Technology as a Catalyst for School Communities: Beyond Boxes and Bandwidth

Technology as a Catalyst for School Communities: Beyond Boxes and Bandwidth tells the story of how three disparate schools handle the many challenges of integrating technology into their classrooms. Teachers and administrators alike will share familiar feelings as they watch the professional learning communities progress toward the change that makes an enormous difference in how they teach and learn from each other and their students. This book provides an attainable approach for educators to create their own communities of practice for the purposes of school improvement. The case studies illustrate how administrators and teachers work together to find solutions to the best ways to integrate technology in the classroom. In the process, through their collaborative work, they discover that they learned much more than the technical skills they first thought would be the focus of their common inquiry. In creating their communities of practice, the isolation of the classroom is removed, new ways of thinking and doing are embraced, and they learn how to learn again. As the teachers reach out to their peers and students, giving and receiving support in a cooperative learning endeavor, a new enthusiasm permeates their schools.

About the Author :
Mary Burns worked at the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) from 1997-2003 as a professional development provider for teachers in the United States and abroad. She is now a senior technology specialist at the Education Development Center in Massachusetts. K. Victoria Dimock is a program director at the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) in Austin, Texas where she directs work aimed at improving school performance and improving teaching and learning in mathematics, science, and technology. She has conducted research and provided professional development for educators for the past 20 years.

Review :
In emphasizing the importance of teacher-centered - not technocentric -- professional development, then illustrating and explaining how it really happens in real schools with real people, Dimock and Burns do what few others have done. The book's contents demonstrate how and why teachers' professional learning must be holistic, situated, differentiated, ongoing, and collaborative to be carried into long-term practice. Though new tools, resources, and techniques serve as common foci for the professional learning described, the school-based cases and analyses presented demonstrate quite compellingly that to be successful, any professional development that catalyzes and supports lasting educational change must be focused on students, but centered on teachers as human beings working together within school-based communities. Like a breath of fresh air in a field that can stagnate in simplistic technology-based "solutions" to complex educational challenges, this book points the way to educational technology professional development that is both visionary and pragmatic.--Judi Harris, professor and Pavey Family Chair in Educational Technology, School of Education, College of William & Mary Burns and Dimock offer two wonderful commodities that are in short supply in most schools today: hope and help. Hope that it is possible to change a community within a school to create significant change and help in the form of specific case studies that identify the strategies to necessary achieve change. I would highly recommend it to school teams and professional development study groups seeking a substantive lesson in what it takes to move from talk to action with meaningful technology projects.--Monica M. Beglau, director, eMINTS National Center, University of Missouri System, Office of Academic Affairs Professional learning communities...are a key element of the professional development initiatives that we have strived to develop and implement in our state. Unfortunately...the phrase "professional learning community" has become so overused that it loses any meaning. [The authors'] explanation and examples of communities of interest, and communities of learning, and communities of practice provide...a deeper understanding of the concept and made the concept real and practical...This 3-prong approach to professional learning communities could provide many teachers and educational leaders with a better understanding and an increased likelihood of success in building such learning communities.--Sheila Talamo, assistant superintendent, Office of Quality Educators, Louisiana Department of Education, Baton Rouge This book has brought the concept of communities of practice to a new level--a level that addresses the essence of humanity - our innate propensity for learning and our ability to communicate without losing the objective. More important, the stories that are told highlight how technology may trigger changes in the activities, curriculum and interpersonal relationships in the learning environment, and may be reciprocally affected by the very changes it causes. As a result, the triumphs and disappointments documented in each school are very diverse and yet the issues raised have so much in common. It is through these rich descriptions that readers of this book will gain most--with a deeper understanding of learning communities.--Cher Ping, Lim Ph.D., associate professor of teaching and learning, School of Education, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia This book may surprise people with its stories that show how, when it comes to technology integration in schools, "old dogs" can learn new tricks! The cases presented give one optimism that even veteran teachers can become the vanguard of school change in the right circumstances. The authors use their experience working in three very different schools and extract what are the key conditions for this transformation. The framework they present--with teachers moving from a community of interest, to a community of learners, and eventually a community of practice--shows what is at the heart of teacher change: a supportive community. All those interested in real change in schools are well advised to read this highly engaging, encouraging book!--Kathleen Fulton, director, Reinventing Schools for the 21st Century, The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, Washington, DC