And in reply to Doug’s self imposed question, “Why would anyone want to do this? ” in reference to blogging, the quality of responses here from networked colleagues from anytime anywhere is my answer. I can’t sort through these ideas on my own.

I notice that ‘Hey Jude’ has picked on this as well – FEAR. I have worked in adult education for a while and the one thing that really struck me was their fear, fear of doing something wrong, fear of pressing the wrong key and ‘buggering it up’, fear, fear, fear. What I had to do was show them a way that they could do things that had a ‘backup plan’ and then things started to happen…..slowly.

Sooooooo, teachers are definitely not the only ones that feel this way. It is more an adult or old farts thing. I think that this reflects the fact that learning involves a state of vulnerability and this does not mix well with fear – simple as that.

The environment that we try so hard to create for our learners needs to also be available to us teachers and for that matter all of us old farts.

The notion of using “web2.0″ tools to expand expertise (certainly possible IMO) is different from the notion of teachers already being experts. I try to avoid generalisations about teachers because in my experience teachers vary a lot in all sorts of ways.

I could ask you what areas of your expertise have been enhanced, apart from web2.0 expertise, by your active participation in web2.0 technology? This might lead onto further analysis about what is really important about the web – that it is a superior medium – which is a different issue than expertise as such.

I thought one thing missing in your post Graham was the disruptive effects of technology on School and many of our ideas, including our idea of expertise. I think it is the disruptive potential that makes the system and some teachers (many follow the lead of the system) hesitant. In the meantime computers are used in non disruptive, less interesting ways, eg. for writing reports

The bible writing monks were experts at all things involved in being a bible writing monk. But that didn’t make them experts in all things involving printing. I wonder how many made the transition?

The internet has certainly blurred the lines between expert and amateur. But as well as some amateurs displaying expert knowledge there are also lots of amateurs pretending to be experts when they are not. For me the important question is not web 2.0 as such but how do we work out who an expert is? Expertise is special IMO and ought to be valued. I’m critical of theories that just emphasise the importance of connection without saying much else.

Here is an interesting post by clay shirky when he went along to a forum to criticise a book about “the cult of the amateur” and ended up saying that it made some valid points against some more one eyed blog evangelists

We have a terrible time just getting people on the train, which happens to be moving, AND it happens to be picking up speed.

Web 2.0?
Heck, lets get them on Web 1.0 first!

Tim
El Paso Texas

We constantly stress using technology in the classroom as an educational tool for the students. We have inservices and seminars on how we can use technology to teach.

But most teachers are scared of technology.

I graduated from college in 2002. What tools are available now that weren’t available 5 years ago?

Google News (2002)
WordPress.org (2003)
MySpace (2003)
Gmail revolutionized webmail (2004)
Flickr (2004)
YouTube (2005)
Google Maps (2005)
And the list continues….

Because of this, most teachers are unaware of the technologies out there. And even those who are aware don’t all know how to use them.

What struck me today was that most teachers see technology as something they need to master in order to teach children. What I’ve done for as long as I can remember is to use technology as a learning tool.

We all know that we teach children and we also learn from them in the process. What we seem to fail to remember is that we can teach them with technology and learn from them and it in the process. As Alexander said, “I’m no expert. I’m a learner. THEY call me a teacher.”

Great words.

Teacher’s IMO are no or any more expert than lion tamers jumping through their own fiery hoops for want of a ferocious beast that resembled something we once feared, shot and mounted on wall plaques for small children to wonder at.

Teacher’s have been trained to ensure roll calls occur, mints are eaten amidst powerpoints being read to them by butcher-paper wielding shafilitators. Who else would sit in groups and be barked at for hours on end about learning outcomes, swimming carnivals, assembly, yard-duty and MSB ?

It’s like most trades – you have to endure the fact that you’ll always have some red-neck pumped with far too much self importance proclaim leadership standing at the too-far-gone-too-care pulpit of knowledgeness inculcation.

Then there will always be some idiot who thought that jamming the dunny up with newspaper was funny, or letting the Principals car tyres down after super-gluing up the locks.

The difference is that our dumb arse musings will be on the web for a log time to come.

For those of us that believe the internet will not go away.

For those of us who actually consider the the only thing worth teaching kids is how to break the system that would otherwise render them mute and incompetent in the face of creative challenge.

I’m no expert. I’m a learner.

THEY call me a teacher.

For too long we’ve told pupils to have an opinion, but weren’t really prepared to give them an audience for that opinion… suddenly with web2.0, we can — and often with quite remarkable results (see Christian Long’s blog for more info on this).

The problem with wide-spread adoption of Web2.0 in classrooms is not really too different from the problems that have always beset education, namely a workforce that is all too often comfortable in the old dispensation. But they will eventually be replaced by more ‘modern’ colleagues who expect the tools to be in place… and in the meantime, the pupils are using them anyway…

I’ve often felt that education as an entity is just too cumbersome and slow to react to change and new ideas. The irony is that in the past this has been on the basis of expense (”The new books cost too much”, “We’ve already spent time and money on implementing x, y, and z…”), but Web2.0 tools are effectively free so we begin to see the excuses for what they really are… excuses.

I think we all just have to do what we can. In my own case, that means using blogs with my classes as a form of online jotter. Not particularly radical, or even imaginative, but it does mean that my more reticent colleagues can understand what I’m doing (especially when they realise that it means you can never ‘forget’ your homework again)… and ultimately, it is the thin end of the wedge!

Check out TECHNOLOGY REFUSAL AND THE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE OF SCHOOLS in EDUCATION POLICY ANALYSIS ARCHIVES Volume 1 Number 10 September 14, 1993

For nearly a century outsiders have been trying to introduce
technologies into high school classrooms, with remarkably
consistent results. After proclaiming the potential of the new
tools to rescue the classroom from the dark ages and usher in an
age of efficiency and enlightenment, technologists find to their
dismay that teachers can often be persuaded to use the new tools
only slightly, if at all. They find further that, even when the
tools are used, classroom practice–the look-and-feel of schools
–remains fundamentally unchanged. Indeed, the last technologies
to have had a lasting impact on the organization and practice of
schooling were the textbook and the blackboard.

What is often overlooked, however, is that schools
themselves are a technology, a way of knowing applied to a
specific goal, albeit one so familiar that it has become
transparent. They are systems for preserving and transmitting
information and authority, for inculcating certain values and
practices while minimizing or eliminating others, and have
evolved over the past one hundred years or so to perform this
function more efficiently (Tyack, 1974).

Love the conversation!