We've done the Internet. Now what?
Led to believe that connecting classrooms to the Internet would work educational marvels, many districts are now feeling disillusioned as startling benefits seem elusive, at best. In this presentation, Jamie McKenzie suggests a dozen ways to optimize benefits from the new technologies installed in the previous decade. He provides examples of best practice and strategies aimed at changing student performance on state standards. Among other approaches, he suggests doing better with fewer.
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Using the Net to Teach Numeracy
McKenzie shows how a focus upon variables, systems, real life problems and authentic data is the best possible use of new digital technologies. He offers examples of best practice and outlines the kinds of professional development opportunities that will be required to make this kind of schooling possible.
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Using the Net to Teach Social Studies
McKenzie demonstrates a range of learning strategies that make profitable use of new digital technologies in order to address social studies curriculum standards. He offers examples of best practice and outlines the kinds of professional development opportunities that will be required to make this kind of schooling possible.
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All Kids can Analyze, Infer, Interpret and Synthesize
McKenzie suggests classroom learning strategies using new technologies such as computers along with classical technologies such as books to build the thinking skills of all students, as is required by most state curriculum standards and the new tests. Unlike many apologists who say we must first build the basic skills of students, McKenzie is convinced that strong questioning skills and thinking skills should be the keystone of classroom efforts regardless of the students' ages and skill levels.
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Inspiring Investigations
Cluster diagramming software can radically improve the way students plan their research and conduct their questioning. McKenzie demonstrates the process of mapping out the questions needed to build answers to an essential question and then shows how a student or team may employ such a map to guide research efforts, gathering and saving only pertinent information. Once the discovery phase is complete, the researchers may use the findings and the map to support synthesis, decision-making and the development of new ideas.
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Which Literacy will it be?
There may be more than a dozen information literacies that deserve the term "literacy," but there may be another half dozen that have weak claims. In this presentation McKenzie shows why terms such as "digital literacy" and "computer literacy" might be more about marketing than understanding, insight and the development of meaning. He suggests we make use of "savvy" for these lesser concepts and with apologies to McLuhan, suggests that the medium is NOT the message.
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No Computer Left Behind!
In some districts fearful of failing various challenges posed by NCLB, recently purchased computers have become virtually untouchable. Late adopters reluctant and poorly prepared to use them when they first arrived, can now safely turn their backs on the new tools while returning to the "serious business" of schooling. McKenzie decries this wasteful lunge from one bandwagon to the next and provides an approach to improve student performance while employing the new tools.
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Other Worldly Learning
When students rely upon digital information to learn about other cultures and cities, what are the dangers? How can teachers guard against students experiencing "virtual social studies" and picking up glib, tourist views of other lands? McKenzie suggests teaching strategies and offers up a "Veracity Model" to guide student exploration.
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Questions School Boards Might Ask
Facing many of the same issues listed in the description above, how might school board members team with an administration to safeguard program priorities, set clear goals and conserve limited resources? The challenge is the creation of a clear path and a set of standards that will guide decision-making and keep the district on track. McKenzie offers a model for board-administration collaboration to support discerning use of new technologies.
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Questions Principals Might Ask
As the instructional leader of the school, the principal can be the prime force for change and improvement. The principal can also act to shelter a school from frivolity and senseless or disruptive changes that might interfere with the learning mission. In this presentation, McKenzie suggests a framework of questions and considerations a principal might ask when considering the risks and potential benefits offered by new technologies.
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Cultivating Broad but Discerning Use of New Technologies
Many schools have struggled to extend technology use beyond the typical 20-30% of the staff described as enthusiasts or early adopters. What are the most effective strategies to reach and enlist the enthusiastic support of an entire staff? McKenzie offers suggestions to win over even the skeptical, late-adopting, more traditional teachers in a school.
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Focus on the Locus
For the past several years many schools in the U.S. and abroad have tried to extend the use of new technologies across all classrooms and subject areas regardless of the readiness, inclination or appropriateness of a particular class, subject or teacher. While it might seem like heresy, McKenzie argues in this presentation that our learning goals might be achieved with more quality and depth by focusing our efforts and our resources on those teachers, subjects and units where new technologies are likely to have the highest payoffs and the most natural fit. Rather than spreading ourselves thinly across the entire program, McKenzie suggests we concentrate in order to conserve resources and win better results.
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