Back at TC! What I Learned from English Teachers at Last Night’s Technology Workshop

Last night, I had the honor of working with 60 pre- and in-service English teachers to explore what it means to meaningfully weave technology into the secondary English classroom. (Check out the slides here.) It was wonderful to be able to engage that intensively with so many at once. Allow me to share here some of the things I learned with the group.

1. NCTE’s Beliefs for Integrating Technology into the ELA Classroom resonates. To the more than two dozen colleagues who contributed to that document, beautiful work.
2. The teacher is the most important person in the classroom. I know we like to say it’s about the students. But if it really is, then we have to make sure teachers are getting what they need to ensure they have the energy and presence to give students what they need.
3. Learning is not the covering of content; learning is the uncovering of understanding.
4. Always assume using technology in your practice is a total waste of time and money. Then, explore why that might not be true. What you end up with is where you start.
5. Embedding computer science into the ELA classroom is not crazy. It’s precisely how students and teachers should be exposed to computational languages: a language-driven environment that values inquiry, criticality, creativity, and complexity of thinking.

Very grateful for the invitation and the collaborative spirit.