Digital Gimmicks or Learning Tools?

Quoted from the blog Leading from the Heart, by Tracey Rosen, a teacher in Quebec:

"...the concept of organizing thought, either individually or collectively – stands way above the decision process over which tool to do it with."

and later:
"As long as we keep our emphasis on the learning outcomes, the tools we use to get there can be varied. They do not need to be digital."

She's commenting on the fact that we get so preoccupied with using digital tools that we forget the reason we're using them, which is to organize our thoughts. The learning is still found within the organizing and connecting of ideas, not in mastering the latest fancy tools.

Why We Should Abolish Grades

"... a teacher's grade is a crude instrument compared with a student's self-awareness." -Paul Goodman

Goodman makes the argument that assigning grades obscures the true meaning of what students are supposed to get from their education, which is self-awareness. Testing is useful, but only for purely pedagogical purposes, to help a student become aware of their need for learning, and discovering their own deficits, and mastering their subject in order to "commence" on their own journey. In a medieval university, a student candidate became a master and was welcomed into the university community because that student had truly mastered a particular field of learning, had defended it and was then accepted as a peer. No grading was involved, no formal reporting to some higher authority was required, no comparison with others or weeding out took place.

All the grading that goes with testing is for the purposes of placement of a student, weeding out certain students who don't make the required minimum grade.

Stuck in the Middle

I'm getting annoyed at the predicament I'm in as a teacher, where I am hired to teach children, and to serve the parents and taxpayers in my comunity, but I end up having to be part of a union that represents my profession badly.

You make an accurate observation here Sandy- in my reflection on 20 years of teaching, I can't remember a time when the government was spoken of as the equivalent of the enemy, that needs to get off its butt and give us what we need to really teach well.

When I look around my classroom and my school and I see the ample supplies, and well-paid teachers and staff working hard to do their best for their students, I remember the few times I've travelled around the world. They're lucky if they have a classroom, let alone desks, paper and pencil in so many places. In other countries, humiliating, fear-based methods are used to motivate children. For the most part, in Canada, we have got it made in our schools. Heck, you turn on the tap and clean water comes out.

Classroom technology readings.

Competing visions for classroom technology.

Putting IT into Education - We owe it to our students

Check out this ad from Kaplan University -

Do what you can't not do!

Writers will write because they can't NOT write." Written by blogger Mark Downes, quoting another blogger Mark Pilgrim. Apparently, true blogging happens because is can't NOT happen.

Just like musicians can't not write music, writers can't not write. If you take away their blog, they'll write somewhere else (hopefully not on the bathroom wall!)

I suppose whatever it is that you can't not do, is what you ought to be doing.