2/20-Reading Response

As I read Dr. November's chapter on expanding relationships, I was pleased to see that many of the teachers in my school and district are on the right track in building and expanding relationships through technology. We are very fortunate to have video conferencing capabilities on each campus and have several teachers that utilize this technology. In the next few weeks we will be connecting with schools around the nation to celebrate Read Across America. Of course there is always room for improvement and part of our technology vision is to have more teachers use this forum to build connections and broaden our learning community. Our greater challenge is to make sure that students are not just passive participants but are learning actively. Each classroom teacher in my district is also required to have a district hosted website to post their lesson plans, schedules and homework assignments. As in any business we have some teachers that post the bare minimum and others that go above and beyond. I love the idea of posting student work through these websites to give affirmation to the student and create more connections with parents.
Romano's chapter on the technology gap in the classroom made me smile. It is wonderful to read someone who sees that there will never be a total education revolution. Educators are not going to give up completely on traditional teaching practices, but they must be persuaded to evolve if we are going to close the gaps in education. The importance of teachers realizing that our students learn differently than they did in the past and then being able to utilize the appropriate technology effectively to reach them is tantamount to that evolution. Hopefully through staff development and in my classroom, I can help facilitate this evolution by sharing tools such as blogging, desktop publishing, critically evaluating websites, and managing the information we find through RSS and del.icio.us.