Journal of the Effective Schools Project, Volume 18, 2011 Page: 49
79 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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my situation at this time was pretty
nice.) I knew that students could
benefit from the exposure and in-
structional methods of the 21st cen-
tury learning, but was rural Texas
ready for the challenge? I would
love to say that I came up with a
great, logical, and researched-
based resolution for my quandary,
but I would just be lying. The an-
swer came to me on a Sunday af-
ternoon, after dealing with the
frustrations of potty training with
my 2 1/2 year-old son. We (my
son and I) returned to my office
where he proceeded to get my
wife's Iphone off my desk and ma-
nipulate through the various apps
until he was streaming his favorite
cartoon. There was my answer.
The future generations are able to
navigate through an Iphone to find
their desired information before
they are able to walk 10 steps and
find the toilet. I knew at that mo-
ment that this 2 2 year old little
boy was proclaiming to his future
educators, "Embrace the ideas of
the 21St century learning or get out
of my way." The issue of technol-
ogy natives versus technology im-
migrants was evident. All the stu-
dents in my school had grown up
with technology applications. It
was up to the teachers to catch up
and use technology created learn-
ing environments for the 21St cen-
tury student.
During the summer months of
2010, Bluff Dale ISD officially
started our bold adventure to final-
ly move into the 21st century only
ten years after it had started. Better
late than never. The first order of
business was to get the instruction-
al staff introduced to the 21st cen-
tury learning concepts and technol-
ogy skills. The teachers were pre-
sented with an overview and a de-
tailed explanation of the instruc-tion expectations based on the rec-
ommendations provided by Jacobs
(2010) and other educational ex-
perts. We decided to approach this
movement like a hungry man ap-
proaching a buffet line; full force
but with a plan of attack. The first
area of focus was going to be on
instructional assessment and tech-
nology integration. (This move-
ment was integrated into the
school's already existing project/
problem-based instructional phi-
losophy.)
The teachers were asked to evalu-
ate their current lesson plans and
find two assessments every semes-
ter to replace with a 21St century
style assessment. In addition, they
were asked to research and choose
a specific technological skill to
introduce into their classroom over
the course of the year. These tech-
nology skills included such things
as blogging, skyping, moodle,
wordle, apps, podcast/videocast,
and even the feared texting. I have
asked them to become proficient
and comfortable in the use of one
of these skills in a classroom set-
ting. The key is for them to be
comfortable with using the tech-
nology so that they will actually
use it in the classroom setting.
As a young administrator and an
educator that has not been out of a
classroom for very long, I realized
that if I walked into a faculty meet-
ing and enthusiastically told them
that they had to throw out all their
current lesson plans and replace
them with "new" 21st century les-
son plans, I would have a desk full
of resignation letters. However, I
believed that if I simply asked
them to replace something and
learn some new skills while I pro-
vided them with the time, re-
sources, and professional develop-All the students in my
school had grown up with
technology applications.
It was up to the teachers
to catch up and use tech-
nology created learning
environments for the 21st
century student.49
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Tarleton State University. Effective Schools Project. Journal of the Effective Schools Project, Volume 18, 2011, periodical, 2011; Stephenville, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth201694/m1/53/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Tarleton State University.