Planning Good Change - Page 19 - Next Page

First Things First

  • If teachers will be operating more as facilitators of learning than instructors up at the front of the room, which of the following verbs are most likely to describe their activities and what are the implications for the design of a classroom environment? of a network?

circulating

validating moderating

redirecting

facilitating diagnosing
disciplining moving

troubleshooting

questioning

monitoring observing

assessing

challenging encouraging

directing

watching modeling

guiding

motivating suggesting

fascinating

seed planting clarifying

This questioning can proceed by observing examples from other districts and by convening invention teams at each level of the district to try out various models before making a commitment..

The lessons learned and the problems avoided thanks to a year of invention and testing could save the district a huge amount of money, frustration, disappointment and embarrassment, as the focus on delivering practical lessons is likely to bring many design issues into the foreground that might not otherwise emerge until most of the infrastructure had already been nailed down.

Many school networks suffer from the "network starvation" outlined fully in Chapter Nine. To put it simply, understaffing of technical support and underfunding of information resources can lead to a network that has little of substance to offer the leaners. Such networks may scream with speed and bandwidth while possessing nothing worthwhile to deliver.

When planners start with curriculum questions, it should quickly become evident that there is no "free lunch" on the Internet. No district should rely on the "free" Internet alone.

When a student or teacher sits down at any desktop in the district, they should be greeted by a rich information array.

Page 19 - Next Page

Back to November Cover

Credits: The photographs were shot by Jamie McKenzie.
Copyright Policy: Materials published in From Now On may be duplicated in hard copy format if unchanged in format and content for educational, nonprofit school district and university use only and may also be sent from person to person by e-mail. This copyright statement must be included. All other uses, transmissions and duplications are prohibited unless permission is granted expressly. Showing these pages remotely through frames is not permitted.
FNO is applying for formal copyright registration for articles.



From Now On Index Page