What is the best way to get others at your school to use more technology in their teaching and in the students' learning?
Nothing beats seeing it work, from a teacher's perspective that is. Last year, my first year in the position, I had equipment in my office that teacher's were able to check out and use and it ended up sitting in my office all year long. This year I changed two things to try to make this less of an issue.
I started a grade level tech pilot. I took into consideration my conversations with the teachers during grade level meetings and the sub test analysis to target certain areas in each grade level that I thought could benefit from the introduction and integration of a certain technology. For example: We targeted fluency for 3rd grade. Teachers find it extremely difficult to motivate their kids to reread .... or read at all for that matter. Since there is really no other way to become more fluent then practice reading we decided to purchase digital recorders for the kids to use. We are now slowly changing this to using ipods. It has been pretty amazing to see motivation rise along with actually wanting to practice reading. I did this with each grade level. My goal is to have each grade level become "skilled" with that specific piece of equipment or software and then give their own professional development on it during the year. So far, I've had three teachers give a professional development on the technology that they're using this year. It has in fact encouraged other teachers to start using it. They're able to see first hand how it can be effective.
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A few teachers at my school also tried the iPods in their reading classes. A third grade teacher had a great deal of success with her kids last year. They would record their own readings, critique themselves and then reread the passage. It does great work for fluency. In the case of these kids, the iPods sparked their interest, but it was self motivation that made it work, the kids did not want to sound bad. So this year, the same teacher has not even asked about the iPods. Too bad the teachers can't be as motivated to use the technology as the kids are. The teachers have many options and they often forget about the tools that have been effective.
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