Teachers, Teaching, and Lifelong Learning

As this class closes down, I find myself in a new academic arena. I Cor. 5:17 speaks of anyone being in Christ being a new creation. Well, any teacher who is in technology is a new instructor. During this workshop, two events have been concurrent: one is a 21st century ongoing workshop on rigor and relevance I have been in at East Canton; the second is the early development of an AP learning class.
Both of these have moved in this direction of the evolving role of the teacher and the tools needed to perform that role. Our workshop director suggested that in place of books we access web sources. ( I saw a summer workshop that will guide you through your curriculum and locate a web site for each item, in essence an entire course of work online.) A colleague at Canton South last week introduced me to the editing tool on Word that assesses the quality of a document, and a new day dawned in my classroom.
The modern teacher needs to be comfortable not only with technology but the advances in technology to maximize student learning. Teachers have work to do and this will enhance their teaching. They are going to get a new comprehension of lifelong learner.
I guess this represents peotic justice: being in the business of teaching they must again become learners. In my own case, Jay Moody has two additional hours for me this spring. That will give me the hours to renew my liscense.
My next step is going to be taking the tech classes Malone is offering.I plan to see you in person in one of them, probably podcasting! But I see utube, spreadsheets, powerpoints, and other offerings. My plan is to become the most tech savvy teacher at East Canton. In fact, our tech guy could not help me link the podcasts nor could Jay Moody. This to me shows how easy it is to slip behind the learning curve.
To end teachers must become students and lifelong learners to remain effective teachers. And technology is at the heart of all this.