MEMBERprofiles
Helping Teachers Tap the Knowledge of the Crowd
Lisa Thumann was working alongside her dad selling stocks and bonds and expecting to
take over his business one day when
she finally mustered the courage
to leave it all behind and chase her
lifelong dream of being a teacher. In
addition to working in finance, she
had done marketing, ad sales, and
magazine design—not the kind of
professions that normally segue into
teaching careers. But they did give
her the computer skills that allowed
her to step right in to tech integration.
Today she is a senior specialist in
technology education with the Center
for Mathematics, Science, and Computer Education at Rutgers University
in New Jersey. She provides professional development to public and
private schools in New Jersey, and she
runs the 21st Century Learning Initiative, a comprehensive professional
development model that she created
nearly three years ago.
“I believe in sustained professional
development with in-class coach-
ing and mentoring,” Thumann says.
“Gone are the days of the one-day
workshop.”
Or at least she wishes those days
were gone. The fact is, some schools
still request one-off trainings, and she
does provide them. But she makes a
point of enriching those lessons with
opportunities to learn more through
social bookmarking, microblogging,
and the development of professional
learning networks (PLNs).
She prefers, however, a more robust
approach. That’s why she not only
teaches educators tech integration
skills, with an emphasis on developing PLNs, but she also spends time in
their classrooms.
“The students love having someone
come into the classroom to work with
them and their teachers,” Thumann
says. “The teachers love being part
of a community that is always there.
Everyone who is part of the initiative
takes from it what they need or want
and gives what they can.”
The payoff for Thumann is the aha
moments that educators have when
they discover the possibilities of ed
tech. One such moment occurred
when a seventh grade teacher recently
reflected on something that one of
her students said. The teacher left this
comment on a Ning that Thumann
manages: “It made me realize how
far we’ve come this year in terms of
technology—not only that we use it
regularly in the classroom now, but
how much it’s influenced our students,
enhanced their understanding, en-
gaged them, and encouraged them to
seek out ways to use technology for
their own benefit.”
“That moment will stay with me,”
Thumann says.
—Diana Fingal is senior editor of L&L.
