I am sitting in a hotel room two thirds of the way through a Microsoft Teacher Education 3 day workshop. So far I give the experience a B. It is kinda cool hanging out on the 6th floor of the Microsoft training facility-all green and orange and red-I promise to take a picture of the server room before I leave- So far the best part of the workshop has been connecting with the head of education marketing (well, he's probably not the head of marketing-but he is in the marketing department.)
It is a small group of teachers form Maine, Massachusetts and NH-and every one of us is committed to helping other teachers discover ways to engage students and using technology to do it.
Some observations. It is really quiet-carpeted hallways, dimly lit, lined with classrooms filled with laptops. The sign is obscure-tiny letters, no real signage once you enter the building, except for standing signs directing us to the West Elevators.
Laptops have been rented and images loaded-tech support has been contracted-a young man sits at his laptop, bored to tears, waiting for something to break. The Internet connection has been slow and there have been some server issues (but it looks so nice behind the glass wall!)
There has been interesting conversation-differences of opinion-different ways of doing business. The Microsoft teacher trainers have been engaging, interested and sincere in their desire to make things better for teachers. But they have a long way to go. Microsoft is no longer the Prom Queen. They are not the Yankees. They are not Goliath any more-and it is increasingly obvious they face stiff competition from all sides. But competition is good for everyone, and we are hoping it will be good for education.
We can only hope. Tomorrow we spend the morning creating an action plan-for the future. How will we use what we learned to impact education for kids? My thoughts were reinforced once again-that it is not about the technology-it is about the teaching. Great technology is not going to make great teaching. But great teaching will be impacted exponentially by the use of great technology. But in order to be great-it must be easy to access, easy to use, and able to be seamlessly integrated into those great lessons.
