Shift Happens

Last week, a colleague/friend and I attended the NCTE National Convention in San Antonio, Texas. The focus of the convention was "Shift Happens." I went to a lot of sessions and heard a lot of speakers talk about the learning impact technology can and does indeed have on the 21st century student. As I've continued to chew on all I took in, a couple of moments of clarity have risen to the surface. One, the biggest shift is the mental one I as a teacher am and must continue to make. I have to change my attitude as that is the biggest obstacle sometimes to my teaching journey. I'm an immigrant to technology so there is always going to be that learning curve for me whether we are talking wikis, blogs, podcasts, googlelit trips. digital narratives, voicethread, etc. At my school, a lot of discussion has centered on technology. What's acceptable, what's not, how do we protect students from the dangers lurking on the net without completely censoring them, how do we get daily access to the tech in order to have students CREATE and PRODUCE learning instead of just having information delivered to them using technology. It can be overwhelming and yet I know I must dive in.

I told my friend Alisa that I feel I'm one of the teachers on the sideline of this great rapidly moving river. You know the ones. We're talking about whether or not technology is dehumanizing us and whether or not students need to have their ipods at school and why the devil they constantly want to text and shouldn't cell phones be banned completely from the school, yada, yada, yada. We're still questioning whether or not technology is right for us and meanwhile that river rages on by. It's going my friends, whether or not we're in it. At the conference, I realized I need to stop putting my feet in the river and instead just dive in, whole body and all. The only way I can hope to have an impact on my students is if I get in that river of technology with them and swim along beside them. Change my mindset. That truly is a paradigm shift. It's the biggest one. So, bring on the podcasting and the googlelit trips. I know I will have to rely on my students a lot to give me the lay of the land and orient me. But I hope that we will be learners together as we navigate our way down the constantly shifting river of technology.