Facilitator+-+Tania+Sterling

-“first barrier that comes to mind is finance” Older schools do not have the technical equipment to finance -“the structure we have to deliver education has a lot of inertia” Besides finance we need to worry about staff buy in and facility structure. Our whole educational structure isn’t in a position to move in this direction. We can’t keep up with technology -“getting teachers comfortable with the technology to create that buy-in” Convincing them it does increase student engagement. -“teacher buy in is definitely key, but it isn’t that the teachers won’t do it is the roadblocks” PD, Technology, etc. To give them hands on, teacher driven practice. All PD sessions seem introductory and do not move beyond that. Not building on the PD. Unrelated to what you are doing in the classroom. Focus of the PD, format of the PD. Teachers need to use the technology in regards to planning for their own courses. -Completely agree with Joe. Lots of neat things we want to happen, but can’t get ministry funding to make it happen. Behavioural change is coming. We are more effectively being in a collaborative environment, that is coming down from the school boards. Primary barrier is safety and security. How do we owe for open and collaborative environment while being safe. -agrees about the dollar factor, but its more than that. Sutton has recd an influx of technology, every teacher has laptop and they are still not at the point where they can do what they want to do. The talk is daunting. $$$ is the barrier. School is outfitted for teachers, but students do not have the technology. There is a gap between teacher and student access. -We’ve been lucky to have two smartboards but were wiling to buy more if there was a demand but went from having 4 to 8 projectors. Capability is there but teachers not as willing to incorporate the technology. Time with PD so teachers can get on and start playing with the tools.
 * Tania Sterling** (facilitator) teacher, librarian/learning connections
 * Michelle von Enckevort** (scribe) teacher, ABEL lead, Digital Literary Facilitator
 * Joe Collins** –YRDSB high school teacher
 * Steve Post** curriculum consultant, secondary teacher
 * Ranjit Gill** – YRDSB high school Vice Principal
 * Brendan Faulkner** –YRDSB high school teacher
 * Deepak Upadhyaya** CIO Catholic Board WCDSB
 * Ted Appleby**- Sutton Coop
 * Albert Ngai**,- ESL adult teacher Scarborough

policy “if students aren’t allowed to have their cell phones in class (ie students are using cell phones for learning purpose), with all these new technologies this is something they can use quickly and fast but our policy has not matched it” We have to start keeping pace with what the students have -I think it could be a safety issue, we’re just a younger school and have many younger grades so stuff could get broken, lost, stolen. Trust issue(Chloe) -responsibility, some people won’t listen to the teacher, they do random stuff on the computer, misuse of technology (Crystal) _I agree with Crystal (Stephanie) -Need more computers, lack of tools (all students) -thinking that change takes time in any system. As we intro tech to the teachers it takes them awhile to get on board, meanwhile tech is changing so fast it is difficult to keep up. For eg. I learned to use a Moodle, but now I need to learn how to use Google Spaces. It’s hard to keep up. -learning the google was easier than first learning the moodle, build on your knowledge -it goes into the issues of resources, not just getting the equipment to the schools, but resource support once it gets to the school. Students are hard on the equipment. A shared resource isn’t taken care of equally. Once something breaks it takes a long time to get fixed. Hardware support, tech support needs to be renewed and continual -teachers get frustrated, it’s hard to get buy-in when the tech is broken or insufficient for their needs -ownership is a problem. Students don’t respect the shared equipment that they are working on. Complain about quality of school hardware. This makes the tech less effective. Equipment must be renewed and updated
 * Sharon Soares** High school teacher YRDSB
 * Crystal Piao, Steffi Arkilander, Chloe Stevenson** – elementary school students
 * General Comments:**