Stakeholders

When taking on a initiative such as 1:1 program it is important to have the support of many types of stakeholders.  All stakeholders are needed to advocate for programs such as these.  

School board members have the means to bring taxpayers on board with technology in the classroom. Taxpayers who can provide funds for the programs.  

Funding is always of top concern for most stakeholders There are so many factors that go into the cost of these initiatives. School board will need to know how much money it will take to provide a strong infrastructure to support the technology, hardware & software costs, professional development, adding staff if that is necessary. School board will need ideas on how to raise money, how to gain support from surrounding companies that would like to be donors, and also how to convince taxpayers to INVEST in their school systems.  These are things that school board can be very useful for, along with other stakeholders lending support as needed.  

Time is also of concern for school board.  How long will it take for the initiative to roll out, how long will it take to raise funds, to hire staff, to train staff, to see a return on their investment (shown by none other than improved test scores), and infrastructure set up. How long will it take for teachers to integrate this new technology into their classrooms?  This is one that would be hard to address, especially a timetable for teacher integration.  Time is money, the more money you have the less time it would take to complete some of these tasks.

In, "How to Gain Parent Buy-In for Classroom Technology Integration" posted by Jennifer Carey she writes, "Instead of emphasizing the content side of technology and the Internet, focus on skill sets and career readiness!"  This is the third thing that I think school board will want to be informed on.  What is the bottom line, how will a 1:1 program help students.  It really isn't about the technology itself but more about how will we help students to become successful members of the world.  This is where students can be very helpful in showing off their skills, also having former students come back and give testimonials on behalf of their education they received.  

21st century skills

On this blog I feel like I am a broken record (that can be a bad thing OR maybe you can see that I REALLY value the topic :) )  I value critical thinking over many of the other 21st century skills.   It is something that I tell my students on a regular basis, "I don't care if you remember photosynthesis, what I want you to learn is HOW to think and solve problems."  Communication is also very important and can definitely tie for having equal importance with critical thinking.  

Critical thinking is important for obvious reasons, if there is a problem in the workplace how do you solve it? Critical thinking!!! Need to do some creative budgeting to make it through the month to pay bills and save a little too...critical thinking again!  However, being able to communicate a solution or for that matter, get feed back also requires a solid background in communication.

In my class I do laboratories and a large movie making project over evolution.  Students must communicate with one another but they also need to use critical thinking skills to solve their problems, designate roles to group members, and to apply what they have learned in class combined with new information they discover.  They need to discuss their strengths and weaknesses, something that they are not very good at doing ( no one wants to be inferior or seen as "stupid"). They also need to be able to discern credible vs. non-creditable sources on the internet.  Its a happy relationship between thinking and communicating.

I asses all projects based on rubrics for each project or lab ( I love rubrics). Students also get to grade themselves but of course as others have said, I have the final say in the grade.  What I find most often with high school aged students is that they do not want to cause confrontation, even if a group member does not pull their weight they still give them a high grade (a C when it should be a D or F).  Their rational “I got it done anyway didn't I”.  So, nothing is really perfect but this way they can see what is important and what is needed to succeed in class.