K-12 Online Presentation-

Steven Kimmi Salina, KS, United States
Blog: http://expeintech.blogspot.com

Bio: Steven is a fifth grade teacher in Salina, KS. He graduated from Kansas State University three years ago, where he pursued many other majors before choosing on Elementary Education. He is the author of Experiments in Technology and In Transit(ion). He is in the process of creating numerous open source resources for teachers in his district and beyond. However, he is the parent of three children under four, so his time is…well, time is…of the essence.


Presentation Title: “Traveling Through The Dark”
Description: This presentation examines how to get started using educational technology through metaphorical analysis of William Stafford’s poem, Traveling Through The Dark. Through this analysis we will look at the obstacles teacher’s face, the process of implementing technology into the classroom, and the role that others can play in the process.

Trevelling Through the Dark is a poem written by William Stafford. It is about a man who is driving along a narrow country road,. with a deep valley on one side, and a rising cliff on the other. He encounters a heap in the road and he steps out to examine it. It turns out to be a deer. It's actually a doe, a pregnant doe. He can feel that there is still a baby living inside of it. He is in a difficult predicament, he can either stay and help this fawn out, or he can push the whole heap into the valley and go about his way. He is not sure what to do. There are a lot of things to take into account, he is not sure if other cars are going to be coming, will they not be expecting him. Does he have the capabilities to deliver this fawn. In the end, he makes a decision that is surprising, but it's a quite honest decision.

This is a poem about making decisions. That is something that educators do every day. However, many educators choose the easy way out. Why does this happen? Like the driver in this poem, we are all travelling through this darkness. The world is changing so quickly, that it's impossible to keep up, and ultimately we are out of balance. So choosing this path that leads us into this darkness is very risky and scary. Teachers choose the path they have already been down, because it's easy, familiar, and safe. But what are the implications? What will happen if we always go down a familiar path, we never venture out into the darkness to make sense of this changing world. We are going to create a world of citizens who are not prepared for their, and even our future. A student body that will become disengaged while they're in school. Education will become an institution that will no longer be relavent.

Teachers must keep up with this everchanging world, not always taking the easy way out. This will ensure they don't cheat their students, or themselves. He says that getting started with educational technology is the easiest and hardest thing to do. Because there are so many options, this makes it so easy and hard at the same time. You must narrow down what it is you really want to do. So many people get overwhelmed by the possibilities that they just quit altogether.

"The best teachers don't expect kids to learn the way they teach. The best teachers teach the way kids learn." - Dr. Pedro Noguera