Thanks for sharing your experience. In a way, it is the elephant in the room, isn’t it? On the one hand, we want teachers to learn about and integrate technology. On the other hand, we know that the institutional constraints — both social and from infrastructure — will prevent them from doing much of what is we are coming to see as “new literacies.”

I am not sure there is “an answer” here so much as it is crucial that we keep raising the question, addressing it head on in professional development, and then giving teachers options to think about so they can talk knowledgeably about them when they return to school. Perhaps that is the best we can do? Perhaps they are best suited to raise the issue on their own once they have the knowledge, and we just need to give them that extra nudge?

Thanks for commenting and you raise a good point about the means of the measurement being adequate. If I was sounding too much like the “teachers are sticks in the mud,” then I need to clarify. We know how they are measured (test scores), yet the newer literacies and technologies push reading, writing, and thinking in directions that do not conform to the tests.

Thus, the means for measurement, if we believe that going digital is appropriate (as I assume the school does since it invested a billion dollars in infrastructure), then we also need to take into account what we are teaching, learning, and assessing. I think that this is the point that you are getting at and, if so, I agree.

Mr. Welsh, far from being a stick in the mud, is working under a model of assessment that rewards certain kinds of performances — ones that are generally not in line with the kinds if divergent and critical thinking that a vision of newer literacies enables. So, in that case, his complaints are warranted.

Now the trick is to see how we can take those complaints, layer in the idea that, yes, things are changing and all parts of the system — teaching, learning, assessment, infrastructure, administration, curriculum, professional development, etc. — need to keep (or catch) up.

Troy

Thanks for offering your comments on this issue.

It is good to know that your school offers you time in a PLC to pause and reflect, together, on how you are using technology to support student learning. Are you able to use that group to advocate for newer technologies, too? For instance, do you discuss why and how you might want a certain web tool unblocked or discuss purchasing for new equipment?

That seems like it would be the next logical step — empowering you with the time is a start, and then adding the decision-making element would really allow for the conversations to turn into action.

I hope that all is well with you and look forward to hearing about more of your work!

Troy

1) The “new” thing is new enough to the user such that they use it in a manner that is inappropriate (or otherwise “not right”), resulting in poor outcomes.

2) The means for measuring the outcomes by which the user’s performance was measured are adequate and proper.

While it seems that you are arguing >withis< something to the argument that changing pedagogical tools/technologies in the classroom affects one’s ability to measure the learning (if not the nature of that learning) that takes place, then arguments like the one that Welsh puts forward just look incredibly reductive and simple-minded. Roughly, they are the equivalent of “back in my day, kids could learn just fine,” which does not take into consideration the complex interrelationships between human beings, social contexts, and technologies.