One Schoolhouse

  • STUDENT COURSES
    • School Information
    • Student Information
    • Parent & Guardian Information
    • Summer Courses
    • Register
  • ACADEMIC LEADERS
    • Association for Academic Leaders
    • Join the Association
    • Lisa Damour: The ​Emotional ​Lives of Teenagers
    • Open Doors Blog
  • CONSORTIUM
    • Join the Consortium
    • Our Schools
  • COURSE LOGIN
  • STUDENT COURSES
    • School Information
    • Student Information
    • Parent & Guardian Information
    • Summer Courses
    • Register
  • ACADEMIC LEADERS
    • Association for Academic Leaders
    • Join the Association
    • Lisa Damour: The ​Emotional ​Lives of Teenagers
    • Open Doors Blog
  • CONSORTIUM
    • Join the Consortium
    • Our Schools
  • COURSE LOGIN

Academic Technologist to Instructional Designer

7/13/2011

0 Comments

 
PictureBrad Rathgeber, Executive Director
Time spent at the Lausanne Laptop Institute (#LI11) this week got me thinking about a change happening to the role of Academic Technologists in our schools.  I am sure to revisit this more in subsequent postings.

It seems to me that the role of the Academic Technologists (a staple position at independent schools over the past ten years) is morphing into the role of Instructional Designer of (increasingly online) course material.

When the role of Academic Technologists first emerged, the job could be summed up easily: help faculty catch up.  Schools realized that the students’ facility with technology and digital communications (the natives to the world of technology) often far surpassed that of the faculty (the immigrants).  And so, the Academic Technologists were there to help bridge the divide.  They ran workshops for faculty on every thing imaginable: powerpoint, email, browsers, databases, etc.  They worked one-on-one with faculty.  And, they worked hand-in-hand with faculty in classrooms as they used “new” technology for the first time.

Five years ago, more progressive schools began to shift their models so that the Academic Technologist worked within a triumvirate with classroom teachers and librarians.  The idea for this construct being that the subject-matter expert (the teacher), the guide for knowledge seeking (the librarian), and the guide through technology (the technologist) could team up to create new and exciting ways for teachers to deliver content to their students.

But, this model has been changing too.  As of late, it has become much easier both to use educational technology and to learn it.  Five years ago, YouTube did not have videos that taught you everything you needed to know about Powerpoint and Microsoft did not have self-guided courses on Excel (much less did something like Prezi even exist). Today, those resources are readily available, and many faculty are beginning to take advantage of them.

The other shift that is taking place in schools is a greater reliance on and creation of online learning environments both for organization of course materials and for delivery of the course.  Schools are using Learning Management Systems (LMS) to a much larger degree to help students and faculty manage the content of courses and to engage students in online work.  And, schools are also increasingly using online computer-based instruction and analytics tools (particularly in lower school reading and math) to gauge student successes.

Not surprisingly, it is the Academic Technologists within schools who have been in the position to learn about new online learning environments first, and begin to put them to use (younger teachers have often played this role, too).  They built robust course pages first; used blogs, wikis, and podcasts first; and engaged in online learning communities first.  And, as the technology has started to bring these previously disparate tools together, they have been the first to design an experience that effectively blends the best of online education with the best of the face-to-face education: they became the first practitioners of blended learning, and the first to design courses given all that is now available.  They (the Academic Technologists) have become the Instructional Designers in our schools.

Even as this shift has happened, there is still an eagerness (even insistence) by entrenched faculty members and administrators that see the role of the Academic Technologist as it was ten years ago (much less five years ago): they ask Academic Technologists to come in and “teach” Powerpoint or even Google Docs or something of this vein, rather than using the real talents that they have in designing more robust learning environments for students, in a much more mission-focused way (this not to say that there is not occasionally the need for hands-on instruction of tools, but that this is often not the technologists talents or time when there are so many tutorials readily available).

It seems to me that the schools that make a shift sooner will be able to create better learning environments faster for their students.
​
As always, I’m interested in any thoughts you all have on this posting… these thoughts are very much a work in progress (again, that I am sure to come back to in subsequent postings).

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Don't miss our weekly blog posts by joining our newsletter mailing list below:

    Authors

    Brad Rathgeber (he/him/his)
    CEO & Head of School
    Beta Eaton (she/her/hers)
    Director of Student Support
    Corinne Dedini (she/her/hers)
    Senior Director, Academics (retired)
    Elizabeth Katz (she/her/hers)
    Senior Director, School Partnership
    Kerry Smith (she/her/hers)
    Instructional Designer for Professional Development
    Peter Gow (he/him/his)
    Independent Curriculum Resource Director
    Sarah Hanawald (she/her/hers)
    Senior Director, PD & New Programs
    Sienna Brancato (she/her/hers)
    Program Manager for PD & New Programs
    Tracie Yorke (she/her/hers)
    Instructional Designer for Equity, Inclusive Innovation & Accessibility
    ​Lorri Palko (she/her/hers)
    Finance & Operations Advisor; CFO (retired)
    Karen Douse (she/her/hers)
    Director of School & Student Support (retired)

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    September 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    October 2013
    August 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2002

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Organization

About
Welcome
​History
FAQs
​Calendar
​
Team Members
Board of Trustees
Employment Opportunities
© COPYRIGHT 2020, ONE SCHOOLHOUSE, INC.. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Policies

Tuition & Policies
Equity and Inclusion & Non-Discrimination Policy
Technology Requirements & Policies
​Privacy Policy

School Resources

Advanced Independent Curriculum
​Partner Professional Learning Courses

Get In Touch

Have any questions?
Send us an email or give us a call.
info@oneschoolhouse.org
202.618.3637

​1701 Rhode Island Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036


We'd love to hear from you!​