As I logged into my Google Reader account this morning, I thought Scott may have been sleep-posting while on a hunger-induced midnight run to the kitchen, but I read the rest of his post and wanted to briefly throw out some thoughts of my own.

I think the missing piece in my organization will continue to be professional development around student engagement and the effective uses of technology in instruction. Of course, as most of us in public education realize sooner rather than later, the money to buy the stuff is always in short supply. It may be reminiscent of the whole chicken/egg argument, but I think professional development has to come first – otherwise you’ve got a bunch of nice computers that end up becoming $1200 grade books and email checkers.

To be clear, my district has some other priorities right now as we attempt to get off of academic watch. Chief among those is implementing the SIOP model as well as a district-wide initiative to bring more rigor and relevance to the curriculum. Now, I don’t think SIOP, R&R, and technology integration are mutually exclusive (technology sure is relevant to our kids!), but I do know that buying and implementing programs is an expensive proposition leaving little or no money behind for extras right now. I think our district leadership has done a great job with few resources, so I am content to change little things and demonstrate that we are making use of the technology that we have now.

One thing I’ve noticed around here is that a group of teachers asking for stuff are much more effective when they present a clear, instructional need. To that end, we have our Internet study and some other small things going on in the building. Without adequate professional development, teachers may not even be aware that there is an instructional need to fill.

Kelly Christopherson at Educational Discourse tagged me with my first meme.  I won’t let you down!

Relative to your leadership role…

What’s working well?

It’s easy to get bogged down pushing papers, slicing and dicing data, and dealing with student discipline issues. I made a New Year’s resolution that I would spend more time in classrooms with students and teachers — not just at eval time, but over the course of the year.  I think after the initial "why-is-he-in-here?" phase, the teachers are very receptive to having administrators come through. It has made me a part of instruction again and has sparked some of the projects and conversations I write about on my blog.

What brings you great pride and joy?

The idea that I can actually help this school make some changes. The notion that after almost 2 years in this building I’m starting to hear teachers asking for more access to technology with specific projects or instructional reasons in mind. Instead of generalized complaining about not having "computers," teachers are identifying specific instructional needs that are much easier for me to bring forward to the principal or district technology staff than, "We need some more computers."

How have you made a difference for good in the lives of those you serve?

Teachers are feeling empowered to try new things and students naturally benefit. I try not to push, but if I see an opportunity to introduce some technology into a lesson or project, I will make it a point to visit that teacher’s room a few times and strike up a conversation. Usually, I’ll open the discussion by saying something like, "You know – I was thinking of your Black History Month project when I found [insert resource here] on the ‘net and thought it might be a good fit…"

What brings you quiet satisfaction?

Planting small seeds and watching them grow.  There isn’t much more satisfying than spending an hour with a teacher who "knows nothing about technology" only to see them 5 days later maintaining a classroom wiki and posting poetry on her blog for students to comment on.

What have you learned over the last few months?

I’ve learned that you can’t motivate with policy. It is far more powerful to start small with an interested individual or group than it is to roll out mandates, policies, and programs at faculty meetings. I doubt we’d have as many teachers working on the projects they’re doing now if we had required it. But now I routinely have teachers stopping me in the hall and saying, "You know that project you’re working on with Mrs. Smith? I’d like to try something similar but I don’t know where to start…"

I’ve also learned that I have an amazingly supportive district leadership team.  I spent over an hour with the assistant superintendent discussing what support (if any) would be available to me as I pursued my doctorate.  While she conceded there were no financial supports in place, she was more than willing to accommodate me with paid time off to work on writing and research.

How can you use this information (above) to move your organization forward?

The fact that I feel like I’ve answered 5 questions with the same response tells something: All of the work I’m doing is interrelated and it’s all about empowering teachers to do different things to reach and engage kids. I’m in classrooms more so teachers are more receptive to my being there and less threatened that it’s an "evaluation."  That means that they (hopefully) feel OK about trying something new — even if it flops — without fear of some negative repercussion.

There’s a buzz around the building and I’m hopeful that we’ll soon reach a critical mass where "traditional" teaching will become the exception and not the rule. If a teacher who "isn’t good with computers" can create and maintain a poetry blog, I’m optimistic that we’re on the right track.  As such, I am hoping to take some of this momentum as I participate in our district’s technology provisioning committee and make the case for more access to computers for teachers and students.

Thanks for the tag, Kelly — I didn’t know I had so much to say.

I’ve always been an advocate for technology in the classroom, but it wasn’t until recently that I began heavily reading and researching its effects and purported effects on student achievement.  I started reading blogs, current research, and eventually started my own blog. Along the way, I picked up a couple of interested teachers with whom I am continuing to work on a wiki project for their science classes. 

Last week, I was invited by one of our teachers to participate in a series of professional development chats she was going to host in her classroom at lunch.  She was calling this “study group” Teaching with the Internet.  I was immediately intrigued.  I asked her if the two of us could meet during lunch and offered to lend some support.  She graciously accepted and we were off and running.  We’ve got a rough outline of what we want to accomplish — we’re limited to about 30 or 35 minutes weekly — and we’re hoping to gather some momentum along the way.

We opened the first session with 12 participants last Wednesday by showing “The Machine is Us/ing Us ” to the group. The video generated some good discussion and left more than a couple of teachers scratching their heads and making comments like, “Man — this stuff has really passed me by…”

We followed the video by reading and discussing the article from December’s TIME magazine titled, “How to Bring our Schools Out of the 20th Century.” The article generated some interesting discussion that will carry over to the second week of the study.  Namely, a couple people questioned whether the "our schools are preparing students for an industrial and agrarian society" argument is an overused cliche’.  I’m not sure that it is, but I read about this stuff for hours every week and so refrained from commenting to let the discussion play out.  All in all, many of us were late to our after-lunch classes because we were enjoying the discussion.  I was pleased to see that we as a group were able to move beyond, "Well, if The District would only give us more money (or more computers, or more training, or more [insert here]), then we could do all this stuff…"  One of the Language Arts teachers even went back to her classroom and started a blog where she posts poetry and asks her AP students to post their reactions.

Lao-Tzu said that even the longest journey must begin where you stand.  I’m hoping that we’re at least starting to pull at some of the roots keeping us standing in the same, comfortable place.