education & tech

Back in September The Reader's Digest magazine interviewed educators in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, New York and Texas to get a first approach of what a teacher wouldn't tell you.

The article has generated almost 2 hundred comments and has been a good place to discuss matters. It also has opened a door that clearly shows the divorce among education participants: teachers, parents, students.

We expect readers not to get confused about our position in this post. One of our posts was found insulting to the teachers. We are parents but in this case we are wearing the teacher's suit.

My guess as to why teachers don't say these things out loud is because it really wouldn't change anything. First, we have administrators who will be so happy to apply legislation and then, we all are open to scrutiny by people not trained in our profession such as parents.

I should recognize that putting all kids in the same bucket is a mistake. But the same we can say of teachers. Observer will mention for example that if a teacher has kids running to "fix everything" that is a direct reflection of her inability to teach conflict resolution. Yes, many of us, teachers, deal with classrooms full of 20-25 students and teach more than one grade. Are we going to give personalized education?

Education is responsibility of all parties. It is false that problems at school should be dealt with at school and problems at home should be dealt with at home. I would not hesitate to contact a parent(I usually do) when I think problems at home are affecting school performance.

Remember this: Good students made it to college because of their own effort, some really great teachers, but also because parents gave out a bit time of day.

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You are already familiar to some of the most popular education websites and blogs, but what I would like to recommend is The Educator's Royal Treatment. The select group of authors are educators with a large trajectory in the education field.

If you pay a visit to the site you may find Ken Royal. He is the author of 15 Things All Classrooms Should Have. In no order we present a summary of the first (in our concept) 5 things PK-12 may have:

1. A teaching station laptop that plugs in easily at school and home.

2. Safe internet connectivity for both teacher and students.

3. Software for specialimpaired students.

4. Find a technology professional to work and help onsite, both teachers and students.

5. Thinking beyond what you've always done is very important.

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The Innovative Educator:

During a recent visit to a school I was disappointed because although the school is noted as being a model technology school I was hearing from students, teachers, and leaders that the students had “handed in” a lot of great work, but none of it was being published. Instead their writing, videos, and podcasts lived mainly in obsolescence in a hard to find folder on their various teacher's computers or in obscurity, tattered on a bulletin board sadly with only some educator chicken scratch on it as its insignificant and sole form of comments and ratings.

For the rest of the article and "6 Ways Innovative Educators Can Move from Hand It In to Publish it Teaching" head over to Lisa Nielsen's Blog.

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Collaboration and communication is one of the most important aspects of teaching and education. If you are looking for tools and sites that can be used to communicate and collaborate with other teachers, parents, and students, you can find many quality resources online. Here are 10 free sites and tools to try throughout the school year.

TeachAde - The first social networking site designed specifically for educators, TeachAde is an excellent place for teachers to collaborate, share, and chat online. Users can browse through current resources, upload their own materials, join a group, and communicate in the forums.

We the Teachers - We the Teachers can be used to find and connect with teachers inside and outside of your neighborhood. Members can find teaching resources, share lesson plans, and join groups of teachers with common interests and teaching philosophies.

Applebatch - This teacher community and professional network provides information on jobs, networking events, continuing education. Site visitors can discuss all of these things and more in the Applebatch forums.

TheApple - Billed as the place "where teachers meet and learn," TheApple is essentially a social networking site that also offers career resources. Teachers can use the site to explore professional possibilities and network with other educators.

Tapped In - Geared toward K-16 teachers and support staff, Tapped In provides an online workplace where teachers, librarians, and other education professionals can learn, collaborate, and share over the web.

Edmodo - Edmodo is similar to Twitter but was specifically designed for teachers who want to privately and safely communicate and collaborate with students online. The platform provides file-sharing and storage capabilities in addition to several other handy features.

Engrade - Engrade is a great tool for teachers who want to be able to manage their classroom online. The tool supports private communication between teachers, parents, students, and administrators and allows teachers to post grades, progress reports, assignments, and other materials online.

Mikogo - Mikogo is an all-in-one cross-platform communication tool. It can be used for web conferencing, desktop sharing, and remote support. Mikogo works especially well for teacher training, parent-teacher conferencing, online tutoring, and homework support.

Yugma - Yugma is a free web conferencing tool that works across multiple platforms. The free version of Yugma allows communication with up to 20 attendees.

Vyew - Vyew provides real-time collaboration and communication capabilities. The platform records past interactions and works especially well for webinars, collaborative learning, team meetings, and presentations.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

There is not doubt the teaching career as it is now was originated as a slavery profession back in history. Anywhere I have been, the problem for teachers seems to be the same, no value in regards of their the time, effort, sweat, and even tears that goes into daily teaching activities.

Following a considerable number of edublogs and websites dedicated to education, we can assert that very few times, posts are writing in such a way that all teachers got interested in. That is what happened with a hypothesis Larry Ferlazzo set up about how teaching attracts a disproportionately high number of candidates from the lower end of the distribution of academic ability.

Larry dugg deep into reports and documents which supposedly backed statements by Bruce Stewart on "quality of their teaching force". You can read his conclusions and the most important is that such cited statistics presented on Meet the Press "appears to be flat-out wrong."

Then, what does make a good teacher?

I recall Downes saying that he does not believe on reports ticketed as research. We all love to read or present reports without mayor explanation of methodology or lacking any basic statistical requirements to be considered relevant.

As part of nature there will be always the good and the bad. We are here talking on good teachers. Professionals that still survive after being beaten up by every newspaper, politician, and parents.

We need people of the National Council on Teacher Quality to come to struggling schools as observers, not as guests. We need research reporter to spend more time in the classroom. Only then, teacher will accept their false negatives and false positives presented on their paper work. As far as we are concerned and speaking about the quoted article, persons behind these reports have no concept of pedagogical concerns.

David Andrade has also concerns about the report: "They never seem to have real numbers or data, are written by non-educators, and the sample sizes are small. In science, we would call that a very poor experiment with useless data."

In a comment in Ferlazzos' post, Mr. Owen speaking about the subjectivity of tests to evaluate teachers, asserts: "This means that just about anyone, no matter what school they went to or what their scores on the SAT were, can potentially improve and become an excellent teacher." No need to be on Ivy Leagues.

So ultimately what does make a good teacher? Good teachers are innovative, think outside of the box, know the how to learn from failure, connect with people, and are continuous learners, writes commenter Marilyn. Good teachers look to the future, instigate conversations, and are willing to let their students guide them when appropriate.

Until we have this as a paradigm, never mind about statistics on reports. Be a good teacher!

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