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A piece of technology is merely a tool. It can be any tool, from a handheld computer to a crayon, as "technology" in our industry can be defined as any tool that helps a learner mitigate the learning environment. However, at the end of the day, it's still just a tool, no more effective or miraculous than a rock in the hands of a Neanderthal or a power drill in the hands of a modern-day carpenter.

Show me what you can do with it. That's what counts.

Too frequently in our milieu we end up spending a profound amount of time on the tools themselves: handing them out, taking care of them, collecting them, fixing them, managing them... What a waste of our time that can be. I've spent so many hours this summer moving SmartBoards and digital projectors that even those wise to the ways of our industry would have looked at me and said, "that must be your audiovisual guy." What a waste. Is that why I'm here? Is that what I do? It is certainly not, and as a result of my frustration in spending so much time on tools, I decided I needed some help in getting back to the Second T in ITRT. I'm a teacher in a far more meaningful way than I will ever be a technologist. It was time to get my priorities straight. But who to help? Well in the grand fashion of weirdos, when you can't find a person to help...

Make one!

Or more appropriately, make a resource that could serve as a robotic "if you want to do this, do this" kind of regurgitator. The result? For those of you that have attended any of the inservices I've been teaching for the past few months, you probably already know about BattlefieldTeachers.com.

Many schools in the county are in the same boat as Battlefield: there are things that no one person is really "in charge" of. At our school, televisions and LCD projectors rank high on the list for "who does that" questions. Because these two technologies can be essential to an integrative lesson at times, I couldn't rationalize saying "that's not my job" as frequently as I'd have had to. So what to do? My solution has been to take the most commonly-asked questions and to develop an on-demand resource taking teachers step-by-step through those processes. "How do I get my screen to show what my monitor does?" By placing these guides in an easy-to-remember, easy-to-access location, I've cut down to nearly zero the number of times I get asked that question. With the success of that enterprise, I rapidly expanded my goal to include all of the most commonly asked questions that my TSSPEC and I face. The result is BattlefieldTeachers.com.

From a comprehensive set of online step-by-step instructions for every major function in IGPro through how to set up CMS at the beginning of the year, from information about our computer labs to getting that USB drive to show up in My Computer, providing a comprehensive clearinghouse of policies and procedures has made it infinitely easier to do my job effectively. I don't believe the ITRT role is one of "lab-sitting" or waiting in the office to get a phone call for help. To the contrary, I consider our role one of profound proactivity, and getting ahead of problems on the technical side allows us to spend our time where it really counts: on the instructional side.

Granted, it's come with an unexpected cost: people's perceptions that I'm the first point-of-contact for computer hardware related issues seem to have been enhanced by the website's focus on troubleshooting the technical. That's been a challenge that I did not anticipate, and it reinforces the idea that providing robust resources for teachers won't solve everything.

However, I've found that because I can unload a great deal of the technical onto a specific resource that I built and can control to ensure teachers do things precisely the way I believe they need to be done, I'm also able to point to that and develop the attitude amongst the staff that USB drives not showing up is not something for which they should be coming to the Office of Instructional Technology... and for the first time, I now have a regular stream of emails and visits of the "I have this great idea but don't know how to do it" fashion.

That is why we're here, in my opinion: helping to develop new practices and change old practices to enhance the way in which teachers teach and students learn. In fact, when I'm asked "what I do," I've started telling laypeople "I teach teachers how to teach," because that is (in my view) what our primary role must be. We must be professional developers, enhancing the way teachers instruct, and every little "where do I click?" rock that we can take out of the road is one more mile on the path that we can focus on teaching first. That's why I built the website, and so far it seems to be helping. Nothing is a panacea... but every little bit helps!

BattlefieldTeachers.com is available to all personnel, from any school division. If you don't see a guide you'd like to, let me know! I'm happy to develop any additional resources that you don't see.

Some of the more prominent sections include: IGPro instructions, CMS instructions, ERO instructions, information about our labs, information about digital cameras and video editing, LCD / TV help, Web2.0 resources, USB drive instructions, and a "who's who" at our school to help direct teachers down the right avenue for assistance.

I strongly encourage those of you who haven't already done so - and some of you already have created very robust and meaningful resources very much like mine - to consider finding a medium your teachers will use and to begin developing materials that can unload the first T and get you back to focusing on the second T in ITRT.

Copyright

© 2006-2008, Keith David Reeves. All rights reserved. Reproduction and/or distribution not permitted without the express written consent of the author.

MLA Citation

Reeves, Keith David. "The Way Up: Leadership, Awareness, and Data in Integrated Education." 1 Sep 2007. KDReeves.com. . <http://www.kdreeves.com/art_wayup.html>.