In this short blog entry, Dean Groom shares some valuable points regarding his admonition that we focus on how to transition reluctant teachers into using technology. He encourages readers to teach in technical ways, or what I interpreted as use simple technologies in ways that focus on learning outcomes. Accomplishing this can be tougher than you might imagine; the heart of his blog entry is in what he recommends below.

I advocate professional learning for newcomers to focus on ‘transitional technology’ – learning how to be an effective facilitator in online spaces; building learning communities; moving between online, classroom discussion, exams and essays, to support and promote socially constructed, meta-cognititive learning. Teachers are often highly successful and want to stay that way, don’t scare them off….

Create (and model) activities that are sufficiently motivating to participate in , neither too facile or too hard and discouraging time-wasting, which leads to being off task conflict. Buddy up; start simple and don’t get intimidated by the snakeoilers.

So, to summarize, albeit with my own spin (so apologies to Dean!) Dean’s advice for teachers–perhaps teachers learning to work in virtual teaching and learning spaces–includes the following:

1. Learn how to facilitate/teach online: Lots of ways to accomplish this, but PBS TeacherLine and LOTI Connections both offer introductory courses on how to facilitate online learning. And, you can get started with some simple tools, such as wikis and blogs or, if you need the control, jump into a Moodle. The definition of “simple” is what you can actually start with. For some, it’s easier to start with a free wiki (e.g. Wikispaces.com) or blog (e.g. Blogger.com) rather than a Moodle that requires overhead. However, if your district supports Moodles, that may be the easiest way to get there.
2. Building Learning Communities: This is harder than it looks so the best way to start is with people that you trust and then add on from there.
3. Blend use of online and web-based learning: When starting out, as I read this, ground your online learning in face to face interactions and slowly transition from F2F to online over time with teachers…that might not be a bad strategy for K-12 students, either. It’s helpful to be reflective of what you’re doing differently.
4. Create/model engaging learning experiences: One of my favorite ideas from Stephen Krashen was i+1. That is, i=comprehensible input. The “+1” means that you get comprehensible input plus a little more, just beyond you. When I think of Dean’s idea here, I see us creating engaging learning experiences for teachers that model at the “i+1” level. Some of it is comprehensible to them, a little bit isn’t and that encourages them to grow to understand…they are engaged by what they understand (affirming their adulthood) and moving forward to build new schema.

Thanks to Dean for the inspiration! I hope I wasn’t too far off…now, what do YOU think about this?

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure