From: Jack.Crawford@f620.n260.z1.fidonet.org (Jack Crawford)
Newsgroups: k12.chat.teacher
Subject: Initial Priorities????
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 12:27:00 PST
Organization: FidoNet node 1:260/620 - W-FL Teacher Resour, Stanley NY

This message was from JACK CRAWFORD to CAROL BACON,
originally in conference NetworkEma
and was forwarded to you by JACK CRAWFORD.
                    -------------------------
Subj: teachers vs. kids

CB> > You are the "sysop". You should be able to go into _any_ part of
CB> > your BBS in your own account. Sysops are supposed to be all-seeing

CB>I understand this, but if I'm to teach the kids how to use this,
I need to CB>_be_ a kid first!

To effectively use telecom as a classroom tool, you and the other
teachers and administrators in your school _first_ need to become
deeply familiar with the online "networking" subculture.

K12net is as much for teachers and administrators as it is for kids,
perhaps even more so at this stage of our evolution.
Telecommunications is a remarkable tool for promoting educational
reform and opens new ways of thinking about teaching. But there is
much to be learned and we have a lot of experimenting and curriculum
devlopment to do yet. We are at a stage similar to that of ten years
ago when we (educators) all sensed that computers had incredible
potential, but we didn't quite know yet how to utilize them in our
classrooms. We had to learn by trial and error, experimenting as we
went along. We made a lot of mistakes along the way. Many are still
making them.....

To develop telecommunications (and general computer use, for that
matter) into an effective educational tool we first need to place as
much emphasis on getting our teachers and administrators involved as
our kids--perhaps more. They need to develop a "networking mindset".
Let's not duplicate the Big Mistake we made in the 80's where we
were so blinded by the fact that our kids are our primary mission
that we placed our emphasis on putting all of the available machines
on _their_ desks. We somehow forgot to give _every_ teacher and
administrator a machine, too. We still haven't done this and our
kids are suffering as a result. An embarassingly large number of
teachers and administrators still have not developed the mindset
which orients them to integrating computers into their classrooms.
Barely 1/4 of American teachers have a computer in their home......
(Should this be a condition of employment?) I'll bet that only a
very small minority of those are equipped with a modem!  A teacher
or administrator that does not use computers is not qualified to
teach kids to use them nor does he/she have the mindset to
effectively integrate them into their curriculum.

We should have started out by putting a computer on the desk of
every teacher and administrator _first_ and requiring them to use it
for such mundane tasks as grade reporting, attendance, etc. (Some
states are beginning to implement this...at long last...) Then, as
they gained real-world experience and developed real skill and
orientation in the use of it, they would have become better
qualified _and_inclined_ to integrate them into the curriculum. This
is the "trickle down" effect that would probably be far more
effective and pervasive than what we have now! But we didn't do
that. So now 75% of the computers in our schools are insufficiently,
ineffectivly or improperly utilized and entirely too many of our
teachers are still teaching for the 19th & 20th centuries!

One other point. It's also important to realize that
conversation-based telecommunications such as K12net is much, much
more than just using computers. It is, first and foremost,
networking through human communications and human relations. K12net
is not a computer program but, rather, a _community_ of living,
breathing, thinking people who use computers to communicate. To
effectively use this resource in the classroom and for professional
upgrading teachers need to have a lot of real-world, hands-on
experience in the sub culture, the "netiqette" and the whys and
wherefores of cooperating and collaborating with others all over the
world online. This "art of networking"--the ability to collaborate
with others unbounded by time, space or hierarchy-- is something
that is quickly becoming a major factor of change in our society as
we approach the next century. It is an indespensible life skill that
all of us must learn. The "which key do I press now" technical
operations are only a very tiny part of this challenge. Telecomm
should not be thought of as just another "computer program" like a
word processor or spreadsheet. Unlike anything you have ever done
with a computer before, telecommunications literally puts hundreds
of thousands of _real_ people inside your computer--and they talk to
you!! They can be hurt, they can get angry at you, they will laugh
at your jokes and share in your miseries. And they are an incredible
source of knowledge, wisdom and other resources. Never under
estimate this aspect! Telecommunications is people talking to
people, not computers talking to computers!

I am not advocating that we remove kids from the process at all.
What I am suggesting is that we need to place a lot more of our
_initial_ emphasis on getting educators in here, too, for the
ultimate benefit of our kids. Our kids are our first and only goal,
but the first step to effectivley teaching them the fine art of
telecommunications based networking is to get our teachers,
administrators and curriculum "well oiled" with it. K12net is an
inexpensive, accessible "network with training wheels" that can help
them get started in this direction. It is not an end in itself, it
is a bginning....

=jack=


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