Nouns and Verbs

The question that is most often asked about the Smart classroom project is: “ What technologies go into the rooms?” or “ What stuff will I get in my classroom?” I generally smile inwardly, and list off the equipment that we purchase to put into the classrooms and usually tag the list by saying that it is not about the equipment. Most people stopped listening at the end of the list.

Understanding the equipment is probably the easiest way to grasp the project, or the effect that it has in a classroom. These are the nouns of the project, the things that we buy and install into a standard classroom, but they are not the magic of the change in instruction. Those things are verbs: collaboration, learning, and engagement. These are the things that really make a difference and are the very hardest to explain. When you are in the classroom and you see the magic that a trained teacher can do to, it is breathtaking and so difficult to explain. That is why this not a technology project, it is not about putting technology into classrooms, it is about active learning and student engagement. It is centered in instruction

Digital Insurgency

Why digital Insurgency? I think that this is really my job. I am the Director of Technology for the Placentia Yorba Linda USD and it is my job to try and show the administrators and teachers how technology offers new ways to learn for the new students we are seeing in our schools. In order for the students to get new opportunities to learn, teachers and administrators must turn the key and allow them access. In our business, adults control how and what students learn. In order for this to happen the minds of the adults must be open to new ways of teaching and learning. Unfortunately, the educational system does not change easily or even consider new ideas easily. We have all gone through the educational system. We all know the rules, and generally we teach very much in the same way that we were taught.

This is the reason for Digital Insurgency. I have to move this agenda forward, but not too rapidly! Whenever there is a discussion of how we, as a district should approach an issue, I try and move the digital agenda forward. There is a fine edge between making a welcomed suggestion and being pushy. It is this edge that is at the very core of digital insurgency. Go over the edge, and you don't get invited to meetings where decisions are made or there is the knowing roll of the eyes that says here he goes again with the digital agenda.

In this blog, I hope to document digital insurgency in our district. Managing change, within the constructs of a declining budget, aging computers, and a jammed network.