Outside of the walls of our school- many of my peers and education leaders tell me how the work we are doing at Hudson is "so advanced and cutting-edge." When I begin to disagree with them, they often share stories about their school and the rest of the city. I don't compare our school to the rest of the city- or even the country. I compare Hudson to the concept paper and vision of Hudson High School- a document that all Hudson educators have read. (I wonder how many students have read it) We are still working towards building the vision.
This weekend I've spent a lot of time thinking about the instructional technology within our school.
I keep thinking about the comment shared at Friday's Common Planning Time meeting- "We should be a web 3.0 School" As a certified Educational Technology Specialist, I feel a responsibility and pressure from myself for modeling best practices, both as a collaborative team-teacher as well as a technology specialist. I often find a loss of ideas and time to put something together and offer suggestions to my team. There are many new tools and resources available that I haven't been able to explore and consider. Am I doing the best that I can?
I remember from my graduate classes some of the pillars necessary for successful technology implementation- training, training, training and ongoing training. This is something that I sometimes seek through my PLN, but do not often share and discuss with my colleagues. I am learning in isolation. The web 2.0 tools that I've worked with and designed 5 years ago are obsolete at Hudson now. I've spent the least amount of time on technology related training this year. I had many other teaching and personal priorities and pushed this one aside. We are doing this work while building a new school. Many teachers are wearing multiple hats.
I am both hopeful and nervous about what July training will bring (as a result of our innovative calendar, we have three weeks of planning with colleagues- I will miss this calendar). How will our planning time be organized? There are so many ways we can use this time and continue to develop as a school. Two years ago, before the school was even open, we were talking about tools we need for technology-based learning. One year ago, we were talking about tools we need for blended learning. The conversation has once again continued this year about the tools we need for quality instruction and use of iLearn time. I've saved notes in google docs of all of our conversations- starting with re-configuring an existing LMS (learning management system) to designing our own LMS, to avoiding the use of an LMS altogether.
As we continue to evolve, it gets more clear- the conversation has always been around quality instruction and we are struggling with figuring out how to do this in the best way. We have the tools and data from what we've done, now teachers are asking- how can we do this better? Throughout this school year, we've spent time revising our competencies, habits of mind and continued to map out and re-design curriculum. There is room to grow and a willingness (for some, it's a request) to continue to develop. The energy at Hudson is often around how to do this better. We question each other on why we are doing what we are doing. All staff members are making decisions based on what they believe is best for our students.
We are still not there yet (will we ever be?)- but we are getting better at this.
