My initial connection here is the fact that when I sat down with the twenty teachers of my first “edtech cohort” last year, one of the first things we did was bust out the system preferences pane. This working group included folks who were anxious to learn about how rich technology can enhance teaching and learning, but they were not necessarily “tech savvy.” In fact, some had never worked from a laptop.

Therefore, I saw my first task as being one of helping them establish a connection first to the device. One of the main reasons I ordered the MacBook Pro is the customization of workflow it allows. I told them that the first day would feel sort of *nuts & bolts* -like and wouldn’t focus on learning theory or instruction, but that it would untimately help them in this quest. So once we learned how to open the thing up, and to see the differences between XP’s taskbar and the OSX finder… we cracked open the sys preferences pane and explored each icon for what it could do. We sped up the trackpad, allowed tap-to-click, customized the dock, the speech, the display, and perhaps most importantly, customized key shortcuts in expose’… I demonstrated simple things that I (and most teachers) do on a regular basis where these customized settings enhance my productivity, and extend what I can do.

I wanted them to leave that day with a machine that felt like it was their own… and slightly different from the person sitting next to them. They all have unique ways of learning, and will all ultimately utilize these tools in different ways for different tasks. I told them in June that I wanted that machine to feel like an extension of their hands & mind by the end of summer.

After that session, we dove into social bookmarking, simple blogging and discussion thread navigation within our shiny new Ning network, etc. Throughout the year we took a much more instructional path to our work sessions. However, I deeply maintain that giving careful time to the care, feeding, and customization -of whatever tech tool they are wanting to become native to them- is huge in the beginning. If it isn’t at the start, they enter their use of that machine with all of the same presuppositions about using a computer they came in with. In one short year, I have a solid half of those folks who can’t imagine their life (work or home) without OSX at their fingertips. That makes me happy.

This year, we bring on the other 50 staff members at my school… and I have a solid nucleus of increasingly-savvy folks to help me in this mission. Our focus on the lead-learner in the room first and foremost is organically bleeding into the classroom with students as it should. However, I am committed to stop our long-held strategy of putting powerful technology directly into the hands of students (a seemingly noble move) while ignoring the development of the teachers who guide them on a daily basis. In one short year, the uses of our ten student laptop carts moved quickly beyond rough Google search and word processing… and into the world of communicating, connecting and creating.

I think getting past the “curse of default settings” on day one has been an important step in helping my teachers jump past the “default settings” of what they have always done within the four walls of their classroom.

And by the way… I honestly cannot even remember what that ugly little chime even sounded like.

Sean

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I’m glad I read this post/comments – just turned off the start-up chimes – thanks Dave!

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Re-technology. Don’t know what hope we have. I would say my technophobic hubby would have to (sadly) represent the skills level of 90 % of people in the population. He can’t even managed to work out how to put on my headset when watching videos on YouTube (hence wears them upside down and has broken them). Final grip is he doesn’t realise that touching another person computer is living life dangerously.

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On XP, if anyone’s curious, it’s:
Start Menu -> Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices ->”Sounds” tab, then highlight the desired Program event near the bottom and change the “Sounds” box at the bottom to “none”.

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