A few things have struck me. Rod the instructor has indicated that managing the forums  is a lot like surfing. You need to “Manage the Flow”, ensuring that you jump in early, and then keep looking back to maintain and continue contributing in the conversations. I will admit to struggling with this, as I find the Discussion Forum tool one of the least robust within the Desire2Learn suite of tools. I think the fact that they are revising the tool in the next update would indicate they feel the same way. That said, the blogging component, along with this prodding within the course, has reminded me that it is important to return to conversations you start. I know this seems an odd thing to say, especially when we apply that logic to a face to face conversation, but online, in blogging and discussion forums, it can be easy to state your opinion, and then leave the room, never to return. I used to tell my students that the work they submitted on their blog was the beginning of the conversation, and not the end. I can be guilty of posting thoughts on my blog, and then neglecting to return to contribute to the conversations that take place. I’m trying harder to make sure that when I post to my site, and someone contributes back on the site, I get back there to help keep the conversation running.

The course continues to address issues I am running into in my professional like. The policy questions were particularly relevant, and I appreciated being able to see what other boards do in relation to that work. It seems to be an emerging issue for all of us as technology moves at a pace that exceeds our ability to attend to the use cases and terms of service. The assistive technology pieces have also solidified my ideas about how differentiation in the classroom can attend to so many different facets of meeting the needs of our students. I’ve posted about that in the two previous posts on this site.

So far the experience has been rewarding. I’m looking forward to the second half.

If the technology can help to propel learners forward, even if they are capable of operating without technology, why wouldn’t we all use it. I could walk to Brantford: although it would take a long time, it is something I am capable of doing. This doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be afforded a car. I don’t mean to diminish or dismiss the very real need for technology for students who struggle with learning disabilities, and who need technology in order to succeed; but I am starting to really believe that the things we do to help attend to those students, are strategies that should be applied to every student.

Currently we see students talk about the stigma of using Assistive Technology, while their classmates are able to complete the work in more traditional ways. How sad that our classrooms could create a culture in which the student with technology is jealous of the student with the fill-in-the-blanks photocopied page. It should be reversed. The students with the pencils should be raising their voices to be allowed to engage in the lesson using technology, because despite their ability to persevere through traditional tasks, they deserve to stretch their thinking to higher levels, using technology to assist them in enhancing what they do in class.

The Assignment:

Task:

Take a lesson plan that you have used in the past and make the necessary changes to that lesson to include some type of assistive technology to better support your special needs students. Here is what you’ll need to post:

Original Lesson

Check out this TED Talk on the destructive power of our “throwaway” lifestyle.

On your blog, write a post explaining some of the key ideas, sharing your reaction to the talk, and explaining some strategies we might be able to introduce in the school, or at home, to help to solve this issue.

TAG your post “pacifictrash” to help us track the conversation.

The Response

Instead of focusing on the particular needs of a fictional student in my fictional classroom, I’d like to explain why I think a lesson like this is bad for every student, not just the ones with particular special needs. This is an actual lesson I pulled from my blog that I would have delivered a few years ago.

This was a lesson I would have had my students complete as a written assignment on their blogs. We completed “blog prompts” on a weekly basis. The basic format was “watch the video/read this text/look at this picture, and write a response”. The question I ask in the top is laying out a prescription for success: obviously I think that the video should elicit a negative response, and I want the students to jump through my “hoop” to explain what they might do to fix the problem. I probably got 30 responses all starting with the horror of how mankind treats the world, and then ending with cries for efforts to recycle more often, or reuse items.

My lesson had no space for students to differentiate the product. I want a written response here. For students who don’t like to write, I don’t give them any other options. In order to shift this lesson this is the first piece I need to change. I don’t want everyone giving me a writing response except the one student who is incapable of writing, further centering him out for the rest of the class, especially on a blog where every student’s work is visible. I need to re-write the lesson to allow for different products: poems, podcasts, raving video arguments, photo-essays etc. In this way I give each student the means to express their learning about the Garbage Patch in their own way, and I can conference one-on-one to help give focus to the response, and provide AT needs as required to the students who require additional assistance.

The other problem is I don’t give the students the opportunity to own the learning. I have only provided them with one resource, and that resource may be biased to a particular way of thinking. In order to properly differentiate this lesson for each student, I should be empowering them to go off and find out everything they can about the Pacific Garbage Patch. I need to empower them to be co-learners along with me, and allow them to come back to their blogs and share in their own way, everything that they think is important about the particular subject in question. I need to provide them the ability to become the teacher, and share what they learn with the rest of the class. In this way my lesson looks very different, and provides me the means to differentiate the process and the product for each individual student.

Further to that, depending on what I am actually trying to teach them — which in this case was an expectation from the Grade 5 Science curriculum (Evaluate the social and environmental impacts of processes used to make everyday products) — I could (and should) make the project even more open-ended, and leave them to discover things like the trash patch as a possible example of the impact on the environment, rather than pigeon-holing the students into that particular incident. The garbage patch post is my post, and now I need them to write their own. If I’m exploring this learning goal, it should be enough that I provide them a repository of safe content, in which they can discover for themselves — and teach the rest of the class — the various ways in which we impact the environment through out need to create things.

In this way I’ve changed my lesson completely, and in the midst of that hopefully found ways to differentiate the process and the product for each students’ needs.

Pearson Release Form

 That said, having watched the event from afar, I’m not sad that I didn’t end up going. I say that with caveats. I’m sad that I didn’t have the opportunity to be in that room working with those people. Although I see them at events like ECOO, inevitably they are the ones running seminars, so we don’t get an opportunity to think deeply together about important topics like Social Media use in education. I would have liked to have been part of that think-tank, just to be in the presence of so many cutting edge educators. I’m not sad because from afar, seeing pictures of that Release form that was signed at the beginning of the day, it seems (although perhaps I am incorrect: I was not there) that the day was orchestrated to take the brilliant thinking of my colleagues, and use it to build a Social Media tool for Pearson. We cannot fault Pearson for this; it is a clear need in the system, and if I was them, I would want that group, in that room, telling me how to build it correctly. Just as Microsoft has realized with their latest version of Sharepoint, that social networking features like @mentions and #hashtags and “following” should be part of the workday, the technology industry in education should not be faulted for capitalizing on the emergence of social media use in the classroom.

Basically: if I could have been there, I would have been there, and I can imagine that despite the sponsor of the event, anytime that kind of intellectual capital finds itself in the same room together, the conversations at the table would be deep and meaningful and exhilarating.  I am not writing this piece to attack those attendees. I count many of them as friends. I am writing this post because I think that we are missing part of the conversation if we don’t understand that we can do this without Pearson.

I also know that despite what I am about to espouse about the evils of corporate education, my hands are not clean. I talk a lot about using Google Apps for Education, which despite their “do no evil” motto, can be seen as a commercial monolith in their own right. I also promote Apple products quite readily, so I recognize that I am a shill for the corporate education sector. With all that said, I should probably be silent. One should not stand up attacking the evils of eating meat, only to admit to making an exception for chicken and fish; and I shouldn’t try to point fingers at the inclusion of commercial tools in education, when I use and introduce them readily into the classroom. But that said, I have never been know to be silent when I should be silent.

This particular conversation — about Social Media, and its use in education — is close to my heart. Having been one of the architects behind the HWDSB Commons, I know what can be built with Open Source tools. We use WordPress and BuddyPress to build the Commons. The work we do is based in large part on the CUNY Commons, which you can read about in more detail here, where Boone (one of their developers) plots out a similar argument concerning Blackboard vs. Open Source. You should also take a moment to read about the groundswell of interest in using WordPress within education in this article.

Having Pearson build a social network for education makes sense in an education system that does not tend to staff developers, and prefers to outsource a good deal of its infrastructure to tried and true “industry standard” tools. It’s why we don’t see more banks of computers running Ubuntu, despite the obvious savings that could be had in education if we ran more free and open source software (I’m scared to know what we pay Microsoft in licensing as a Province).  There are certainly benefits to having that corporate backing. I cannot pretend that maintaining the Commons in an environment that is not accustomed to supporting open source tools has been easy. Some days Google is the best technical help we can call upon, and with 12 000 users, that isn’t a very reliable model.

I wish we could shift that focus though. We can continue to raise little consumers, feeding them into the corporate womb of Google or Microsoft or Pearson, years before they are able to make the informed decision for themselves; or we can introduce them to an international community of software developers who give back to their community. Individuals and groups who take what they produce for their own needs, and make those things available so that others can benefit as well. We could teach them that they can also contribute, in small or large ways, to the benefit of the community, by sharing code they produce, or reporting issues to people who can help fix issues (all of us are better than one of us…).

I am not celebrating these tools only because they are free. Nothing is ever truly free, and if schools or boards are adopting WordPress as merely a monetary decision they are missing the point. The HWDSB Commons is a small blip on the Education Technology radar, but we have helped (monetarily) with the development of a plugin that allows users to Follow each other. We have helped with the development of a plugin that allows teachers to take those followers and separate them into individual lists. A request from me, triggered the development of a Doppelme integration that allows students to create avatars, without sharing real photographs of themselves (the Doppelme developers did this for free once they found out we were an educational institution). We have helped with the development of a plugin that forces users to use their username, rather than being able to change how they are identified on the network. These are small things; but these things will make it easier for other institutions to build what we have built. And when they build it, they too will find and develop functionality that is of use to their community, and our hope is that they will share that with the education sector (and the open source community) as a whole. We are currently working on integrating our Commons platform, with the Ontario Education Ministry’s Learning Management System. When that is done, we will share that code with our fellow educators as well.

There is some consensus that we don’t need Pearson to do this work. But they want in. #ontsm

— Sue Dunlop (@PrincipalDunlop) April 27, 2013

I am heartened by the tweet above, that suggests that there is a realization that we can do this for ourselves. The problem remains that we work in a system that doesn’t necessarily have the means to do it for themselves. We need a shift, maybe as high up as the Provincial level, that says that we will embrace open source, and teach students how to become part of the open source community, as a component of becoming a good digital citizen, rather than creating a digital pathway that drives them into the corporate arms of a company waiting to cultivate life-long dependence at a younger and younger age.

I am happy to report that this experience has been far more rewarding than the first round. It would seem that ETFO recognized that an AQ created to help teachers integrate current technology into practice should probably include some mention of current technology. Not only is this instructor on Twitter @mrmuzzdog, but he has established a course hashtag, has a blog, and is promoting the use of blogging as a reflective tool throughout the process of the course. Three cheers for authentic tools, and introducing concepts that will help teachers join the online conversation around digital tools and resources,  and an instructor who is walking the walk.

The content of the course is sync’ing up with a number of current items on my plate. Talk of a policy links directly to the work we have been doing around establishing a 21st Century Learning and Technology Policy for HWDSB. It’s great to see what other school boards use to dictate acceptable use. Although I’ve seen it before, I like the fact that the course is integrating OSAPAC resources (Bitstrips for Schools is a great tool, and worthy of being hi-lit in a course) rather than teaching us how to use an ancient version of MS Word. Including discussions about moving from a computer lab to a computers in the classroom-style set up is an old discussion, but still a pertinent one in a system that still perpetuates that computer lab model in most schools .

I’m glad ETFO has recognized the need to update this course to reflect the quickly changing landscape of technology, and how it fits into the classroom. I like the idea that I can use my blog to reflect on the course and it isn’t an extra piece, but can be used within the confines of the expectations. I’m looking forward to continuing.

The next time I saw George he was an edu-superstar, and was being fawned over by a crowd of people at Educon 2.0 in Philadelphia. Brandishing a new title: Division Principal of Innovative Teaching and Learning. I lined up to shake his hand in person amidst the others who count themselves among his 28 000 Twitter followers. It was like a Ed-tech receiving line with Dean Shareski and Alec Couros also holding court at the sidelines of registration day, pressing the flesh, and wearing the “cool kids posture” well.

George deserves that elevation from school principal to system voice: his message is powerful, and we should endeavour to reflect, and make reflection a part of our practice; but I think the fact that the community he built has been (potentially) abandoned by the new administration at the school, speaks to how difficult a task it is to get educators to make reflection (and public reflection even more so) a part of daily practice. As someone charged with helping to spur adoption of a blogging platform at a system level, I am constantly faced with requests to create that one way communication platform. Often “I need help with my blog” requests result in a site that effectively communicates pizza day schedules and homework, with the comments turned off, and without room for student contribution. I’ve written previously about the bump-it-up blog wall, and the steps necessary to take blog adoption from parent communication vehicle to student stage or teacher reflection site, but now with almost 3000 sites hosted on the HWDSB Commons, I can probably still count on my hands the number of sites where professional practice is reflected upon deeply.

Why is that? It’s because reflection — especially the kind that you share and present to the scrutiny of others — is hard. Reflection means sometimes admitting failure in a public position that oftentimes postures infallibility (we are entrusted with the children after all). It is also because teachers tend to be humble. There are jobs you can do perfectly: jobs where the expectations are clear, and the steps to get there well trod. Teaching is not one of those positions. Regardless of how great a lesson goes, there are always chinks in the armour; students we didn’t quite reach; ways we could have improved. Teaching is a constant evolution that feels more Sisyphean than it does adulating on any given day. It is rare to come across a teacher who is not self-deprecating; who is not humble even when exuding excellence. We do work that is incredibly hard (with dwindling resources).  We are lambasted in the media as lazy and overpaid. And kudos that properly frame the reality exist, but are rare (especially from the media). To then decide to “out” oneself as something other than an expert in all things is difficult. To admit that there are days when it feels as if the students teach you more than you do them, is hard. To admit you are a learner, despite the fact that this label is one we should all ascribe ourselves, regardless of role, is one that we do not traditionally wear well, especially out in a public that generationally remembers a time when teachers purported (foolishly) to be experts in all things.

That is not to say we should not try. The belief that teachers can be experts in all things is foolish. Better to model to students that we are all on a learning path — one that does not end upon the completion of a diploma from a traditional education system. We can do this by reflecting on our daily practice, showing that learning is a process, a flame not a bucket (you know the Yeats quote). If we do that publicly, we may find an entire community of like-minded companions, out on the world-wide web, ensuring we are not alone.

We are already seeing the elements of pedagogy emerging; where teachers are leveraging the devices students have in their pockets. These are not fully functional devices in some cases, and there are limitations that we must be mindful of in the classroom. When lessons depend on student provisioned devices, the requisite activities must be planned for the least functional of those devices. This may mean you can perform a poll using a tool like Poll Everywhere, collect data through a Google Form, take a picture, or potentially create video or audio recordings: rich tasks in the right context.

This is different than opening the door to students bringing in more powerful devices like tablets or laptops. We see this emerging as well, more frequently within the secondary realm, but this too has limitations in comparison to system provisioned devices. Open source possibilities are emerging, but we are still reliant on commercial software within a number of contexts. The Ontario Software Acquisition Program Advisory Committee (as a rule) still provisions licenses that do not allow teachers to install software on student-owned devices. A thriving community of Free and Open Source software development exists that can replace commercial tools if harnessed correctly, paired with online tools, web 2.o software, we can reduce our needs to web-capable devices for most uses. There will still be a need within specialized contexts to provision standard devices to each student where proprietary software is costly, or requires specifications beyond the scope of most student-owned devices (Computer-Assisted-Design, Video-Editing, Computer Science et al)

Adopting these online tools is a necessary component. Teachers need to become comfortable utilizing the web, and open source software, in the place of commercial software: Google Apps as a replacement for MS Office, blogging and discussion forums as a means to collaborate with students, open textbooks from services like CK12 in replacement of traditional textbooks, and a shift from the reliance on memorization of content in lieu of creation. The HWDSB 21st Century Learning team has worked to create spaces where this type of teaching and learning can flourish (HWDSB Commons, D2L) and is currently entrenched in a project, funded by the Council of Ontario Directors of Education, to integrate these tools together to make it even easier for students to access and teachers to leverage.

We must also be mindful that there is safety in system provisioned devices. Variables around functionality can be tempered when every device looks, acts, and is configured the same. In a BYOD classroom, the teacher can be required to take on the technical hiccups assuaged by the consistency of system tools. Accessing the network, upgrading internet browser plugins, or navigating foreign operating systems can all create roadblocks that may temper a teacher’s willingness to fully integrate technology. Proponents of 1:1 deployments present this as a major hurdle in a BYOD framework.

Creating the conditions within schools to make this easier is the other key facet of a BYOD program. We need to provision ubiquitous access to internet, open and accessible to any device (something HWDSB is in the process of installing across all of our schools), and along with that we need to be mindful of charging requirements, security concerns (where do I put my laptop when I go to Phys. Ed. to ensure it isn’t stolen?) and a shift in service requirements (technicians should be available to help students with their own devices, rather than dealing exclusively with board devices).

The belief that BYOD can be seen as a financial decision within a K-12 space is folly. The cost savings reported by businesses that adopt BYOD are dependent on the ability of organizations to dictate the functionality of the requisite device. A business model that promotes BYOD can also be clear about the functionality required in the employee-purchased device. This is a luxury we cannot extend to students: they will bring what they can afford, what their parents will entrust them with, or they will bring nothing, and we need to be able to provide the same rich, meaningful programming for every student regardless of the limited nature of the device they arrive to school with. Currently within HWDSB we provide computing devices at a 10:1 student to computer ratio. It would not surprise me that if 1:1 with BYOD was the goal, equity would dictate we have available at least that many devices (if not more) for those who cannot provide their own.

Herein lies the problem: when we talk about BYOD and 1:1, they are seen as mutually exclusive, when one should be seen as a pathway to the other. We need to open the door to students being able to bring in their own devices (there are still corners of the board that mis-read board policy, and mistakenly believe that personal electronics should be confiscated at the door, and rogue laptops have the capacity to bring down the school network). As devices become more personalized, students who can, will opt to utilize their own tools, even when offered a board alternative, eliminating a “pick up your laptop at the door” model in some communities. Along with ensuring that we welcome the use of personal devices in schools, we must ensure we are providing opportunities for students to access the breadth and depth of learning available in a connected world: we do this by ensuring our classrooms have access to board provisioned tools: so that a student who arrives with a 7 year old laptop can still experience the rich media creation possible on a current model tablet. As prices drop (and as pedagogy shifts away from paper and textbooks) the ability to ensure every student has access to a device, regardless of origin, becomes easier. Portability of devices (chromebooks, tablets, netbooks) negate the need for computer labs and push the devices where they belong: in the classroom, at the point of learning.

BYOD or 1:1: I think we do both.

This is one part of a 5 part assignment, highlighting contributions to an ETFO AQ course. The assignment asks the student to select 5 – 7 pieces of your work from this course that shows “You”.

The Question: Go to the following tutorial page on Microsoft Word 2000 http://www.fgcu.edu/support/office2000/word/index.html and take some time to go through some of the tutorials. Make sure you thoroughly understand this program as you’ll be required to use it for the next E-tivity.

This is one part of a 5 part assignment, highlighting contributions to an AQ course. The assignment asks the student to select 5 – 7 pieces of your work from this course that shows “You”.

The Question: Now it’s time to have a little fun! Go to the website http://www.internet4classrooms.com/grade_level_help.htm and select the grade you teach or would like to teach from the left hand side menu. Then select current standards and one of the subject areas. Take some time to play many of the games that you think your students may like. Also, think about a concept or topic that you are currently teaching or want your students to review and play some of the games related to that topic.

Consider the following questions:

Would your students have fun playing these games?

Would they also learn the concepts that you want them to learn while playing these games?

Is this an effective way to teach a concept while using the computer? Put your thoughts into a persuasive paragraph that tells other educators what games (concepts) you played and your thoughts on the value of using computer games with your students.

The Answer: Perhaps I clicked on the wrong links, but after exploring six different games within the Grade 6 section of the site, I came away with a pretty negative impression of the games curated on this site. I find these types of games in school problematic, as they tend to teach concepts in a “Drill and Kill” style. Lessons on Grammar — like Grammar Gorilla from FunBrain.com, or Grammar Blast from eduplace.com — allow for random guessing, and don’t explain — when the wrong answer is provided — why the answer given is incorrect. This means the game is great for someone who fully understands the concept already, and reinforces that knowledge; but does nothing to help students who don’t understand, and could actually be a negative by inspiring frustration in a student who is struggling, without providing an adequate way for the student to meet with success. Because for the most part these games are not “intelligent” enough to allow for divergent thinking, the games don’t allow the students to practice higher-order thinking skills. When answers can only be either right or wrong, they end up having to be very simple questions, that don’t allow for students to communicate why they think something is correct, and don’t help the teacher to assess the process, and the student’s thinking. Games like this are the equivalent of the blackline master, fill-in-the-blanks style of instruction that doesn’t make for effective teaching. Games like these don’t help to foster the intrinsic motivation necessary to help students become life-long learners, and instead rely too much on external rewards and points.

The Motivation: The listing of games provided in the assignment (as far as I could gather from my assessment of the site) were the types of games that don’t help teach concepts as much as they provide a way to practice concepts that are already mastered. These are types of activities we see students wasting their time on in Computer Labs when they could be using the technology in more creative, purposeful ways. I think we are seeing a different form of gamification of education emerging in the form of the creative uses of Minecraft being used in the classroom, and in the ways that students have used platforms like Second Life and Sim City, but the examples given do not elevate themselves to this ideal, in which games help students to explore, and use creative thinking to solve problems. We see these skills utilized in current video games, we need to find ways to leverage that in education, rather than recycling an old form of gaming that has long since evolved in the commercial gaming world, but is still perpetuated in the educational sphere.

This is one part of a 5 part assignment, highlighting contributions to an AQ course. The assignment asks the student to select 5 – 7 pieces of your work from this course that shows “You”.

The Question: Write a 2-3 page summary report on how a digital portfolio would benefit a student with special needs more than just the average student. Feel free to research this topic, but just list any references that you may use.

The Answer: The question for this assignment — Write a 2-3 page summary report on how a digital portfolio would benefit a student with special needs more than just the average student — is wrong. Technology as a learning tool, when used appropriately, benefits all students. The ways that we individualize learning, and attempt to make it relevant to a learner’s style, and to their strengths and weaknesses, shouldn’t be something relegated to students with special needs, in the way that we use that term to quantify students who have learning disabilities. Every student has needs, and every child is special, and therefore every student should be provided the benefits we afford to students with learning disabilities. Every student should be given access to technology that assists them in reaching their full potential. Put aside for a moment that the “average student” can cope in today’s education system without access to digital tools and resources. That they are conditioned to jump through the right hoops and summon up the requisite effort to qualify among the average, while we create individualized learning plans for students who fail to either fit the mould or toe the line. I am not trying to sweep away the very real existence of learning disabilities; but I also submit that the way some of our current classrooms operate, where silence and diligence in worksheets that will aid in achieving higher marks on standardized testing, make “identified” students a sometimes blanket term for any child not willing to move in step with the others.

ePortfolios — which for the purpose of this paper I define as a blog — are not only relevant in teaching and learning, but important as a component of a blended learning environment to differentiate for learners. I utilize blogging in this capacity for its ease of use as a publishing platform to centralize work from multiple sources through the ability to embed; its compatibility with different forms of multimedia; and for the varied permissions that can be set on authorship and administrative capabilities. Blogging is also relevant for this purpose because of the ability to provide feedback, commentary, and discussion regarding the work posted.

 As a starting point, blogs add many elements to the learning environment:

• Blogs provide a “centralized portfolio” where creative work can be posted from multiple disciplines

• Blogs on a standardized platform provide an ongoing digital portfolio that the student will continue contributing to from year to year, instead of having to utilize a different tool for each class, for each year, for each assignment

• This ongoing digital portfolio allows teachers to assess the level of achievement of students entering their classrooms (see the work from June in early Sept.)

• Digital portfolios allow for better sharing of student work (the display wall becomes infinitely larger, and more accessible to other feedback and monitoring by other teachers, administration, and students), leading to a better knowledge of our students, and more sources of descriptive feedback: a key component in the learning process

• Digital portfolios/Blogs, by their very nature, are conversation tools that enable feedback to occur from multiple sources. Assessment as Learning occurs organically as students read and comment on each others’ submissions

• An authentic audience is created.  The teacher is no longer the only “reader” of the work

• A community of writers is created.

• The portfolio becomes a repository where creations from other Web 2.0 tools (stop motion animation, podcasting, comics, movies etc.) can be centrally located, shared, and assessed. The portfolio becomes the “binder” where all digital work is collected

These are features that are of value to all learners, and help to enhance the learning environment in myriad ways. It is important for us to recognize the importance of creating blended learning environments, with ePortfolios as a facet, to benefit learning for all.

As a tool for students with learning disabilities, electronic forms of communication (and technology outright) — as a replacement for paper — as a means of delivering evidence of learning between a learner and their teacher, are essential. We must leverage the assistive technology available to help students meet their full potential. Allowing students access to the technology available to meet their learning needs should be seen as a fundamental right for students growing up in the current age. It cannot be seen as something we limit to students who meet a certain set of criteria, or for students who show a suitable proclivity to utilizing the technology. It should not be optional. Technology in all its forms (both hardware and software), in this age of information, is a key learning tool for all.

This is an emerging construct; as technology becomes more accessible, and its uses become more enabling for learners, we begin to see it as less of an option and more of an imperative. As we see dependence on these tools in our own lives as a key element of lifelong learning, we begin to understand their value in pedagogy.  I’ll use the current SEA claim practice at HWDSB as an example of where this thinking should applied. Claims for funding for students who have met the criteria of an appropriately qualified professional as benefiting from technology, still go through a 6 week trial process in which “schools must demonstrate that the student is willingly and effectively using technology” (HWDSB Special Equipment Amount Claim Procedures Manual). I am sure there was relevance to this policy, perhaps as a response to seeing too many pieces of SEA Claim equipment collecting dust or being deployed improperly, but it seems backwards. Not only should every student have access to current and relevant technology, but If a trained professional (usually someone with a PhD) says that a child in a school where this isn’t the current reality will benefit from the use of technology, it should not be up to the child to then dictate readiness, but up to the teacher to show a willingness to help the student understand how to effectively use the technology, and therefore become willing. If the teacher cannot demonstrate that they can willingly and effectively use technology, they are doing a disservice to their students.

We cannot put the blame on individual teachers though. A teacher alone cannot provide technology for their classroom. It is the responsibility of the school board to ensure that the essential conditions for learning exist. These are learning conditions for the professional, as well as for the student. If the opportunity does not exist to practice with technology, so that it becomes a part of practice, then teachers cannot reasonably show willing and effective use. We must then ensure that our classrooms are properly equipped with the right technology, and once the technology is in place, we can begin to look at the ways in which it can be harnessed to improve student learning.

This takes us back to eportfolios, blended learning, and technology, as a means to interact with students, and as a space where they can recognize an authentic audience, show pride in their achievements, and share their learning with a wider audience. E-portfolios create a vehicle in which students share their personal interests, alongside the purposeful work they complete in class. In the current system it may be seen to be of greater importance with students with special needs, as the blog becomes a vehicle for the student to share their knowledge on subjects of personal interest (video games, comic books, sports etc.) as a differentiation strategy, while the “average students” toil on content served up in traditional textbook fashion; but a willingness to provide assessment data in the same format, on the same subject matter, as the teacher has deemed appropriate, does not preclude them from wanting, and benefiting from, being able to share what they know, about what they know, to an audience.

Blended learning, and e-portfolios as a key component of that blend, is an essential part of today’s classroom. We cannot continue to relegate consistent access to technology to students with “special needs”. We need to ensure that all students have this type of access, and we need to remove any barriers we have in place that make it more difficult for students to gain that access. Technology may be an outright necessity for some students with learning disabilities that prevent them from functioning in the world without technology, but beyond those extreme situations, every student can benefit from technology, and to say that it may be better for some, may be mistaken to meaning optional for others.

The Motivation: Here is another example of treading away from the requesting content as the spirit behind the question runs counter to my beliefs about technology integration in the classroom. I think I present a sound argument, but not one necessarily answers the question, as much as it hopefully examines the spirit of the question.