haiku LMS

Andrea Calavarasi graduated in 1983 from University of Bologna.  He has taught at the Secondary School of First Degree “A. Manzoni”  for the past twenty years covering almost "all possible assignments".  He is a teacher of Italian, History and Geography, but also directs musical groups. Music is his passion.  He plays double bass and electric bass in jazz combos.  He also writes articles occasionally for several Italian daily newspapers on the subjects of famous writers and musicians. 

Most recently he has been busily translating the haiku LMS interface into Italian!

We asked Andrea to talk about his experience with teaching and technology, and how haiku LMS has affected his teaching.

I was born in 1958. I studied at the University of Bologna and I dreamed of becoming a writer or a director. Then I won a public contest for teachers and in 1985 I began to teach italian, history and geography in a secondary school of first degree (with boys and girls from 12 to 14 years). This wasn’t my dream, as I’ve said, but I was day by day more interested in my work. I realized what extraordinary work it was only after I became a teacher.

Now, after twenty years, in which I’ve experienced the best and the worst of this profession, I can say one more time that it is extraordinary work. I often say to my students that I’m very lucky because I live not only a life, but hundreds of lives: I can participate in the life of each of them.

Sometimes I’m happy with them, sometimes I’m in pain with them and for them, but always my life is amplified in a way that only books and their innumerable characters can do. In these twenty years I always have had a few preeminent goals: give respect and obtain respect, give attention and obtain attention, and help students to develop themselves as persons first.

To reach this goal a good and deep level of communication is necessary. Usually, for this mission, one language isn’t enough. haiku, so plain and rich at the same time, is the second language for which I was searching.

What is your first recollection of what you would consider "technology in the classroom".  How did it impact you?

My third year working as a teacher (in 1988), I became a friend of a Math teacher at my school. He was involved in activities with his students using a Spectrum Zx and simple programs that he had created. At this time my school had 7-8 Spectrums and I thought that it would be interesting if I could try to work with a small group of students using a Spectrum for grammar exercises.

So I prepared the exercises and I was lead by my friend through a long process of creation of grammatical programs. It was very hard work initially and I remember that I asked myself if this effort made sense.

Then I saw the interest of the students, their increased motivation and I came to conclusion that there was a possible way to make school more active.  This way was to use new technologies.

How does technology in the classroom impact you, the teacher today?  How does it impact the learner?

The Italian schools are very slow in implementing changes.  Since I started to teach, there have been two or three reforms, but they were mainly reforms in words, declared objectives.   They didn’t really change a structure that remains very traditional. Often there aren’t prepared teachers and appropriate investments in equipment. It lacks a certain, resolved educated policy about new technology.

Everything is left to the initiative and knowledge of the single teacher. In this context the new technologies haven’t yet had an effective impact on teachers and students. There is still a long road to ahead. 

How will technology continue to evolve the classroom five years out?  Ten years out?

I think that (for those countries that are more forward in the use of technologies in the school), the next few years will see an escalation of e-learning. The teacher probably will become, year by year, more of a mediator between students and knowledge than a source of knowledge.

I think that also the physical spaces of the school could change and provide more flexible opportunities regarding hours, rooms, and classes.

What are the greatest limitations of teaching with technology? What are your greatest concerns?

There is an Asimov novel in which the teachers don’t exist anymore, they have been substitued by computers, all the work is submitted to impartial and accurate corrections.

I am not obviously worried about the extinction of teachers (at least I hope to save myself from this terrible destiny), but there is the risk that teachers will become hybrid creatures (such as the experiments of doctor Moreau): scrubs of innovation on a traditional and old skin.

I sometimes have the doubt that if my activity isn’t able to harmonize experimentations, multimedial resources, new technologies with old methods, programs and ways to conduct lessons, then the students will be disoriented. This is for me the first and more important limit: if the use of technologies isn’t introduced as a structural part of the learning process, it could reinforce a mechanical, exterior approach. This is not only to computer language and applications, but to the learning itself.

What are the greatest benefits of teaching with technology? What excites you the most?

When I first offered activities using the PC or as I prepared lessons with the help of slideshows, film segments, pictures, music, I immediately could see the positive effect on my students: their attention was improved and I had the possibility to “speak” also to those who learned better with images or sounds than through the written words.

I asked to my students to become creators and develop their ideas, to project their own lessons, so they became authors and they were proud to present their work to friends, parents and in meetings with other schools.

When I understood that they had discovered a new way to learn and express themselves, I also understood what the benefits of the new technologies could be.

Today I’m mainly excited by the possibilities to interact with students and families after school.  For me the e-class is the necessary complement of the real class.

How does haiku LMS address these limitations and benefits?  How do you think haiku LMS' approach differs from other LMS software?

haiku LMS has given to me the chance to achieve a new level of communication between me and my students.

It has all the benefits I can ask of new technologies: I can interact with my students and their parents, I can inform them and (in perspective) make them authors of a part of the class website.

I cannot be considered a real expert, but it seems to me that haiku makes these opportunities more simple and accessible than other LMS software.

What would you say to other educators who are searching for an LMS about your own decision to use haiku LMS?

I’m preparing a presentation of the haiku LMS software to the teachers of my school and maybe to the teachers of my city. This is the best answer to the question: I hope, I really hope that others Italian teachers will start to use haiku. Simplicity is more than a word to represent the benefits of haiku, but mainly I’ll say to my colleagues that while often we meet difficulties with the solutions of little scholastic problems and we don’t obtain answers from persons and institutions near us, I have found an exceptional helpfulness in haiku. Already when I wrote an email to haiku for the first problem I had with the protection of the site, I had an immediate answer and from then to now nothing has changed: if I have a problem I know that Bryan and the haiku staff are there, very far from me but near to me with their suggestions, with their attention, and I know also that until they have found a solution they will not stop working to inform and help me.

What books and websites do you read to stay on top of technology and learning?

Oh, here is a difficult question, because my formation is due mainly to the web and I hardly take a trace of my peregrinations.  I have, between my favourites, many sites of didactical resources. I have read many articles of Italian experts (such as Antonio Calvani), then I have mixed together my little personal enciclopedy in which Howard Gardner and his multiple intelligences intersect uncannily with the works of the Italian novelist Stefano Benni.  For some people that’s confusion. For me it is a way to open minds.

What are the most important qualities to be a successful teacher on-line?

A teacher on-line must have ideas, must know how to stimulate participation from his students and must have time, more time than other teachers.  Like the other teachers, he has to correct exercises, prepare lessons, search useful materials, but he also has to dedicate additional time to renew the pages of the site and to keep it updated. an

Mainly, he must really believe in the utility and effectivness of what he and his students are doing.

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a teacher?

I keep each class of students for three years. After three years my students move on to a higher scholastic level.  I then take a new class for another three years and so on. The last day of school I give each of my student a book as a gift and a letter.

In each letter I reflect about what it means for me to develop, relate with others, learn and teach.

I always use, among other reflections, a quote from Joseph Joubert: “To teach is to learn twice”.

It’s what I think, what I hope and what I like to believe.