Wow. The final post. Feels very Old Lang Syne-ish. At any rate, for this final blog post I am to discuss Virtual Schooling and 21f. I was to watch the video by Mr. Ripmaster and answer a few questions. Here we go:
The first question asks if I think schools are equipped to handle the changes inherent in Virtual Schooling. My answer is no. I have been involved with a district and school who are trying to get ahead of this and utilize it to the benefit of our students and let me tell you it isn't easy. There have been many missteps in our process. We have learned a lot but mistakes were made none the less. I believe our district is VERY forward in their thinking of education. We challenge many notions that have been held as "traditional" and many of our ideologies work out and a few don't. That is why I do not believe the public education system as a whole is ready. It will be a debacle if instituted on the main stage. We have an education system that truly believes "It was good enough for me so it must be OK for them". We also have educators and admin who claim it isn't the teacher who has failed or their antiquated ways of teaching children, it is the children themselves who are at fault. These sort of ideologies will find it very difficult to accept this new virtual reality. Don't get me wrong, we also have many, many fantastic admin and teachers in EVERY district who could take this and do great things. My apprehension lies in the people who really control education. No matter how great a teacher or how many sweet ideas they have they want to implement, if the puppeteer doesn't allow them then they can't. Identify the puppeteer as whomever you want. The point is most teachers don't have the freedom necessary to grab an idea and take off.
When will changes occur? I think the changes will occur at a fast walk. You see, the feds and state and local people will be arguing about this for a little while. Even after it has been "decided" you will still have entities fighting and stalling major implementation. Another problem is infrastructure. I am part of a technology cohort in Michigan called TRIG and we have some really informative meetings. The MEAP that they want to be online for every student? Our state infrastructure is no where near able to handle that kind of usage. Districts have a hard enough time with their bandwidth to handle a school wide online test if there is a lot of output or usage with video so how is every student going to take the MEAP at the exact same time? They aren't. You see what I mean. That brings us to another problem, too often the people who are writing these demands on teachers and students aren't even educators themselves. Many things look great on paper but until you get the grunts on the ground to look at the idea and tell you all the things that are wrong with it the idea is for naught.
As far as how my administrator sees this wave, he is great. I am lucky in many things in my life and one of them is the type of administrator I have. He is a very forward thinker and doesn't go with the "norm" very often. He allows us to have freedom to try new things as long as we can provide research to back our ideas up. HE gives us time to give a new program a chance. This is really important because some people will let you try to ride a bike but the second you waver they tell you to get off the bike and put it in the garage. Instead, my administrator sees you waver, has you make a few balance adjustments and lets you go on your way. I love this about my administrator.
I think the technological tsunami is coming and I am ready. I think all of us in this course and other courses like this one prove that there are institutions and people out there who are gearing up for this new frontier. I am very excited.
Classmates, good luck to you all.
