Stone Wiske’s article, “A New Culture for Teaching for the 21st Century” explains in a practical way how change needs to be brought about to education today’s students. Change doesn’t happen over night. But it is exciting to look over the past 10-15 years and look at changes that have taken place, and to understand why those changes were successful. Wiske describes how the NCTM has written standards and encouraged teachers to use graphing calculators to have students go into deeper analysis with the math they are studying. This is not a change that took place over night, but one that has positively impacted students in mathematics.
I think the department I work in models how teachers should work together to create change. Not everyone would list technology as a top priority in teaching. But teachers encourage each other. There is discussion within the department on a daily basis about which lessons were successful and which ones were not. Then teachers collaborate on how to make lessons better.
The best way to implement technology into the curriculum is to collaborate and learn from colleagues. The teachers who do not share their work with others, or don’t receive help from others are going to be left behind. There is no way one teacher could know everything there is to know about technology practices in schools. But collaborating teachers can maximize their ability to create meaningful lessons.
I think a next step in continuing the growth of technology in schools is for teachers to collaborate with teachers outside of their school. Professional development is good to learn new technologies. But you can only learn as much as a presenter knows. With the internet as accessible as it is, teachers can now share ideas with other teachers across the country.
Lasting and effective change does not take place in a day, month or year. Education should be constantly changing since our world is constantly changing. As educators we need to be willing to change our lessons, our interactions with students and our way of thinking to be an example to our students.
I agree with you that collaboration (among teachers as well as students and teachers/students) is one of the key terms for the successful technology integration in classroom. Do you know any teachers (or even yourself) who collaborate with teachers or experts outside of their school?