) take years to be accepted into the organisational community. It was much like trying to run in water--lots of energy for very small gains.
So when I run across teachers who teach but appropriately use technology as a tool, I get very excited. Sometimes the excitement comes from a small thing like running across a blog used in a Year 2/3 class while looking for reviews of a play you are about to go see. So here is what prompted these thoughts:
No comments:
Post a Comment