How Has Technology Changed Your Teaching?

By guest blogger Leanne Link, communications assistant at the Center for Teaching Quality

This month's Roundtable participants shared how new technologies are affecting teaching and learning in their classrooms. While most of the teachers celebrated technology's ability to promote efficiency and creativity, many also stressed the importance of exercising caution through thoughtful and deliberate technology integration.

If you're just checking into the conversation now, below is a recap of some of the teachers' reflections:

• First Things First: We need to ensure that all classrooms and all students have access to reliable technology, Karl Ochsner and Bill Ferriter emphasize.

• A Real-World Example: Nancy Gardner shows us what it looks like when all students in a school do have access to technology.

• Role Reversals: Students often have more experience with technological tools than their teachers. As Jennie Magiera observes, students are "motivated to problem solve using these devices, and many are more adept at doing so than their adult counterparts."

• Increased Engagement: Technology allows students to connect with one another, with teachers, and with people and resources beyond school walls. Such interaction helps students stay engaged with the material, Marsha Ratzel and Nancy Gardner each note.

• Differentiated Learning: Students can use technology in ways that best suit their individual needs and interests, writes Robert Pronovost.

• Improvement, not Reinvention: Bill Ferriter and Joel Malley each point out that technology shouldn't be expected to introduce new behaviors. Rather, it allows teachers to carry out tried and true methods more efficiently and to the benefit of student learning.

• Beyond Tech Support: Jennie Magiera, Marsha Ratzel, and Karl Ochsner advocate for professional development that focuses less on how to operate the tools themselves and more on how teachers can use the tools to help students learn.

• Skills That Matter: Consistent use of technology helps students practice vital skills, such as digital storytelling and multimedia creation, that will help them thrive in the 21st century, say Nancy Gardner and Karl Ochsner.

—Leanne Link

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Karl Ochsner

My first post included a list of changes that are needed in education today. I wrote that first post in isolation—but was interested to see that others raised similar ideas throughout the week, in posts and in comments. So I thought I'd revisit some of the changes, sharing my Teaching Ahead colleagues' observations:

1) The technical infrastructure must be ready.

Bill pointed out that, in order for real change to occur in the use of technology integration, we need to have guaranteed reliability. Nancy agreed on the importance of reliability but also emphasized that back-up plans must be in place to deal with occasional glitches. But much work remains to be done, and progress is uneven: Teachers like commenter GKPuett have no computer tech assistance and must wait three to four days when hardware needs service.

2) Teachers must be supported in our efforts to integrate technology.

Nancy's district seems to have support down, with teacher-centered professional development. Her district also allows project-oriented learning, embedding collaboration and communication opportunities for teachers and students. Her district even provides a "help-desk" at every school for teachers and students.

3) We must design procedures and guidelines that help students make the most of technology, while confronting the realities of legal and safety concerns.

Robert said it clearly: We cannot teach with technology for technology's sake.

4) The technology industry must generate products and apps that can truly support 21st-century learning.

Although no one mentioned industry's responsibility, many non-education products are being used to integrate 21st-century skills in the classroom. For example, commenter rhassig uses Skype to enable students to have Web conferences with an author. Such innovative uses of applications can help bridge students' classroom experiences with the outside world. Now if only there were more products designed to support educators and students...

5) We must find ways for technology to help us streamline our work.

Marsha wrote that web 2.0 tools provide teachers with Professional Learning Networks, enabling us to share ideas with technology. When each of us draws upon an army of coaches, we will be better supported and motivated to bring powerful resources into our classrooms. Joel's classroom is full of examples of integrated technology that seems to streamline his English classes in a motivating way. Jennie's school also has streamlined their educators with the iPad ready classroom.

Technology is moving very quickly—and schools must do a better job of keeping teachers up to speed. We can provide rich learning experiences to our students if we make strategic efforts to support teachers with better training and tools, and ensure that appropriate technical infrastructure, policies, and assistance are in place.

Karl Ochsner is a 7th and 8th grade science teacher in Scottsdale, Ariz., and teaches classes on K-12 technology integration at Arizona State University.

Posted by Karl Ochsner at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Joel Malley

"Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information."

—Common Core Standards: Writing #6, Grades 11-12

The above standard could refer to any type of digital composition. Blogging. Podcasts. Documentaries. Glogster collages. Google Docs. Powerpoint. Similarly, so could the Common Core's calls for students to make "strategic use of digital media in presentations" (Speaking #5 Grades 11-12) and to "integrate ... sources of information presented in different media or formats" (Reading #7 Grades 11-12). Any use of technology to compose, regardless of complexity, would seem to satisfy these nebulous standards. As a teacher who teaches a digital-writing workshop as a senior English elective, the lack of clarity regarding technology integration is both heartening and worrisome.

On one hand, if approached thoughtfully, these standards could be an intellectual catalyst for my classes. I need to simply redesign my course to have my students create more research-based documentary films buttressed by thematically organized readings of appropriate complexity. For example, my students once had great latitude in creating their first film project, a profile documentary project about an interesting person in their immediate sphere. This documentary project was supplemented by close readings of articles from a variety of sources profiling interesting people. Now we will integrate a few seminal nonfiction texts and I will solidify the research component. This will help students grasp wider connections and think more deeply about their own subjects. By the end of the year, students will still produce a portfolio to exhibit their ability to read closely, think analytically, and tell compelling stories using digital media.

While this sounds rosy, the scenario can break down depending on how the standards are interpreted by assessment designers, state lawmakers, and local decision makers. The standards, as written, could easily be interpreted as a directive to limit the progressive use of technology to enhance learning and instead return to being overly focused on seminal texts and the literary canon. These standards, interpreted by the unimaginative and coupled with the increasingly high stakes of Race to the Top and the hitching of teacher evaluations to test scores, could end up creating classrooms that stress that which is easy and cheap to assess; knowledge that can be easily reduced to multiple-choice questions and to prompts that inspire formulaic essays easily scored by testing factories.

We are at a crossroads. I think that digital storytelling is important. Today, students can tell complex and compelling stories using audio and moving images and reach worldwide audiences, an affordance of technology that was previously unimaginable. However, due to the looming PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) assessments, high stakes for principals, and teacher evaluations tied to student test scores, it will become increasingly difficult to shut the classroom door and do what's right by the students. If we are to leverage these technology tools to enhance learning and help students develop the skills they will need in the 21st century, our profession is going to need strong leadership at the top to further support those goals through thoughtful assessment measures and well-defined goals. Leadership needs to add further definition to prove that the top is worth racing for.

Joel Malley teaches AP literature, along with mass media and film production, at Cheektowaga Central High School outside Buffalo, N.Y.

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Marsha Ratzel

Walk into my classroom and you'll find us on Twitter checking out the latest volcano eruptions with iTouches through live updates from the U.S. Geological Survey. Or students might be accessing earthquake data on I Felt That, an iPhone app. Both provide immediacy and urgency to my curriculum and are exactly what students crave in lesson design.

So why isn't every teacher using these kinds of techniques?

It seems to me that to be out there using technology right now requires that you have a pioneering spirit. That you're unafraid to be "wrong" or to have things "go wrong." You have to be brave enough to face a failure in order to succeed. You have to work in a place where the administration, within limits, supports you in appropriate, curriculum-related experimentation with new tools. There is so little professional development that accompanies technology implementation and even less that teaches how to think about technology as an instructional tool. In order to use it in this way, you have to teach yourself, find other teachers who believe in that kind of mode, and collaborate with them to figure out what to do.

My advice for administrators would be to teach your teachers how to learn new things for themselves. Be the role model of showing how professional learning networks work. Teachers cannot rely on the district or school to be the initiator of new learning. Teachers should be encouraged to build and develop personal learning networks with other teachers.

For me, finding a science education professor on Twitter, which led me to his blog, was a game changer. At his blog, I learned how to use the USGS data with my students. His tweets led me to #scichat on Tuesday nights, where I found out about the I Felt That app from a teacher who lives a thousand miles from my home. Once I downloaded it, she helped me to develop lesson ideas springing from her own experience. Now I've used these instructional strategies enough that I share them with my face-to-face colleagues. I have scores of other examples because once you teach yourself to do professional development this way, you find courage and pragmatic solutions to problems that stop other teachers in their tracks.

What if the professional development that teachers were given challenged them to find like-minded people and build a professional learning network? Administrators should/could show them how, based on how they're networking and learning with other administrators. And what if in the next semester, you had to find two or three partners with whom you could work on learning new things? I'd say that would be revolutionary professional development that would infuse life, enthusiasm, and possibilities into schools and classroom instruction.

Marsha Ratzel is a National Board-certified teacher in the Blue Valley School District in Kansas, where she teaches middle school math and science.

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Robert Pronovost

When a Reading Recovery teacher sits with a 1st grader, she is not trying to determine a student's gaps and how she can fill them. Instead, she listens to a child read and analyzes the child's strengths, so she can use those strengths as a foundation in her instruction. Just as a Reading Recovery teacher looks for the strengths within a child, technology coaches and administrators should look for the strengths within a teacher's technology use.

This does not mean sitting in a teacher's room for 20 minutes to see if the teacher pulls out an iPad or document camera or uses the interactive whiteboard. It means getting to know the teacher and how the teacher uses technology outside of the classroom.

Perhaps the teacher loves Facebook and spends lots of time on Facebook connecting with friends, family, and even colleagues. A coach could share these posts on how to use Facebook in the classroom and how Facebook enriched Ms. Schoening's 1st grade class before asking the teacher to think about how to use Facebook in his own classroom.

How about Pinterest? While I haven't spent any time on this site, I hear about it everywhere, especially from people who are otherwise "technology-phobic." While the idea of using Pinterest in education seems to just be emerging, there is already a collection of ideas for using Pinterest in the classroom, as well as a list of "pinners" that teachers should follow.

Yes, there are teachers whose strengths may not be as easy to find, but wherever their strengths do lie—perhaps in texting, photos via Instagram, or even Yelp reviews—there is surely someone else who has thought about integrating those into the classroom.

Robert Pronovost is a 2nd grade teacher and student tech advisor in the Ravenswood City School District in Menlo Park, Calif.

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Jennie Magiera

It has been posited that technology doesn't change teaching and learning but enhances it, and I completely agree. And oh, how it enhances it. Video "cloning" a teacher so there are five versions of her giving five interactive lessons at five varied levels simultaneously. Having a student create a screencast of his math problem-solving journey so a teacher can capture his math metacognition and assess progress. Videoconferencing a class from Chicago with an international school in Japan to discuss different views of Pearl Harbor Day. The same skills are being taught as with paper and pencil, and yet this does feel a bit like magic. However, with great magic comes great responsibility. A couple things to keep in mind as you wave your proverbial magic wands:

The tool is only as strong as the user. Although the digital devices may provide the opportunity to make magic, they in themselves are not fail-safe. If the user is not well-trained on the device's operation—or worse, is apathetic about its potential—it will be at best useless. Ferriter mentions this in his post, and I think it goes back to my point regarding inspiration and professional development. Teachers first need to be inspired. They cannot be ambivalent about technology, have a class set of laptops hoisted on them, and then be expected to perform spells of instructional wonder. If teachers are first shown positive examples of technology use in classrooms to which they can relate, my experience has shown that they are often are more willing to try this themselves.

Once the teachers are inspired to work magic with technology, they need the training and resources to do so. The training must be on-going and respond to their needs as their needs change. Forums for professional discourse, problem solving, and content sharing should also be made available. In this way, teachers are given a goal, motivated to attain it, and given the tools to forge their path towards it.

Students are magicians, too. In the first year of introducing iPads into my 4th/5th grade classroom, I made it clear that I had no idea what I was doing. My students were given the opportunity to take the driver's seat and make choices about how the technology should be used. Students were able to find new ways to use apps, learn how to use them more effectively, and give suggestions about when to use them. They critiqued software, questioned pedagogical choices and even were able to Skype with an app developer to suggest a version update for his program—which he agreed to and made happen. As a result, not only was the app improved, but my students' self-efficacy and confidence were as well.

Although many teachers find it hard to release control to their students, this is one arena in which it makes so much sense to do so. Our students live in a world of moving pictures and digital communication. They are motivated to problem solve using these devices and many are more adept at doing so than their adult counterparts. Allow your kids to wear the magician's hat and see what magic they can come up with.

Jennie Magiera is a 4th and 5th grade math teacher and a technology and mathematics curriculum coach in Chicago Public Schools.

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Nancy Gardner

As I read the initial Teaching Ahead posts, I kept thinking of how sports metaphors can help us understand what happens when we integrate technology in our classrooms.

Teachers become coaches.

In a truly tech-rich environment, teachers provide input, evaluate effort, and encourage critical thinking and creativity.

Meanwhile, students can take a more active role than ever in their own learning. They can "write in their books" by making comments beside key words and passages. They can collaborate using Google Docs or Lino.it. Every student can take pictures, create movies and podcasts, and Skype with schools in China or South Africa. All students can create digital portfolios with samples of their "best work." They can see the streets of Paris even if they never get to travel there.

And, as coaches, we're available to them in new ways. Students can communicate instantly with adults on their support teams, asking questions they might be to shy to raise in person. Teachers and students communicate in live chat rooms to ask questions before a test or during a seminar.

Students are on a level playing field.

With the 1:1 laptop program in my district, every student has the same portal to information (text, visuals, sounds) in cyberspace. Although we have to reinforce information literacy, the access and information is immediate and global.

All students have "notebooks" to record assignments in calendars, or keep folders for classes, even if they are homeless or live in their cars. All students have electronic texts, so they rarely leave their books at school or at home. (Somehow, they manage to keep up with their laptops!)

And the tools available on students' computers can give them just-in-time help in areas that are challenging. Apps can help them practice grammar, organization, citations, and spelling. Their computers can read difficult texts to them if they struggle with reading or are second-language learners. And students can practice speaking skills in English and other languages through Voicethread.

But is the playing field really level?

The equipment doesnʼt guarantee success, but it certainly helps fill in some of the gaps. School-provided laptops are the first and only computers in many homes in our district.

Our program doesn't just distribute computers. We provide backpacks and chargers. The town has installed wireless Internet access at the parks and libraries, and a local Internet provider has partnered with the district to offer families a $10 monthly access rate.

Game on!

Sometimes I have to call a time out or play the referee. Students may need more teacher direction and input. I may require "screens down" to help students. And I occasionally ask students to print copies because my eyes just canʼt read anything else on that screen. But most days, it is simply "game on" in my classroom!

A renewed National Board-certified teacher, Nancy Gardner teaches senior English at Mooresville High School in Mooresville, N.C.

Posted by Nancy S. Gardner at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Bill Ferriter

Did you get the chance to read Karl Ochsner's bit on building the classroom of the future yet? In it, he outlines a series of steps that we simply have to take if we're ever going to see educational technology efforts take hold in our schools.

His first suggestion—guaranteeing that our infrastructure is ready for the changes that we desire—struck me as a simple first step: We do need to ensure that teachers and students have access to working devices and strong Internet connections.

That should be an absolute promise that any parent, pundit or policymaker interested in changing the teaching/learning transaction is willing to make, right?

After all, it would be disingenuous to simultaneously grumble about traditional practices while stocking classrooms with a few antiquated desktop machines running Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6, wouldn't it?

#reciprocalaccountability

Unfortunately, simultaneous grumbling seems to be all-too-common—and it's forcing teachers to be far more digitally resilient than you can ever imagine.

(Image Credit)

I used to wear my digital resilience like a badge of honor.

Roll into a computer lab with 12 broken machines? No sweat. I'd pair kids up and move on without missing a beat. Struggling with a slow Internet connection. Fine—I'd stay all night to upload student content if I had to. Need a hand-held video camera to make digital storytelling possible? I'd buy six and hide the receipts from my wife.

Sure, we'd have to eat Ramen noodles a few extra times that month but it was worth it, right? I was on the cutting edge of change and that required a bit of personal pain and sacrifice.

But here's the thing: It's been almost a decade since I started experimenting with technology and I'm still forced to fix broken machines, stay at school all night to upload student content and pull cash out of my own wallet to pay for new tools and services.

#itsgettingoldyall

Sure, there will always be guys like Karl and I who are willing to do whatever it takes to drive change in our classrooms regardless of how broken our digital infrastructures may be.

But if change is going to be systematic and sustainable—replicable without relying on superhuman patience and ridiculous acts of professional altruism—it's high time that we start making investments in the kinds of tools and networks that our teachers and students have access to.

To do otherwise is nothing short of hypocritical.

Bill Ferriter is a 6th grade science teacher in North Carolina, Solution Tree author, and education blogger.

Posted by Bill Ferriter at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Joel Malley

When I was a teenager my father was fond of one particular biblical quote. Whether I was coming home past curfew, insisting my homework was done, or spinning a story about why I needed to borrow the car, he would look at me knowingly and say, "Kiddo, there is nothing new under the sun."

A quick glance into my classroom might cause one to argue otherwise. My classroom is very different from the traditional English classroom I remember from high school. Circular tables are scattered around the classroom whereas in the 1990s I sat in a desk staring down a neatly lined row at a barricade of teacher desk and lectern. In high school I never touched a computer in English class, yet today I have 18 iMacs lining the room, an LCD projector hanging from the ceiling, and access to 14 video cameras and a podcasting recording station. The textbooks we paced through have been replaced by a Schoology social network containing a wiki for each project, embedded mentor texts, notable examples of past student work, links to class readings and an update stream where students share resources and communicate online.

Not only are the physical layout and tools different, but my role as the teacher differs as well. In my Mass Media and Film Production class, a senior English elective, I work side by side with my students in a digital-writing workshop. While we do meet as a group to hold class discussions about class readings, we immediately dive back into the production. My role lies somewhere between executive producer, creative consultant, and coach as I design project parameters, consult with groups, and work with individuals at the point of need. I also read drafts and comment on Google Docs, troubleshoot storyboards, and screen evolving film sequences as students research and compose individually or in small groups.

When students are finished we share our films and celebrate in each other's creation. Student films are screened and we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each digital story. We learn from each other's stories, picking up new storytelling techniques and editing tips in the midst of this creative community. When we finish screening, students go home and voluntarily share links to their stories on Facebook and Twitter. As these teenagers grow and become more confident digital storytellers, they begin to self-identify as filmmakers and their engagement in the storytelling process manifests itself in extra hours spent in class completing their stories.

Though my classroom looks different, Jean-Baptiste Karr's maxim holds true. The more things change, the more they are the same. Whether it is a classic novel, a Whitman poem, a research paper, or sentence diagramming, language arts has always been about communication: telling stories, consuming stories, and conversations between the writer and an audience. Technology has not changed this, but it has enhanced my students' ability to tell tangible and powerful stories using moving images and sound, has helped kids access rich streams of information, and has helped bring their stories to wider audiences. There may be nothing new under the sun, but the classroom sure seems a lot brighter.

Joel Malley teaches AP literature, along with mass media and film production, at Cheektowaga Central High School outside Buffalo, NY.

Posted by Joel Malley at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Karl Ochsner

I am an avid adopter of technology in the classroom. I've acquired many tools for my students, often by writing grants, scrounging, begging, and forgoing stipends. But I think that for technology to truly improve classroom practice, we need to undertake some important efforts:

1) The technical infrastructure must be ready. Computers must be fast enough to support the apps that are useful—and there must be enough working machines to support our students. Wireless connections must be steady.

2) Teachers must be supported in our efforts to integrate technology. Ironically, teachers are required to provide individualized instruction to our students, but too often our own professional development is thrust upon us in a lecture format. In addition, technology coordinators block educational websites along with hardware and software purchases that teachers are trying to integrate into lessons.

3) We must design procedures and guidelines that help students make the most of technology, while confronting the realities of legal and safety concerns. I will soon take a group of students on a class trip to Washington, D.C. I hope they'll be able to use their smartphones to take pictures, record podcasts while they walk around the memorials, learn more by scanning museum exhibits' QR codes, and call their parents to share their excitement about what they've learned. But I also recognize the need for policies and procedures that limit the potential for inappropriate Skype or FaceTime conversations between 8th graders' hotel rooms.

4) The technology industry must generate products and apps that can truly support 21st-century learning. It's time to move beyond turning print textbooks into PDF files embedded with links. I want to see my students carrying unbreakable tablets that enable them to share student-created multimedia creations seamlessly, and project their work on student-created digital bulletin boards.

5) We must find ways for technology to help us streamline our work. I will always know my students by name, but couldn't facial recognition software help track their attendance so we can get down to the business of learning? And what if technology-based tools were licensed to and selected by individual teachers, rather than by districts? We are, after all, closest to these products' end users.

For this kind of "classroom of the future" to take hold, administrators, parents, teachers, and developers will need to work together on creating and integrating the tools that can boost student learning. The tools themselves will not "fix" our schools or classrooms—but, in the hands of skillful teachers, they can encourage the kind of innovation and creativity our students need to build our future.

Karl Ochsner is a 7th and 8th grade science teacher in Scottsdale, Ariz., and teaches classes on K-12 technology integration at Arizona State University.

Posted by Karl Ochsner at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Robert Pronovost

I recently heard Steven Anderson (@web20classroom) share a comment that I'm sure has been spread around the education circles: "If technology is the focus of your classroom, you're doing it wrong." While most people come into my classroom and see the laptops and iPod touches we have and are very impressed by their use by the second graders, if they stuck around long enough they'd also see we're not using them all the time. We do have leveled-reading time on the computer, but more importantly, we have interest-based reading time around the room. We spend time publishing our writing online, but not in every case and not with every child. We use technology as a tool for learning, not for technology's sake.

Picture this scenario. All the students in a classroom are sitting at computers, preparing to type a final copy of their book reviews, which they will print and hand in to the teacher. The class is asked to open their word processor and begin typing. The teacher comes around, supporting the students in spacing words, checking spelling, and understanding the ins and outs of the software. Great, right? Except that a third of those students only want to share their reviews with the person sitting next to them and another third wish they could tell people about their opinions on camera, like the reviewer on the news did last night. In that case, there is nothing natural about the students' work. Every child is using technology, but all in the same way, all without a choice.

Now imagine a classroom where all these students were allowed to publish their work as they choose. A third of students are publishing their work on a word processor, preparing to post the reviews to Amazon or Spaghetti Book Club. Another third are writing their reviews by hand, adding illustrations to really show their classmate what they mean. Finally, the last third of the class has finished editing and revising their reviews and are turning on the video camera.

Of course, the first situation seems much more manageable. There are a limited number of questions, a confined place for each student, and a streamlined system to evaluate their work. But in the greater context of the classroom, the more choice the students are allowed, the more engaged in the work they'll be. Technology should allow our students more opportunities to create and express, not simply be a new media for everyone to use in the same way.

This is why I struggle when a teacher, administrator, or visitor asks what technology they should buy for their classroom, school, or district. Every time a new technology comes along, we believe it will change the classroom. Yet each time, we introduce a new technology—television, document camera, whiteboard, iBook—the classroom seems to stay the same. I could recommend Product X, but without altering ones' perception of the classroom, there is going to be very little change.

If we want to develop the leaders of tomorrow, we need to begin using technology for differentiation and individualization, not for maintaining the status quo.

Robert Pronovost is a 2nd grade teacher and student tech advisor in the Ravenswood City School District in Menlo Park, Calif.

Posted by Robert Pronovost at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Jennie Magiera

Technology has changed my life. If you're reading this, then I'm sure it's changed yours too. Think about how much information you receive via a digital device. How often do you communicate, explore, and pass time with one? When our children grow up, they will need to use word-processing software and email, and create spreadsheets and presentations. So why aren't these skills also an integral part of their foundational education? Why are there still so many classrooms devoid of any technology other than an overhead projector and a handful of aging desktop computers?

There are a myriad of blogs, news articles, and YouTube videos featuring the amazing, transformative effect that technology can have on teaching and learning. I myself experienced this tech transformation as a teacher in the way of nuanced assessment, expedited feedback, and more individualized differentiation. While my students' test scores soared, more importantly so did their self-efficacy and self-esteem. Our school has grown from one iPad classroom to eight, with an eye on expanding to 1:1 for all students. And a recent staff survey shows that teachers are excited for this opportunity.

However, as you may have seen, many teachers are scared of technology. They're often scared because they don't know what it could do (as they have seen poor/no modeling) or don't know how to do what they have seen. Some are simply afraid of change. An educational technology roll-out, no matter how powerful the devices and programs, will only be as effective as each individual teachers' implementation. Simply throwing devices into a classroom and putting "technology integration" as a checkbox on evaluation forms will result in—at best—mixed results. Teachers need support that speaks to their different levels of technology expertise. Professional development needs to reflect the best practices we use for teaching our own students—it must be differentiated, time-efficient, and hands-on.

Furthermore, it shouldn't cease after an initial "here's what's in the box and here's how you can use it" session. It should continue and evolve as teacher needs change, familiarity increases, and confidence waxes and wanes. I believe that much of the success seen in Chicago's iPad program is due to the supportive and responsive nature of the monthly PD embedded in its pilot and during the introduction of these devices into the classroom. Perhaps reluctant teachers would start spending their time creating ePubs and other rich digital content instead of protesting educational technology if they had better modeling, training, and access to quality digital content.

Additionally I have seen schools that try and integrate technology for technology's sake. This is what gives educational technology a bad rap. It isn't enough to have devices in the classroom; teaching and learning should be redefined with the power of the devices in mind. Therefore the phrase "technology integration" may be a bit of a low bar; perhaps we should be calling the introduction of technology into the classroom "technology redefinition." I hope educators who are transforming education with innovative devices can continue to promote and publicize these best practices to show what a teched-out classroom can really do.

To make redefinition a reality, policy makers should look towards models of success and ask themselves what supports, resources, and situational factors led to this. They shouldn't close the door on technology because of cost, fear, or logistics. They should be willing to invest in ongoing, responsive trainings, foster dynamic professional learning communities and provide the tools/infrastructure needed for teachers to succeed. Will this be easy? Certainly not. As with any great revolution, this education redefinition comes at a price and it won't come easily. But the most powerful and magical changes are those worth fighting for. This is one of them.

Jennie Magiera is a 4th and 5th grade math teacher and a technology and mathematics curriculum coach in Chicago Public Schools.

Posted by Jennie Magiera at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Nancy Gardner

In 2007, the Mooresville Graded School District began a transformation called Digital Conversion. Five years later, all students in grade 3 through 12 have laptops. Our program garners national attention, and we frequently host visitors who want to see how it works.

As a veteran teacher of 27 years, this conversion has involved a learning curve, but at this point, I canʼt imagine teaching without technology. Over the past five years, I have realized that technology is our studentsʼ world. They have facts and figures at their fingertips, they access and use technology with ease, and we have to join that world to prepare them for the future. This is really a paradigm shift in methodology.

The digital conversion in Mooresville has led to some obvious changes: electronic texts, increased communication, improved accessibility of sources, and use of multimedia tools.

But there have been unexpected results, too.

My colleagues and I have become more student-centered. Our teaching is more focused, and we use more project-oriented, engaging activities. This intentional teaching is partly influenced by the use of data to drive instruction. However, it is also due to the nature of the tool itself: We are rethinking what students need to know and be able to do for life in the 21st century and how we can best help them reach these goals.

We are also more collaborative, sharing ideas, websites, lessons. The younger teachers (and many students) often help the senior teachers. Departments share ideas so we
know more about what students are doing in other content areas. This collegial support
makes "professional learning communities" legitimate organisms.

Visitors are impressed by the laptops, projectors, and smartboards, but more importantly, they talk about the school climate: It feels energetic, supportive, and student-centered.

Our test scores and graduation rates have improved dramatically.I donʼt think the
technology directly caused these increases, but I do think the technology has
created an environment of high expectations for learning and success.

Mooresville Graded Schools did this conversion the "right" way. Teachers have had ongoing opportunities for professional development, the topics of which have been
determined by teacher requests. The technology staff is accessible and competent:
Every school has a "help desk" for teachers and students. And although the expectation
to use technology is very clear, the administration has allowed us to move forward at
our own pace, according to our own comfort levels.

I will never be replaced by an avatar; I know that for sure. But I am also committed to my students—and that means embracing technology and using it to improve teaching and learning.

A renewed National Board-certified teacher, Nancy Gardner teaches senior English at Mooresville High School in Mooresville, N.C.

Posted by Nancy S. Gardner at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Marsha Ratzel

Technology has profoundly changed my teaching.

If you were to peek inside my classroom you would see students using computers, capturing data with digital probes and manipulating it with Excel, corresponding via email with experts on the particulars of their projects, and so on. We'd look very techie. But what would be invisible to your eye would be the shift in how I approach learning and how my students use the "world" to learn now. That's where my biggest shifts in thinking and lesson design have occurred.

Digital tools have allowed me to gather a geographically wide network of colleagues. Now my Professional Learning Network (PLN) includes colleagues in my building and from the virtual world. I confer with them using a variety of tools, including Skype, email, and social networking tools. I've been able to find other teachers who were working on precisely what I was and to reach out to my PLN to ask for help. Technology has allowed me professional dialog and to engage in the knowledge-construction of my content and pedagogy well beyond the four walls of my school. Digital tools have afforded me the chance to gather many "coaches" around me.

I realized that I could replicate this for my students and allow them to see what it means to be connected to the world. Here's where the biggest shift took place. While my tools changed and I could use every toolbar and feature pretty well, what I fundamentally changed was how I approached my teaching practice because I could use technology to be connected.

Schools have suffered teacher indifference and resistance to digital tools, in my view, because they've been reluctant to help teachers make this shift. Instead, they have focused training on how to use a tool. Teacher learning has to be much bigger than a toolbar or piece of software. Toolbars come and go. Instead the training should be about what kinds of content best fit this kind of digital tool. Professional learning should be about being connected to the world and how that changes lesson design.

My young digital citizens yearn to connect. They are connected everyday, and the more my classroom technologically resembles what they use to talk to their friends, find the score of the game, or check when a movie starts, the more engaged they are. In my own classroom, I watch students learn about the progression of hurricanes across the Atlantic through their Twitter feeds and monitor the National Hurricane Center's updates. I am not the center of information. But I am the coach and mentor who has shown them how to find credible, useful, and understandable information, and then how to use that to figure out what will happen as the sea surface temperatures increase or how the principles of heat transfer make a difference in their everyday lives.

A visitor to the classroom might not "see" a big difference. But the way in which my students learn has profoundly changed. We learn together. We seek outside help in learning about our topics of study. We find resources and engage. The act of learning is more collaboratively constructed between the teacher, the students, other learners, and experts, with digital tools bringing us together. We use technology to connect to the world and that has been a profound change.

Marsha Ratzel is a National Board-certified teacher in the Blue Valley School District in Kansas, where she teaches middle school math and science.

Posted by Marsha Ratzel at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Bill Ferriter

I think one of the things that frustrates me the most in conversations about teaching and learning with technology is the assertion that technology should fundamentally change who we are as learners. The truth is, I'm neck deep in the digital soup and my core learning behaviors haven't changed.

I'm still seeking out conversations that challenge my thinking—or that allow me to pursue my own passions and interests. I'm still working to judge the reliability of information. I'm still organizing content and looking for trends across sources. I'm still trying to change minds by being persuasive. I'm still looking for solutions to problems.

You are too, right? After all, the most accomplished individuals have always learned socially and developed strategies for persuading, spotting trends, and solving problems.

These aren't new behaviors, y'all.

Ask Socrates.

What is new is the reality that digital tools allow anyone with an Internet connection to do all of this work more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

Services like Twitter make it possible to create customized streams of filtered information on almost any topic. Blogs and discussion boards and video-conferencing tools make it possible to collectively wrestle with ideas—to have your thinking challenged and to challenge the thinking of others—anytime.

Social bookmarking services make it possible to curate huge collections of content. Cheap video-production and digital-photography tools paired with free cloud-based homes for publishing content make it possible to experiment with visual influence and persuasion.

Tools designed to record content make it possible to create tutorials that can reinforce concepts. Services designed for social good make it possible for individuals to join together and drive real change in their worlds. Spaces designed to bring people together electronically become unique homes for people to revel in their shared interests.

What does this all mean for teachers?

It's time that we stop thinking that new tools are magical and revolutionary. The real magic rests in the hearts and minds of teachers who show students how to use new tools to efficiently master the kinds of essential skills that have defined accomplished learners and influential leaders for generations.

Bill Ferriter is a 6th grade science teacher in North Carolina, Solution Tree author, and education blogger.

Posted by Bill Ferriter at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend