Making History

“The key to success is increasing overall proficiency” the “Humanware” Principle #3 caught my attention because it brings together several things I have been thinking about both as a teacher and as a learner. As someone who thinks playing around with technology is just that, play, something I do for fun and for learning, I want to make sure that when I teach technology in the classroom I make sure I am teaching to those students who feel the same way AND to the students who are more likely to fall back on “the computer hates me” as a response when something goes wrong.  Teachers at Castilleja fall into both these groups too. I wonder about our model of teacher training — so much depends on the interest of individual teachers.  I also want to think more clearly and sequentially about how we teach tech skills in the classroom.  I want girls to learn to be flexible and comfortable with technology.  I want to think about teaching them what to try when things go wrong, rather than just asking for help (although for some of them asking for help is really hard too).  How to do this, in small ways?  One thing is to be more intentional about teaching skills like formatting a bibliography in word.  But another way to do it is to keep asking questions.  

“Mrs. Pang, it won’t do it!”

“What won’t do what?”

“It won’t save!”

“What won’t save?”

“iMovie!!!!”

“What did you try?”

What needs to be normal is trying lots of things, no just giving up and getting frustrated when the first try does not work.  Persistence is part of this, but teaching the skills to try and try again effectively, and teaching the basic knowledge about the computers that we are getting here.

But this is a huge curriculum question. Integration of technology is the key, but without ANY computer class, can we get enough teachers taking time out to talk about the basic computer knowledge students need, to talk about word processing skills, and how the server works, and how to create good file names, and all those basic skills?  Where do those minutes of class time come from?

How does the clown metaphor help?  Well, this is a bit of a stretch of the image, but my 9-year-old daughter learned several clown routines while she was at Camp Winnarainbow last week.  Routines that are classic, they have names (”Long lost friend”  ”Who is behind me?”).  They have recognizable patterns and gags.  Seeing technology as a series of steps, with a pattern, a language in a sense, that works the same way, with different players, and a different audience, every time.  How do we teach those patterns?  And can we be funny too?