You need to see these slides, from Will Richardson.
First, teachers should send a copy of this to their evaluators, principals, and all other admins up to the superintendent. Sure, it’s possible they’ll fire you for telling the truth. But if every teacher in your district did it, they might look at the slides and ponder: What in the hell do our evaluations and test scores have to do with this new future that is already upon us, and around us, and washing away the foundations of what the state legislature claims we must be doing?
Will Richardson
Second, this is a model presentation. Notice how few of the slides are cluttered with words. Notice those slides with words are easy to read, easy to grasp, and complement and are complemented by a lot of great images. (One of my students got a less-than-A grade on a PowerPoint presentation in another class, and brought me the evaluation: “Not enough text,” was one of the criticisms he’d gotten. That teacher is considered a model by too many administrators.) It’s not a perfect presentation. Garr Reynolds would have a lot to say about it. I’ll wager Richardson’s is better than any other presentation you’ve seen this week, in the content, the depth of information, and the way it’s packaged. (Would have loved to have seen the presentation . . .) That is particularly true if you’ve been the victim of teacher professional development sessions in the past week.
There are a lot of slides, partly because so few of them are cluttered by text. (Don’t know how long the presentation went.) This presentation would win a case against almost every other slide presentation I’ve ever seen from any law firm, who pay tens of thousands to lawyers to make slide presentations that defy understanding. The world would be ever so much better were lawyers required to watch this, and compare it with their last presentation.
Third (related to and justifying the first), you need to realize how things have changed in the past year, past five years, past decade, and how we as a society and nation failed to account for those changes, or keep up with them, especially in our public AND private elementary and secondary schools. Richardson understands the changes, and has some great leads on answers.
This presentation appears to have been a hit. It seems a few people asked Will Richardson for copies (@WillRich45, www.willrichardson.com), which is why it’s on Slideshare.
Richardson highlights the importance of these thoughts at his blog:
If the recent iPad debacle in Los Angeles teaches us anything it’s that no amount of money and technology will change anything without a modern vision of what teaching and learning looks like when every student and every teacher has access to the Internet. As many of us have been saying for far too long, our strategy to deal with the continuing explosion of technology and connections can’t be to simply layer devices on top of the traditional curriculum and engage in digital delivery. Unfortunately, far too few develop a vision that sees that differently.
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Please note: Technology is integrated throughout these initiatives in ways that serve the vision, not the other way around. This isn’t “let’s give everyone an iPad filled with a lot of textbook and personalized learning apps aimed at improving test scores and then figure out how to manage it.” This is about having important conversations around complex, difficult questions:
- What will schools look like in the future?
- What kinds of spaces do we need to support instruction and collaborative work in 5-10 years?
- How will technology transform curriculum, instruction, and assessment?
And how does it work at your school, teachers? Students?
We missed the revolution. The kids are ahead of us.
Can we catch up?
More:
- Old teachers are better (calvinistview.com)
- Teacher Education for schools as they are OR for schools as they should be? That is the question. (atthechalkface.com)
- How the iPad can turn teaching special ed ‘on its head’ (venturebeat.com)
- OOPS! STUDENT iPADS IN LEWSVILLE ISD – NO SECURITY FILTERS (educationviews.org)
- ‘Mediocre’ teachers would do better reading from script, says Gove aide (thetimes.co.uk)
- Modern Education Reform: An Analogy (Minnesota Progressive)
- A TED talk from Will Richardson
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
For example:
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