After I was hired, one of the first things the district required of me was to attend an enormous amount of technology training. Under strict supervision in mandatory sessions lasting hours at a time, we learned advanced technological skills like scheduling a substitute, and managing the on-line grade book.
To anyone who has not spent any time in the public school system, this may seem completely ridiculous. Some may wonder if it is really necessary to schedule blocks of time to teach college-educated adults how to perform simple tasks, like how to log-on to a computer.
Yes. Yes it is. And there’s a couple of reasons for this.
The first thing you must know is that teachers are usually horrible students. For years, the classroom has been their castle and they have grown accustomed to calling the shots. In a simple case of environmental adaptation, basic observation and listening skills have been lost forever and instead the teacher has evolved to develop powerful lungs and vocal chords capable of producing and projecting a tremendously loud voice that can be heard over the roar of a small mob. It’s a matter of survival.
Grouping all of these thunderous alphas together can have certain detrimental effects. Before our instructor can even finish the initial explanation, hands shoot up all over the room like fireworks. The less courteous start shouting out their opinion over the melee. Most of these loud comments begin with the words, “well, at my old school…”
During one of my first training sessions, I was surprised to find that all we were expected to do was set up our school email account. Yet all around me, people were shouting for help. With only their heads visible above their computer monitors, it looked like a crowd of people sinking in quicksand, frantically waving their arms in a desperate plea for rescue.
“I know it takes some getting used to,” one of our instructors soothed as she patted the back of one flustered participant. As if using an electronic mail system is an insurmountable task, like learning how to tie your shoe with one hand, or quitting cocaine. It takes some getting used to.
Another complication is that teachers are generally too old to have garnered much experience with anything more electronically sophisticated than a microwave. Anything that runs on batteries causes great anxiety and a quickening of the pulse of the typical educator. Then again, considering that many of these people did their homework on a slate by firelight, you can only expect to run into difficulties when trying to incorporate technology into the classroom.
This problem is compounded by the fact that teachers have access to and are expected to use a massive amount of technology. Just this year, I was issued one laptop, one docking station, one printer, one overhead color projector (with remote), one cable box (with remote), two student desktop computers, and one telephone. We also have access to computer labs, laptop carts, electronic chalkboards, document projectors, electronic sketchpads, video cameras, digital cameras, copy machines, laminating machines, binding machines, a poster printer, an electronic dye cut, and enormous boom box CD players capable of producing noise at incredible volume.
At any point in time, any or all of these electronic devices will need to be updated, charged, adjusted, cloned, refilled, or fixed in one way or another which puts the average teacher in clear and present danger as they have no hope of ever understanding these devices, much less fixing them. The end result involves a great deal of wailing and the gnashing of teeth.
In an attempt to combat the overwhelming amount of hi-tech ignorance, the district employs a person a Campus Instructional Technologist (CIT) whose sole job is to alleviate teachers’ technological frustration.
The CIT supplies all of the teachers with an enormous number of handouts that very clearly explain in an easy-to-read, step-by-step process how to do essentials tasks, which is great- but nobody reads those. She is also very good to email us pertinent information about timely issues, faithfully sending out reminder epistles about how to submit our grades- but nobody reads those either. Every month she hosts a mini-training session during our conference period to help explain new software or explain how to troubleshoot simple problems, but the only reason people go to these things are for the free jeans passes (as we are not normally allowed to wear jeans to the workplace) and because she always supplies homemade baked goods or candy and we like homemade baked goods and candy. I’m not sure exactly how much technological information is disseminated during these sessions.
Despite her valiant efforts to educate us and minimize potential problems, the poor CIT is usually running from classroom to classroom as frantic teachers call, email, radio, or flag her down in the hallway, desperate for help. To the inexperienced, it may appear that they are a victim of a major vehicular accident when it actuality it probably just means that they don’t know how to load more paper into their printer. Many of the CIT’s solutions are relatively simple. Have you plugged it in? You need to restart it. Hang up the phone and try again. Put in new batteries. Turn off the caps-lock.
Administration will sometimes highlight truly superior individuals who do exceptional things, like send out a mass email, or [insert gasp/shock and awe] maintain a blog to communicate with students and their parents. Shoving a microphone in their face, they march the teacher to the front of a faculty meeting and have them show the rest of the population their amazing skill on a projector screen in the cafeteria.
“Well anyone can do that,” someone whispers nonchalantly, and other teachers around nod in agreement and then frantically try to write down what the presenter is saying. Something about putting a comma in between email addresses in order to send a message to more than one person at a time.
Due to budget cuts, more than half of the CIT positions have been eliminated next year. I expect all technological devices to either burst into flames or be thrown out of windows during fits of rage and frustration.
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