The topic of jobs in education is a timely one for me, as I have been giving it a great deal of thought. I think we may be missing out on some fabulous growth in education by not truly harnessing the power of the Internet’s collaborative abilities. Last week, while virtually attending National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), I literally booked marked thousands of resources, and read more blog posts than I am even able to admit to. I have found myself truly engaged in a conference, and I am not even “there.”
It really has me thinking about the power of technology in educational settings, and the importance of engaging all teachers in this new way of communicating. That being said, there are very few schools here in North Florida that have embraced the digital age. I do know of one school that has really taken the flow of new technologies and they are rolling with it. They send one or more teachers to the conference each year, and the attendees blog about their experiences at the school professional development blog. They have a Google Certified teacher who leads the digital learning.
I know of one teacher in the Jacksonville area (Duval and Clay counties) who has the job that should be in every elementary, middle, and high school. The job role that should be available in every school is: Drumroll please…Digital Literacy Coach. The job entails teaching digital literacy, technology integration, and teaching both students and teachers how to safely harness the power of the Internet and technology to boost the end result, student engagement and achievement.
Ask a child. Would they rather read a book about building a circuit, or would they rather actually build one online? Would they rather tell about what they have learned, or show what they learned?
If you know of any other schools in the Jacksonville area that have embraced the notion of digital literacy and are poised to get the training to the teachers to engage the students, please comment or DM me on Twitter @elemteachers. I’d love to visit and write about you!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
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