impressions during first class...

These are a few of our favorite things (links, actually)

Iluminations

A math activity website by the NCTM, the major math group for teachers

Storybird

A website for elementary school children to create online picture books

Moodle

A website that hosts resources to share with the community, such as a class website.

Hela, Greg, and Jen

Edutainment (Hole in the Wall) WiseQatar.org

Check this out!!! WiseQatar has great videos of great education practices.

http://video.wise-qatar.org/learning-world--episode-3----new-technologies-video-129.html

Geeking out... Providng children with a learning autonomy.

I recall as a adolescent having limited access to the Internet; however, I do remember my mother purchasing an Encarta encyclopedia CD for the computer. I found myself "Geeking Out" -- The Living and Learning with Media article defines it as: "an intense commitment to or engagement with media or technology, often one particular media property, genre or type of technology." This opportunity to engage with such technology opened a world of knowledge. I remember playing trivia games, information quests games, watching historic videos all of this easily accessed with a click. I think that providing children with these outlets can help them experiment and follow their interests in a self-directed manner. This provides them with a certain autonomy over the information they want to explore. I remember sitting in front of my computer watching videos of the fall of the Berlin Wall, or about the Atomic bomb or when the movie Titanic came out I remember researching extensively about the Titanic. I think that to some extent having access to an online encyclopedia was a really great learning tool for me. I can see how these tools can be used in the classroom in a controlled way, but allowing students to engage in topics of their interest.
I say we provide children with times to "GEEK OUT".

I had mixed emotions after reading Bob Regan's article "Why We Need to Teach 21st Century Skills- And How to Do It" I agree with Regan that students "can use technology to solve problems, collaborate and create...and that technology provides the ability for students with diverse learning styles to engage with ideas in ways not previously possible." However as a teacher I find it hard to let go of the "traditional" way of learning/teaching due to my own experience with computers. When I was younger I had the most wonderful penmanship. I loved to look in the dictionary to find new words and their spelling. I took pleasure writing thank you cards. I remember how I was taught to plan my papers using an outline. Now I forgot it all. My organization, handwriting, and outlining have been neglected as my exposure and confidence to using video, images and online applications have increased. As I embrace these new interactive technology tools I can't help but check my face book several times a day, surf the web for great deals or play scrabble for hours. I have become a full blown procrastinator. I understand the obsession children have with texting, facebook etc.... I feel we all need reminders to get back to the basics and use our own thinking first. I am grateful to share my feelings here. Being able to reflect is so important. Hopefully more people will begin to be honest with themselves and maybe this could eventually bring us closer to who we are and what we are really here for.

Technology Skills in the 21st Century

As our class comes to an end I decided to read and blog about why it is so important to teach 21^st century technology skills. As teachers we know how that technology can be implemented in many ways within our classrooms yet a major question occurs “why is it so important to use technology and why is it so important that out students learn to use these skills?” In his article about the importance of technological skills in the 21^st century, Bob Regan discusses how technology can provide multiple types learners of learners with options that weren’t always possible. Technology is limitless in his eyes and can provide students with the appropriate accommodations they need to successfully learn. Thinking in terms of middle school students, many of these kids are going home night after night and using these technologies in their everyday lives (i.e. numerous social networking mediums- facebook, twitter, AIM, etc.) and therefore feel comfortable and motivated by their interests. Regan noted that Sara Martin a technology coordinator at Hart-Ransom Union School District in Modesto, California said “students are more comfortable experimenting with technology and visual images because these things are often a regular part of their lives outside of school". In my past teaching experience I have seen so many students shut down when something was tricky or boring for them. I feel that it is important to listen to my students and take their interests, style, and culture and use it to their advantage. Thus, instead of banning these sites or saying school isn’t a place for them it is important to help them learn the ways of the social networking world as they learn about necessary standards (i.e. science, social studies, English, etc.). Using these forms of technology as a bridge to join communication, personal expression, and content students will be learning a plethora of information in an interdisciplinary matter that joins many skills they will use throughout their lives.

Are we preparing our students for the future?

Despite all the talk of 21st Century Standards and creating technologically savvy students, the assessments our students face each year do not actually mirror the presumed goals we have for these same students. I am all for bringing technology into the classroom, which helps me tremendously in structuring lessons that are differentiated so that all of my students can be successful in my ELA class regardless of their various learning styles, skill sets, and "ability levels." However, at the end of the day, I feel as though I am doing my students a disservice if I do not also ask them to participate in traditional learning activities--working independently, reading text and responding in traditional written form. This is because (as we are more aware of than ever given the time of year) it is my job not only to make sure my students are engaged, successful, and increasingly self-directed learners, but also, and often more importantly, able to perform well on the traditional state test at the end of each academic year.

The structure of this assessment goes completely against all the touted 21st Century Learning Standards mentioned in this week's reading. Students are not allowed to collaborate. They are not allowed to think imaginatively or creatively. They are not allowed to choose a form of response or expression that best highlights their particular strengths. In the past few weeks, my curriculum has changed completely from the typically diverse and engaging lessons I use for the greater part of the school year--lessons that foster group collaboration, inquiry and discovery, and allow students to discover and use their many individual strengths in order to be most successful with the material. Now we are entirely focused on preparing for the state test, which means lessons are increasingly independent. There is always a definite right answer and right way of doing things, and there is no room or time for individualized expression. And honestly, in the past few weeks, my students' practice test scores have gone up.

I do not understand how we as teachers can hope to provide an equitable curriculum for all of our students at all times if the assessment we are preparing them for is so drastically unfair and unrealistic at the end of the day. If our students will be expected to collaborate on projects in the 21st Century, why wouldn't they be expected to collaborate on their assessments? If our students will be able to and expected to use videos, websites, social networking, text messaging, and various other technologies to be successful in the 21st Century, why wouldn't they be expected to use such technologies on their assessments? This is why I feel there is currently a drastic rift between what we expect of our students, between the skill set we acknowledge our students will need to possess to be successful in their professional and personal lives, and those skills we assess each year on high-stakes tests. But until they change the ways in which students are assessed, we as teachers will be forced (at least for some part of the year) to teach to these tests as for reasons I will never understand, someone has determined that our success as educators should measured not in student engagement, not in our students ability to collaborate successfully while still thinking independently and creatively, not in our students use and application of 21st Century Standards, but in our students' abilities to fill in bubbles.

NDM and Possible Problems

As others have noted, I also was surprised by the point made in Weigel, James and Gardner's article that screen-based simulation limits input to two of the five senses. While obvious to me now, I hadn't thought of that before. In general, I found this article particularly useful for the social networking project we're starting at my work. The concerns and possible problems related to using new digital media for educational purposes are ones that we likely will face and need to be prepared for. The idea that the Internet may promote a mob mentality where the majority opinion is viewed as correct in particular is one that we need to guard against. While it's inevitable that problems will arise when administering the site, hopefully the teachers will be able to turn them into teachable moments.

Returning to the theme of global awareness, I had a great talk recently with a teacher at a school in Pakistan. She directed me to a video made by their 5th graders in which they visit their local beach and are shocked--shocked!--to find it dirty. They clean it up, and also interview a few "litterers." While the kids speak in English to the camera, the interviews are untranslated and in what I assume is Urdu. Although I know that most US schools block YouTube, this video is a great example of possible cross-cultural communication/understanding facilitated by the Internet. I think most American kids (and kids from across the globe) will relate to the sentiments expressed by the Pakistani children, and as a result, they hopefully will have a better understanding of our "shared humanity."