Getting ready for Trinity

Although it's a brave new world of web 2.0 many of the teachers I know are having a hard time trying to adapt to it, especially those of us who can remember the Beatles or even the Talking Heads. We are the digital immigrants trying to teach digital natives. I'm beginning to hate the terms, however, at workshops and conferences I've notices that the 20-something teachers are having no problems wrapping their brains around what's being discussed or presented. They're blogging and podcasting and uploading to Nings while I'm still trying to find a place to set my coffee down so I can get my laptop out.

I didn't even get into technology until I had already had a 25+ year teaching career behind me in music education. It was all accidental. I can't remember exactly when I bought a Gateway laptop for myself, sometime in the late 90's -- the purpose was to use Finale for music composition and arranging for choirs. When the principal saw me walking around with a laptop she assumed that I knew something about technology and asked me to teach PowerPoint to a particularly unpleasant group of 8th graders that no one else wanted to deal with. So without any knowledge or experience I ventured into the realm of technology education.

The day I discovered the joys of teaching technology was the day I made several other discoveries...
1. Most of the people I met back then at conferences and workshops were either:
a) former music teachers on their second careers or musicians
2. Most of the kids who really took off with the class were the most ADD kids on the block.
3. The possibilities for creativity were endless

So putting two and two together I concluded that technology and music (and ADD) are a natural fit -- no, not because of a tendency to do math well (please! not all musicians can do math even though some people think it's mystically connected), but because it stimulates the part of the brain, the part that's most ADD, that part that wants to create, find, gather, synthesize, consume, multitask, and hyperfocus. All these things came naturally to me.

Why I love teaching technology:
I could never sit still as a kid. My mother got tired of hearing "she can do the work, I've seen her do it" when she saw another poor grade. I was not a test-taker. I was unable to read books in black and white with small print because the words all jumbled together. Dates meant nothing because I couldn't connect them with anything I've experienced. School was a nightmare for me both in the classroom and socially. Teachers would call me out of the room just to scream at me for some reason that I still can't figure out. I didn't fit in. It wasn't until college when I began to attend study groups that I discovered that I wasn't so stupid, in fact, I was beginning to get A's.

Back then we were taught to teach the same way as our teachers taught -- but when you are in music education there's a lot more room for self-expression and creativity. Teaching is so much different now. If I were a kid today I think I'd have a fighting chance at success in school because there is so much more available for "different learners." When I see that kid coming into the classroom and sit by him/herself with a sad expression, when I see them begin to squirm or fidget, when they start to go off into another world -- that's me. And I am ready for them.

So watching some Youtube videos about web 2.0 and the future of education makes me smile because of the realization that change is coming - it's already here. The linear, black and white, gotcha, sit still and shut up era of the classroom is starting to go the way of the bag phone. The brave new world is being created at such a fast pace that even I can't keep up -- but the kids, the digital natives, they're having no problem. Teaching in a Catholic School is different. Taking classes online with teachers from around the country has opened my eyes to problems in the public sector that we, thankfully, do not have to deal with yet. However, we have things to overcome, too. Most of us weren't taught to teach in a Catholic School. We've had to adapt.So here's the reason I've started a Ning. I want to share with other teachers of the diocese about successes they've had, resources they've found, ideas for classroom integration. I think it will be useful for everyone.