Last year at one of our overly long staff meetings, I was involved in a staff-wide discussion about the morning announcements. Many faculty members were discontented about the intrusive, long announcements that often interrupted learning activities. I thought that I had an optimal solution for everyone. I was willing to have students record the announcements in my room, where I would post the audio file on the school website. This would give all the teachers an opportunity to play the announcements when it best fit into their personal class time best.
This idea was quickly, loudly and roundly rejected. Mostly, the teachers did not like this idea because it was one more task that they would have to remember to do; something new added to their routine. I would imagine I would get the same reaction if I proposed a school-wide blogging program.
Of course, it is not necessary for all teachers to have a blogging program in order for me to implement one in my classroom. However, I feel the transition to such a non-traditional idea would be smoother if students were participating in blogs in many (if not all) of their classes, and it was not something they had to remember just for Mr. O'Hara's class. Additionally, if many teachers in the building were learning how to utilize blogs in their classroom at the same time, there would be a much more robust support structure for each individual to lean on.
So the question I bring up is: what would a school-wide blogging initiative look like, and how could someone get most of the faculty to join in without earning the resentment of many teachers that see this new opportunity instead as a new "requirement". Of course, this question could be expanded to pretty much any novel classroom tool or procedure, and is central to the implementation of nearly all classroom technologies.
Great question John!
ReplyDeleteThere are teachers in my building who HATE change and will only stay with what they know and have been doing for many years. If these teachers are already "stuck" in their ways, how does someone convince them and prove to them that learning this technology would benefit their students? I have seen so much push back from teachers in my school, even a teacher on my own team. She tries to adjust to the new technology and even new curriculum, but her classroom is run and the students are learning the same way students did 10-15 years ago.
I think a lot of this has to do with the support that the teachers get from technology specialists. Our technology specialist comes every so often to our school to perform trainings (beginning of the school year-maybe the middle of the year). This is not enough for our teachers to gain a full understanding of the importance and the value of different technology with our students.
If a technology specialist is able to come into the school, weekly or even daily, to work with teachers, I bet there would be a lot more teaching with technology in the classroom.
Without the support and guidance, teachers are less likely to use and integrate different types of technology.
:-)
I think your morning announcement idea is a good idea! Does your school not have homeroom? We have 7 minutes of homeroom and announcements are presented on the TVs. It doesn't take away from any instructional time.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem I can see with school-wide blogging is that it may get hectic. I get annoyed with teachers who don't utilize the subject area of emails or continuously hit reply all to something labeled "Art Show" but their post is about a sports team dismissal.
If the blogs were sectioned off to different topics that could be helpful.
Unrelated: I can't post to Elizabeth's site. When I click on it it says blog has been removed.
My school does not have a home room per se, the announcements are made at the beginning or end of a period.
DeleteI also agree that mandated blogging will probably lead to lazy blogs by some teachers, I just wonder what we can do to get better buy-in.
I also have the same issue with Elizabeth's site, and I also lost the comment I made there before it disappeared
A school-wide blog initiative is a very interesting idea! I am not sure how your school works, but maybe you could start small. A grade level could try out a blog, or a department could try it out. If it was departmentalized, maybe some teachers would not be as opposed because they would have other people teaching the same subject to help them out. I think that change is hard and we can really get into a routine, but with new material presented the right way and made to look easy more people will be interested.
ReplyDelete