Integrating Technology into the School System

This session was initiated by John Williams.

Members of the session were Craig Wardlaw, Marie, Nolan Piper and Matt Lucid.

Ideas/Discussion:

• Pushing ideas
• Iterative process
• Rapid integration into curriculum
• Why are kids still learning the programming language Turing in high schools when this language is dead?!
• They need to get a grasp of the fundamentals, and then learn how to adapt and change so it is so rapid.
• More application of fundamentals
• Greater emphasis on co-op programs so they can learn to apply the fundamentals into the real world
• Is our present education system obsolete?
• Should we be looking at the rights of students vs the rights of teachers?
  • Is it a human rights issue?
  • Bill S-209 (presently in 2nd reading)
• Why are we using children as checkers as opposed to chess pieces?  That is, why don't we start to specialize education for different children since all children don't learn in the same way. 
  • Einstien factors
  • Need Einstien-ian thinkers in our schools
• Having a lot of high tech stuff doesn't necessarily improve education
• Retrain the teachers?! 
  • Do teachers know how to use the technology?
• Why can't we receive emails from teachers and send emails to them as opposed to receiving paper notifications of each and every school event?
  • Paper gets lost
  • Not all parents/children have internet access
  • Not all parents/children have high speed so it takes longer
  • Can we make it optional
  • Does some parents receiving notices by email and some not seem unfair?
• Why can't school boards implement things faster?    
  • Policy changes
  • Integrate new technologies
  • Is the school board too slow
  • Should it be more nimble??
  • Can they get Agile? 
  • We need to get more agile to deal with increased competition? 
• We are introduction video conferencing/teaching for rural communities
  • Is it enough
• Ways of presenting information -- including students in learning process 
• Parents are a big part of the process
• Let's use technology to better meet the fundamentals
  • i.e. why are children graduating that can't read
• Kumon -- after-school program  (is this a good program to leverage as an example of good information source)
• Kids are learning dispite the curriculum
  • They are learning how to learn
  • Learning how to be a certain type of thinker
  • Important that schools, no matter the curriculum, teach them how to learn
  • Can they adapt
• How can technology help to teach kids how to learn?
  • Bring in entreperneaurs in the classrooms
  • And assignments come out of
  • More resource people in to think about think about thinking 
• What forums do teachers and/or school boards use to share these experiences? 
  • There needs to be secure forums for young, hungry, innovative teachers in various corners of the province to share their experiences and be able to swap ideas for teaching the info in new, exciting ways to get more students engaged
• Recent university grads have way more tools then someone that has been in the workforce than a 50 year old
  • Recent grads are highly educated - some learned in school, some not 
• Are we encouraging innovation enough within our school system?
• Companies need to spend 5-10% on innovation in order to be viable;  why is the public education system not spending the same to keep improving

Wrap Up

• Our education system is good but there is always room for improvement
• Children will learn new technologies whether they are in the classroom or not
• We will have to continue to teach the fundamentals -- reading, writing, arithmetic
• We need to use technology to continue to teach children how to learn, and use it to engage them further
• We need to leverage technology to reinforce the fundamentals
• It is very important to get new technologies into schools faster, possibly using a more iterative fashion such as what's being used in software nowadays
• We need to speed the process up for getting these kinds of changes into the classroom and be able to report back quickly what's working and what's not and make changes as appropriate 
• We need to connect teachers who are hungry and innovative from all corners of the province to integrate new teaching methods to increase the number of students who have learned to learn and adapt in the new economy