Technology has my vote

I work with a middle school in the Bronx, N.Y., but I do most of this work from Australia. Not only does technology allow me to ’see inside’ the school, but it has also accelerated positive school change.

Despite me being 10,000 miles away, our communication and collaboration has never been better. We started with a wiki, but we now make excellent use of Skype and the abundance of Google applications: Gmail, chat, Groups, Docs, Spreadsheets, Sites, Calendar, Reader, Analytics, iGoogle, and Blogger.

Having good systems in place has improved teamwork and transparency enormously. I’d love to take this same approach to every classroom (with available equipment, of course) and encourage teachers to imagine themselves removed from the classroom.

If they still need to teach, to set activities, to facilitate these activities and assess students’ understanding, how could this be done without their physical presence in the room? What tech tools would be most useful? How would you ’see into’ your own classroom? Now picture your physical presence back in the room as just an added bonus.

Okay, I’m only hypothesizing, but I think this mindset does wonders for encouraging creative and effective use of systems in the classroom, and great integration of technology.