Observing this daffodil and how it was trapped with the dead weight of last year’s leaf, made me think about students and how they too may be trapped. Trapped with the old, dead  traditional ways of instruction from years past. Who will release this leaf and lift off the dead so that this bud will blossom? Who will shed previous years’ instructional strategies and gather new ideas and tools to help our digital natives learn and grow?

Many classrooms abound with teachers weeding out the old and planting new ideas to engage, but what is happening to educators  that haven’t looked beyond their traditional gardens for ways to engage our digital learners. As Instructional Technology Specialists it is our defined role that keeps us moving forward to collaborate with all teachers and together become facilitators and celebrators of learning.

How can you remove the dead so that students that are trapped under traditional instruction can be engaged and bloom? How can you move forward to work with unwilling teachers to build that collaborative culture? How can we seek out the unwilling and make a difference in their classrooms?

Kim Cofino shares a cyclic, collaborative model that has no beginning or end. Cofino shares, “Bringing together the pedagogical expertise of the classroom teacher and the technological understanding of the coach not only provides consistent embedded professional development, but makes the most of the extensive resources most schools have to offer in a way that effectively meets the needs of today’s students.” Read more at Creating a Culture of Collaboration Through Technology Integration.

Four for Friday – Grab the Interest of the Reluctants

Edu.Glogster – Glogster EDU is a tool to create online multimedia “posters” that can incorporate all types of elements into a web poster that contains links, images, text, videos, music, and more. Be sure you use edu.Glogster instead of Glogster and collaborate and plan a layout for content and structure to keep the students on target.

• Hooked on Glogster – Lots of Ideas and Examples
• Using Glogster in the Classroom

ABCya Word Clouds – Word Cloud site for educators that lets you right click to delete an unwanted word. Here is an example of text copied from this blog. This ABCya site also offers education games for grades K-5.

• Wordle +  Glogster Lesson Plan – Combine these two for a real eye-opener.
• Wordles of Character – Directions on how to paste wordles on photos/images.

The Tired Teacher – Here is a reference site (part of  teachercertification.org) that offers many resources to enrich teaching. It is a no frills site but has some awesome resources that can engage interest and spark new ideas.

Classroom Learning 2.0 - This free site from the California School Library Association program offers 23 activities educators can complete in 9 weeks to become a tech-savvy teacher. This easy going online experience could be the ticket for the technophobic educator that likes to learn on their own. If you organize a group of educators to participate, they offer a free management guide.

In Conclusion

Read more on how three-quarters of K-12 teachers are now using digital media @ The Journal. This is up from sixty-nine percent in 2008. A full report is located @ PBS Teachers. Don’t forget about the twenty-two percent infrequent users and those trapped kids. Reach out to that infrequent user and move them forward. Are you willing?

Photos shared from irewired.

Daffodil still struggles from being trapped too long.