What every teacher in NZ should have. Digitally speaking!

This is my list of ICT tools that every teacher must have, in every class, in every school.
1. A RSS reader like Google reader to collect new articles from webites that they like
2. A digital curation tool like Diigo, or Evernote so that every website or online article that they ever find, and go WOW!, can be stored for future reference.

3. A Youtube channel so they can save all videos that they use (or create) to playlists which are readily available.
4. An online educational community where they can ask questions, answer questions and receive great advice and pd like SimpleK12.
5. A Twitter account which they can tweet away their discoveries and find all the PD they would want 24/7
6. An e-portfolio where they can record their pd and their career highlights and create a CV with digital evidence.
7. An online collaborative site where they can work on shared documents like Google Drive
8. Access to resources for their teaching and learning, and pd records, 24/7 is this N4L?
9. A video camera and still camera, and phone all in one
 10 A reliable tablet (i-pad preferred)and VGA cable to connect to a digital projector and screen.
 And, did I say, they should know how to use them all as well. Is there anything you would add?

Shifting the thinking

Lucky me in a job that I love. I have been in many schools in the last six months and in the last few days have been lucky enough to visit a secondary school grappling with implementing BYOD (preferably iPads) in two year 9 classes.


And grappling is the right word. It is a big beast to get a handle on. There are technical issues and there are pedagogical issues. Actually, I am even surer now than before the implementation, the pedagogy should be the first issue to sort out. The paradigm shift. A passion for change must drive the teachers concerned because a huge investment in skill and knowledge development must occur to move the focus from pen and paper to the technology. Time is a very precious commodity for teachers so it should not be wasted on tweaking a tired curriculum to suit the new ICTs. Opportunities for rich differentiated learning experiences should be explored. I hate to say it but I observed a lesson this week that I delivered 33 years ago as a beginning teacher. And this is a teacher who has poured his heart into upskilling his technical capability in the classroom. He has worked extremely hard on finding the right apps to do the job but his time could have been better spent. I suppose it comes down to how much time do the teachers get to make changes. So this two headed beast might need a bit more in the way of resourcing yet.





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Location:Wembley Place,Richmond Heights,New Zealand