The Cloud and Collaboration

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The Cloud and Collaboration

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Reflections on Teaching & Learning in a Networked Classroom

Here are some final thoughts on my learnings from Jeff Utecht's Teaching and Learning in a Networked Classroom. Jeff has designed a very useful and engaging class. Of all the courses I have taken in the past few years this one definitely bubbles itself to the top. I have felt challenged by the overwhelming amount of information there is to try to decipher and decide what makes sense for me to integrate into my own work with students. I was excited to be able to take a class from someone who is clearly a leader in the field. This certainly is the first time I have taken a course from someone on the opposite side of the world…but a “flat world “ is certainly a little closer! One of my planned reads for the summer is Tom Frieman's The World is Flat. I always go into the summer with more reading then summer to read
it in. But the Frieman's book is already on the self.
In the past ten years I have come to see myself as an educator who views learning as a constructivism, during this class I have begun to learn what it means to consider connectivism. The idea of social learning (other than my knowledge of collaborative learning and students working in lab groups) was not really on my radar screen. I see this becoming important in my thinking about student learning within the classroom as well as my work as an educational leader in my building and my work with fellow teachers. I see a lack of time for collaboration as a real weakness in traditional brick and mortar schoolhouse, this class has given me new ways of collaborating. I hope to do some real thinking about this idea of cyber connections, even within my school. I hope to build a learning community with both face to face meeting as well as a web presence. I am excited about this summer when I can get a chance to come up for air and wrap my head around how this might work.
This course has been filled with many valuable experiences. Instead of thinking about blogging…I had to blog and blog often, a great thing and one I hope to continue even after I get my final grade! RSS feed something I had never even heard of and that has become an efficient and important way I stay connected and up to date. I am also very glad I was pushed to make a podcast, though I was not thrilled with my effort…I’m glad I did it an hope to get a more meaningful podcast posted soon.
On additional aspect of the class that I found particularly valuable was all potential connections I saw for future work with other staff members, the value of teachers collaborating is immense. The difficulty finding time within the school day is also also immense. So anything we can do to increase collaboration using web 2.0 tools will be a very good thing. As I worked through the materials for this class I often thought of tools and ideas that could be used to increase professional learning communities with in my high school.
There is much more I write...but for now I'll be done. I anticipate continuing the use this blog as a place to place my ponderings on learning & teaching!

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is just one of the aspects of web 2.0 that my T & L in the Networked Classroom course has introduced me to. This is something I had no knowledge and immediately saw the value of this aspect of the technology. Another aspect picked up through my learnings in this course ..is the use of mini youtube clips as teaching tools. Like this one explaining how to use social book marks. I used a few of these common craft videos to introduce both social bookmarking and wiki creation to my Bio II course. My original journey into social bookmarking was using using Delicious. I found the whole idea of social bookmarking very useful. I have often been frustrated, looking for bookmarks that end up being on my school computer while I'm working at home or the other way around. My thinking quickly went to the social end of the bookmarking, scheming ways to use this tool to increase the amount of collaboration that is possible among staff at my school. As I continued to read my RSS I came across information on Diigo, another social bookmarking site. I choose to use this site with my class. I was very excited about the shared research my students might be able to do using this tool. As I introduced this to my students everything went fairly smoothly. Kids were able to log on, share book marks, highlight article and add sticky notes. Life was great! Kids were researching, sharing information, maybe even thinking... then our network changed the rules; kids were no longer able to down load mini tool bar! ARGH!!!! very frustrating...but I'll try again next year.
The take way ... this is a very useful tool, that I have only begun to learn to use. I will continue to push as hard as I can to make sure resources are used to increase the speed and usefulness of our district network. At this point too often decisions are made without consulting educational specialists.

RSS one more thing to do!

A couple of months ago, as part of a graduate course I am taking (T & L in the Networked Classroom), I ventured into the world of RSS. I'll admit at first I doubted I would find much use for this aspect of the technology. I am happy to report that I was absolutely wrong! Use of a RSS is absolutely one of the take aways from this course.

Learning in the moment! ...I know I have posted about RSS feeds already... so I spent five minutes looking for my prior posts to find it...no luck. Here is the learning...I SHOULD OF TAGGED MY ENTRY!

One of the first thing I noticed after I created my GOGGLE reader account was the RSS logo on websites ...it was everywhere. It reminded me of how when I meet a new student, all the sudden I see them everywhere, when I would of said I had never seen them before.

I have learned how to set up and how to make changes to my account. I have learned to read or skim based on both the content I find and the time I have. Word from my instructor, Jeff Utecht,
was to not get overwhelmed. It still is hard for me to mark all read...when I know have have not read...but I have done it.

My students are currently reading a novel as a way to show them one of they many possible connections they will find to keep the biology they have learned active in their future years. Setting up a blog as a way to reflect on their reading is one of the options I have for the kids. As a district, we are very much struggling with our network connectivity, I had hoped to have all kids blogging, but with limited conductivity and not every student connected at home this was not possible. Using a RSS feed to organize and connect with all my students will make connecting and monitoring student blogs more doable.

Online saftey

As a high school teacher as well as a parent of a ten year old online safety is certainly something I am concerned about. Teenagers think they are pretty much untouchable, live in the moment and have all the answers! A recipe for trouble. My own daughter has a web presence, and sees the web as a place to play, socialize and learn. There is reason for concern, but I think we deal with that concern with education and communication not by banning or blocking! Kids use of Facebook and MySpace has created a level of comfort around sharing personal information that may very well be dangerous. As a educator and a parent it is my job to help keep these kids safe.
Filtering....ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!! The district in which I work has recently added a whole new level of filtering and it is driving many of us CRAZY. As discussed in our reading the need for filters are a necessary evil linked to federal funds linked to CIPA. I think the thing that has made me the craziest is that there does not seem to be any (or at least not enough) consideration to the educational purpose of desired content. It may be unique to our district and our network, but what is allowed changes form one day to the next as well as one computer to the next. This unpredictability is very difficult for even a seasoned teacher like myself to deal with!
Interesting side note... In my mind I pictured a filter like the one posted above as an image for this entry... so I did a quick google image search for "filter" thinking I would see mostly traditional filters..but most of the images went right to the computer filter connection!

Update on my Journey into Web 2.0

Over the past week and a half I have jumped into the web 2.0 world. More accurately I guess the new news is not my involvement, but rather the fact that I have pulled my students in as well. So how did it go? That very much depends on the day. On Tuesday of last week I brought one of my classes into one of the building's computer labs; our goals were to assure all students were members of both our Diigo group as well as our class wiki on wikispaces , continue the research process and begin to post information. On the first goal I was very successful, I was able to get all class members, even my technophobes, on and active. The students were able to start to see the value of using the collaborative research tools available through Diigo. I found myself fighting a unforeseen battle on the wiki front. The class I am working on with on this project is a group of second semester seniors, I thought they knew enough (could be mature enough) to handle knowing what was appropriate to post. I asked them all to simply experiment with the tool, putting up, editing and giving feedback..They quickly showed they were still little kids, placing inappropriate (even hurtful) material. We had a talk and I think they got the message, we will see. The good news from that day was that the technology seemed to work well, Diigo had added a new feature to their toolbar and I was able to work through the change within our school network. I was feeling pretty good about making this move in to the 21st century.
On Wednesday I planned to do essentially the same thing with my second Bio II class. This is class engaged more during the introductory session and I anticipated a great day. Well....that is not what happened, what had work perfectly 24 hours before no longer worked. Students were not able to down load the "diglet" tool bar and therefore not able to highlight and add sticky notes on the articles they were researching. I attempted through, email and phone, to contact our technology team and was unsuccessful (today four days later...I still have not heard back!!). We struggled through and were able to add bookmarks to share with the group, but were not able to fully take advantage of the tool. To say I was frustrated, is an understatement...but I have not given up! The students know how the tool can work and also know they can probably access their diigo account from home. I worry about asking kids to use only their home access, because although most have access at home not all do and I worry about the inequities of the haves vs the have nots.
We continued to work on the project during class on Thursday and Friday, both classes did a nice job planning what they wanted to use as an audience as well as a focus for their wikis. The overall theme for the work is global climate change, but I have left the choice of audience, focus and organization to the individual classes. My plan for tomorrow in both classes is to work on the rubric I will use to assess their work.

Bill Strickland

I recently viewed an inspiring video about Bill Strickland and his work. The biggest message I got from the video is the importance to treat ALL students with respect and honor. The work done by Mr. Strickland and his corporation is very successful and very inspiring. I liked one of his lines in the video "the only thing wrong with poor people is they don't have any money". There is hope for the first time in years that we (as a country) might be moving closer to a place where all children are indeed treated with honor and dignity. Strickland's model shows what can be done with a great deal of very targeted money. The bigger and more important question is how do we get to all kids not just the few lucky enough to find their way into Mr. Strickland's schools.

Project Based learning

I worry about any movement in education that comes with a cute name. If teaching for 25 years has taught me anything, it is that these “named” movements come and go. That being said I definitely see the value in much of the thinking behind “Project-based learning”. One of the real values I have seen in PBL is in the amount of engagement that often emerges from the realness of such learning. I remember a movement when I first started teaching called “learning by solving real world problems” (it had some cute acronym that I have forgotten). Based on my experience with that technique I have often tried to incorporate ideas of project based and real world applications into my teaching when ever possible. As defined by California’s Buck Institute for learning, PBL is "a systematic teaching method that engages students in learning knowledge and skills through an extended inquiry process structured around complex, authentic questions and carefully designed products and tasks." I can not imagine that there are many thinking educators who would not see the value in teaching using this approach. Science teachers have long seen the value of an inquiry approach, movement toward PBL shows the value for all disciplines moving in this direction.
One of the difficulties I have seen implementing PBL at the high school level is our lack of ability to work in a multidisciplinary manner. I can certainly see how applying the thinking behind PBL would work much better in a elementary classroom. The esN article on PBL Project-based learning; engages students, garners results, reinforced my understanding of the importance of implementing projects in a multidisciplinary approach. I would argue that rather than moving away from PBL at the high school level, traditional high school should find ways to work in interdisciplinary teams. These interdisciplinary teams should be designed and maintained around a function of engaging kids in learning, PBL is certainly one of the ways this could be done. I worry in move to increase test scores we may move away from this type of approach to teaching, make teaching and learning less engaging and in the long run end up with even lower performing students! I was excited to read about Adaptive Curriculum and then disappointed to see there was not high school level material.
In the Edutopia article “Put to the Test: Confronting Concerns about Project Learning” Yeung argues that there are ways to keep standards in focus as you move to better engage students in their learning. The article does a nice job backing up the idea that there are clear connections make to the standards. Yeung goes on to counter the argument that students are not ready for the collaborative nature of the work. It is the job of teachers to teach these collaborative skills, I would argue that these skills are probably more valuable in the long run than many of the content standards we address. Finally PBL requires teachers to improve their abilities to serve as facilitators in the classroom rather than as actors or presenters of material. This may be a big change for some traditional teachers, but I would definitely argue that this is a change that needs to take place.
The interview of Howard Gardner provides the learning theory that supports the move to including PBL in the classroom. Gardner raises the concern that we try to teach too many subjects or topics and that this causes us to not go deep enough in what we do teach. He speaks very clearly about what we do not do well in education and suggests the direction we should be moving.
In closing Howard Gardner makes a suggestion to move from teacher centered learning to child centered learning. This reminds me of something I often think of as I am leaving the school at 5:30, are any of my students as tired as I am? The tired ones are the ones doing the work, doing the thinking, doing the learning…I need to get to a place where the kids are as tired as I am!

Day One Successful

Day one of making this stuff real was very successful! In two 45 minute periods I was able to get most of the students in each of my two Bio II classes logged into both Diigo and the class wiki. A few kids did a bit of whining about having to use the technology, but just as many said (aloud!) ..."this is cool". Not one of the kids had ever even heard of social bookmarking. Our head librarian sat in and helped me help the kids through the login process. Next class I will show some how to videos as well as getting into the content of climate change. Exciting stuff!

Making it Real

This is the week when I will attempt to make my learning real. To me making it real means making it part of my work with students. It is somewhat intimidating because I know there will be multiple issues with the assignments; everything from the computer cliches caused by the districts aging network connections to seniors ready to be done with school. The final unit in my senior science elective, Bio II, will be on climate change. My goal is to increase my students understanding of the very complex issues involved with global climate change. I will role it out to the kids tomorrow...wish me luck. The secret to success will be flexibility..so I'll eat a good breakfast and head into school with a smile on my face! Here is a link to my school website on it you will find a link to the assignment.

ponderings on PD

Using web 2.0 applications in terms of our professional development is an area I think many teachers will find useful. One of the hardest things about attending professional development opportunities is the conflict we feel dealing with the concerns of being out of the class compared to any benefits we might gain from the training or other PD activity. The following thoughts are based on notes I took from Chapter 5 of Web 2.0.new tools,new schools. The authors site Tom Guskey's work on what makes for effective PD, and that is the importance of follow up support, proper implementation and the need for staff to see a close connection to improved student learning. The authors also increased emphasis on the social and cultural context of learning. Just as students learn best when leaning is viewed as part of a community so to will teachers.
The more we can do to foster the development and nurturing of professional learning communities within our schools the stronger those schools will be. I see the development of an electronic community that goes beyond the walls of the school as a way to strengthen the shared community within the school. I see a place where sometimes the discussions start on line and move into the hallways and other times they may move in the opposite direction. Certainly the asynchronous aspect possible due to electronic networks increases the opportunities for shared experiences. The authors discuss the need for a "culture of learning" this is certainly something we have in pockets of the school I teach in. They go on to discuss four necessary elements:
1. a diversity of expertise
2. a shared objective of continually advancing collective knowledge and skills
3. an emphasis on learning how to learn
4. a mechanism for sharing what is learned

the chapter then goes on to make some recommendations:
1. Help teachers uncover and make transparent their notions of the classroom community.
2. Develop alternative forms of teacher professional development that embed the social networking tools we want teachers to consider.

Stages of PLN adoption
Thanks for the connection to your thinking Jeff. I like the visual it makes sense to me, even echos some of my thinking in my last post. I am certainly in stage three...but anxiously awaiting getting to BALANCE! One of my next steps will be creating a list of those items I find best match my learning goals. One absolute truth is that I am in a more exciting place professionally than I have been in long time. There is so much to learn and the idea that there are so many people willing to share their knowledge is very exciting. I also realize that the more I can post and write and think about my learning the more real it will be for me as well as for others!





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Stages of PLN adoption by jutecht.

Beginning to process PLN's

From our weekly assignment (T&L in the networked classroom) ... "As the half-life of knowledge continues to decrease and the amount of knowledge known to us continues to increase we cause a gap of what we know, what we think we know, and what we think we should know." Reading this section of our assignment for the week, reminds me of cycles of thinking I have experienced based on this class. It goes something like this. ...

I log into my goggle reader ...I find something interesting ...I follow links...I get excited...I'm learning ... this is cool .... I can really see how this is going to change the way I learn and process information...things are great! The next time I log on to my goggle reader...I skim through some information ...absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of information in front of me...there is too much here! ...I'll never be able to make sense of all this...this is crazy! The bottom line is I find myself alternating between excitement and learning and frustration and being absolutely overwhelmed!

I think I am beginning to see how social networking, web 2.0, or whatever you want to call all this can help teachers to become better collaborators. The idea that people go (or went) into education because they are solitary workers (let me close my door and work my magic!)is changing, people are craving collaboration in school communities built for solitary operators. I work in a district in which many of us are really ready for collaboration we know what we want to do together, we know the importance of working collaboratively, all we need is time. If we can find that time asynchronously then maybe with the web we can make it happen. That's enough from me for now.

First Attempt at a Podcast

Many hours...lots of mis-steps ...a messy but at least an attempt at a podcast. I will leave this up for a couple days and then try to replace it with a more meaningful posting.

PLN ...the steps to active self directed learner

"Concord High School Graduates will be active self directed learners who
inquire creatively about their world, take risks and examine options as they
initiate actions and complete tasks." Above is part of the mission statement of the high school I teach at. It seems to me that PLN's (personal learning networks) certainly are or will be an important element of creating our future active self directed learners. I have been doing some thinking and reading about the idea of PLN's including a piece from The Fischbowl . In this piece the author discusses the incredible abundance of information we live in today and the impact of that abundance on today's learners and what is required of them. "Our students need to learn how to find, evaluate, organize, synthesize, remix and re-purpose information in order to understand and solve complex problems." I agree very much with changes required of today's learner and worry some about the idea of "repurposing" I see the incredible amount of cutting and pasting done by the students in my classes. One of the issues I am concerned about is the idea of intellectual property (though I sense this is somewhat becoming "old school"; my greater concerns are due to the fact that I often see kids do this (cutting and pasting) without ever processing the information. Many studnets cut and paste without ever reading. So my major concern here is how do we assure students are making sense of information and not simply processing it? I hope in my reading and my personal efforts in dealing with and shuffling through the huge amount of information I will develop skills that I can use to help students in this process.

Ponderings from Chicago

Sitting in the airport in Chicago on my way home from a very stimulating and professionally invigorating trip to Colorado Springs and BSCS, worrying about how I will complete my podcast this week, but already much more confident with this whole blogging thing. I am glad I am being pushed to create the podcast, because I know left to my own ambitions it would not happen any time soon.

BSCS & work with Medicine & Evolution

My trip to Colorado was to serve on an advisory board in creation of a NIH sponsored educational high school level supplement on Medicine & Evolution. The board was composed of equal representatives from four groups; high school biology teachers, evolutionary and genetic scientists, NIH, and BSCS. As a biology teacher it was very exciting being part of a group with practicing scientists. Hearing discussion of scientists sharing their research reminded my I studied to science in college.The work was very rewarding and I look forward to continuing the work in the months to come.

Podcasts

I just loaded three educational podcasts onto my ipod (actually my daughters hand-me-down ipod shuffle (the ten year old has the upgrade!)). My plan is to listen to these as I travel out to Colorado for some curriculum work with BSCS. Having podcasts on my ipod is not a new thing, I am embarrassed to admit that I have been known to listen to science stories as I ski. The new thing for me today was finding the podcasts on the web and then subscribing to itunes through the site, in the past I simply found what itunes offered me. So I guess the growth for today is the linking to itunes. The bigger step will be getting myself to the point where I feel comfortable creating my own podcast. But I'll do it because I know that if I expect my students to learn by doing I best be willing to do the same.

Think, Adapt & Continue Learning

More thoughts on chapter 2, "Students and Learning" , from Solomon & Schrum's Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools. In the conclusion of the chapter the authors discuss the challenge for today's educators. Constructivism, project-based learning and connectivism are discussed as a past trend in education. If they are a past, then I fear I am still living in the past. Most of what I believe about education is wrapped pretty tightly into those three terms. Students need to connected to their learning, they need to engage in the learning, to construct the knowledge for themselves. Teachers can not deliver the learning, we can't do it for the students, we must create an environment where students can involve and immerse themselves in the learning. Creating those environments whether online, during field experiences or in the classroom are the job of today's educator.
The authors discuss the very real concern over "teaching to the test", the idea that what we measure in standardized tests might not be what is most important. I have come to see these tests as both good and bad. Good in that we (educators) are being held accountable for raising student achievement. And certainly bad when they measure surface content and not true depth of knowledge. But they are here for now and as a public educator i have a responsibility to help my students to as well as possible of there tests. Over the course of the last ten years I think the tests themselves have gotten better. The authors worry that educators will (and have) move away from good teaching and move toward teaching to the test. Though we are concerned about the impact of test results in our district, we have not been asked to teach to the test.
I think we will see improved test scores by helping our students to be better thinkers and the way to make them better thinkers is to strive for deeper understanding in every thing we teach. Kids need to learn how to learn because all the research out there supports the idea that today's students need to be life long learners.

"Did You Know?"

I am currently a Curriculum Facilitator, one of the curricular areas I work with is our science department. One of my responsibilities is to facilitate department meeting. I opened our meeting yesterday by showing "Did You Know?" . I followed the video with a few minutes of reflective writing and then some group sharing. I was somewhat nervous about showing this because I did not want the staff to hear an unintended (by me) message that here is just one more thing we are not doing well (we tend to be very hard on ourselves in the science department). The discussion started in a somewhat dangerous direction with one of our senior members worrying about all the change we have pushed for and that has been blocked in the past, all true...but not the direction I was hoping for. I think I was able to focus our discussion in a more positive light (though much concern remains) trying to point out what we can do both now and potentially in the future. I felt good about being able to share some of what I have learned in this course (Teaching and Learning in a Networked Classroom). My goal was to begin to get the staff to see the web as a place where collaboration, sharing and thinking can take place, I think I at least opened the door. Well worth the 30 minutes of a department meeting.

To be Linked!

In the past month since starting this class I have read an incredible amount of material on the fast pace of the changing world of teaching and learning. Of all I read there is one line that keeps coming back to me ... "Why would you want to write something that others would not want to link to?" I'm sure I have not quoted the line quite right, but the meaning is there. The whole idea of writing for others to read is so different from anything I have ever thought of doing. Not sure what to do with this thinking. Just wanted to share it because it has really had an impact on my thinking.

To wiki or not to wiki!!!

Not much of a title but it does capture my current wonderings. I am very much intrigued by all I am reading about web 2.0 and definitely see the educational value. I also know that the value in the information I am learning in this class is all about how I will incorporate the material into what I do with kids. For me that is when it becomes valuable. As a teacher I realize kids learn by doing and real learning is measured when kids can make meaning and transfer learning to new situations. That being said I know I need to jump in and try some of this new technology. But I want to be sure I know enough so that it is a successful jump. I'm OK struggling, even gasping for air from time to time, but I don't want to sink! So where to start that is my question. I worry some about district concerns over student security. I had some digital images of students petri dishes on my web site with student first names as label and some in the district worried that I had exposed the kids too much. So what to do is my big question. My goal is to something concrete with my students before the year is out. I have a couple of thoughts and certainly welcome any suggestions:
1. Have students do some blogging around a book club type theme. I plan to have the students select from a number of titles about DNA/Genetics.
2. Have the class develop some kind of a wiki discussing global climate change.
3. I have seniors who will be completing an individual research project as their final exam in a senior environmental biology elective course I teach. There has always been a finding and contacting a expert element to this project. In my perfect world the students would find a local expert whom they could visit, maybe even shadow for a day, generally what I get is a description of a relatively meaningless phone discussion or very limited email. This might be a good place to integrate some of the connections from this class.
4. Some of my seniors are currently training rats as part of a unit in animal behavior. Part of the final assessment for this project is a video of their rat completing its maze or obstacle course. Sharing these tapes has always been difficult. Last year I had a few of my students post to youtube creating a webpage or wiki loaded with all the videos might be cool.
I welcome any suggestions!

thoughts re "Students & Learning"

The following ponderings are based on the reading in chapter 2 of Web 2.0 new tools, new schools. On page 26 the author references work from marc Prensky in which he calls today's students "digital natives". I wonder what percentage of our students at Concord High School truly qualify as "digital natives"? and perhaps even more important what are the implications for those who do not? What are our responsibilities to bring more of our students into this realm. As any who have read my earlier entries have noticed I angst over the equity issues involved for students whom do not have either the availability or knowledge necessary to access this exciting world. Prensky goes on to talk of the idea that our students are thinking and processing information in fundamentally different ways. I get this, but still wonder where the research is to back up this claim as well what are the implications for teaching and learning implied by this statement.
The author goes one to share statistics about contact time for students on the web. The numbers are impressive, but I worry about the depth of that contact time. I watch too many kids spending time on the computer, doing a large amount of time clicking and perhaps scanning information; but continue to worry about the depth of thinking taking place connected to this process. Kids are definitely connected through facebook and myspace, but most of that time (at least to my 50 year old eyes) seems very superficial. I certainly see the benefit from the growing interactive quality of the web. The authors share work from Levin & Arafeh, 2002 criticizing the growing divide in how students use the web at school vs. how they use the web on their own time. Stating " Many schools and teachers have not yet recognized-much less responded to- the new ways students communicate and access information over the Internet." My experience has shown me that this statement is very accurate. Unfortunately schools (public) maybe becoming even more separate, I see two reasons for this distancing. One, simply lack of technology, having enough machines for all students to have even weekly access (and lack of conductivity on the machines we do have). The second issue maybe even bigger (though less expensive) that is concern over the social nature of web 2.0. Teachers and school districts tend to be very nurturing and protective of students and worry about opening access to and for students.

New school web Site

I have been busy working on my new website . Our district is rolling out our new web site through School Fusion". One of my responsibilities at school is serving as a "tech rep" which means among other things I get to try out new technology early and then help with training of other staff. School fusion appears to have lots of useful features, unfortunately we have not rolled out all of the features at this point. Next year we hope to have students linked to our sites. I am very excited about what this site may mean for our ability to communicate with our students next year.

Continued concerns

I continue to be concerned about the growing gap between my students who are ready, willing and able to move into the 21st century "web 2.0" learning environment and those deficient in one or more of the "ready, willing & able" . I teach in a large public high school, we have a somewhat diverse (at least in socioeconomic terms) community. Recently I have been spending time learning about the web 2.0 tools and getting excited about bringing them into my classroom. Then reality hits me, I can't get time in one of the schools only two computer labs (for a school of 1800), and if I do get in the internet might be crawling (connection issues are being addressed). I see wonderful places to integrate this work in all I do. But what happens to the kid who either does not have a computer at home, or only has dial up, or may be losing their internet connection due to tough economic times. I have seen the gap between the haves and the have nots grow in my life time and worry that the have nots with out computer skills are going to continue to fall behind.
I also worry that too many of our kids think they have better computer skills then they actually have. They assume because they can get on and communicate with their friends on facebook that they have solid computer skills. Too many of my students struggled with the relatively simple task of finding a digital image on a shared computer drive(on school server) and inserting image into a written lab report. I spent the last couple hours reading all the exciting things people are doing around the globe and then I think of the struggling students in my classroom.

Web 2.0 meets real time CHS style!

In the past two weeks since beginning my latest course, "Teaching and Learning in the Networked Classroom", I have had my eyes open to some wonderful possibilities in the world of "e-learning"! I am a seasoned teacher who has done a pretty good job keeping up with the times. I have tried to keep technology integrated into my courses. I thought I was doing alright, my students can access material from me from my website, my students as well as their parents can access their grades on line. I have encouraged students to create eportfoilos rather than paper portfolios. But now I see how far I have yet to go. I have been inspired by my time reading the blogs we accessed as part of this course. I see the value in this new world, my gears are spinning I see both the importance and the need for this work. .... and then it happened....the real world!
I brought my freshmen biology students to one of our computer lab. I wanted them to complete a brief survey I had linked to my web page. One of my freshman students, who has been in the class since September(we visit the lab at least every other week, did not know how to log on to the computer! He has been in our district schools for years, we use the same system in all our buildings. My daughter could log on to the district computers at the age of six. This young man, comes from a family who does not have a computer with Internet access at home, he more than any other of our students needs to access the Internet in school, yet he sits unable (or even willing to try) to connect. I tell this story not to brag about the computer skills of my daughter, nor to disparage the young man; but rather to point out the growing disparity between the haves and the have nots. In my 25 years of teaching I have seen this gap grow, and the world that this young man lives in breaks my heart. I believe we are only as strong as our weakest members, this experience has brought me down to Earth and reminded me to focus on the kids in front of me and not get too lost in what might be. My first step is to create a new learning plan for this young man that includes daily practice logging on to the school computers and a future weekend meeting with him at the municipal library and helping him access the Internet there.

Did you know 2.0?

I found the video "Did You Know 2.0?" very interesting, scary but interesting. I anticipate using it in some of my upcoming work with my colleagues at Concord High School. I continue to be worried that public education is behind the times and falling further behind. Public education is still tied to a factory model that may of made sense 30 years ago, but does not make sense today. I find myself constantly struggling to find new and improved ways to reach my students and provide an meaningful education for them. The idea of teacher as holder and then transferer of information simply does not work any more. Students need to learn how to access and make sense of the enormous and growing amount of information bombarding us all the time. If teachers are going to be successful in that quest we need new tools and new thinking.

School 2.0 March 8

I found the school 2.0 website very informative. The presentation method/interactive design is a great way to present a bunch of information in a very useful manor. I was pleased to see that Concord school district already uses much of the technology presented at the site. I was recently working on the district technology plan and I wonder if our new technology coordinator is familar with this site. In the past i have often heard discussion about a "tech ready classroom" I like the district or community focus of this site. It does a great job showing the importance of keeping the focus wide when looking at how technology will shape education in the future.

March 7, 2009 Week One Teaching and Learning in a Networked Classroom

Recent Related Reading
I'm wondering if any of my classmates have read any of March's "Educational Leadership" ? The focus of this issue is Literacy 2.0. I have found many of the articles to be very interesting. Below are a few thought on the articles I have read so far:
1. Orchestrating the Media Collage ...This article discusses what is meant to be literate and how that definition is evolving.That many more people are able to be creators of media. in terms of teaching this is certainly a valuable asset of this new technology and one we as educators must harness.The article points our guidelines for today's teachers: 1. Shift to an idea of media as collage 2. the importance of writing and reading 3. more focus on the importance of art 4. remembering to value past as we look to the future 5. blending of the report--story continuum 6. practice private and participatory social literacy 7. develop literacy with digital tools and about digital tools and finally 8. pursue fluency, practicing literacy at advanced levels.
2. Mastering Multitasking....The article discusses the perceived multitasking abilities of today's youth. It certainly is a skill today's kids practice, but to what end? The writers make a few conclusions. First although multitasking does not make learning impossible, it does increase the amount of time necessary to complete a task. Secondly, the multitasker is more likely to rely on different memory systems. And finally, because of a loss of attention there is likely to be an adverse effect on the multitasker ability to learn complex tasks.
3. Let's Talk 2.0 ... In this article I was very happy to see a definition of web 2.0, for although i had heard it used I will admit I did not really know what it meant. According to this article, web 2.0 refers to a business model where Internet companies provide a service rather than supplying a product.A shift in a world view to the practice of participation, collaboration & distribution. That said 2.0 literacy are the tools need to be literate in this new world. These new tools will continue to challenge what it means to read, write, view, listen and record as well as to collaborate, participate and distribute. The article goes on to discuss some of the challenges these new abilities will pose for today's teacher.
4. Becoming Network-wise...In this article the authors call for the need for today's student's to become self-directed, self-motivated, life long learners who are network-literate. Of all the concerns I have after my 25 years in teaching is the growing lack of active self directed learners. somehow we have raised a generation of passive recipients of knowledge, wandering from classroom to classroom waiting for the next "show". Based on that connection I read the rest of this article looking for parts of the solution. The article discusses a shift in time/space connection, learning is no longer fixed to a classroom between the hours of 8 - 3 (a fact that some teachers might be wary of, but that I find exciting). I believe today's youth need to be guided to learn how to be active self directed learners...they will always need "teachers" but perhaps more of the model of teacher as coach or mentor and less of the idea of teachers as holders of the knowledge. I find this very exciting!
5. The Importance of Deep Reading ... First the authors define what they mean by deep reading "an array of sophisticated processes that propel comprehension and that include inferential and deductive reasoning, analogical skills, critical analysis, reflection and insight." I found interesting the fact that ancient scholars worried about having the public learning to read would reduce peoples memory and probative processes. The article goes on to discuss that our brains were not wired to read, but rather to see, move speak and think. The plasticity of our brain allowed us to learn to read and also allows use to learn and process in new ways. What and how we read helps define what type of thinker we will be. The accessing and processing of vast amount of information only a few clicks away will demand new connections in our brains.It is essential that students learn to become critical thinkers, enabling them to sift through and make sense of swirling mass of content one click away