Chapter+5+and+Epilogue

Chapter 5 - "Ensuring Success of Learning Network Adoption"
Chapter 5 pp. 115 -138

In Chapter 5, the authors have listed four areas (hurdles) that school districts need to get right in order to ensure success of learning networks: 1) Money, Politics, and Technology; 2) Technical Support; 3)School Policies; 4) Resistance to Change. Discuss each of these and how your school district is changing to help support network learning. When beginning to analyze the hurdles that school districts face, the first obstacle that I think many find is the question, “Is technology in schools necessary?” This political debate usually discussed among teachers, parents, community members, school boards, and administration has even been discussed even among some of my students. While observing a fellow teacher introduce a new website to her students, the students were discussing when they were ever going to need to know technology in their life. After picking up my jaw, I finally realized the constant battle to keep technology in schools especially when students were not even fully aware of the impact that it had on their current and future lives. To establish technology as a necessary and needed element of education in the 21st century education, I believe that educators must attack the problem from several levels listed in Will Richardson’s book, “Personal Learning Networks.”

The first hurdle discussed in the book was money and politics. I believe that once the question of money for technology is discovered, the political argument against technology crumbles. In the Pierre School District, school board members, teachers, and administration have been good leaders at opening up and finding funds for technology. I fully believe that there are funds out there for technology they just have to be located with creative budgeting. As a teacher in the Pierre School District, I have taken a part in grants to fund technology in my classroom. Through grants, wanted technology can be supplied by outside sources other than the government allotment.

The second hurdle is technical support. Technical support is important because it provides that support especially to teachers that are not comfortable or familiar about technology. In addition, in my school district these teachers are usually, also, the ones who are more resistant to technology because of their comfort level. To get them using technology, sometimes against their will, they need technical support there when technology does not work. In our school district, while understaffed, has a knowledgeable staff of technical support. All of the technical support in the Pierre School District is housed at the high school. I believe that to improve the current situation in our district involving technology would be to have some staff members assigned to be housed at the middle school and 4 elementary schools.

The third hurdle, school policies, tends to be a small bump to in the Pierre school district. The administration does not limit technology very much within our district. If student email addresses are needed or a website is are blocked, in our school district it is usually not very difficult to have your request heard and carried out. As I know from other school districts, it is always not that easy.

The finial element and one of the most difficult to combat is the resistance to change. Teachers tend to teach in the way that they were taught. Technology and the use of personal learning networks is not the way people have learned in the past but it very well may be the only way people learn in the future. I believe that this is the most difficult to change and develop because it depends on the choices of hundreds of thousands of teachers making the choice to make it part of their individual classrooms. At my school there are a lot of teachers making the choice for technology, but, in addition, there are a lot of teachers never even turning on their computer during the day. As a teacher using technology and personal learning networks I believe that I am an ambassador for technology in education. Whenever I have a great website or technology gadget, I make sure that I definitely share it with those teachers that are very resistant to technology in hopes that one day they will make a choice.

Epilogue
Epilogue pp. 139 - 141

How do you think you can change from being a content specialist who dispenses knowledge as a commodity to a classroom facilitator who helps students grow the skills for their own learning through worldwide learning networks?

I believe that by making the classroom expand to all of the knowledge and experts that technology can reach is the most beneficial change in education today. It is easy to find lesson to involve technology but it is a daunting task to begin to switch to PLN’s as a learning environment of your class. For me to fully make this switch, I believe that it would be essential for my students to have better access to technology. I believe that this change happens with little steps. One thing that I would like the students to begin to do in my classes is following current artist on twitter. By following an artist they may get to understand more about their artwork and personality behind their artwork. By instituting this in my classroom, I believe that the ideas they learn from the artist could begin to influence the artwork that my students create.