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Teachers and technology don't always mix.
Of course some teachers use technology outstandingly well. Others, however, regard it with some disdain. It is almost as if – like administrative work – computer skills are beneath them. I am sure many of us have colleagues who shows outstanding professionalism in many respects – who keeps abreast of latest development in their chosen subject, reading research papers and subscribing to journals, and who are also always au fait with the current pedagogic hot-topics and theories, but who cannot touch-type to save their lives, and who struggle with spreadsheet basics.
TM4T accepts of course that you can be an outstanding teacher without touching a keyboard, and that many outstanding lessons are delivered without a sniff of technology involved. However, most would agree that these are achieved by either (a) brilliance or (b) prodigious personal effort. Putting aside brilliance for now (it's unreliable at best) we are going to be strictly selfish in our discussion of technology. We are going to discuss only things which can reliably save us effort and stress.
The trick is NOT to try and become competent in every aspect of technology - the trick is to become a complete expert in just those specialist skills which really matter. You don't need to program a video recorder - you DO need to be able to knock out a PowerPoint presentation in five minutes.
The good news is that though we teachers are all different, what we do is pretty much the same. We teach. We work in a relatively standardised educational environment, and a lot of the time we need to carry out a relatively narrow set of tasks, which are little different to those carried out in a million offices across the globe. We need to operate a PC, deal with e-mail, reply to letters, file documents We may need to produce plans, reports, and deal with simple budgets.
In a similar vein, TM4T does NOT assume that you have leading edge technology available. It does not depend on palmtops, or netbooks, or i-phones or anything which is not readily available in UK schools.
To understand the minimum technology requirements for TM4T, for efficient teaching, click here.
In order to work efficiently using technology, here is a list of headings of things to do:
1. Take a skills audit and plan some development during your vacation.
You may well have taken a skills audit during your teacher training. TM4T needs you to do so again (a different audit, of course). The purpose of this audit is also different. You are looking particularly for two things:
stressors - skills that you know you should have, which have proved pesky in the past, but you have never got round to fixing.
regulars - tasks that you do just about every single day (or it feels tha way, anyway)
The fact is that the entry-level teaching standards are, well, not exactly low, but kind of flat. They assume a standard level of achievement in every skill, which is unlikely to be what you need. For example, you may find that you need only basic skills at using databases, but need ninja-level expertise at presentations.
You are therefore looking for skills which can either (i) help reduce or avoid stress or (ii) save you time regularly.
For an example of the audit which you should consider, click here.
[ This is not a TM4T cartoon - click the image to visit the artists' page ]
2. Look for location-independent ways of working
For most teachers, unless they have reliable access to cloud computing, this means a Flash drive (memory stick or USB stick). This should contain all of your recent, current, and imminent lessons material and all your high-level plans (schemes of work etc) for the year,
You should seek to keep master copies of your documents on this stick and to keep backup copies at home and at school (in case you lose your stick).
If you are using non-Windows technology (for example, I-pads, Blackberry etc) to create documents, you should routinely e-mail those documents to yourself to ensure that they can be accessed from school standard hardware (at present, virtually all school IT is based on a Windows PC architecture).
You should seek to use Open technology (for example OpenOffice, VLC media player etc) and where possible, keep a copy of your software on your memory stick. The key word is 'portable': you should be able to work anywhere.
3. Reduce your paper - Aim for Zero
Actively seek to reduce the amount of paper involved in your non-Teaching work. This means learning which pieces of paper duplicate electronic documents and ignoring them.
Some schools, for example, will e-mail out Weekly Briefing notes to staff, but will also post copies on the staffroom noticeboard, and put a copy in every staff pigeonhole. Over time, you should strive to read only the e-mailed copy and be able to ignore - to a great extent - noticeboards and pigeonholes.
Similarly, you should try NOT to print out anything except teaching material and student communications: no memos, no invitations to meetings, no purchase orders. Try to handle everything via e-mail.
If your subject discipline allows this, you should try to use electronic materials (for example, presentations) as your primary teaching medium. Avoid writing on an IWB or other whiteboard, unless student interaction demands it.
4. Make yourself comfortable
Make sure that you have the most comfortable computer access facilities that you can reasonably afford, both at school and at home. This does NOT mean expensive laptops; it does mean well-designed chairs, desklights, well-adjusted screens and keyboards, with wrist-pads if necessary.
An efficient teacher may be working at a computer for hundreds of hours a year; it is important that this is productive time, and that your health does not suffer.
If you are not absolutely sure about the ergonomics of workstation design (this is covered in most secondary ICT courses) you should do Web research to ensure that you are working in a safe and sensible way. Basic information is here.
5. Take control of your e-mail
Follow this three-step routine:
Step 1 is to assess the problem. How many? Any peaks or patterns? When does the trickle become a tidal wave?
Step 2 is to plan your time. As a general rule, don't deal with e-mails first thing in the morning; you may be wasting your most productive time of the day. You should generally do a check in the morning for any urgent issues, but deal with the e-mails themselves later in the day.
Step 3 is to establish a routine. As a norm you should review your e-mails quickly once each day before you start work. This is the most important part of your routine and the important bit is what you don't do. You should not reply, or take any action on any e-mails at this stage, unless they are genuinely urgent and important. If you must reply send a holding reply (see 'e-mail templates' below)
When you do deal with your e-mails, you should clear your inbox every day without fail. This does not mean that you must reply to every message or complete every task. You should handle your e-mail in very much the same way as you handle your staffroom pigeon-hole. You simply sort through your mail, discarding the obviously useless items, and decide which items need filing and which require some action. There is a separate section explaining in detail what to do. Click here
6. Learn to do specific time-consuming things very well and very quickly
The best examples of this principle are shown below but a similar approach can be taken in many contexts.
For a detailed method for student reports, click here.
For a detailed method for e-mails. click here.
For a detailed method for electronic filing, click here
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