Technology and Education

About a week ago, I was asked to attend a district wide meeting as a technology representative of my school.  I had no idea what the meeting was about when I attended.  It was a 2 hour meeting that seemed to go on forever, and it wasn’t until the end of it where my attention was grabbed.  They person who ran the meeting was the technology director of our district; his background was technology but nothing truly related to education.  He shared with us that he did not know much about technology use in the classroom and how there is a huge disconnect between the curriculum need/use for technology and how they use their budget to provided the essential technology in the schools (networks, computers, SMARTboards etc).  His job is to manage the budget and make sure that the networks are working and that people are getting what they need (if possible).  What he wanted to put together with these meetings is to create collaboration between the teachers and the “techies” and work on combining curriculum and technology.  Developing plans for HOW to integrate technology into the classroom where it actually transforms student learning.  I think if we can really put this together and focus on this collaboration, we can really make a change at least in this district, or in a school in the district.  I left the meeting with hope but also questioning how this is going to happen by just meeting once a month.  I don’t really know what is going to happen from here on out but I am remaining optimistic =)  Finally, I’m happy to be a part of something like this!

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