Google Books

My husband, the professor, is still awed by Google Books. He is doing some research on obscure inscriptions that it is difficult to find information about. There was a term or a name that he could not find in the specialized books he had checked out of the library. He did a library search and could not find them. Then he went to Google Books and there it was! Actually IN one of the books he already had, but not indexed, so he could not find it. Amazing....

Pointer to Other Important Posts

Today I am just going to point you to another blog that I think is saying some really important things. The Blog "Learning is Messy" really reflects what is going on in a classroom that is using blogging, wikis, skype, etc.... Lots of it is worth reading, but I am choosing two to point to today. First one one What if We Couldn't Blog Anymore? which has reactions to his class about their blogging being blocked.

And the other one about an article on some research done on NCLB. I was thinking of writing about this in my own blog because this study seems really important, but I think he says some good things and it will still point my dear readers to the research (and keep it here for me to find it later).

He has other really interesting posts, so I recommend this blog.

Teacher Competencies

In our district we are working on developing some sort of measure of teacher competencies with technology. Today I am reading two different blogs that are helping me to think about this more clearly. One is Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog where he is working on his 2008 revision of the CODE77 rubrics. The other is Dangerously Irrelevant talking about creating a student scope and sequence which I think really applies to teachers also. Justin Medved and Dennis Harter created the web above.

Technology changes so fast that you cannot state things in terms of what someone can do on the computer or even what they do with their kids. So much of it has to do with MINDSET. I think that part of the problem (and this may go for other teaching also) is that some of the competencies to really be a truly 21st century teacher have more to do with how they learn, how they deal with something new, how they deal with glitches.

Two teachers may do the same PPT project with their students, but with totally different results. Teacher one walks the kids step by step through the program and what is expected of them. When something goes wrong the lesson is suspended for everyone until the problem is solved (usually by calling a tech coordinator in to fix things).

Teacher two starts with an essential question and gives the kids a rubric clearly defining expectations. When kids ask her if they can do something else that the teacher doesn't know much about the answer is YES IF it fulfills the criteria on the rubric. The teacher facilitates, but doesn't keep everyone at the same step. When things go wrong the teacher is calm and trys troubleshooting skills, but always has a plan B in mind to switch to, so there is no disaster.

How do you word the difference between these two teachers? Teacher one may be an excellent teacher with lots of experience. How can we respectfully help them to move into the 21st Century? What does your district do for teacher competencies? Is the approach Carrot (you will get a laptop if you do this) or stick (this must be completed by __________ or there will be a bad consequence)?