Blog C4T Post and Comment Summary

C4T#1, comment 1

In her blog post Schooly Non-Discussables Andrea Hernandez reports reading Miguel Guhlin's post The Undiscussables of Tech Leadership. Hernandez states that she has spent years working to be the best educator she can be by trying to understand both in a pragmatic and an academic sense. However, there are a few things that she does not understand. Hernandez poses the question "Are we too obsessed with technology, gadgets, and devices?"

Her question sparked me to share my views on the recent BYOD (bring your own device) day my boys’ school has adapted. While my kindergartner's class is attempting to utilize the technological resources a tablet offers to the classroom, my second graders class is simply playing popular games while waiting for the dismissal bell to ring. In my comment, I told Hernandez about these recent events and how a weekly BYOD day at an elementary school, which calls for a 5 year old to bring a $200 device, supports the theory that we are obsessed with technology. While I am not against the idea of my boys taking their tablets to school, I am not particularly pleased with the usage in my second grader’s classroom. I expressed my concern that our obsession is allowing students to bring toys to class which in turn end up being a babysitting device.

C4T#1, comment 2

In her post Rockin' the PD- part 2: Hatzatah, Hernandez explains that Martin J Gottlieb Day School is trying out new learning styles and tools. The school purchased 20 iPads for student use in 2011. In addition to enhancing students' learning with technological tools, the school aims at engaging teachers in professional development through new ways. The school has adapted the popular presentation format hatzatah, in which each presenter has 5 minutes to present an idea. The presentation consists of 20 slides that advance every 15 seconds. Faculty meetings are opened with a hatzatah, which lead to a hatzatah competition in which teachers answered the question, “How have iPads impacted my practice?” The presentations not only helped teachers learn how to overcome challenges related to iPads in the classroom but also helped teachers relate to their students. Hernandez quotes one teacher who says she wanted to drop out of the competition, but she did not and she was able to overcome her presentation anxiety.

I commented that the hatzatah format sounds like a beneficial format. I like that the method is used to open faculty meetings because it provides teachers with a formal method of relaying information and ideas quickly. I also stated that it seems as though the competition was inspiring to the teachers. The competition prompts teachers to talk about how iPads are used in their classroom and share these ideas with their coworkers, and it allows the teacher to use technology as a way of sharing his or her ideas. The competition also puts teachers in the role of a student by giving them a prompt to answer in a presentation during an allotted time-frame. One teacher stated that she felt she could relate to her students better after completing the competition. To me, that is more important than the technology used to present the presentation and the technology discussed in the presentations.