教师扮演的新角色.doc

教师扮演的新角色 Margaret Johnson 2000.2.4杨春梅 迅速回首世纪末，我们当中有部分人，他们在对用来交流和信息传播的技术工具的工作充满激情的同时也在用集体的智慧来估定我们的阶段效果如何以及预测将来的趋势。大家都已经将教学、发展、资源的配置、专业水平、学生安全、道德规范以及比较大范围的团体所关注的等等论题，正如学校与信息时代同发展，联系在一起了。我们当中的一些人通过需求被资源的搜索已经大大地消耗了，花费相当的时间和创造力来支助我们预想更换教室的这些工具。我们当中的少部分人从教室里解放是为了帮助学校以及学校管区来处理关注热点和任务，而其他那些“只会说”的人却创造了学生在教室使用的模型，并且提供了应用的根据以致数字工具能够产生特别之处。 在这活动的全部过程中，最惊人的地方在于新出现的或者进展的角色的多样性。这些东西在活动的过程中已经显现出来了。我们努力获得数字工具是为了使学生接受在他们自己的学习中的新角色以及发展他们可以组织、构建知识。完全为了学生的老师的同样的把握合乎逻辑吗？尽管老师已经是学习者，教学设计者和企业家,但是技术的工具已经为这些传统的角色增加新的手法，并为领导和教师提供了许多新的机会来变成“知识的生产者”。教师作为学习者 John Cotton Dana,在十九世纪末的公共图书馆的乐章里一位很重要的人物，宣称：“敢教育的人决不会停止学习。”如一场网络资源的洪水的那些新的软硬件工具不断更新的队伍，为教育者的努力和同时间的保持呈现出相当的改变。当新的的学习存在于大脑的运行中时，多样化的智能、语言的加工能力、评估能力和其他相关的能力被搀和在一起，提高的速度看起来象使人畏惧的事情。而好的消息是：对教育者来说，大多数新的学习能够得到很好的加强；在使用数字工具练习信息的获取、组织和处理时，教师都是心平气和地聚焦于认识论、教育学或者学科领域里。在线指导的大范围增加，正如免费或会员待遇享受专业水平的更新的课程包括在线的学位课程，已经允许教师管理自己的学问了。如信息时代的“网民”，我们最大的挑战就是设法成功管理“TMI”，Bernie Dodge的短时记忆，或者Jamie McKenzie的大量信息以网站来定制，在线的和批判文学大汇合的出版物，专业组织（州级的地方机构CUE组织-计算机教育家），以及正式的、非正式的同侪良师正在帮助许多教育家符合他们的自己学问需要。另外一种明显的利益：为有影响的学习行为树立榜样的老师，为学生对于学习的价值和作为合作者获得的信誉，提供了有力的信息。 近来授予的很多项目（包括2000目标和科技读写能力基金的授予）已经严重地打击了那些支助的专业发展工程。最近的NCATE（全国的教育教师权威会议）的标准，对有希望的老师和准备换证的经验丰富的老师来说是相当重要的参考值，以致终身学习对他们来说是完全必要的。一些被诱惑埋怨的“负担”，曾经养成不断学习的习惯搁置在已经负荷的老师身上，但真正有挑战的是为我们的学校系统改变惯例，注视和支持教师的终身学习。技术也许能给予一定的帮助。2000年1月“电子学校”的期刊里，Don Tapscott 指出：“对计算机反复的或者一般的装卸可以帮助从日益减少的教师经费得到最大限度的价值。”没有一定的自动化，然而，能够为教育者弥补额外的计划时间的需要。1995年，经济合作与发展组织公布了美国和其他15个西方国家的教育时间对照表。那OECD报道的结论是：其他国家的老师在学校的时间里花费更多的时间在备课、后期训练和职员会议这几方面。而相对其他国家来说，美国教师花更多的时间上课而用比较少的时间备课。教师作为知识的源泉 技术也让老师成为教学设计者、创造者和推荐者。网络中的自由言谈，为那些总喜欢创造新颖的教学素材、讨厌简化的拼凑的教科书的老师，提供一个新的发展平台。这些素材现在除课堂外正走向大多数的观众，同样也能够通过简单的连接就得到相关的提供的研究。众多文件说明对与我们之中的作者来说，这无疑不是很大的诱惑。Dale Mann, 来自哥伦比亚师范学院的组织机构的领导，宣称：“好奇心是创造的需要，也是专业自豪的需要”，相对正规的专业发展计划来说，这为有技术的老师提供更大的动力。老师创造了“WebQuests”-网络里基于问题的课程和主题的教学单元。确实，它的增多显示了越来越多的教育者对网络发表有更大的可能性；大多数基于网络的活动不仅仅是教师提供的内容，而更多的还是设计为学生咨询的地方-为学生解决问题的情境设想是一个激励人心的地方。随着基于网络课程素材构建的完善，超级连接的各种搜索由于等级水平、学科或专题、国家级或地方级以及其他分类的标准，越来越系统化、归类化了。质量的基准不断形成，正如NCREL的从事学习的方案和BernieDodge 的Taskonomy之类的指导方针提供平台来帮助老师或者作者改善他们基于网络课程的设计。 没有更深入的研究，在网上是不容易找到教师的设计素材的。从Kathy Schrock的引人注目的（同时被商业支持的）网站可以得到所有课程。它们是通过大学劳动课和不同区域的学校发展免费粘贴在网站主机服务器如Yahoo-Geocities or 的个性素材来建立的。教育者正主动地收集网络的管辖地，并且模拟建构主义。教师作为发行者 随意拿K-12技术出版物甚至K-12出版物（一本没有严格规定技术为中心的书）中的一个争论点来说，你都可能会看到相关的老师，他们不仅已经设计和推动一个引人注目的基于技术的课堂教学项目，并且使用资金配置学生需要的设备。我们当中的那些跑去收集资金来投资数码产品的人开始不能够评估数码相机和扫描仪的数量。这些设备已经从本地的商业或者家长-学校组织通过“小型财产转移”获得了。当基金被限制的时候,许多地方的学校把目标转向国内的“计划请求”来安置设备，或提供专业发展机会给那些已经证明有最大动机或者准备将有限资源用得最好的人。美国已经证明竞争性的赞助资金也有一定的帮助。尽管这样的竞争形式是很清晰的，但如果在一个系统里对于技术的执行作为主要策略来使用，是能够区分的并为全部学生提供了平等的多样性的技术通口。赞助改革和有希望的工程的基金的可用性已经商业化的教育者提供空前的机会。很多老师和被赞助者在教育或相应的领域已经成为指导者和领导者。 那商业精神已经扩展到不仅仅是询求授予了。，当基于问题的学习设想得到如实的反映时，基于技术的学生营业已经开始萌芽了。以Palos水平的Palos东部的小学，比如伊利诺斯州，五年级的学生对学校的真正问题-教室的电脑应该配有打印机就有很大感触了。Deb Balayti太太的学生坚决用收费的授课形式赚钱来购买需要的设备。这样的事业是很大的成功，并且学生营业是很快就是“地方传说”。从1996年到1997年，Balayti太太的学生每年都出版一本基于技术的学校营业读物，用来在美国教育周期间给Palos东部的很多游者出示和售卖产品。由于每年规定的“母亲节”、“父亲节”“重阳节”，数以百计的成人为了第五级别的企业家而成为了客户和委托人。产品已经变化了，学生已经拍摄祖父母和他们的儿孙的数码照片（以学生设计的五彩缤纷的背景幕为背景），并且设计满足客户需求的礼物标签和信笺。这种商业在科技时代学校是非常重要的。三年的时间里，学生能筹集将近9000美元一笔很大的资金。虽然财政的收入很乐观，但是Balayti太太认为：学生的各方面能力得到锻炼，如讨论、制定战略、计划、组织和营业，相对赢利来说，是更让人兴奋的。数学技能、应用写作技能和人际关系处理技能都得到加强和巩固。各种能力都需要，同时也得到展示。学生分析建筑物的需求和购买量，研究房地产，面谈卖主以及严厉执行“做购买决定”的“费用-赢利”分析。收购决定引导确定的标准和假设卖主出现的详尽问题为更高的订购设想战略提供了清晰的根据。 当学校领导意识到有才能的、有天赋的教育者发现重要智力的潜能时，学校区域就变的商业化，通过他们自己生产的原始课程素材的销售获得重要的收入。作为专业发展的服务商或推荐者的最大要求已经刺激创造性的安排导致全职的教育者变为兼职的咨询者，经常从他们的管理者那里受到鼓励和支持。这些管理者欢迎任何共享税收资金或者专家意见交换，以致可以从那些商议性的活动得到。老师自创的基于网络的素材对市场来说也许是成熟的。Carol Simpson,来自Texas北部大学的图书馆信息学科学校，并且是一位关于对学校、图书馆以及洲的版权和道德伦理的论题的作家和演说家。“新技术的教育传播，比如基于网络和视频的教育，将为学校带来智力财产的版权。曾经只是吸引智力财产的学校现在将发现：他们拥有它，并且将它转化为收入源。”Simpson女士继续说：“曾经可能已经创造教学素材的并以出版物的格式免费共享的老师，将意识到他们已经为贵重的日用品作出捐献了，并且也许抗议只为“为了物质而工作”的要求或者至少获得少量酬劳。”总结： 尽管近期K-12出版物已经开设许多栏目来描述教室的技术使用最佳用途，或者暴露低水平的练习，但许多创新的老师、学生和学校系统在忙于为他们自己决定数码工具的用途。当入门和机遇碰在一起时，使用者他们自己（不管是成人还是儿童）将确定任何资源的根本效用。在书里、太阳下、染色体里以及因特网上，自由人士Dyson讨论：各种学科的科学家对他们的硬件显示不同的态度的程度，影响着他们领域里专业的力学结合和创新。虽然Dyson在重力学摄影中已有成就，但他的观察报告很恰当地描述一种方式。以此方式一些教育者很快就发现技术新的教学用途“工作等的风格是机遇的、无组织的、自发的。没有为此作出计划以及没有人直接从最高层开始管理它。新硬件可以使用.以及大多数聪明的人为了各种目的去获取它.工作的风格取决于地方的热情和因特网两个因素。”许多正在科研革命的相同的技术工具是现在可利用的，并且便利新的角色包括成人和年轻的学习者，正如为所有学习者提供机会得到智力、创造力财政的收入。 New Roles for Educators(by Margaret JohnsonFebruary 4, 2000)Amid the flurry of end-of-decade/end-of-century reflections, those of us who are passionate about the promise of technology tools for communication and information access in schools are also taking our collective pulse to assess where we are and where we need to go. All of us have juggled issues of pedagogy, deployment and distribution of resources, professional development, student safety, ethics and a wide variety of local community concerns as we plugged our schools into the information age. Some of us have by necessity been largely consumed by the hunt for resources, devoting considerable time and creativity to funding these tools we envision transforming our classrooms. A few of us have been drawn out of the classroom to help schools and school districts cope with these concerns and tasks, while others walk the talk creating models of student use in our classrooms and providing practical evidence that digital tools can make a difference. What is most striking in all of this activity is the variety of new or evolving roles that have emerged in the process. We strive to acquire digital tools in order to empower students to accept new roles in their own learning and to expand their possibilities for collaboration and construction of knowledge. Isnt it logical that the same holds true for the teachers of these students? Though teachers have always been learners, instructional designers and entrepreneurs, technology tools have added new twists to these traditional roles, providing many new opportunities for leadership and for teachers to also become producers of knowledge. Teachers as Learners John Cotton Dana, an important figure in the public library movement at the end of the nineteenth century, proclaimed, Who dares to teach, must never cease to learn. An ongoing procession of new software and hardware tools as well as a flood of web-based resources presents a considerable challenge for educators to catch up and keep up simultaneously. When new learning on brain functioning, multiple intelligences, language processing, assessment, and other relevant topics are added to the mix, getting up-to-speed seems a daunting task. The good news is that much of the new learning for educators can be highly synergistic; to practice using digital tools for information access, organization and processing, teachers can focus on epistemology, pedagogy or subject area content with equal ease. The wide proliferation of online tutorials as well as both free and for fee web-based professional development courses, including on-line degree programs, has allowed teachers to take charge of their own learning. As netizens of the Information Age, our biggest challenge is learning to manage TMI, Bernie Dodges shorthand term for too much information, or Jamie McKenzies Information Overload. Customized portal websites, on-line and print summarized literature reviews, professional organizations (state level and local CUE groups Computer Using Educators), and both formal and informal peer mentoring are helping many educators meet their own learning needs. Another obvious benefit; teachers who model effective learning behaviors send a powerful message to their students about the value of learning and gain credibility as co-learners. A number of recent grant programs (including Goals 2000 and Technology Literacy Challenge Fund grants) have been heavily skewed to fund robust professional development projects. New NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) standards for prospective teachers and changes in recertification for veteran teachers are other important indicators that life-long learning is an absolute requirement for all educators. Some are tempted to bemoan the burden that ever growing ongoing learning requirements place on already overloaded teachers, but the real challenge is for our school systems to shift to practices that value and support ongoing teacher learning. Technology may help to some extent. In the January 2000 issue of Electronic School, Don Tapscott notes that, Off-loading of repetitive or mundane tasks to computers helps get maximum value from increasingly scarce teaching dollars. No amount of automation, however, can offset the need for additional planning time for educators. In 1995 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published a comparison of teaching time in the U.S. and fifteen other Western countries. The OECD report concluded that U.S. teachers spend more time teaching and have less preparation time for classes than teachers in other countries who are allotted more time for lesson preparation, in-service training and staff meetings during their school days. Teachers as Producers of Knowledge Technology is also empowering teachers as instructional designers, authors, and presenters. The ease of publishing on the web has provided a new outlet for those teachers who have always enjoyed creating original instructional materials and for those dissatisfied with predigested pre-synthesized textbooks. That these materials are now accessible to a vast audience beyond the classroom and that they can provide one-click links to relevant supporting research and documentation has proven to be a powerful lure for the authors among us. Dale Mann, from the Department of Organization and Leadership at Columbia Teachers College claims that curiosity, a need for productivity, and professional pride provide greater impetus for teachers to embrace technology than formal professional development programs. Indeed, the proliferation of teacher created WebQuests, problem-based lessons (PBL) and thematic units on the web is an indication of the accessibility of web publishing for ever-growing numbers of educators; that many of these web-based activities are something more than just teacher-provided content, but rather are designed to be springboards for student inquiry, posing questions or scenarios for students to solve is an encouraging sign. As the body of web-based curriculum materials grows, hyperlinked collections are being assembled and indexed by grade level, discipline/topic, national and state standards, and other identifiers. Benchmarks of quality are emerging; guidelines such as NCRELs Indicators of Engaged Learning and Bernie Dodges Taskonomy are providing scaffolds to help teacher/authors improve the designs of their web-based lessons. Without much digging, it is easy to find teacher-designed materials on the web. From Kathy Schrocks high-profile (and now commercially supported) site to collected lessons created through University course-work and school district curriculum development projects to independent materials posted on free web-hosting services such as Yahoo-Geocities or , educators are actively embracing the web venue and modeling constructivism. Teachers as Entrepreneurs Pick up almost any issue of the many K-12 technology publications or even K-12 publications that are not focused strictly on technology, and you will very likely read about teachers who have not only designed and facilitated a compelling technology-based classroom project, but who also located the funds to acquire the tools their students needed. Those of us who have gone digging for dollars to fund digital tools cant begin to estimate the number of digital cameras or scanners that have been acquired through mini-grants from local businesses or Parent-Teacher Organizations. When funds are limited, many school districts turn to targeted internal Requests for Proposals to place equipment/provide professional development opportunities to those who demonstrate the greatest motivation and readiness to put scarce resources to the best use. States have also turned to competitive grants to roll out some funding. Though it is clear that such competitive practices, if employed as the main strategy for technology implementation in a system, can be divisive and counter-productive in providing equitable access to technology for all students, the availability of seed money to fund innovation and promising projects has provided unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurial educators. Many of the teacher/grant awardees have become mentors and leaders within their schools and districts. The entrepreneurial spirit has extended beyond grant seeking. Technology-based student businesses have sprouted as authentic responses to problem-based learning scenarios. At Palos East Elementary School in Palos Heights, Illinois, for example, fifth graders were inspired by a real school problem, a lack of printers to accompany classroom computers. Mrs. Deb Balaytis students decided to form a classroom business to earn money to acquire the needed equipment. The project was a huge success and the student business an instant local legend. Each year since 1996-97, Mrs. Balaytis students have formed a technology-based school business, producing and selling products to the many visitors to Palos East during American Education Week. Thanks to scheduled Moms Day, Dads Day, and Grandparents Day each year, hundreds of adults become customers and clients for the fifth grade entrepreneurs. Products have varied; students have taken digital pictures of grandparents and their grandchildren (set in front of a colorful student-designed backdrop) and designed and filled orders for customized gift labels and stationery. This business is significant in the technology life of the school; in three years, students have raised a grand total of nearly $9,000. Although the financial gain is impressive, Mrs. Balayti reports that the student learning that occurs as students brainstorm, strategize, plan, organize and implement their business is even more exciting. Math skills, writing skills and interpersonal skills are all strengthened. Multiple intelligences are needed and showcased. Students analyze building needs and wants, research products, interview vendors, and conduct rigorous cost-benefit analyses in making their purchasing decisions. The criteria they establish to guide their purchasing decisions and the exhaustive questions they pose to vendors provide clear evidence of strategic higher order thinking. As school leaders recognize the potential of the intellectual capital represented by talented and creative educators, school districts are becoming entrepreneurial, generating significant revenue by marketing original curriculum materials produced by their staff members. The great demand for professional development facilitators/presenters has also spurred creative arrangements resulting in full-time educators becoming part-time consultants, often with encouragement and support from their administrators who welcome any shared revenue or expertise exchanges that may result from these consulting activities. Teacher-created web-based materials may also be ripe for marketing. Carol Simpson, from the School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of North Texas and an author and speaker on copyright and ethics issues for schools and libraries, states, New technologies of instructional delivery, such as web-based and video instruction, will bring ownership of intellectual property to light in schools. Schools that once only consumed intellectual property will now discover that they own it and will want to convert it into a revenue stream. Ms. Simpson continues, Teachers