STP #8: A chat with the gang
It’s been long in coming, but the newest installment of the Savvy Technologist Podcast has finally arrived. But it’s not the usual STP. I’ve always enjoyed the Gillmor Gang podcast and I’ve wanted to do something like it in the educational technology category for a long time. Now that I’ve got the home studio operational I leaped at the opportunity to record a Skype conference call with some friends from “coast to coast.”
Steve Burt from Clarity Innovations is the moderator and I’m joined by Tim Lauer and Will Richardson for the inaugural Educational Technologists Coast to Coast Podcast. At least that’s the title one of us thought of about 10 seconds before I hit the record button. (It’s not a bad name, but other suggestions would be welcomed.) We hit a number of topics including Web 2.0 and its implications for education, utilizing the Web for school communications, frustrations about the slow uptake of Web technology in schools, student information systems, and each of us recommends a bit of technology that we think ed tech people should have on their radar screens.
Quick production note: you’ll hear some audio artifacts and a bit of distortion in the other guys’ voices. This is a result of the fixes that were required to bring everyone to approximately the same volume. It’s not too bad considering this is a first attempt, but I think we can crank up the production quality a bit next time. I hope you enjoy the podcast.
Download: STP-ETC2C (18.6 MB, 40:28)
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Listened to it last night ,Tim, and I liked it a lot. Just my sort of thing (huddled over a computer on a cold winter’s night, but summer will come again). Keep up the good work,
Jo
Listened to this podcast while I was walking the dogs this evening. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was thought provoking and informative for me. I’m hoping you guys will do some more. One of these days I’m going to have to stop and see your setup too. It looked great in the picture.
A great podcast. The problem is that people like you and me are listening to this — people who already believe these things. As they say, “preaching to the choir”. This is important, because you have to teach the choir to sing. But I agree with Tim, that there needs to be a broader sense of what students and teachers should be doing in the classroom. It is this broader community who needs to be listening to this podcast. Wouldn’t it be great if schools made this podcast file available through their school web site here at the beginning of the year.
I think, also, that as a society, we need to come to a consensus on what a successful school and classroom look like. What do we see going on in them, and what are the measures of success? Test scores are important. I gave test when I was teaching, because they helped me to measure not only my students success, but mine as well. However, here is another deeper dimension to teaching and learning success, something that can’t really be quantified. It has to be seen. This is where I agree with Will, that it’s the students work, their accomplishments, that should be displayed, not just scores. I believe that parents want to know what, how, and why their children are being taught, not just how well.
Would love to hear more. You do need a southerner, you know!
I am a retired ICT teacher in Scotland (your equivalent of High School) and now a part-time Staff tutor (teaching the teachers). I was fascinated listening to this podcast. So many of your experiences reflect what happens here in Scotland. The cutting edge teachers are exploring moodle, blogs, wikis etc where many classroom teachers are still technophobes. the divergent views between elementary and High school about what information parents want exactly mirrors the views I hear in Staff meetings.
I am also involved as an online facilitator with a project called masterclass, some 700 teacher volunteers recruited from across Scotland to work together to encourage the use of ICT. You might well be interested in the umbrella organisation for this project, Learning and Teaching Scotland, http://www.ltscotland.org.uk.
I should certainly like to hear more of your conversations and have put a feed on your website to that effect. Mimicking David Warlock, you do need a Brit you know!