Part of the series: Investigating International Edtech Issues (USA)

When Shelly honored me with the opportunity to write a guest post about teaching at-risk youth in the USA, it took me a while to gather my thoughts. What could I share with the world that hasn’t already been on National television or the BBC? Slowly, I came to the conclusion that my viewpoint may be a bit skewed by the fact that I live in the USA. At the NECC conference (a gigantic conference of all things related to Educational Technology) last June, I discovered that even educators in Canada, our closest English-speaking neighbor, were fuzzy on education policies and practices in the US.

I currently serve as a Computer Lab teacher and Technology Teacher Leader (TTL) at a large (about 600 students) K-6th grade elementary school in West Philadelphia, PA. Our school has made AYP once since President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, which classifies us as a ‘failing school.’ If you are a bit fuzzy on this legislation and AYP, it will be addressed later in the post.

Education as the Great Equalizer

One aspect of our system that separates us from many parts of the world is the fact that education from age 6 to age 18 is free for everyone. This freedom ties in perfectly with our Democratic ideals that state that- theoretically-anyone can be anyone they want, attain anything they want and anyone can even be President. In fact, education is not only free, it’s mandatory until age 16. In addition-in theory-both girls and boys, whether black, white, green or purple, are educated equally and provided equal opportunities to achieve. As a woman, I could not imagine being denied the simple right to an education, or imagine risking my life to attend school as some girls do in countries like Afghanistan. Even famed author Frank McCourt believed, as a young man, that a good education in the US would pull him up in the world and away from his poor, troubled Irish roots. By the way, if you have not read his book Teacher Man, do it. As soon as possible.

Of course, this is all in theory.

The purpose of this post is not to pick apart the Education system in the US for all of its inequalities and shortcomings that deny many children the opportunity to succeed and achieve their dreams. For that, you should pick up a copy of Jonathan Kozol‘s revolutionary book Savage Inequalities or read his account of teaching in a Boston public school in Death at An Early Age. Reading Kozol’s books before I moved to Philadelphia in 2002 and during my early years in the public school system here prepared me more than any course at any university for what I would encounter.

This is a quick video that describes the conditions in many urban public schools.
I have blogged about racism, segregation & education and about the conditions in which my students learn here and here.

No Child Left Behind: an overview

For those of you not graced with the privilege of knowing what No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is all about, here’s a quick overview.

NCLB is a piece of legislation created by former President George W. Bush in 2001 with the goal of making drastic changes and reforms to the broken and failing American education system. The legislation has four ‘pillars’:

• Stronger Accountability: President Bush’s main goal with NCLB was close the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their wealthier counterparts. This translates into schools being required to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in order to maintain their autonomy. Usually this AYP is decided by comparing the percentage of students scoring ‘proficient’ on state standardized tests from year to year. Should a school not achieve this stated percentage for 5 or more years, it may be restructured. As an example, my school must have 47% of our students reading at a proficient level. As of our test scores from last spring, 17% of our students currently do. If we do not make enough gains (based on the standardized test in the Spring) we may be completely restructured (again).
• More Freedom for States and Communities: Under NCLB, state and local governments were given more control of how Federal money is distributed. Schools and districts with a large population of underserved, “disadvantaged” students can use additional money, called Title I funds, on Professional Development, after school programs, Educational Technology and other school-based or district-based needs. Most schools in Philadelphia (not all) qualify for these extra funds.
• Proven Education Methods: President Bush felt it very important to ensure that districts and schools employ scientifically proven methods to increase student achievement. This often means that schools cannot find funding for alternative interventions unless they fit this definition. When searching for and indicating interventions for, specifically, Special Education students, teachers can only use those programs that fit the ‘scientifically proven’ classification. The result has been a huge influx of companies releasing these kinds of products and marketing them to schools. This is not to say that these programs don’t work, but it can be limiting.
• More Choices for Parents: A new aspect of NCLB, this pillar allows parents whose children attend a low or under-performing school to transfer their child to a better school. My school is required to release a list of available schools every year where parents can choose to send their children instead of our school. By law, the district must pay for the child’s busing to their new school. The result–a failing school loses its best students and families to other schools and continues failing, and money is diverted from schools to bus companies. This pillar has also created a huge debate over the school voucher program, through which parents at failing schools can use public funds to pay for their child to attend any public or private school of their choice.

What About EdTech?

So what implications does NCLB have for educational technology and student achievement?

The accountability aspect of the legislation has placed a huge focus on standardized testing, since these are the tools for measuring AYP. The result has been a change in teaching and learning. You have probably heard the phrase “teaching to the test” a million times. Teachers often feel they don’t even have time to teach enough reading and math to prepare students for the tests, so you can imagine the stress of trying to learn a new tool or experiment with new methods of teaching in the classroom, nevermind taking the time to do Project Based Learning with technology. The biggest winners in the accountability pillar? The testing companies.

While freedom with Federal dollars has definitely help districts, this does not change anything about the gaping chasm between local funding in rural or urban schools and suburban schools. Most schools in the United States are funded through local property taxes. In states like New Jersey, with some of the highest property taxes on the East Coast, it’s no wonder that schools in that state are performing above and beyond schools in neighboring states. This is not to say that Philadelphia public schools do not have technology available to their students. There are many schools with every classroom equipped with an Interactive White Board (IWB) and many Middle/High Schools have access to laptop carts with enough computers for a whole class. Just having the technology, however, does not ensure student achievement or successful integration. “Teaching to the test” does not allow for the creativity that these tools can foster, and many teachers lack proper Professional Development for these tools due to funding and planning. Often these tools are installed or introduced with little or no training on how to use them.

Since many cutting-edge technologies and/or instructional programs have not been scientifically tested, the kinds of technologies that are used as interventions to differentiate instruction are drill-and-practice software like Read 180, Fast Forward, FASTT Math, or Quick Reads, or web-based programs like First in Math and Study Island. Many software companies have been raking in cash due to the high demand for these kinds of softwares. I often joke that “I’m in the wrong business,” because the real money is in intervention software for schools! While these programs have been proven to increase student achievement on standardized tests, they do not support technology integration into the curriculum. Many teachers mistakenly believe that they use technology in the classroom effectively just because they stick a kid on the computer to use one of these programs.

By giving parents the option to pull their child out of a failing school, it sends parents the wrong message. “Don’t try to make things better, just let the school fail and get your kid the %&# out of there!” Not only does this practice pull money away from schools to pay for busing these students, but the schools will not get better without parent involvement and advocacy. If you make it a habit to move students out and close schools, it will also burden the receiving schools with higher enrollment. In Philadelphia, our School Reform Commission (we have no School Board) and our Superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, plan to close failing schools and re-open them with all new staff. The idea is, if you continue to fail, you do not deserve Federal dollars, you deserve to close. With these kinds of clouds looming over schools’ heads, who has time to focus on technology integration and Professional Development?

Give EdTech a Chance

The worst thing about all of this? The achievement gap is not closing. Sure, test scores are going up, but do test scores prepare our students for college and/or the job market?

I worry:

• “Will my students know how to send and receive email?”
• “Will my students know how to create an online identity that will not damage them later in life?”
• “Will my students have the basic word processing skills to correctly type that paper or resume?”
• “Will my students know how to use social media to collaborate with others?”

Many of my students do not have a home computer, and many do not have an email account. They only know how to use the internet for watching videos, listening to music and playing games. My 6th graders do not know simple typing rules like using Shift to make a capital, making quotation marks or putting two spaces after a period. This lack of skills counteracts any gains that students make on standardized tests.

A teaching model that effectively integrates technology into teaching and learning can both prepare students for the real world and standardized tests to boot. Here are some examples of how technology can help close the achievement gap on standardized tests without “teaching to the test”:

• Teaching good writing skills through quick and easy editing and publishing.
• Teaching various reading skills through reading classmates’ blogs and comments.
• Giving students a love for reading and writing by creating a truly authentic audience.
• Engaging students through differentiated instruction by using various technology tools to teach to students’ strengths.
• Engaging students with Science and Math through collaborative projects and authentic projects using real-time data.

In closing, I hope that those of you who may be from other corners of the world now have a better understanding of the American education system (for better or for worse) as well as how this system aims to help close the achievement gap among our Nation’s schools, how it has succeeded and how it has failed. In addition, I hope that you have a better understanding of how a nation with so many resources still manages to deprive many of its children with the necessary skills to succeed and compete in the global economy and in a world that is shrinking more every day.

I am proud to be a public school teacher here in Philadelphia. I am not a martyr, I am not a hero. I am, along with my esteemed colleagues, a career professional entrusted with preparing my young students for successful and fulfilling adult lives. A system as large as ours here the US will never be perfect. We must do what we can with what we have and be advocates for our children and their families.

US Dept. of Ed image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
all information about NCLB from the US Dept. of Ed website

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Mary Beth Hertz has been teaching in Philadelphia, PA since 2003. She has also taught on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and has worked with at-risk youth in Ohio. You can read more of her thoughts at her blog, Philly Teacher, and you can find her on Twitter as @mbteach.

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Educational System in Argentina

1. Initial education: from 45 days to 5 years old, being this last year compulsory
2. Primary education: from 6 years old to 12 years old (obligatory)
3. Secondary education: up to 18 years old. It is obligatory and includes two cycles:
   • Basic cycle
   • Knowledge-oriented cycle: different areas of knowledge
4. Superior education

The problem is complex and it is necessary to develop strategies that:

Edtech

My PLN list one

My PLN list two

Making a Difference

Thanks to Twitter and to the valuable members of my PLN, I have become acquainted with several tools that have proved useful for learning and teaching English. This year I have created wiki spaces for my classes where I upload tasks to develop the strategies my students need: listening, speaking, reading and writing in a way that is encouraging and highly motivating. In these wiki spaces, my students have folders where they can upload the tasks they do for me to check and they can write messages to me when they have doubts. They were vital during the month we had to interrupt classes in Winter as a consequence of the spread of H1N1 virus (swine flu). During that month, I was able to send tasks for my students and not have to stop the learning process.

Parents have expressed their gratitude to me for having created these sites and are very enthusiastic about their children’s possibilities to go on doing extra practice at home through a means that is more motivating for them. The language school administration has supported me at all times on this development and has congratulated me at all times for this contribution.
I also work as a one-to-one tutor at home and I have also built a wiki space I share with my private students for them to continue practicing at home. This is my website. If you want to visit it, please ask me and I’ll gladly include you among the users.

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Marisa Pavan holds degrees in translation, interpretation and teaching from Instituto Superior Nº 28 “Olga Cossettini”, Rosario and has two decades of experience in teaching English as a Second Language. She has over 6 years experience working as a freelance English-Spanish/ Spanish-English translator. She is  skilled in languages, translation, interpretation, training students to develop listening, speaking, writing and reading strategies, CAT tools and communication. You can also find Marisa on Twitter, @mtranslator.

Part of the series: Investigating International Edtech Issues (UAE)

Disclaimer: This piece is based exclusively on my own experiences in teaching English in the UAE, I know that there are several institutions (albeit more likely in the private sector) that are much further ahead in the use of technology in education. It’s also obvious that there are great initiatives to improve the standards and the development is obvious. This post aims at trying to find ways of engaging teachers.

Teaching is a TOUGH profession
Teaching English is a VERY TOUGH profession
Teaching English in a public school in the United Arab Emirates is THE EASIEST job in the world.

Unless…..

1. you have principles and beliefs about teaching that you would like to implement
2. you have questions you want answered
3. you refuse to believe that one person can come up with an idea that cannot be improved by collaboration
4. you hold it self-evident that students come to school to use what they know in ways they never thought of
5. you want to help other teachers become better teachers
6. you desire knowledge that you want to discover and not just be told what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong

The last few months in a public secondary school in the UAE taught me to understand a few things:

1. Students come to school without any expectation of it being of any use to them
2. Teachers come to school without expecting anything from the students
3. Students can sit for 165 minutes without knowing what is going on around them
4. Teachers can attend 25 hours of professional development without knowing what is going on around them
5. Students can stay at home if it rains
6. Teachers are happy that students stay at home if it rains

This is a pretty exciting situation. So I can sit back and watch the system malfunction and do disservice to every single participant but most importantly the students, or try to do something about it.
There is no risk involved in the first option: this is what I’m expected to do.
Therefore, this is NOT what I’m going to do.
My aim for this year is to ‘convert’ one teacher.
You might say that this is a minimalist plan, and a few months ago I would have agreed with you. Now, I am not even convinced that I can achieve this.

There are three things that make the situation promising:

1. As teachers in a new initiative, every English teacher has a pretty good HP tablet notebook and they have become quite comfortable with it.
2. There are 6 hours a week allocated to professional development in our schedule.
3. There is wireless internet, which is a bit like a Hungarian Orange: “a bit yellow and bit sour but Hungarian” – it’s slow and unreliable but much more than nothing. (You want to know what a Hungarian orange is, watch this short excerpt from one of the best ever satires of the late communist era Hungary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wjQrV5A1c)

Let’s see some of the things a colleague of mine would say about the job:

1. Teachers are underpaid
2. Students are disinterested
3. Professional development is a waste of time
4. I can use a computer; I don’t need anybody to help me
5. Lesson planning is a waste of time
6. I’m paid to teach but not paid to attend meetings

Trying to bring the two together we can perhaps start a little grassroots movement:

1. Make a bit of money on the side: teach Arabic/English on one of the Online course providers
2. Get ideas from other teachers through Twitter, get your students on Twitter and see magic happen
3. Spend an hour a day on Twitter and make a list of the most interesting things you learnt– present these at the next PD
4. Having learnt to scavenge the net, add something to it. Create, organise your own content and you’ll learn new ways you can use the net
5. See different lesson plans. Choose a topic and create a lesson plan you might be able to share with others
6. Let’s meet when you have a question or something you want to share with the other teachers. Let’s meet online and talk about whatever you want to talk about.

I know that 4 months ago I would not have been able to come up with these suggestions. I know many other teachers have the same problems. Maybe some of these answers will help us become better teachers and colleagues.
Perhaps, if this model works, it may grow into something bigger and become Web 2.0 in the UAE.

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Tamas Lorincz is an English teacher who believes that a hedonistic search for pleasure in everything you do is a key to success.

After a brief and unsuccessful foray into mining engineering he found his real calling in being a teacher of English. He has worked in Hungary as a teacher, in Britain as a marketing executive and teacher trainer for a publishing company, in Iraqi Kurdistan as a dogsbody, presently trying to help teachers and students in the UAE (most of the time despite them).

He passionately searches for things that make teachers and students tick. This is how he discovered Web 2.0 and became a devoted advocate of using technology to motivate teachers and engage students.

His blog (http://tamaslorincz.edublogs.org) is hoping to develop into a source for sharing thoughts, information and materials with teachers. You can also find him on Twitter @tamaslorincz.

Part of the series: Investigating International Edtech Issues (Croatia)

OUT OF THIS WORLD

All elementary and secondary schools in Croatia have free broadband Internet access via ADSL and are equipped with at least one computer lab. There is usually also one computer in all the schools’ staffrooms, libraries and administrators’ offices. In 2005, the Ministry of Education introduced computer literacy training as an integral part of teacher education programs in the form of ECDL courses. Approximately 5,000 elementary and secondary school teachers obtain the European Computer Driving License every year.

In cooperation with the Croatian Academic and Research Network (CARNet) the Ministry also launched the project of providing free e-mail addresses for all the students and teachers in elementary and secondary schools as well as the creation of school websites.  All the teachers and students have been given a digital identity, which enables them to use various CARNet services, such as online courses that teachers can use in class, E-courses for teachers, the E-learning academy, the E-library, online quizzes and the distant learning  portal (LMS) among others.

THE LAY OF THE LAND

In reality, of course, things work in a different way. Let me show you how we pursue new technologies at my school. I teach languages at a secondary school (gimnazija) comprising around 500 students, aged between 15-19. I dare say that 90% of them own a computer with Internet access as well as a Facebook profile, updated daily. Out of 47 teachers at my school, about 30 hold an ECDL diploma. Furthermore, the majority of those who don’t, own a computer and know enough to use it as a word processor at the very least. Twelve of my colleagues have their own Facebook profile, but only four of them have used Web 2.0 technologies in class. Out of all the staff members, I’m the only one who writes a blog and owns a twitter account and with 108 followers I’m ranked 32nd (!) in Croatia.

The number of computers provided at my school is rather small compared to the number of our students. We have two computer labs, one with 10 computers and the other with 16 computers. Add to this the number of computer literate teachers and what you get is a mad scramble for the two labs. Hence, we have a reservation list in the staffroom, run by the IT teacher on a first come first serve basis. I don’t have to tell you how frequently she is buttonholed by ‘tech savvy’ teachers who want to book a lab before anyone else does.

While I can boast a collegial atmosphere at my staffroom, when it comes to computer matters, the situation changes drastically. Sometimes, there is so much animosity between the parties involved, that it seems unlikely they’ll ever be reconciled. Luckily, there’s always the next week’s list and the thrill of computer assisted teaching that is not likely to disappear.

FAIR SHARE

However, if we don’t need Internet access and can do with only one computer in class, we can avail ourselves of one of the three laptops and projectors.  This is often done by teachers, but rather reluctantly because we have to carry this entire load from classroom to classroom as the teachers are those who move, while students remain stationary in their classrooms. We can’t have our own labs as we share the premises with a vocational school. Because the school building is too small to hold 1000 students at the same time, we work in shifts.

A two-shift system means that one week we are at school in the morning from 8 am till 2pm and the other school attends an afternoon shift from 2 pm till 8 pm. The next week it’s the other way around. At 2 pm, we have to leave the school premises to let the other students in, so we don’t have as many extracurricular activities as we would like, because we can use only the classrooms we don’t share, i.e. the two computer labs, the library and the language lab. We also have separate staffrooms and administrators’ offices.

This is not an exception here in Croatia; it’s rather a rule, unfortunately. Hopefully, all schools will have moved to one shift system by 2020.
During a five-day week, students have 33 periods of 16-18 core subjects and only one elective. However, this is rather a misleading term, as they are usually offered two subjects to choose from, mostly psychology, since the psychology teacher’s weekly load is often too low; or a foreign language, as part of the preparation for the recently introduced unified state school-leaving exams.
Here’s an example of a sophomore’s morning timetable, which is mirrored for the afternoon session, so that the last morning lesson becomes the first in the afternoon.

INTO THIN AIR

There’s no ICT in the above timetable, as it is not a mandatory subject for sophomores, and neither is it for juniors, nor for seniors.  It is hard to believe that in today’s world of information and communication technologies, only the first-year students have ICT as a core subject. Despite repeated attempts to introduce ICT as a compulsory subject in both elementary and secondary schools, students still learn it only in the first year of secondary school. To compensate for this ‘oversight’, most elementary schools offer ICT as an elective, whereas in secondary schools, it is the most popular extracurricular activity. An exception to this is secondary schools that specialize in mathematics and ICT, where ICT is taught 3 or even more hours a week every year and is a mandatory subject for all the students.

DOWN TO EARTH

As I have already mentioned, the majority of my students own a computer with Internet access and are well-versed in at least one form of the new web-based technologies. They usually spend two hours or even more at their computers every day, but sadly, computers come only as a distraction from learning. They use computers for playing computer games and chatting with friends, which considerably reduces the time they spend on learning and doing homework.
Only rarely do they make full use of the immense possibilities offered to them on the Internet. They’re simply not being taught effectively how to benefit from e-learning. Two lessons per week in their first year, and occasional visits to the computer lab with different teachers won’t teach them how to take advantage of all the possibilities that technology-enhanced learning can offer.

Although most of the teachers at my school are computer literate, they don’t go beyond the basics, mostly because teacher education programs are not harmonized with the latest changes in technology-enhanced teaching.
Teachers should be taught how to enable students to use web-based content on the Internet. They should be given opportunities to learn how to select the right tools and how to implement them in their teaching. They should keep abreast with the latest developments in educational technology. They should be willing to make changes and they should take up the challenges of lifelong learning. Otherwise, our high-tech education dream will remain just a dream.

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Arjana Blazic is a high school English and German teacher. During her 23 years of teaching, she has created webpages, organized school exchanges, participated in the Europe@School contest (and even won some money). She is a keen user of new technologies and a lifelong learner.  She has a travel bug and a travel blog, http://traveloteacher.blogspot.com.

Part of the series: Investigating International Edtech Issues (Australia)

Background

A very personal view of some of the issues we face here in Australia in integrating technology into education (ie in fitting widget A into socket B). Firstly, I am not a school teacher but a lecturer in Australia’s Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. However, I know from teacher colleagues in my Personal Learning Network that many of the issues we face are similar, and that universities also have the same barriers to overcome. My own context in a regional TAFE (Training and Further Education college) in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia (WA) is as different from many of my colleagues across Australia as it is from those of you in other parts of our global village. So it would be totally inappropriate for me to generalise with respect to Australia as a whole. The catchment area of my college is 155,000 square km (that’s around 60,000 square miles for those of you who still use them) with a population of only 72,000 people.

Having said that I don’t intend to generalise I’ll now do just that! Because of its size and its thinly scattered population, there is a history of distance education for those in the regional and remote areas of Australia.

Many educators across the world will have heard of the “School of the Air” and will know that Australian children in the past who were isolated from their peers by the sheer size of the country “went to school” through two-way radio. This was often linked to correspondence material, and sometimes, periodic visits from a teacher. Thus a blended learning solution integrating the technology of the time is not a new idea for Australian educators. In WA, I know that the School of Isolated and Distance Education (SIDE) now uses virtual classroom technology, and Learning Management Systems.

Just to round out where I am coming from – I have a background in science, equine studies (including teaching horse riding) and in the transferable/ employable skills (English/maths/IT/teamwork/study skills). This means I have had a very broad teaching profile and although I enjoy working with students in English/maths/IT. I really miss my sciences.

I currently teach across the Certificates in General Education for Adults (CGEA). The curriculum focus is on developing literacy and numeracy skills in adults and in the past participants have mostly been culturally diverse, mature age adults from both English speaking and non-English speaking backgrounds. There have been occasional students from the 15-19 age group for various reasons. However in the last three years the demographic has changed dramatically because WA is raising the school leaving age quickly to bring it more into line with other places. This has resulted in a high number of “Youth at Risk” participants who either refuse to attend school for some reason or who have been excluded.

There are certificates at 5 levels ranging from minimal functional literacy to that which would be expected from a student just finishing high school. Because of the low population density we rarely get a group of students large enough to run a class at any one level so the usual delivery pattern in my college is for all levels to be in class together with one lecturer and (hopefully) a Learning Support Person. This is in itself a challenge that has been exacerbated by the change in group composition. For me an essential is access to online resources as this better enables students work at their own pace to follow at least a partly individualised pathway.

The Edtech Dimension

Firstly, what do we mean by technology? I know (as does anyone who visits Edublogs’ sites) that there are schools all over Australia and globally with teachers who have dived with huge success into blogging with their students and using a large range of available voice applications, images and image editing to take the concept way beyond what most of us understood by blogging a few years ago. Others are using mobile technology in the classroom and achieving great results.

Some of us are using Virtual Classrooms (VC) (not to be confused with Virtual Worlds) and still have recourse to the “old hat” Learning Management Systems (LMS). Our interpretation of technology can mean any or all of these and other hardware and software.

In this discussion I am trying to avoid drilling down to barriers that relate to specific hardware or software and to look at those issues that impact more generally on all Australian educators who are trying to use technology to give their students a better learning experience.

OK, so what are the issues/barriers that my colleagues and I encounter in integrating technology into our  learning environment? Perhaps more important do we know of and can we adopt any strategies that reduce the impact on the quality of learning. The issues are many – too many to cover here, so I will focus on a few issues that in my personal opinion have the most impact, here goes – in no particular order:

Technical Problems

In my context there are several technical barriers to getting technology integrated into learning these include:

1. Bandwidth

This is an issue for much of regional and remote Australia. In my workplace we have a “narrow pipe”, shared with the local high school, that links to the Education/Training Department’s server. The limited bandwidth impacts on learners in face-to-face classes or working in the library who are using the Internet in any part of their course. This is particularly so if they need to access bandwidth hungry resources such as video or interactive content – the very ones that we choose as being most engaging. Much of my own delivery even in face-to-face classes is self-paced and flexible so students often use the LMS course in the classroom. They are often frustrated by slow connections and failure of links to load – made even slower by their own preferences for listening to online music through YouTube as they work.

There is also an impact on lecturers and other staff. Lecturers seeking useful content links to make available for their students in face-to-face classes and/or through the LMS find the slow connection a barrier to success. The VC that we use (Elluminate) works well and is not excessively bandwidth hungry (can be used with dial up) but it can be problematic from work at times when bandwidth is already overloaded by other on-campus use. The result of these issues is often an increase in lecturer reluctance to adopt blended solutions that integrate technology.

Because most of our students are external/distance students bandwidth can also be an issue for them if they are studying using their home computer. Small country towns may not have broadband so access is restricted to dial-up or sometimes satellite. This has implications in download times, cost, frustration (try it when every video you want to watch downloads much more slowly than it plays).

Solutions?

Any possible solutions are really in the hands of the politicians and are dependent on economic factors. As a country we have a small population for our land area. We also (particularly in Western Australia) have huge distances – a 3-4 day drive from the South Coast to Broome on the North Coast of Western Australia, with only one large centre of population after you leave the south west and Perth about a fifth of the way. The economic reality of this is high infrastructure costs and a small tax paying population to pay for the necessary infrastructure. Also only a small proportion of the population lives outside the Perth Metropolitan area and the South West corner so their voice is small.

2. Computer configurations

This is a problem that is mostly restricted to distance/external students, however, Australia has many of these and they are not all highly technically competent. Also with increasing globalisation of education as a way of providing anytime, anywhere access to learning this will become more significant.

When working with remote students I have found that their own system, available applications and configuration is one of the main barriers for them in: accessing their online content from the LMS; joining the VC; and uploading or sending their own work to their lecturer. From the student perspective difficulties often arise in initial access to the resources, LMS or VC. In my experience these usually relate to the type and operating system, browser and/or security that they are using, or to a lack of necessary plug-ins.

The range of configurations is also a barrier for lecturers/teachers who are not themseves reasonably technically competent and who are not familiar with a range of systems. They often lack the skills and experience to provide phone support and “walk through” the necessary processes with students. A further problem for lecturers is that they are usually locked into the organisational choices with resepct to applications. In my organisations this means Windows and MSOffice. They are often not really aware of the implications of using MSOffice documents for those with older versions or with a different OS such as Linux or Mac. Neither do they know how to use any alternative applications. These issues then provide a further barrier for lecturers in integrating technology.

Solutions?

A specialist lecturer who helps students in getting online and who can also mentor and support other lecturers is a solution that was working well in my organisation last year (with myself in that role). However the college has decided to abandon that approach and has not really replaced it with anything specific. Having a lecturer/teacher in that role is important because students and colleagues often need to be coached through the processes, and IT staff should not be expected to have the necessary teaching skills.

On a personal basis I am trying to make all of my resources available in web-accessible form (either using HTML or using one of the Rapid E-learning Development tools that are available) and I think this is the way that all lecturers need to go. However converting/re-writing many pre-existing resources is a large task so I still have MSOffice documents. However if I have a student without MSOffice or with an older version I convert resources at need. Most of my colleagues cannot do this, and indeed many do not want to know how to as they fear it will give them more work. Unfortunately it is not just an admin task as it needs someone with the skills to design the resource and activities.

Organisational barriers

1. Blocking

A barrier of huge significance at the moment for teachers worldwide is that of institutional blocking of websites. It is an issue that is raised almost daily by members of my Personal Learning Network on Twitter and also during nearly all of our Edublogs Serendipity sessions (Fridays GMT 01:00 in this Elluminate room). It is a barrier that is faced across all sectors of education in Australia including my own organisation. We have had a situation where lecturer’s computers had more blocking than those on the student network! Thankfully this situation has been somewhat rectified recently so our access to potential resources has improved. However there is considerable blocking on the student network at the moment – this is to a large extent because of our limited bandwidth & the propensity of most students to have YouTube running continuously so that they can listen to music during class.

Solutions?

It seems that the only real solution to this is education of everyone involved! Educate IT departments and managers to see that cocooning students from the real world is not an answer; educate educators about the value of good digital citizenship and about how to encourage it in students; and educate students – from a very young age – in digital citizenship and Internet safety.

2. Economics

There is still a perception among many managers that integrating technology and using online solutions is a cheap option for providing learning opportunities. This pervades many institutions and often means that teachers/lecturers are not given sufficient time or resources to develop and implement high quality blended solutions that integrate technology. There is still a feeling from managers (in my organisation) that all that is necessary in terms of using educational technology with our distance students is to upload existing Word documents and PowerPoint presentations to some sort of repository – preferably an LMS so that the resources have restricted access. Students are then told when to download and print these.

Economics also impacts in unwillingness (and sometimes inability due to budget constraints) to pay for technology. Edtech often has a low priority, for example computer replacement in my organisation is  on the basis of a proportion replaced each year, so computers in some classrooms are several years old. The avidity with which we all seek and share any free tools, resources or access illustrates the constant economic pressure on educators to implement edtech cheaply.

Solutions?

A solution I have adopted in the past is to apply for grant funding. However I am no longer doing this because of: the overwhelming amount of paperwork that my organisation then imposes on me in relation to the funding; the frustration of having seed funding that never lasts long enough to develop sustainability; and the fact that most funding available here in Australia excludes equipment or software purchase.

Human issues

1. Resistance to change on all sides

Teachers/Lecturers resist change for many reasons. There are few people who really find it easy to move outside their comfort zone. Fear of knowing less than students and consequently of losing credibility with them is also a factor for many who are not themselves comfortable with technology. For a high proportion of teachers and lecturers there is also the worry that adopting edtech solutions will add to their already heavy workloads and that as a result they will do even more work during evenings and weekends.

Managers also resist change for many reasons – including economic presures, fear of the technology and wanting to stay in their own comfort zones. Often too, managers other than those at the very top are the “meat in the sandwich” between their own managers and the teachers or lecturers they manage. So as we would say they are “between a rock and a hard place” this can make them very unwilling to commit to change.

Students themselves resist change. As a lecturer with “adult return to learn” and teenage “youth at risk” students who hated, feared, and loathed school for one reason or another I see this all the time. All of my students to varying degrees at the start of their courses want the learning environment to be like school. Sometimes it is “desks in rows”, sometimes it is “teacher stand in front and write on drywipe board for them to copy”. They want to stay in their comfort zone even if it was a discomfort zone – at least it is familiar.

Solutions?

Just keep “chipping away” seems to be the only solution that works. The old proverb about taking horses to water but not being able to force them to drink always comes to mind in this context, as it does for learning generally. Finding a “hook” of self-interest for those who are reluctant is often helpful. That approach combined with time – not waiting for people to leave but reaching the point in adoption of “the new” when more people are using “the new” than are not. People like to “belong”, peer pressure is one of the strongest motivators to do anything – we all see this in our classrooms every day where our students dress similarly, talk similarly do the same things. Our colleagues are no different once “most people” have adopted edtech solutions it will be those who have not who feel out of the group and so they will eventually join in. Having “champions” who are passionate about edtech, who also have leadership capabilities and can lead by example and mentor are also essential. Again we all see this in class every day where one student who is a leader can sway the rest of the class for good or ill.

Conclusion

Writing this has made me think more about the issues we face in encouraging the use of edtech. It has also made me more aware on a personal basis of how constrained we are in Australia, and particularly  regional Australia, by infrastructure and economics over which we have little or no influence. For example these limitations make it impractical for me to even consider using Second Life or even mobile learning with my regional students. When we add the organisational, student available technology and human barriers it is amazing that we make any progress at all, but we do! Four years ago I was nibbling at the edges of edtech – I had barely heard of Virtual Classrooms, now I use them all the time. Eight months ago I had never heard of Twitter, now I have a (deliberately small) global network of amazing people in my PLN on Twitter. Who knows where any of us will be in edtech terms a year from now.

A final thought – we are “getting there” in terms of fitting widget A into socket B but it is a slow process as indeed is the majority of change. We must do it in the same way as we would eat an elephant “one mouthful at a time”. My own personal strategy in exploring and keeping up with edtech is having a Personal Learning Network – my own elephant – it knows all and never forgets. The greatest challenge is always knowing which mouthful comes next!

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Originally from the UK now living in rural Western Australia. I have a background in science, equine studies (including teaching horse riding) and in the transferable/ employable skills. Currently, a lecturer in Literacy and Numeracy (with some IT) in the public Vocational Education and Training sector (TAFE). My students are very varied: culturally & linguistically diverse mature age adults; people with intellectual disabilities; “Youth at (educational) Risk”. In a face to face class I have five literacy levels, this combined with the human diversity of my learners makes e-solutions almost essential for me. I also have online regional/remote students. I love to learn myself and have a passion for opening these same doors for learners. I enjoy exploring “e-stuff” immensely and see this as an essential addition to my “toolbox” for engaging and motivating learners. I use Virtual Classroom (Elluminate) a lot and also the WebCT CE6 Learning Management System and have trained and supported other lecturers in my organisation in using these. I can be found in the Edublogs Elluminate room http://bit.ly/17lTIE (usually Friday GMT 01:00am), on Twitter @JoHart (constantly) and on my blog johart1.edublogs.org (when I have time!).

Part of the series: Investigating International Edtech Issues (Turkey)

My title sounds weird, doesn’t it? But believe it or not, this is how I learned what a keyboard was! It was 1993. I was 15 years-old. Computer class was an elective course at my school and in the first computer lesson our teacher drew a keyboard picture on the board and showed us the positioning of the keys on that picture. So I saw ‘enter’ and ‘backspace’ keys for the first time in my life on a blackboard.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/houseofsims/ / CC BY 2.0

My Experience

In this post that I am writing for Shelly, I won’t be telling you about the education system in Turkey. If you want to have an idea about it, here is a link: Education system in Turkey – http://www.allaboutturkey.com/education.htm

What I want to point out is the dramatic difference between the 1990s and 2000s regarding the use of technology in education in Turkey. My experiences as a student and then as a teacher…

Computers were not a real part of my life when I was a student at high school. The only things I can remember about technology are our funny computer lessons and some boys in the classroom who had Commodore 64s.

I had my first computer when I was at a university. My dad brought a computer one day and left me with it without any explanations. He just told me not to be afraid of touching it and trying things. I used to have a dial-up Internet connection which was very noisy, slow and problematic. I was very enthusiastic about using my new computer. First, I designed a very simple web site on Frontpage. My amateur web design career didn’t last for long:-) My content was silly stuff like wallpapers, funny pictures, .midi files, etc. and I got bored with it in a very short time. It was the year 1996 and at my university (ELT department) which has a good reputation in Turkey, there still weren’t any lessons related to the use of technology in education. If I hadn’t been interested in computers that much, probably, I could have never found the courage to use technology in my classes.

I graduated from the university in 2000 and started teaching at a language school. I worked there for two years and during that time I used Power Point very creatively:-) It was an unusual way of introducing topics. Lots of colourful images, animations, etc. I was happy and my students were happy. Then I started working at a private school in 2002. Since then, I’ve been working at private schools because there are huge differences between state and private schools in Turkey in terms of language teaching programs, career development opportunities and financial resources.

School Systems

In state schools, students start learning English at 4th grade. In private schools English education starts at kindergarten. Starting English education at early ages leads to better results which is motivating for teachers as well. Since state schools do not charge any money to students, they can hardly afford their essential expenses and cannot allocate money for the use of technology. The exception is in some rich areas, there are state schools which can afford technological equipment with donations from parents.

While state schools are still struggling; for about a decade, there has been a competition among private schools to buy the latest technological equipment for their classrooms. I’m saying ‘classrooms’, not ‘students’ because usually the equipment cannot go beyond being decorative objects. Most schools think that making huge investments in equipment means ‘using technology’ in education.

Future of Technology Use

However, I’m not hopeless about the future of technology use in education in Turkey. Some schools started to realize that teacher training is as important as equipping the classrooms with the latest technology and that if they don’t have well qualified and enthusiastic teachers to use that equipment, the big investments become a total waste.

Providing equal opportunities for state and private school students is another case waiting to be solved… The changes needed to make schools more engaging places for students will not be able to occur nationwide in the near future unless state schools have the necessary budget and support. Besides, in order to make the necessary changes happen we need a better teacher education system and educational leaders who are visionaries.

“Change starts when someone sees the next step.”
William Drayton

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Burcu Akyol is an English teacher from Istanbul, Turkey. She has been teaching English for nine years. She has experience in both the young learners and adult classrooms. At present she works at ISTEK Schools as the Foreign Languages Department Coordinator. Her main areas of interest are using web technologies in ELT and teacher training. She shares and tries to encourage teachers to share, on her blog http://burcuakyol.com.

Part of the series: Investigating International Edtech Issues (Japan’s Edtech Issues)

Famous crossing where a million people are in the street all at the same time.

Before I came to Japan, I imagined a place full of people flying around on jet packs and the streets full of robots.  I think growing up, we saw all those specials on TV about how Japan has theme parks powered by garbage and everything is clean and beautiful.  I marveled at the giant car garages that resembled car vending machines.

Although the giant car vending machines do exist, they really aren’t that cool.  I mean you can dress it up all you want, but it’s just a parking garage and I don’t drive. But, I diverge.  The point is, Japan is not overrun with technology.  The technology that does exist has to because of the utter lack of space.  Computers and televisions keep getting smaller simply because there is no space to put bigger pieces of electronics.

Edutech in Schools

I teach at a private conversation school here in Japan.  We teach adults in the business district; mostly people from the import/export industry as well as textile dealers, and fashion designers.  We have everything from chocolate bar sales reps to lingerie designers.  So I’ve taught a variety of people from many walks of life.

What is strange though is that a lot of them still rely on low-tech to get the message out.  I’m not sure why this is.  I’ve had several people attempt to explain it to me, but I still haven’t been able to put my finger on it.

Famous landmark/ aquarium in Osaka (where I live/teach); has two whale sharks!

At our school we hardly make use of any technology.  I think the only electronic thing I use on a regular basis is my CD player.  We do have a nifty auto-check in the computer that students can just swipe their card and a little slip of paper gets spit out with their room number and teacher on it.  They can even punch in their phone number on a touch screen to check in if they forgot their card.

High schools are similarly equipped.  Most of them still have chalkboards and basic desks.  What is worse is that often times classes can be full of 35-40 students.  There are computer classes in high schools and knowing how to use a computer is a part of the guidelines set forth by the education ministry of Japan.  However, I’ve heard teachers complain that some 1^st year high schoolers have never used a computer!

Universities are a lot better thankfully.  A lot of them are equipped with large high-tech computer labs that I never saw when I was in college.  A lot of the lecture halls have all the standard equipment, projectors, video players, multiple inputs and outputs, all the goodies.

Corporations that I’ve taught at use some tech, but web 2.0 has not come to Japan, yet.  Most people have no concept of the social web.  The tech that is being used is very late 90s.  This is evident on a lot of levels.

Social Networking

Festival held every year where people dance and occasionally fall to their untimely deaths on the top of rolling wooden shrines; advertised as the most dangerous festival in Japan.

Twitter has a very small presence here despite being available in Japanese.  According to a recent survey, only about 16% of people have even heard of Twitter.  About 2.3% of people in Japan have used Twitter.  If you want more proof of this, I’m currently ranked in the Twitter elite for Osaka with just over 500 followers (I’m usually in the 30s).

As for social networks, Facebook is slowly gaining ground.  There is another Japan-only social  network called Mixi which is in its death throes.  Mixi is invite only, and requires a Japanese mobile phone email address.  It has an antiquated advertising model and (in my honest opinion) overly complicated system of blogging and messaging although Mashable says otherwise.  Not to mention the fact that it just recently banned dating.

Advertising in Japan has not advanced to the social interactive stage yet.  This is baffling to most westerners because they seem to have taken traditional marketing to all new extremes.  For political campaigns they drive around blaring messages out of sound trucks.  Or they interrupt you while you walk down the street and try to shove a flyer in your hand.

Japanese Cultural Values

Landmark which is the beacon for fried stuff on a stick (kushi katsu) and fugu (blowfish/pufferfish); also the yakuza neighborhood.

I think the major reason for this slow down is that Japan is a culture concerned with privacy.  Japan has been a traditionally closed society, despite some outpourings here and there, it has mostly remained closed.  This is a good thing in some ways.  A very unique culture has developed over the years.

Business in Japan is mostly done face to face.  They have several meetings to discuss things and  are constantly taking business trips.  Meetings that would normally take place via teleconferencing are instead done in person.  This is taken to extremes a lot of times.  I think companies could easily cut 10% out of their budgets with some videoconferencing and less meetings.  I think this is why there hasn’t been a big increase in the use of communications equipment.

Cell Phones in Japan

An example of a barcode people scan to get web addresses on their cell phones.

Cell phones are so pervasive actually that a culture has grown up around them.  If you really want it to be, your cell phone can really do everything for you here.  It can be your wallet, your train pass, your camera, your video camera, your calendar, your gaming system, your television, your radio, your GPS … Actually one of the complaints about the iPhone when it first came to Japan was that it didn’t have enough features.  Some of my students still complain about this and actually have two phones, one regular cell phone and an iPhone.

One of the leading questions at edutech presentations here is “Can my students access this with their cell phones?”  It is a lot easier to get students to do something on their cell phones then to get them into a computer lab.  This has obviously led to some boundaries with edutech.

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Neal Chambers has taught in Japan for just about 5 years despite graduating in video production. He is currently teaching at a private English conversation school in Osaka. He is a regular teacher contributor at EnglishSpark.com where he writes the series Teacher Stumpers about difficult and odd grammar. He enjoys attempting to climb mountains without injuring himself.

The most notable aspect of the German education system is that there is no German education system. Germany consists of sixteen federal states (Bundesländer) and it is up to each state to decide how it wants to organize the education system. There is, of course, some form of cooperation and alignment between the states. However, the details vary. In some parts of Germany they vary a lot. I went to school, studied and now teach in only one state (Baden-Württemberg) so my perspective is biased to the situation there. I will include some aspects that are generally true or that relate to other states but I don’t claim to present a comprehensive (or balanced) description.

A second important aspect of the German education system is that its organizational structure has been tossed heavily since the OECD’s PISA assessment of 2000 which found Germany to be in the lower midfield of all participating countries. This result was made into the “PISA shock” which has dominated public debate about education ever since. Therefore, this has been the major force behind political efforts to improve education. There have been, and there still are, many such efforts.

Typical School Structure

In Baden-Württemberg the school structure used to be like this:

• Four years of primary school (age six to ten),
• With fifth grade, secondary education starts with three options:
  • “Hauptschule”: five years, leads to the lowest-level diploma (“Hauptschulabschluss”),
  • “Realschule”: six years, leads to a mid-level diploma (“Realschulabschluss”),
  • “Gymnasium”: nine years, leads to the highest-level diploma (“Abitur”) which qualifies for entering university.

The three strands of secondary education were based on the idea that students’ talents are different (e.g. some more practical, others more intellectual) and that they can be supported best by grouping them according to these distinctions. This idea has been questioned, ridiculed and upheld fervently for many years.

The decision about which strand each child should follow is based on the recommendation of the primary school teachers at the end of grade four but can usually be overridden if parents choose to.

The above basic structure has been in place in many states for many years. Currently, the situation is more complicated, though.

• Many states including Baden-Württemberg have cut one year from the Gymnasium which now takes students to the Abitur in eight years (“G8”).
• Some states have abolished the “Hauptschule” and instead introduced some form of combined school to replace the former Haupt- and Realschule.
• Some states have extended primary education to six years, cutting two years from secondary education.

These are just some examples. Almost all of the sixteen states are reforming their educational system in some way – mostly in reaction to the “PISA shock.”

What’s it Like to Teach in Germany?

A typical school day

I’m a teacher at a “Gymnasium” which means that I teach kids between the ages of ten and nineteen. Typically, German Gymnasium teachers teach two subjects, which they have studied at the university. I chose to teach three (English, Biology and Geography). Recently, a new subject has been established in Baden-Württemberg which combines all sciences and technology into project-based classes. This is the fourth subject I teach.

In Baden-Württemberg, the school day starts between 7:30 and 8:00 am and usually ends at around 1:00 pm. The morning is usually structured into six slots of 45 minutes with each subject taught in one slot (some, such as Physical Education, occasionally have a double slot). Normally, a student has six different subjects per day with a different combination of subjects each day.

Afternoon classes have been the exception so far, but with the reduction to eight years at the Gymnasium (for which the curriculum was not reduced proportionally), they are becoming more frequent, especially in higher grades. An eighth-grader would probably have classes on two to three afternoons as well (they usually end at around 3:15 pm but can last until about 5:00 pm).

From the teacher’s perspective, the situation is similar with the one big difference that our timetables are not as packed and not as regular as those of the students. We usually have empty slots and don’t always start with the first slot in the morning.

The number of lessons per week varies by subject. So-called “main subjects” such as German, Maths or English have three to four lessons per week. Others, such as Geography, History, Chemistry, etc., have between one and two per week. As a teacher, you have to teach twenty-five lessons per week.

Each class typically has around thirty kids. They are usually put together as one class when they enter secondary school and many of them stay in the same class until they leave school.

During the morning, students mostly stay in their classroom and teachers “wander” with the exception of science classes, which are taught in labs.

Preparation time

Teachers prepare their lessons at home. We don’t have offices or our own classrooms at school. At most schools every teacher has one seat at a table in the staff room. At some schools not even that. So we buy all our materials and equipment (computer etc.) ourselves and store it at home. Depending on the timetable, which changes every term since you don’t teach the same classes every term, you might have mostly afternoon preparation time (if most of your classes are in the morning) or you might do your preparation at other times of the day (if you have many afternoon classes and start late on some days as a consequence).

Professional development

Professional development is usually voluntary and mostly organized by the school boards. The structure is traditional: typically half-day or full-day seminars that you attend in person. In Baden-Württemberg, school authorities are slowly starting to implement other ways of professional development, for example, blended learning settings with seminars that are combined with e-learning, e.g. via Moodle courses. However, these are mostly used for long-term development such as one-year courses for educators who want to develop their career to have specialized roles, such as being head of a department.

The use of information technology is not actively encouraged by school authorities, although, it’s of course “crucial” and “essential” in the speeches. There are some courses offered on the use of technology (both as a means of learning and as an aspect of teacher work flow). However, these courses are voluntary and live in a niche. I’ve seen many of these courses canceled for lack of sufficient attendees.

Information Technology plays a very insignificant role in professional development. Many teachers use it at a basic level (web research, e-mail) but few go beyond that. Blogs by educators are a rare exception. A seasoned teacher-blogger recently did a competition for the best teacher blog on the German Internet and found around seventy blogs to start out with for all of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. I don’t know a single blog by a teacher trainer, let alone a school administrator.

Technology for Teaching

Most German schools have one or more computer labs. Teachers book it to do a lesson based on the computer as the main tool.

In Baden-Württemberg, the use of learning management systems, such as Moodle, have recently gained momentum. More and more teacher training seminars are being offered on the use of Moodle in general and for specific subjects. However, it is usually up to the individual teacher to decide if and how they want to use technology in their classrooms.

There is no broad initiative to teach students “21st century skills” or make them “media-literate.” What’s being done is usually done by individual teachers or individual schools. Therefore, this varies greatly. My school has started building a distinct course for computer skills, including “craft” (such as handling certain software etc.) and “meta-skills” such as how to deal with social networks, etc. However, I couldn’t give any generalized description of even the schools in my vicinity because I simply don’t know what they do (and have no way of knowing, either). Naturally, I have no idea what the situation is like at the state or even the country-level.

Recently, a paper was published on behalf of the Ministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Department of Education and Research – a department of the federal government. This is despite the fact that education is the domain of the individual states) which deals with media education. However, its focus is on the top structural level. It gives very broad guidelines, which will need to be translated into more tangible courses over the next couple of years. If and how that’s to be done was not part of the paper.

So what do students do in the classes held in the computer lab? They do web research for presentations, they make presentations, and they sometimes do language exercises with the CD-ROMs that come with their textbooks. From my experience, that’s about it. Of course, some teachers take it much further than that (wikis, online collaboration, writing projects, making and editing videos etc.), but that’s rare if I’m not completely mistaken.

Obstacles to Using Technology in the Classroom

From my experience, almost all obstacles are technical. Both parents and students are generally very open to the use of technology in the classroom. I’ve had one critical conversation with a mother about the fact that our school hosts the photographs of school life on Flickr because she thought that was a risky place. However, when I explained to her that we did that because Flickr gives us many options to protect those images from being downloaded and abused, she was fine.

The number one technical obstacle is the limited number of available computers. Generally, in the lab two students have to share one computer which makes many individual working methods impossible. Other limitations are slow connections or pieces of equipment that are missing or broken when you need to use them. For example, you might have planned a lesson with audio content but you realize that many headsets are broken. You might have thought of a way of sharing those computers wisely among your students, but then three machines are broken and your scheme doesn’t work anymore. Things of that sort happen frequently.

Another important point is that there’s no technical staff for maintaining the computers. A teacher is responsible for that. He gets some deduction from his teaching obligation but typically the time needed for maintenance exceeds the deduction.

At my school, there’s a content filter in place, which seems to be well-maintained and sensible. I’ve never had any problems with it. The sites which are blocked are usually the ones you want blocked and most other sites are accessible.

Postscript

While I was writing this post it became very clear to me how limited my experience is beyond the very few schools and places I’ve seen and worked at myself. Even looking at my own school it’s hard to generalize because I have limited knowledge of what my colleagues do in their classes. What I know comes from conversations during breaks or while commuting and is therefore patchy and anecdotal. I want to emphasize once again that what I’ve tried to describe is my personal perspective. If you ask the teacher next door to me, you might get very different results.

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Andreas Kalt teaches English, Biology, Geography, Science, and Technology. He has been a teacher for five years (two of which were in training). He’s especially interested in using technology to improve collaboration between teachers and students, give real-life perspectives to learning, and make students and colleagues realize the potential of computers for education.

He writes about education topics (in German) at Rete-Mirabile.net and has a website about web design, reading and photography at andreas-kalt.de. He’s also using Twitter to stay in touch with interesting educators from around the world.

Dear Reader,

I am excited to present to you an additional series entitled, “Investigating Global Issues in Schools.” In this series, I have invited educators from across the globe to describe for us the educational systems in their countries and delineate the various challenges they face. Additionally, these educators will let you know how they currently use technology in the classroom and overcome these hurdles. This series will give you a rare chance to step into another educator’s shoes in another country. You will be able to explore what unique problems these educators try to overcome daily. You may also find they face the same challenges you do! Either way we will journey together to classrooms we will never step a foot into in our lifetimes. The experience will be very rewarding. The first journey will take us to my current residence in Germany. Andreas Kalt, a teacher who works in the German school system, will enlighten us on the way the educational system is organized. Moreover, he will provide us with a glimpse of what it is like to teach in a German school. Is the German educational system really different from your country’s system? Stay tuned and find out!

Upcoming Posts in This Series

Currently, I have invited educators from these countries to participate in this series:

• Australia
• Turkey
• Japan
• Philippines
• United States

If you are an educator from a country that is not represented here, then consider joining the series!

Did you know?

You  can engage in thought-provoking discussions with Andreas (@retemirabile) by following him on Twitter. Just click here to visit his Twitter profile!

Do you want to share your edtech issues? Please contact me to contribute to this series!