What's missing from this photo?

Waiting for our group
Originally uploaded by pwhyte

Today we had our follow up session for our School 2.0 Project (School 2.0 Wiki).

This project started out small, with Melissa Higgs-Horwell (from SCOCA), Paul Carpenter (from the Ross Pike ESD) and I doing some real quick training sessions for OACHE and the regional State Support Team staff members. When we all got together to talk about how the internet is changing and how we should be helping our schools stay on top of these innovations, ideas started to take shape.

Over the summer (2007), we started feverishly planning some training that could span the upcoming school year (2007-2008). HSTW (High Schools That Work) came on board during the summer, and the plans took off. We had a total of 3 full day training sessions and put together a framework for implementing a project at each school. We hand picked the schools based on the greatest need – the SST helped us in that process.

Our first session was in September, with another one in October and a repeat session in December for other schools from HSTW. For most of the winter, we didn’t hear much from our participants. Then today, we had the final session. It was an informal sharing/presentation by each school – the teachers telling us about the successes they had with the new technologies this year, and also about the road blocks and hazards they encountered.

In this rural, mostly low-income area of Ohio, we often lack the basic needs for integrating technology. We heard about schools that only have 1 computer lab (and not all of the computers are operational – and few are up-to-date enough to run programs like Google Earth), teachers who have only dial-up at home (and students who don’t even have computers at home) because it is rare to find broadband in this region, and major issues with educational sites that are blocked at school. Several schools mentioned that they ran into the brick wall of filtering when trying to do social bookmarking with del.icio.us. All blogs and wiki sites were blocked.

You would think all this would put a damper on their enthusiasm for bringing these 21st century skills to their students. You would think that it would be easier to just give up. You would think….

But that is what is missing from this picture - the teachers. I took this picture this morning before any of them arrived. They are the key. They make the effort and sacrifice to make sure our students aren’t left behind. They go the extra mile to make things happen for kids. They genuinely care about education and our children.

I was so impressed with what our teachers accomplished this year in spite of all the obstacles, and they are still so hopeful and enthusiastic. Southern Ohio has the one essential ingredient that gives our area a bright future – wonderful teachers.

I can’t begin to recount all the projects, but there were web sites, podcasts, BlackBoard online classes, Google Earth and SketchUp activities, wikis and blogs. I wish you could have heard the presentations today – one story about a foreign language class brought tears to my eyes.

I was so proud to have been among them today.