METC
For the last three days I have had the privilege of attending the Midwest Educational Technology Conference put on by Cooperating School District here in Saint Louis Missouri. It was a great experience for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I got to meet David Warlick and listen to him expound on the merits of blogs, wikis and podcasting. David’s podcast, Connect Learning, was one of the first ones that I started listening to about two years ago.
Additionally, I met Wes Freyer, Steve Dembo and Hall Davidson. Not to mention the many, many attendees with whom I had meaningful conversations. The experience got me to look at things just a little differently and opened my up to some possibilities that I haven’t explored.
One of the things that I’ve been wondering about for the last few days is has to do with the roll of technology in the classroom and the ability for teachers to use it to create meaningful experiences for students. Is professional development enough, or do teachers need someone to help them actually use it, even if they’ve been trained on it.
I’m not opposed to jumping in and failing when it comes to technology in my classes. However, I don’t think that I’m the norm. I think most teachers need some type of support after the professional development sessions to see the connections that can be made in a classroom and make those possibilities a reality.
Does it mean that a position needs to be created that will meet this need? I don’t know, but I will be continuing to explore this over the next couple weeks trying to determine how to best serve teachers in their quest to create a meaningful lessons using technology.
