Wednesday July 26, 2006 Bette Gray

Bette was a great speaker and her presentation on where the Government of Alberta is going with the ICT initiative was interesting. A different perspective is always helpful when looking at both sides of an issue. It is nice to see that there is a lot of thought going into the integration of technology within the school curriculum. I do think that the post secondary institutions have a lot more freedom when it comes to technology in education but if your coordinator is not interested in implementing the changes, you have very little hope of acquiring the equipment. We are also restrained by the lack of enthusiasm within departments with instructors not willing to change so pushing for new initiatives takes a lot of work. I am hoping to find some ways to encourage other staff to experiment with some tools to enhance the courses they already teach and for me to teach an e-commerce course in a totally different way. Good luck, I say.

Tuesday July 25, 2006

Stan Ruecker

Stan talked about Rich Prospect Browsing and designing an interface or interfaces for different groups of data and finding a way of creating an easy retrieval methods. Google is a text based search engine and it will be nice to see the changes in a few years. What is going to become the norm in searching? I have questioned how we can retrieve information as easy as possible and how we can get a really good representation of everything available. Picture based search engines seem like the wave of the future, and I will keep my eyes open to new things that emerge.
Points to remember for future reference
• What do we do with the material that is out there already?
• How do we retrieve specifically what we are looking for?
• How can we create multi-functuality?
• What information do we really want out there?
These are questions that I will be keeping in mind as search technology’s progress.

Dr. Thomas Keenan

The key thing that came out of the presentation by Dr. Keenan for me was that information that is put on the web (like this blog) is there forever. Even if the site is down or removed, someone may have an archive of it. We need to teach our kids and talk to our students about security and how something that you did when you were 16 may come back to haunt you when you are 40. The internet, no not just the internet but technology, encourages change but we can not predict what some of the changes are going to be. Some will be good but we also have to accept the bad as well. If I chose to buy online, I need to be prepared to have information about me sent out on the internet. I believe that education is the key to security, but I worry that the young kids who think of the internet as something that is “just there” maybe they will be more lax with their information. Kids want to tell the truth. Very interesting discussion and I was given a lot of ideas on security and what is out there in the way of controversial sites.

Trial podcast CF

July 24 Pat Redhead

Wow! The wealth of experience and project that Pat has been involved in is amazing. It was really nice to get a look at the background to ICT in the junior stages and how, way before it was mandated, teachers and administrators were experimenting with different programs and lessons. The trend seems to be toward the infusion of ICT but, like many people I am sure, the difference between infusion and integration needed to be explained. I look at it more as if infusion is transparent technology and integration is using a technology as a teaching a tool. It was nice to see how many interesting social studies sites out there for those who teach the curriculum and how they could use them in their classes. Would this be integration or infusion? In many ways the topic of ICT curriculum integration/infusion is something that does not apply to me. I will never use it and will never be involved in curriculum issues, but all the same it was interesting to learn about the progress.

July 21, 2006 Trevor Doerksen

We did a teleconference (Skype to cell phone) with Trevor and he discussed the changes in communication and what he referred to as the new normal. I not only found that he kept my attention by not restricting his thought to the proverbial box with his statements about the direction of technology in schools and how kids are already connected, but also his view on the direction of the schools in regard to technology and computers (all computers on same platform). I was quite intrigued by the thought that kids have more information available to them in a simple IPod than the Supernet and the costs/benefit of both. Why do we choose certain directions over others and how can Alberta, and Canada for that matter, catch up to incorporate what the kids are already doing with the education that they must get. His idea that information is a commodity begs me to ask the question about the role of teachers, and are they, as Trevor mentioned, meant to teach kids how to learn and to communicate rather than content.

I am seeing some real connection between the communication that we expect from our students (and that they expect from us) and techno gadgets to aid the process. I work with adult students and some, not all, have access to some really neat devices and have experienced some interesting tools. I have plans to incorporate some of the devices (cell phones, blackberries, IPods etc.) within our class and try to demonstrate different methods of communication. One of my goals is to encourage the use of technology within certain classes and to increase students’ comfort level with them.

Cathy F Thursday, July 20, 2006

Presenter Ray Kurzweil
• I really found the presentation to be interesting and thought provoking. I backed away from the thought of uploading and downloading information to and from our brains. This is scary for mankind in general and if this is the case, what is the role of education in general. If, in the future, we can create a database of learning (or what we want the kids or adults to know) what do we need schools for? Will they simply (or not so simply) be a place to teach the social or analytical part of the curriculum not the math, science or the core subjects. It is a very hard idea to wrap my head around. If, as Ray alluded to, we look at the trends of the past to look toward the future in technology, I ask the question “Is that really the future? Is the job of technology to replace human interaction? What in the past leads us to believe this?”
• An aside note on the process we went through to get to the presentation, I find that teaching and technology is great when everything goes well but can be a time consumer when it does not. Students and instructors need to be more forgiving of the technology and develop the problem solving skills to know when they can fix the problem and when to scrap the idea and move on.
Presenter Charmaine Brooks
• During Charmaine’s talk I found myself writing down questions and comments about the notion of curriculum and the mandatory implementation of ICT (Information and Communication Technology). Most of my thoughts revolved around questioning the reality of the implementation and if it was happening, how it was happening, and how Alberta learning is promoting it. I looked around the room at a number of teachers and administrators and found that none of them had been to any training or workshops on this and I wondered why. If there is no one in this group, then statistically, the odds are that the numbers of people involved is very low, but teachers are expected to blindly do as they are told. I would like to think that the natural progression of education would be to bring what is happening outside the schools, technology wise, into the schools, but what is being done with the training of the teachers in the first place? Are new teachers going to be ready to implement this and are they given the tools to do this? The role of post secondary is huge in relation to curriculum implementation and the changes that technology must bring to teaching and learning and I hope that the institutions are really ready and interested.

Process and Outcome: Collaboration

Collaboration

An important aspect of effective leadership is collaboration. Good collaboration can create an inclusive environment within a workplace. Collaboration is an ongoing process that includes talking with staff, team members and executives to ensure that a common goal is met. Relationships and trust can be created, interaction and feedback becomes a continuing process, and other perspectives and priorities can be understood. The advantage of collaborating with others is that there is the ability to combine skill, knowledge and creativity as well as draw upon the experience and diverse expertise of others. No leader can do it all.

In an educational institute, such as the college, decisions can be made without consultation or input. An example of this was the deletion of a course within our Office Administration program. A core course was cut by executive with no input or consultation with the instructors or coordinator. It was arbitrarily decided that this course could be cut from the program. This decision was met with hostility, anger, confusion and caused a complete lack of trust between our department and executive. If they can do this, what else will they decide to cut or do? If there was a system of collaboration then the staff, instructors, and coordinator could have voiced their opinions, put together a list of reasons to not cut the course or at the very least, given some feedback as to the position of the department. With the combined expertise, perspectives and opinions of the staff, a more intelligent and informed decision could have been made and mistrust could have been avoided.

Process and Outcome Evaluation

A core process that is imperative to an educational leader is the proper evaluation of instructors or students. This evaluation is used to benefit both the instructor and the students, in turn the institution. A good leader follows a number of steps to complete an in-depth evaluation. This could include sitting in a class, talking with instructors about how it is going, creating an open door policy for both the students and instructor alike, having formal and informal meetings with all staff, role modeling certain instructional practices, and pushing for professional development for staff. All of these steps combined assist in creating better teaching practices and working environments. A poor educational leader may find that the evaluation process and the feedback cause bad feelings and a poor working environment for the instructor, therefore ineffective leadership.

The person I feel has mastered the process of evaluation is a coordinator within the Human Services department of the college. This person ensures that her instructors feel good about what they are doing by helping to bring about the instructors personal teaching styles and using it to the best of their ability. She makes a point of visiting the classrooms and having an open dialogue throughout the school year. She also encourages her instructors to attend training days on teaching practices or other relevant issues when they are available. There are many other people that could learn from this style of leadership.