Facilitator+-+Angie+Harrison

Attendance: Nathanial McMurray Christoopher Krysciak Karen Steffensen Rosanna Kerigan Thenistocles Drekolias Kelvin Yip Jen Coens Reid Wilshire Beate Planche Facilitator: Angie Harrison Scribe: Heather Jelley


 * Traditional mind set of what a teacher should be and what a student should be in the classroom = ‘teacher holds all of the knowledge and students would be at their mercy’ – teachers need to be in a position to learn as much from the students and vice versa
 * Board difficulties i.e. fire walls
 * SES of people within board and affordability of tools
 * Parental buy in of these tools
 * Concern about privacy
 * Ministry licensed software are all concerns for implementation
 * Evolution of teaching – selling teachers idea that change is required is a challenge
 * We all know teachers who are getting it done without technology so getting buy in for using technology is challenge
 * Changing the mind set of what teacher/student role is, school climate
 * Cost issues – 90% classrooms still don’t have LCD projectors
 * If teachers have tools they would use them but board has to fund this and so far they haven’t
 * Blended learning – pockets where it is happening
 * Does it start with where the beliefs are in the organization?
 * Teacher candidates ready to use technology but sometimes told not to use it - disconnect
 * Is it about a culture that forces people to ‘go underground’ and surface from time to time?
 * Is one of the barriers school culture?
 * Not every teacher is convinced this is the best way to learn – some teachers still believe a test is the best way to learn
 * In our classroom we try to use technology as often as we can
 * One of the barriers is teachers allowing access to technology
 * Students need to respect using tech. in the classroom
 * Issues of equity, cost, - but mostly about lack of shared beliefs and understanding
 * It is about good teaching with and without web tools
 * Is about interaction of student, teacher and tools
 * Barriers could also be strengths – teacher understanding use of tech. is a barrier – teachers need to be co-learners with students
 * Open environment of collaboration of all
 * Have to understand what barriers are and then work together to overcome them
 * Roles of school system has not changed to adapt to use of technology (no cell phones, use of internet, etc)
 * Trying to balance act of engaging environment and using technology while ‘watching your back’
 * We have to support each other as things come up
 * We also have curricular restraints – learning collaboratively and yet we cannot assess this
 * ‘We are the grass roots’ – we have to validate ourselves and know what is going on in our classrooms

Responsibility = - No – fire walls - No - punishment - Yes - reward - knowledge based pay - site based - distributed leadership – parents, community, students and staff build culture together – one that embraces technology vs. system designed – implement the vision model - take risks - teachers team up (experienced and new users) – plan, implement, assess in a blended way - creative T-T to free teachers who are engaged to collaborate and learn from each other -barrier = cost Solution = all our students to bring in own devices No = donations, out of own pocket Yes = convince board and fundraising Access ministry and board initiatives i.e. time and money to support Professional learning Access to tools that meet the needs of students and class…doesn’t have to be the best computer
 * **SOLUTIONS/STRATEGIES to help bring us forward**
 * Professional Development/Teaching Pedagogy (group agreed the two should be combined after dot mocracy)
 * Habits of Mind (model what we want to see happen)
 * Giving everyone a voice (empowerment) – combined with Relationships (trust) after dot mocracy)
 * Curriculum/Policies/Rules
 * Structural/Operational
 * Resources – time and money

Directed to students – (question referencing how do they feel they are leaders in their school) = Our teacher asks early in the year who feels comfortable handling technology in our class (some of us have used it in other years) – we handle all of the computers and stuff in our class and in the school. We support teachers and other students. We go on a new website first (train leaders first) and then we train others. Students in our class can recommend sites for our class to use.

Teachers need to gather info. from students (i.e. survey) or take students with them when getting PD. Student leadership team needs to help students advocate what they need respectfully.