New Roles for Educators

New Roles for Educators



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by Margaret Johnson

February 4, 2000

Amid the flurry of end-of-decade/end-of-century reflections, those of us who are passionate about the promise of technology tools for communication and information access in schools are also taking our collective pulse to assess where we are and where we need to go. All of us have juggled issues of pedagogy, deployment and distribution of resources, professional development, student safety, ethics and a wide variety of local community concerns as we plugged our schools into the information age. Some of us have by necessity been largely consumed by the hunt for resources, devoting considerable time and creativity to funding these tools we envision transforming our classrooms. A few of us have been drawn out of the classroom to help schools and school districts cope with these concerns and tasks, while others "walk the talk" creating models of student use in our classrooms and providing practical evidence that digital tools can make a difference. 

What is most striking in all of this activity is the variety of new or evolving roles that have emerged in the process. We strive to acquire digital tools in order to empower students to accept new roles in their own learning and to expand their possibilities for collaboration and construction of knowledge. Isn’t it logical that the same holds true for the teachers of these students? Though teachers have always been learners, instructional designers and entrepreneurs, technology tools have added new twists to these traditional roles, providing many new opportunities for leadership and for teachers to also become "producers of knowledge." 

Teachers as Learners 

John Cotton Dana, an important figure in the public library movement at the end of the nineteenth century, proclaimed, "Who dares to teach, must never cease to learn." An ongoing procession of new software and hardware tools as well as a flood of web-based resources presents a considerable challenge for educators to catch up and keep up simultaneously. When new learning on brain functioning, multiple intelligences, language processing, assessment, and other relevant topics are added to the mix, getting up-to-speed seems a daunting task. The good news is that much of the new learning for educators can be highly synergistic; to practice using digital tools for information access, organization and processing, teachers can focus on epistemology, pedagogy or subject area content with equal ease. The wide proliferation of online tutorials as well as both free and for fee web-based professional development courses, including on-line degree programs, has allowed teachers to take charge of their own learning. As "netizens" of the Information Age, our biggest challenge is learning to manage "TMI," Bernie Dodge’s shorthand term for too much information, or Jamie McKenzie’s "Information Overload." Customized "portal" websites, on-line and print summarized literature reviews, professional organizations (state level and local CUE groups — Computer Using Educators), and both formal and informal peer mentoring are helping many educators meet their own learning needs. Another obvious benefit; teachers who model effective learning behaviors send a powerful message to their students about the value of learning and gain credibility as co-learners. 

A number of recent grant programs (including Goals 2000 and Technology Literacy Challenge Fund grants) have been heavily skewed to fund robust professional development projects. New NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) standards for prospective teachers and changes in recertification for veteran teachers are other important indicators that life-long learning is an absolute requirement for all educators. Some are tempted to bemoan the "burden" that ever growing ongoing learning requirements place on already overloaded teachers, but the real challenge is for our school systems to shift to practices that value and support ongoing teacher learning. Technology may help to some extent. In the January 2000 issue of Electronic School, Don Tapscott notes that, "Off-loading of repetitive or mundane tasks to computers helps get maximum value from increasingly scarce teaching dollars." No amount of automation, however, can offset the need for additional planning time for educators. In 1995 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published a comparison of teaching time in the U.S. and fifteen other Western countries. The OECD report concluded that U.S. teachers spend more time teaching and have less preparation time for classes than teachers in other countries who are allotted more time for lesson preparation, in-service training and staff meetings during their school days. 

Teachers as Producers of Knowledge 

Technology is also empowering teachers as instructional designers, authors, and presenters. The ease of publishing on the web has provided a new outlet for those teachers who have always enjoyed creating original instructional materials and for those dissatisfied with predigested pre-synthesized textbooks. That these materials are now accessible to a vast audience beyond the classroom and that they can provide one-click links to relevant supporting research and documentation has proven to be a powerful lure for the authors among us. Dale Mann, from the Department of Organization and Leadership at Columbia Teachers College claims that "curiosity, a need for productivity, and professional pride" provide greater impetus for teachers to embrace technology than formal professional development programs. Indeed, the proliferation of teacher created "WebQuests," problem-based lessons (PBL) and thematic units on the web is an indication of the accessibility of web publishing for ever-growing numbers of educators; that many of these web-based activities are something more than just teacher-provided content, but rather are designed to be springboards for student inquiry, posing questions or scenarios for students to solve is an encouraging sign. As the body of web-based curriculum materials grows, hyperlinked "collections" are being assembled and indexed by grade level, discipline/topic, national and state standards, and other identifiers. Benchmarks of quality are emerging; guidelines such as NCREL’s Indicators of Engaged Learning and Bernie Dodge’s "Taskonomy" are providing scaffolds to help teacher/authors improve the designs of their web-based lessons. 

Without much digging, it is easy to find teacher-designed materials on the web. From Kathy Schrock’s high-profile (and now commercially supported) site to collected lessons created through University course-work and school district curriculum development projects to independent materials posted on free web-hosting services such as Yahoo-Geocities or xoom.com, educators are actively embracing the web venue and modeling constructivism. 

Teachers as Entrepreneurs 

Pick up almost any issue of the many K-12 technology publications or even K-12 publications that are not focused strictly on technology, and you will very likely read about teachers who have not only designed and facilitated a compelling technology-based classroom project, but who also located the funds to acquire the tools their students needed. Those of us who have gone "digging for dollars" to fund digital tools can’t begin to estimate the number of digital cameras or scanners that have been acquired through "mini-grants" from local businesses or Parent-Teacher Organizations. When funds are limited, many school districts turn to targeted internal "Requests for Proposals" to place equipment/provide professional development opportunities to those who demonstrate the greatest motivation and readiness to put scarce resources to the best use. States have also turned to competitive grants to roll out some funding. Though it is clear that such competitive practices, if employed as the main strategy for technology implementation in a system, can be divisive and counter-productive in providing equitable access to technology for all students, the availability of seed money to fund innovation and promising projects has provided unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurial educators. Many of the teacher/grant awardees have become mentors and leaders within their schools and districts. 

The entrepreneurial spirit has extended beyond grant seeking. Technology-based student businesses have sprouted as authentic responses to problem-based learning scenarios. At Palos East Elementary School in Palos Heights, Illinois, for example, fifth graders were inspired by a real school problem, a lack of printers to accompany classroom computers. Mrs. Deb Balayti’s students decided to form a classroom business to earn money to acquire the needed equipment. The project was a huge success and the student business an instant "local legend." Each year since 1996-97, Mrs. Balayti’s students have formed a technology-based school business, producing and selling products to the many visitors to Palos East during American Education Week. Thanks to scheduled "Mom’s Day," "Dad’s Day," and "Grandparent’s Day" each year, hundreds of adults become customers and clients for the fifth grade entrepreneurs. Products have varied; students have taken digital pictures of grandparents and their grandchildren (set in front of a colorful student-designed backdrop) and designed and filled orders for customized gift labels and stationery. This business is significant in the technology life of the school; in three years, students have raised a grand total of nearly $9,000. Although the financial gain is impressive, Mrs. Balayti reports that the student learning that occurs as students brainstorm, strategize, plan, organize and implement their business is even more exciting. Math skills, writing skills and interpersonal skills are all strengthened. Multiple intelligences are needed and showcased. Students analyze building needs and wants, research products, interview vendors, and conduct rigorous "cost-benefit" analyses in making their purchasing decisions. The criteria they establish to guide their purchasing decisions and the exhaustive questions they pose to vendors provide clear evidence of strategic higher order thinking. 

As school leaders recognize the potential of the intellectual capital represented by talented and creative educators, school districts are becoming entrepreneurial, generating significant revenue by marketing original curriculum materials produced by their staff members. The great demand for professional development facilitators/presenters has also spurred creative arrangements resulting in full-time educators becoming part-time consultants, often with encouragement and support from their administrators who welcome any shared revenue or expertise exchanges that may result from these consulting activities. Teacher-created web-based materials may also be ripe for marketing. Carol Simpson, from the School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of North Texas and an author and speaker on copyright and ethics issues for schools and libraries, states, "New technologies of instructional delivery, such as web-based and video instruction, will bring ownership of intellectual property to light in schools. Schools that once only consumed intellectual property will now discover that they own it and will want to convert it into a revenue stream." Ms. Simpson continues, "Teachers who once would have created and freely shared instructional materials in print format will recognize that they have contributed to a valuable commodity (electronic course materials) and may resist ‘work for hire’ rules or at least bargain for some compensation." 

In Summary 

While recent K-12 publications have devoted many column inches to describing the "best" uses for technology in our classrooms or to exposing ill-advised practices, many creative teachers, students and school systems are busy determining for themselves the usefulness of digital tools. When access and opportunity converge, the users themselves (whether adults or children) will determine the ultimate utility of any resource. In the book, The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet, Freeman Dyson discusses how scientists in various disciplines display different attitudes toward their tools, affecting dynamics of professional collaboration and innovation in their fields. Although Dyson was reflecting on the field of gravitational tomography, his observations aptly describe the manner in which some educators are proactively finding new instructional uses for technology, "The style of the work…is opportunistic, unorganized, spontaneous. Nobody planned it and nobody administered it from the top. A new tool became available…and a number of bright people grabbed hold of it for a variety of purposes…The style of the work is dominated by two factors, local enthusiasm and the internet." Many of the same technology tools that are revolutionizing science and research are now available to and facilitating new roles for both adult and young learners as well as providing new opportunities for all learners to reap intellectual, creative and financial rewards. 


Notes: 

All quotes (except the Freeman Dyson quote in the final paragraph) are from "Thinking About the Future," Electronic School. January 2000. Pgs. 16-23, 47. The article is also available online at http://www.electronic-school.com/2000/01/0100f1part1.html

Trends at a Glance

by The Milken Exchange

Trends at a Glance

States are establishing technology standards for students. If the standards are to have an impact, reliable assessments must be developed and implemented. Thirty-six states have established student standards for technology and nine other states are developing such standards. Of those 36 states, 22 have integrated them into their overall standards for the basic academic areas; six states have established standards for technology that are separate from the basic academic areas; and eight states have taken a dual approach. Many states have only recently established these standards, so few are fully assessing them. The Milken Exchange recently commissioned a longitudinal study in West Virginia. Results indicated that 11 percent of the academic gains in mathematics and reading for fifth graders in 1995 were directly attributable to technology interventions. A subsequent analysis by the Milken Exchange found technology to be a cost-effective method to improve student learning when compared to class size reduction (Mann, 1999).

Schools are beginning to use learning technology, but most use it to automate learning rather than to bring students unique learning opportunities never before possible. "It is the more elective and less college preparatory-oriented parts of the high school curriculum where the newer and more creative uses of computers are being found, rather than in the more standards-constrained academic subjects." (Teaching, Learning and Computing: A National Survey of Schools and Teachers, Henry Becker, 1999).

Teachers are getting trained, but classes often do not relate to teaching and learning. "Teachers are being asked to learn new methods of teaching, while at the same time they are facing the greater challenges of rapidly increasing technological changes and greater diversity in the classroom...[ yet,] relatively few teachers (20 percent) reported feeling very well prepared to integrate educational technology into classroom instruction." (U. S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, January 1999).

Significant funds are being invested in schools, especially those with disadvantaged youth, yet a digital divide based on demographics exists between schools. More than $5 billion is invested annually in learning technology, representing federal, state, and local funds. Yet, from 1994 through 1998, schools with low numbers of minority students were three times more likely to have Internet access in classroom settings than schools with high numbers of minority students. Similarly, high-income schools were twice as likely to have Internet access in classrooms as low-income schools (National Center for Education Statistics, 1998). This trend, combined with the widening wage gap between information technology industries and the total private sector, suggests that the digital divide in the United States is not going away.