Saturday, February 28, 2009
Technology Integration Model
I've been wrestling with developing a comprehensive yet simple to present/explain model for technology integration. I was initially attracted to the Mishra-Kohler Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) model. It says a lot but because it was developed in a pre-service environment for the use of pre-service practitioners, it may not address all the elements necessary to actualize the model in a K12 environment. For example, it assumes that the infrastructure, hardware, and software are already in place. And I wonder if such other factors such as space, place, time, communities, and administrative/board commitment should be integrated into an application model as "essentials" to tech integration. I'm working on what else and I suspect that many of these can be subordinated to the three types of knowledge (TPC) and infrastructure-hardware-software.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
No More Teachers' Dirty Looks
Jeff Utrecht, The Thinking Stick, recently blogged about virtual high school initiatives in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Very enlightening in view of what else I've been reading about advances in school architecture designed to be more in line with new pedagogies and collaborative environments. The blog also got me to envisioning the complete disappearance of schools--not schooling, but the physical buildings, and local, even state educational bureaucracies. Not only will the walls come down but political/educational boundaries will be eliminated and students will no longer be grouped, by age or otherwise. Initially, the new schooling systems may be commercial and competitive under the auspices of a federal department of curriculum compliance and assessment. How will students, parents, teachers and bureaucrats know when a student is ready to what? Matriculate? Graduate? What? Or could we leave the "what?" up to the business employment market? How could we handle social activities like sports, plays and concerts? Interesting.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Didn't Get the Job
What made the difference? I was afraid to ask. Was I afraid of the answer? Of the two finalists for a K8 school district technology director position, I was the one notified today that the other candidate was selected. "It was an extremely difficult decision to make, as both candidates possess..." blah, blah, blah. Never able to accept rejection well, I didn't hear anything after "possess."
Having been laid off as of the end of last July from a director of information technology position (eight years) for a upscale independent school, I wasn't just looking forward to employment, I was getting (am) desperate. I need the money! Why was I laid off? A department reorganization and job description redesign left me in philosophical opposition to the reigning administration. Really though, I was being asked to accept more responsibility for less money.
So, again, why wasn't I the chosen one? Age? Possibly. The demands of the online application make it impossible to avoid indirectly admitting age. I'm 67 now and that, coupled with my 20+ years of technology executive and manager experience, would surely have given the search team reason to expect that I would accept the position only if compensated at the upper end of the range or beyond. Should I have made it clear during the interviews that I would be satisfied at the mid-range?
Could it be because I am white? Maybe, but probably not. Although, the district is 60% Hispanic and 25% African American with the rest being white and a small percentage of Asians, the four members of the search team were white so.... I wonder if the other candidate was Hispanic. I would feel better if he/she were.
Ah ha, it was because I am a male. Right? After all, three of the four members of the search team were female. Could be but I don't know that other candidate was female.
I would like to think that any of the aforementioned reasons, or combinations thereof, would be beneath the search team members. So, I've come to the elevated conclusion that I was overqualified for the position. My resume cover letter reads, in part, "I believe that the key to enhancing student achievement lies in the confluence of curricular content, construtivist pedagogies, and technology integration--that the interoperability of these three elements will foster engaged learning, encourage students to accept accountability and responsibility for their own education, and consequently prepare them for success in the 21st Century." Was that too much education jargon for a technology director? Yea, I'm competent in the technical aspects of being a managing technologist, but, as most of us have come to realize over the past two decades, infrastructure, hardware and software, no matter how abundant, will do little to promote enhanced anything, much less, learning. And during the interviews I repeatedly emphasized my interest in technology integration, developing new and supporting curricular content, technology professional development, advanced pedagogies, eLearning, acceptance and promotion of Web 2.0 and the need for schools to revisit post-industrial place, space and time constraints to teacher and student collaboration and communication. Could I have gone so far as to suggest that students might be allowed to use certain personal collaboration tools--in school? I suspect that I should not have strayed so far from my technology roots. Hell, I even mentioned multi-discipline, vertical and horizontal co-learning, co-teaching, mentoring and broader external community learning environments.
Of course, this last may not have been the reason I wasn't selected, but I don't want to hear it. I do not want to believe that the other candidate was simply more qualified than I or even that she/he was a "better fit." Don't you love that phrase--don't rock the boat!
I'm changing my cover letter and my resume and if I ever get another interview opportunity I will stick to topologies, servers, help desks, database management, E-rate, hardware and software installations and troubleshooting/fixing, telephony, operating systems, web design/development, and other stuff like that.
Having been laid off as of the end of last July from a director of information technology position (eight years) for a upscale independent school, I wasn't just looking forward to employment, I was getting (am) desperate. I need the money! Why was I laid off? A department reorganization and job description redesign left me in philosophical opposition to the reigning administration. Really though, I was being asked to accept more responsibility for less money.
So, again, why wasn't I the chosen one? Age? Possibly. The demands of the online application make it impossible to avoid indirectly admitting age. I'm 67 now and that, coupled with my 20+ years of technology executive and manager experience, would surely have given the search team reason to expect that I would accept the position only if compensated at the upper end of the range or beyond. Should I have made it clear during the interviews that I would be satisfied at the mid-range?
Could it be because I am white? Maybe, but probably not. Although, the district is 60% Hispanic and 25% African American with the rest being white and a small percentage of Asians, the four members of the search team were white so.... I wonder if the other candidate was Hispanic. I would feel better if he/she were.
Ah ha, it was because I am a male. Right? After all, three of the four members of the search team were female. Could be but I don't know that other candidate was female.
I would like to think that any of the aforementioned reasons, or combinations thereof, would be beneath the search team members. So, I've come to the elevated conclusion that I was overqualified for the position. My resume cover letter reads, in part, "I believe that the key to enhancing student achievement lies in the confluence of curricular content, construtivist pedagogies, and technology integration--that the interoperability of these three elements will foster engaged learning, encourage students to accept accountability and responsibility for their own education, and consequently prepare them for success in the 21st Century." Was that too much education jargon for a technology director? Yea, I'm competent in the technical aspects of being a managing technologist, but, as most of us have come to realize over the past two decades, infrastructure, hardware and software, no matter how abundant, will do little to promote enhanced anything, much less, learning. And during the interviews I repeatedly emphasized my interest in technology integration, developing new and supporting curricular content, technology professional development, advanced pedagogies, eLearning, acceptance and promotion of Web 2.0 and the need for schools to revisit post-industrial place, space and time constraints to teacher and student collaboration and communication. Could I have gone so far as to suggest that students might be allowed to use certain personal collaboration tools--in school? I suspect that I should not have strayed so far from my technology roots. Hell, I even mentioned multi-discipline, vertical and horizontal co-learning, co-teaching, mentoring and broader external community learning environments.
Of course, this last may not have been the reason I wasn't selected, but I don't want to hear it. I do not want to believe that the other candidate was simply more qualified than I or even that she/he was a "better fit." Don't you love that phrase--don't rock the boat!
I'm changing my cover letter and my resume and if I ever get another interview opportunity I will stick to topologies, servers, help desks, database management, E-rate, hardware and software installations and troubleshooting/fixing, telephony, operating systems, web design/development, and other stuff like that.
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