Cheryl Capozzoli is an open source -- literally. Much like the methodology and philosophy behind Wikipedia, Mozilla Firefox, and other user-centered and user-generated creations, Capozzoli is a true believer in the power of opening the development process -- in this case, education -- to everyone.
As an education consultant, instructional technology specialist with Pennsylvania’s Capital Area Intermediate Unit, and founder of the Web 2.0 Guru wiki, Capozzoli devotes her time to providing professional development and sharing best practices in education technology, which she began delving into in the early 1990s, when she began as an elementary school teacher.
Capozzoli’s enthusiasm for infusing technology into instruction has earned her numerous accolades, including a spot among last year’s “20 to Watch,” an NSBA recognition program that pinpoints emerging leaders poised to do great things in education technology. In Capozzoli’s case, however, the title is simple affirmation.
After successfully earning a seat on Pennsylvania’s Newport School Board in 2009, Capozzoli has worked tirelessly to ensure all children have equal access to education resources, including technology, and has personally provided training and professional development to teachers for free. “To be a change agent, you have to be right there with them,” Capozzoli explains.
ASBJ Senior Editor Naomi Dillon caught up with the energetic Capozzoli for an invigorating chat about what keeps her wired.
How did you become the Web 2.0 Guru?
When I was doing the coaching position, I would send out e-mails to colleagues and say, “Hey, I found this neat thing and thought you’d find it useful.” Later, I’d see them in the hallway and they’d tell me they got my e-mail and would look at it later, which meant they’d never look at it again, and so I said, “Let me put all these resources someplace.” People were calling me “guru” anyway, so I said, “Why not run with it?” The interesting thing about the site is, it’s a reflection of what I was into at the moment, and how I’ve evolved. First it was about providing resources, then it was tools, then it was about building leadership capacity.
Education technology is a broad field. What’s your interpretation of it?
Education technology needs to build higher-order thinking. It needs to reinforce concepts, objectives, and learning standards. It has to have some kind of hook. It can’t just be, “Here’s technology, let’s use it,” because sometimes technology isn’t always the right choice. Some kids want to hold a pencil; they want to draw on a piece of paper. In this way, technology is really about providing students autonomy in the classroom, giving them a choice in how they want to learn and how they want to demonstrate what they know.
We hear a lot about putting students in the driver’s seat of their learning. How can technology help with that?
Students are digital natives, but they’re native to social gaming and entertainment. They don’t know how to use it for learning. Our job is to show them how to use it in their academic path. It can be fun at the same time, but this is how you learn, too. Challenges are the story of life, and yet we don’t teach that in our classrooms. Just because it’s a challenge and you don’t understand it, it shouldn’t stop you dead in your tracks. You should go research and find out how to do it. Unfortunately, we’re still in the sit-and-get mode in our classrooms.
What would you say are other big obstacles to education technology?
Sometimes that the focus in grant or technology initiatives is more about the technology, when it really shouldn’t be. Education technology is really about a change in practice, a change in our approach to teaching and learning. But school systems too often rely on a business model approach rather than [an] instructional design approach.
What do you mean by an instructional design approach?
When adopting any instructional design approach, you have to pilot, you have to plan. Instead, schools -- when they see something they like -- they say, “Oh, let’s get it” and they don’t plan, they don’t test it out, then there’s all these issues and it fails in the implementation. There are no silver bullets, even with technology. Districts need to first have a discussion about what their vision for the future is, what their goals are, who are the stakeholders -- and get everybody on the same page and move together. There’s not a consistent effort on what we need to be doing for our kids.
You make it sound so easy, but it’s not, is it?
As a mentor once said to me, it’s all about building relationships and building that trust. It’s easier to move forward as a whole group. But it’s hard to move as group when there are different mindsets. A fixed mindset stays stuck in a negative mode. People feel threatened, and they don’t want to move because it’s scary. A growth mindset sees a challenge and gets excited about [it] and says, “Let’s go: We’ll be stronger because of it.”
The winners of the 2011-12 “20 to Watch” will be announced in March. Watch for updates on School Board News Today at http://schoolboardnews.nsba.org.