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In Defense of SchoolSpace
By Mike Hasley | March 25, 2008
In a perfect world, I would see classrooms where students are consistently engaged in a lesson because they are able to think and create with few limitations. Lectures would be minimal, the Internet wide-open, and teachers would be comfortable enough with a student-centered classroom to allow students the freedom to learn through discovery. Teachers would “tell” less, create problem based lessons, teach and demonstrate problem solving, and yes, use technology when appropriate.
It would be nice if SOLs were treated like tornado drills where no one gives them much thought until 5 minutes prior to the drill. It would be nice if teachers understood how to use technology, and more importantly, how to use it correctly with instruction. It would be nice if I can show a teacher how to add students to their wikipage once, and then they can add that absent student on their own without having me come to their class to do it for them.
Ahh, I hear the Beach Boys in my head now . . . “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could . . . “
But, I don’t live in that world. That’s the world I’m trying to create, and now, in the midst of that challenge, comes our new content management system, SchoolSpace.
SchoolSpace provides a lot of what we already do, but under one roof. There are some issues with it (blogs and wikis for example), but it does have some practical applications and for the teachers and students who use SchoolSpace, they like it a lot.
But there are those who think SchoolSpace hurts education. For the doubters, I have to work with teachers in my world, not my dream world.
First, SchoolSpace has areas of needed change and growth (calendars, wikis, blogs). I don’t view this as the Holy Grail for teaching. However, I do think in our current environment it is needed and can be helpful for teachers.
Here’s why:
- For most teachers who aren’t technology savvy, this is a useful tool to accomplish many tasks. For example, using the drop boxes, having course mail, making announcements, uploading files for students to download 24/7, and allowing for students to have access to all of their classes in one site, not 7 different web sites, dropboxes, and virtual share folders.
- Testing is secure. Right now, Exam View is wide open except for the teaching walking around. SchoolSpace provides an environment that teachers can use to help make sure cheating doesn’t occur. I would still recommend walking around though.
- Instruction. Yes, instruction. Teachers can use many of the features in SchoolSpace to help with instruction. One is the easy syndication of MP3 files to iTunes (and thus podcasting). Another is the use of some of the few games SchoolSpace provides. Third, SchoolSpace has a discussion board that works very well for 24/7 discussions and for grading. There is also a chat feature that allows for live blogging of fishbowl discussions. This is a powerful tool that right now in Henrico County, only SchoolSpace can provide.
- SchoolSpace allows its users to use what their comfortable with, and then grow with it. For example. In SchoolSpace, you can set it up so that a Unit 2 folder only appears for a student only after they pass the assessment with an 80. Until then, they cannot do Unit 2. That’s for advanced users, but for basic users, you can easily create all your unit folders, and allow them to appear when you’re ready for them to appear. You can then hide old folders from students when a unit is complete.
- With the repository, a teacher and students can have access to a variety of lesson ideas and plans in one place. Another nice feature of the repository is that a teacher can drop a PowerPoint ito the repository once, and it will show up for 5 different classes automatically. That’s similar to the Virtual Share we currently have, but the VS isn’t set up for home use and if a student accidentally opens the file while it’s in the VS, other students cannot access it.
- Hopefully, for an area of growth, students will be able to use SchoolSpace for club and sport information. Right now, most clubs and sports don’t have an easy way to communicate with students other than using the school’s PA system, which students absent from school cannot hear.
To conclude, I’m not going to try and say that SchoolSpace is perfect, but for the environment that we need to teach in right now, it’s a great tool to help teachers and students with their course work. It’s a consistent organizational tool, allows for easy communication, and has some instructional value.
Do I want this to be the only thing used in the classroom, no way. Will this solve instructional issues with technology, nope. Does this provide a way for teachers to begin teaching in an 24/7 online world? Yes! Is that the goal? Yes.
Topics: 21st Century Skills, Best Practices, SchoolSpace | 2 Comments »
[...] in other technology news in Henrico, Henrico County Schools “TechWarrior” defends the program, SchoolSpace, that teachers use to help integrate technology into the [...]
[...] Mike got all up in my grill for criticizing the CMS in education. I am apparently both a dreamer (but I’m not the only one) and a “doubter.” He even accused me of listening to Beach Boys music (I do have a theme song in mind for CMS’s – unless some knows a song dedicated to mediocrity?). I will ignore the fact that I was mainly talking about Blackboard and never mentioned HCPS’s Schoolspace. Although that military mindset is very much like some aspects of HCPS. [...]