Learning and leaching with digital media

Building capacity and independence in professional practice

© Dean Groom. 2008. All rights reserved.
http://deangroom.wordpress.com

Engaging Reluctant Teachers

Technology in the classroom has been on the professional

development agenda for decades. The significant change in the rate
at which technology has begun to change isn’t driven entirely by
hardware or software advances and falling costs, but by the way in
which technology via the internet is being used as an extension of
our social lives, and central to the way in which we engage with
technology.

For example: Internet banking, looking for a new house, checking

the TV guide, looking at the sports pages, accessing online syllabus
documents, the surf report, checking FaceBook or emailing friends
and relatives.

Though teachers often seem reluctant to renew pedagogy in the ICT

classroom, it’s hard to deny that staff rooms and study areas with
computers are used by teachers to carry out personal or social
activities in their ‘free’ period or lunch times – as well as producing
classroom ‘pulp’ and of course marking. Consider then the way in
which they use that computer. They use the Internet for personal
and social activities (and to a lesser extent accessing syllabus
resources) – Microsoft Office (production of classroom activities and
administration).

How do we engage reluctant teachers to ‘join’ the two and renew

pedagogy?

Firstly, lets face up to the big ‘yeah but’ that teachers have – “I
don’t have time to learn technology”. But they do have time to use
it before school, recess and lunch – and not purely for ‘work’
activities. How can we use that to our advantage?
Learning and leaching with digital media
Building capacity and independence in professional practice
© Dean Groom. 2008. All rights reserved.
http://deangroom.wordpress.com

Teachers are busy. There no doubt they are. So this is an opportunity

to start building new skills and address the number one issue they
throw at you.
Learning and leaching with digital media
Building capacity and independence in professional practice
© Dean Groom. 2008. All rights reserved.
http://deangroom.wordpress.com

Identify the specific things that suck down time. In my experience

these are:

• Creating class resources

• Marking
• Reporting

Start by addressing these issues directly. In fact, teachers will

identify these things are separate items – when in fact technology
allows you to combine all three in a holistic way – but that is way too
complex to explain up from to the tech-neutrals, let alone the tech-
saboteurs.

Hold an informal recess session – bring some food. If you hold this in
the lunch-room or some other ‘third space’ – they won’t see it as
‘giving up time’ as such. That’s one goal kicked. Think about
running 4 sessions, over a term. That allows each to be run twice (I
was too busy to come), and a couple of weeks when you can reflect
or do something else.

The tragedy of this entire advocacy of course is that the ‘power

distribution law’ kicks in. You will be doing a disproportionate
amount of ‘professional development’. Remember, you are building
independence, not a reputation as the go-to person for tech-
support. Position yourself higher than that else you will just become
a busy fool. You need time for yourself too – and right now I am
betting that you give all your time to ‘them’ at school, and do all
your own development after school.

Develop some catchy session titles – that hit the hot topics.

1. Using simple technology ideas to save time

Learning and leaching with digital media
Building capacity and independence in professional practice
© Dean Groom. 2008. All rights reserved.
http://deangroom.wordpress.com

2. Speed Marking – reducing marking drag

3. A busy teacher’s guide to reporting

Of course none of these can be associated with doing more work nor
are they talking about pedagogy, curriculum and other terms that
teachers associate with higher order thinking, and therefore more
work.

Embedded in these three ‘session’ titles are multiple opportunities

to introduce them to a small number of tools that improve personal-
productivity. The characteristics of the tool should be no more
complex than logging onto eBay, FaceBook or checking your email.
So don’t start with podcasts and wikis.

For just one example idea: ‘Using simple technology ideas to save
time’.

Reality: Teachers produce Word documents for students to complete.

Lets address TIME.

Impact: It takes TIME to create it (can’t change that straight away).

It takes more TIME to print it, get it copied and then distributed. It
takes more time to hand out replacements for ‘lost’ copies and then
to collect the completed sheets. All in all, an hour spent making a
worksheet has several more hours ahead of it.

At the end of the ‘event’ – how many students actually keep the
paper?

Intervention: Produce a single page resource that explains ‘how to’

upload resources to Scribd.com (http://www.scribd.com). It’s simple
trust me.
Learning and leaching with digital media
Building capacity and independence in professional practice
© Dean Groom. 2008. All rights reserved.
http://deangroom.wordpress.com
Learning and leaching with digital media
Building capacity and independence in professional practice
© Dean Groom. 2008. All rights reserved.
http://deangroom.wordpress.com

Explain the benefits in short sharp positive statements.

1. No need to print, photocopy and distribute (at least 2 hours

saved)
2. No need to replace forgotten or lost copies in class
3. Easy to share the address of the activity with students (one
URL)
4. Easy to share the address of the activity with parents
(homework)
5. Simple classroom delivery – students learn to use your Scribd
pages as lesson resources
6. Saves paper and cost for the school
7. Instant delivery – no wait for the photocopies to be returned
8. Never loose a worksheet
9. Share resources with other staff
10. (insert one you can think of)

Renew Pedagogy: Students locate activity online. Students complete

activity by downloading the ‘Word’ file. This saves them having to
re-write the questions or content (waste of time) – and focus on the
answers. Students save their work to their share drive, or thumb
drive.

You will you also find that 5%-10% of your new ‘tribe’ will want to do
more than this. You can then work personally with them to show
them how to do more. This is where you start to build
independence. Right now, your recess-tribe are forming to help each
other.

It is important to get them to agree to come back and meet again at

the end of the week – even before you’ve told them much. Get them
to agree as a group, write it down and that create a moral
Learning and leaching with digital media
Building capacity and independence in professional practice
© Dean Groom. 2008. All rights reserved.
http://deangroom.wordpress.com

commitment. The tactic is, after the first meeting – to put a note in
their pigeon hole to invite them to the next one – type it up, so it
looks official not casual! That creates this group responsibility moral
thing that seems to work.

Let’s assess the gains here, in terms of NETs or some other criteria
for professional development. You have to do that – and report on it
– as you are being a ‘trainer’ – get recognised as such.

Media Literacy (Capacity) Gains:

Teachers use online resources to share and distribute information to

students
Students access information ‘anytime’
‘Pulp’ resources become ‘digital’ resources.
Working with pure-electronic files in the ICT classroom.
Learning to use ICTs more effectively.

Extension Ideas: Teach them how to ‘tag’ their activities according

to semester, unit of work, lesson, theme etc (building Media Literacy
in Students). Show them how to but ‘hyperlinks’ into their
documents – to further save them time in copying and pasting
content from the web to the document summary.

One word of caution – know your audience, and make sure you keep
it SIMPLE. Some will want to do more, but don’t talk about that in
your session – else you will lose people. Scribd is a great way to
start the PD process. They have Word documents, have a need to
store them anyway – so most will convert exisiting ones to start with
– and that’s low pain for you and them. Scribd is no more complex
than email either – so it will show them how ‘easy’ this stuff is and
Learning and leaching with digital media
Building capacity and independence in professional practice
© Dean Groom. 2008. All rights reserved.
http://deangroom.wordpress.com

and that they are not learning any ‘new’ technology – just using the
‘great skills you already have’ – to make life easier – and better for
students.

Finally, meet to review and share what they did, felt about doing it –
by having several people doing it, your chances of them doing it
again are increased massively. Telling and sharing stories appeals to
the as John Larkin said ‘socio-centric’ staff. Saving time and doing
less appeals to what John also called the ‘ego-centric’. You can even
give them a certificate or some other object to celebrate their
efforts. That appeals to some teachers too.

Conclusion

By focusing on the ego-centric issues of the teacher – tackling the

biggest ‘yeah but’ – time is in fact not a problem, but an
opportunity.

You have to just think a bit differently in presenting change. Like

most battles, full frontal attack is ‘all or nothing’. Attacking the
flanks, or better still, infiltration of the ene

I spent a previous life in advertising – a world of half-truths, Trojan

horse promises – and make no excuses in using that approach to
professional development. You have to sell the idea. To do that you
must create a ‘want’ emotion. Right now, most tech-neutral
teachers don’t have that – so you have to invent it.