We are living in what some folks call ‘exponential times’.   That is, change and information distribution are occurring at an amazing and ever increasing speed.   I have been interested in technology in schools since I started as a teacher way back in 1984 with those green screen Apple IIc machines. And now I am finally getting around to experimenting with the idea of a principal’s blog. The web address is:  http://jarvisedtech.net/monarch/   or you can find a link to it from the school website mg.slcusd.org.  You can even leave comments!!!!

Hmmmm, so in this post-modern instantaneous worldwide information system– posting to blogs is being outpaced by even quicker, hipper and more impersonal postings.  And I haven’t even begun to Flickr or Twitter yet.    School systems (and their employees) are notorious laggards when it comes to adopting innovation.  And the fact is, we do lag well behind the popular society in acquiring the latest ‘whatever.’  For instance, schools around here at least, and elsewhere I imagine, still are using ‘the overhead projector’ as standard classroom tool as we have been for the last 50 years. According to Wikipedia (the people’s encyclopedia) “the U.S. Army was the first to use overhead projectors in quantity for training as World War II wound down. It began to be widely used in schools and businesses in the late 1950s and early 1960s.”   I wonder if the US Army and the corporations are still using the overhead projector.  Where are the smart boards, LCD projectors and document cameras in our classrooms? Like the ones that they have at the Palo Alto Research Center and other corporate facilities?

The reasons for our slowness to pick up on better technology tools are not due to lack of desire or intelligence…but rather I believe it’s a commodity problem– mainly time and money.  We aren’t provided with and we don’t have the money to invest in appropriate equipment and infrastructure nor the time to figure out the technical and artistic details to put them to good use.  Hey, we have work to do — relentless and exhausting work.  And when and if we finally do manage to get them onto our campus—it may no longer the useful and bright new innovation that it was.  Like a cat chasing its tail.

Regardless of that,—you have to check out this posting by Karl Fisch, somewhat of an internet celebrity at least among some educators that I know.  I have never met Mr. Fisch and may not ever; he is a public high school teacher in Colorado, and at the least is well known for the very thought provoking “Did You Know” slide show—if you haven’t seen it you should give it a google or link to his blog: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com.   In another posting Mr. Fisch makes a very compelling argument for the use of blogging in schools.  He maintains that not only is blogging a creative teaching and learning exercise, and a potentially very rich way to feed your Professional Learning Community: http://go.solution-tree.com/plc/ -but it also has the unique and distinct advantage of meeting the students where they live socially.

http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/fisch/bloggingintheirownwords-short.mov

After I saw Mr. Fisch’s movie and I was compelled to at least try and make use of this technology.  So I have a principal’s blog set up and linked to the Monarch Grove school website.   But I am still just trying to get LCD projectors installed and to find funding for document cameras.   The corporate world would never stand for this oafish adoption cycle.  What’s a principal to do?