Edubloggers and Flipping English

After attending that really sweet Flipping Physics presentation a few weeks ago, I was left struggling to see how I might be able to "flip" my English or History classrooms in the future.  There were questions of what topics to flip, how to flip (video, podcast, readings?), how much time and effort this whole thing would take, and just how would I get my students to do what I asked them, particularly at the middle school level?

In response, I Googled "flipping English" and basically searched until I found myself two teachers who have been flipping their English classes for quite some time.  The first flipping English edublogger I found was Thomasson and Morris Flip the English Classroom.  They're actually two teachers living across the country from one another, collaborating on their flipped English classrooms!  This partnership is probably worthy of an entire blog post in and of itself, but I'll stick to flipping English.  They've created a series of videos on a bunch of different topics which you can find on their Youtube channel.  What I really liked about their website was how they listed several ideas for what could be flipped in an English classroom based on what they've done or what they've discovered from others.  Like I had initially imagined, topics such as grammar and writing are probably easier to flip, even if it's just by audio recordings for students to listen to before class.  What still stumps me (and these two teachers) is how to successfully flip reading.  I guess you could technically say that asking students to read outside of class is some sort of variation on flipping English, but is there more teachers could be considering?  I told them of my concerns for what to do with my future English classes and they replied that they mainly share videos of themselves reading text and walking through the writing process with their students in various segments.  Their videos aren't high quality, but I think that makes them endearing and applicable to students (in one video they ask students to describe a famous cat meme for practice with a literary device).  Once again, keeping learning relevant and interesting to students is key, particularly if you're asking them to work outside of class to learn the material first.  For more specifics on their ideas click here.

I found another really great flipping English teacher named Catlin Tucker, who also happens to be really into technology in the classroom as well (double win!).  I still had some questions about using videos and equity in terms of access to computers amongst students should I decide to flip my classroom.  One of her posts talked about the utility of TedEd in creating a flipped classroom.  The possibilities with that program sound great, and I know one group who's doing their webinar on TedEd, so I think I'll leave it up to them to tell us all about it.  I like the option of selecting videos that are already made on the web because they require less time on my part preparing and editing,  particularly if they are really great for my students learning.  But, if we assign videos to watch every night, what about the students who don't have access to internet or a computer for whatever reason?  I asked her about that in my comment on her TedEd post and she divulged a great idea.  While she has never really struggled with equity issues because of her school's scheduling (students can use the libraries computers on off days from class), but she also compiles a Google map embedded in her website that identifies all the locations on campus and in the community where students can find computers and internet for free!  I really like this idea and am thinking about even printing off copies for students in my classroom next year depending on where I end up teaching!  Catlin's website has so much to offer teachers, especially in terms of technology and helpful hints to make the inclusion of technology in our classrooms that much simpler; I plan on bookmarking her site for future reference!

I'm quite thankful for the internet for assisting me in finding these lovely edubloggers who are also interested in (and actually implementing) flipping their English classrooms particularly since I was feeling a little lost after seeing how cool the concept was in a Physics classroom.  These teachers showed me a number of possibilities that I had not thought of before, and I'm eager to continue checking in with them to see how it's going.  This is a great example of the collaboration that should exist between teachers; we can and should be seeking each other out in order to learn about new ideas and practices to facilitate our students learning.

Record Players in the Classroom?

We've talked in the past about what types of technology we would want in our respective classrooms to contain; everything from overheads to Elmo projector things and an iPad at each desk.  These are all educationally useful in a variety of ways but I'm starting to wonder about the use of "old" technology in the classroom.  See Exhibit A:

Exhibit A

My mentor teacher broke this bad boy out of hiding this week to play an old-school record for our students.  The record player is stashed away in his office otherwise and according to the permanent marker on the outside case, it belongs to my school's media center. We're doing a few scary, sci-fi stories this week in honor of Halloween, so yesterday we spent the day reading a play about Orson Welle's War of the Worlds broadcast on the radio in 1938.  This year marks the 75th anniversary of the enactment, and there was a special on PBS this past Tuesday about it.  We spent most of the hour reading aloud the play, each taking a separate part and then at the end of the class my teacher explained more about the importance of radio during this time period, and how people received all of their national news and information from the radio.  Thus, it was quite easy to understand how hearing theses fake news reports on the radio lead people to believe there was an actual alien invasion.  Needless to say, many of the students were fascinated that people used to sit in front of radios with no screen, listening to the news and shows of the day, similar to this happy family:

My mentor teacher is in possession of an original record recording of the 1938 radio broadcast that terrified many along the Eastern seaboard of the United States that night before was under attack. This  showcases the power of description and human reenactment of written scenes.  We ended each class period by taking a listen to the original broadcast of War of the Worlds and quite frankly I think I would have been convinced aliens were here if I had originally only heard this on the radio.  It retained that old record sound that's kinda scratchy and with voices that are occasionally muffled by old microphones.  It just seems more academically and culturally authentic coming from an old-fashioned record player than playing an up-to-date Youtube video.  You can hear the same recording online here.

What was really fascinating to watch was how intrigued the students were by this seemingly archaic piece of technology.  There were a few kids who had no idea what the thing was!  The majority of my students were born in either 2000 or 2001 and to many of them a record player is something a really old relative might still have at their house or something they would see in an antique store.  They all wanted to take turns putting the needle on the record and asked my mentor teacher numerous questions about it throughout the day.

While we may talk about the newest types of technology we want in our classrooms I was really impressed with my mentor teacher and his inclusion of the record player in our class yesterday.  I think that some "older" forms of technology really offer a new learning experience for our students.  The Larry Cuban reading from this summer states that useful instructional technology is anything that instructs students "in a more efficient and stimulating manner than sole use of the teacher's voice" (p. 4).  This particular example allowed them to imagine some aspects of life when radios were the most prevalent form of technology available to the average American and they could really only achieve this envisionment by listening to an old-fashioned record player.

Technology at My Placement

When thinking about Ann Arbor Public Schools, many might think that technology plays a integral roll in a child's education.  It seems like a pretty up-to-date and relatively prosperous city, why wouldn't our students have access to one-to-one technology or inclusion of cell phones in the classroom?  However, this isn't really the case.  There are still processes to follow in terms of checking out computers and cell phones are prohibited from being used.  Needless to say I've been pretty intrigued by the uses of technology at my placement site thus far.

There have been no initiatives as of late to start providing all AAPS students with laptops and iPads like other districts around the nation, but there are some steps being taken in order to allow students and faculty to integrate technology into their academic lives.  Although it's not required, most students have a Gmail account, and as of last week, use Google Docs with relative ease for writing a paper (we're working on analyses of biographies in my English classes).  There are several Mac laptop carts available for teachers to use throughout the school, so my students have been able to remain at their seats and type their papers over the last week.  There's also two brand new Mac-filled computer labs in the school!  These computers are filled with exciting programs that I've never even heard of (which leads me to suspect that many teachers in the building have no idea about them).  I was really interested a program that can make comic strips and a few other graphic design/artistic programs with names like Scratch, Fetch, Sketch Up and Art Rage.  Since I'll be teaching full-time next semester, I hope to become more aware of what the school computers can offer in terms of making student projects just a little cooler!

My school has access to a variety of databases to help students research for educational purposes, but how much of this is used by the middle school population?  I don't really remember doing too many research projects in middle school, but maybe times have changed; I'll have to look more closely at what these databases can do for my students.  One of the more interesting things about the technology at my placement is that the firewall blocking access to sites like Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter is easily removable.  A staff member can unlock the firewall to show a Youtube clip in their class, but if they neglect to reauthorize the firewall, those "forbidden" sites are open to the general public at my school.  For our 504 survey, I went to a computer in the library and proceeded to log onto my Facebook, access our class wiki and even was allowed to proceed onto Twitter (even though I don't have an account).  While students are forbidden from using any personal cell phones or internet-accessible devices during class time, I thought this was really interesting.  I can remember my days in middle and high school where the sites were always blocked and we could proceed no further even if we tried.

However, I think one of the bigger issues with technology at my placement is just the general ease of use.  My mentor teacher has complained before about how none of the LCD projectors are mounted to the ceiling, thus making it a "big" hassle to roll the cart out into the middle of the already cramped classroom area to deliver a slide show presentation (which are not the norm in our class).  If anything, I believe that if the projectors were on the ceiling and all students had easy access to a laptop/iPad (something like one-to-one technology), more teachers in my school would be ecstatic about technology in the classroom.  Instead of planning ahead to check-out the laptop cart or to schedule time in the media center with the computer labs, teachers and students would be able to use technology right in their respective rooms when needed.  It sounds cool, but like we've become aware of these initiatives are costly, and might not be the best instructional strategy for our students.  Once again, there is always more to think about than meets the eye when discussing technology in our placements for the year!  What have you been noticing at your placement?

Student use of Capzles?

After presenting about podcasting in our Teaching with Technology class this past week I thought more about a question Rory had posed to our group.  Did we find any examples of student work with podcasts during our research?  When I thought about it further I realized that throughout the whole process of researching about podcasts, we had never really discussed showing examples of student podcasts in our presentation.  We were primarily focused on how teachers could create and use these tool both in their classrooms and for professional development.  Yet, it's also important to realize that our students could use these very same tools we're talking about for class assignments and larger projects.  So while I hope to find more information about student podcasts examples on the web, I was interested in the next groups presentation about Capzles.  You can typically find their website here if your internet is working: http://www.capzles.com/

Capzles is basically a linear showcase of pictures but you can also include PDFs and Word Documents.  It's similar to Prezi is some sense, but not as potentially nauseating with twists and turns.  It's called "Social Storytelling" because you can add pictures and label it with a date, then the pictures are shown in a timeline fashion.  In essence, you can add music to set the stage to talk about the Renaissance in Europe through a scan of impressive pictures depicting paintings from the time.  There are a host of Capzles pre-made on the website, which is great for perusal and if you don't want to spend time making one on your own.  But it's so simple to make, you might as well take the few minutes to upload a bunch of pictures before class starts!  Some of the few drawbacks I noticed so far was that you can't embed things like Youtube videos as seamlessly as one might hope.  And we're all still confused as to how PDFs and Word Documents can successfully be uploaded and used via Capzles.

One of the things I liked most about Capzles was that there were basically no words showcased throughout the presentation.  I like this better than other presentations like PowerPoint because I think a lot of people get stuck just reading the words verbatim from the slides instead of elaborating on the content.  This is where I think Capzles would be great for students to create in class.  Because you can't really put words on a slide, my students would have to present about a topic by preparing beforehand what they are going to say.  Now I believe they could still use notes/notecards for their information, but like I said, I think it's a lot better for both the presenter and audience members to not listen to a presentation that is just listed out word-for-word on the slides.  While my English content group might have made a silly Capzle related to Harry Potter (what up Potter Puppet Pals?!) I think Catherine brought up a great idea that Capzles could be used to showcase the plot arch of a story we could be reading in class.  Each slide could represent a depiction from that part of the novel.  I wonder if students could upload pictures of their drawings if there were no pictures available online?

Ultimately, I find that these presentations are also interesting to look at from the students perspective.  How can they create something from these tools?  If we're responsible for their technological literacy, shouldn't we be informing them about these awesome tools they can use too?  I'll be looking forward to the remaining presentations to see how my students can implement these in the classroom.

Sounds great, but wait...

I had the opportunity to attend a similar Grassroots Google presentation by Pete Pasque during professional development for the Ann Arbor school district prior to the beginning of the school year.  And, just like last time, I was blown away by the opportunities presented and was confronted with the sheer amount of things I just want to try out in my future classroom.

Basically I was like this 

As an English teacher who's conscious of the environment, I would love nothing more than to conduct a majority of my student's writing online via a platform like Google Docs.  I have already used Google Docs in a variety of settings throughout college, and can see the benefit of being able to comment directly on a student's paper and for student's to be able to use these tools in collaborative projects with their classmates.  Not only can students work on something during the school day, but they can also access the same work on their computers at home or elsewhere.  I like it all even more when I consider that each of my students could create their own Google Site in which to display the very best of their work throughout high school.  I don't think art and design students should be the only ones who are encouraged to maintain an online portfolio of work.  It would be a great platform for teachers to consider when attempting to write letters of recommendation, and can serve as a mini library of growth for each student as they become better writers over the years.  When I think back to my collection of papers from high school, my best papers were filed away in a folder in the office until I graduated and now I'm not even sure where that folder is.  These sites would be available to expand and grow with the student even after high school.

However, the more I scheme and plan about all the cool stuff I could implement with my students, my mentor teacher brought me back to reality with his twenty-ish years of teaching experience.

He basically looked like this

He was of the opinion that this whole Grassroots Google extravaganza sounded great as well, but until we have something like a one-to-one technology ratio for our students, how will this be completely equal for all students?  Some students don't have access to computers at home, and sometimes the media center doesn't have great hours for extra homework time.  Even Pete mentioned that a generous handful of kids tend to stay after-school to use the computers available for their online work (which is great that the school accommodates this, however, this isn't always the case).  The kids at my placement aren't allowed to whip out their cell phones in class yet, so some things might just have to wait in terms of other technology being used in the classroom.  However, I had a really interesting discussion with the media specialist at my placement the other day and she believes education is on the cusp of accepting all sorts of new technology including cell phones in classrooms and more one-to-one technology.  I agree with her, mostly because I'm hopeful that schools will adjust some of their policies in light of the increasing amounts of technology at the hands of our students.  It is a dawn of a new technological era in education isn't it?  

It's Digital Classroom Discussion Day!

In class on Wednesday we were given time to overlook the new Common Core State Standards and the Smarter Balanced Assessment (which will test the effectiveness of CCSS instruction).  While this was just a short time exploring each of these, I found the assessment to be very intriguing since it will take place entirely on the computer with various reading, writing and listening components.  This means a lot of typing and required familiarity with the functions of computer technology.  Obviously there are pros and cons to this new format of examination, but I think the situation proposed in class merits a little further thought.  Our dilemma presented to our various content areas consisted of the following:

In March of 2015 (your first year teaching), all of the 11th graders in your school will be taking the Common Core Exam online.  Student performance on this test will determine:

- whether or not your district will move closer to being taken over by the state.

- whether you will be deemed ineffective, provisional, or professional (two consecutive ineffective ratings is grounds for termination).

- the public perception of your school, which will impact enrollment, which will impact budget ($7000-ish per student), which will impact your livelihood.

School profile:

1200 students

60% have access to computers at home (90% of those share the computer), 70% have smartphones

3 computer labs with 2001 model Dells

Three LCD projectors to be used on a check-out basis only

No technology budget

No mandatory typing class

40% of teaching staff will be retiring within 5 years and thus are resistant to what they view as the latest “fad” (Common Core and Smarter Balanced)

In a nutshell, what would our action plan be to prepare for this assessment?  I gathered with my fellow future English teachers and we began brainstorming.  One of the ideas I (we) liked the most was the concept of a "digital classroom discussion" day.  In our minds it would take place in one of the school's computer labs, where the teacher would set up a chat room where students would then silently type their responses to teacher or student prompts.  Thus instead of having a typical verbal discussion everything would be typed and printed for the students to read and contribute to.  Sounds kinda cool right?  But there are a few kinks that need to be worked out: where will the chat take place online?  Google Docs?  Would each student be only recognizable to the teacher?  What if several students are hogging the "conversation" with their typing? Would this really help the students understand and comprehend the day's lesson?  When thinking back to the presented dilemma we were thinking this would be helpful to develop the typing skills that would be necessary for the written portions of this new online assessment.  In addition, it plays into the idea of teaching with technology that we've been discussing throughout the semester.

One thing I've really liked about this class so far was the opportunity to collaborate with my English teacher colleagues.  I thought it was great to bounce ideas off of one another or to just giggle in the corner of the room since we can select  and read morbid stories in a class and somehow call it a lesson.  Especially when it comes to implementing technology in the classroom, collaboration is pretty crucial to figuring out what might work and what doesn't in order to facilitate student learning.  I'm excited to see what else this class has in store for us come fall!!

Educators on Education

Teachers maintaining blogs about their teaching experiences is fascinating to me.  I mean, depending on their level of committment to the thing, it could take up a lot of personal time and energy.  In addition to doing everything else both inside and outside the classroom, they somehow find time to post pictures, ideas, helpful hints, lesson plans, research the newest teaching technologies and personal reflections.  We've talked a lot about teacher collaboration this term, and I think blogs are an interesting way for teachers to connect with one another especially when thinking about it in the context of this Teaching with Technology class.

I think I've stumbled upon a particularly active Edublogger for this week's blog assignment.  Jennifer Barnett is the teacher and writer behind Reflect to Redirect and has been blogging since 2007.  She's been a teacher in some form or capacity since 1991 but has now transitioned to being the Technical Integration Specialist at a high school down in Alabama.  Before even delving into her website, I knew she would have a lot of resources and knowledge and if her position was replicated in our schools we'll be working in, she would be someone we'd want to know ASAP.

There was so much to look through on her website that I only chose a few things to discuss.  One was her My Web Wardrobe: a wiki page describing how she views her web 2.0 tools, as a wardrobe with all the bells and whistles such as the closet, the basics, the accessories, and the formal.  Underneath these labels are a long, detailed list of web tools we as teachers can use in our classrooms with a basic subject heading of what they all do.  There's links to websites for polling, group chatting, reflections, adding voice and animation, timelines and infographics and places to create tests and quizzes.  Honestly it's a lot to look at:

Just a small amount of the links from My Web Wardrobe

I'm really thankful that people like Jennifer exist to create resources like this for other teachers to use.  She's even included more specific lists for content areas near the bottom of the same page.  This must have taken so much time and energy to research and discover these awesome resources! Is this the Holy Grail of teacher resources?  I'm not sure I would go that far to attest to that statement, but it's really nice to know this exists when I start thinking about my  own lessons and how I want to implement technology.  

Secondly she has a page dedicated to 1:1 Technology Resources.  We've discussed the idea of equality in terms of access to technology and she provides various links that detail more information on a variety of related topics: ways students can collaborate with iPads, resources for Smartboards, and other interesting websites she's discovered on the web. I think this is a developing page on her website, so I'd be interested in following her to see if she adds more to it in the future.  

Edubloggers can construct a whole online identity through these blogs, with publications, and trademarks.  Teaching is a business and we're all in the business of helping kids learn new things each day and to be excited about their futures so why not create a blog that helps ourselves and others with business?  I'm definitely interested in learning more about different Edubloggers this week and maybe one day collaborating and working alongside them!

How could we forget Sporcle?!

Just little over an hour before class yesterday I remembered that Sporcle existed.  It seemed like I suddenly remembered that this website too could count towards the game-centered class discussion for this week.  I know a lot of us in this program might not want to admit how many quick quizzes they've logged on this addicting website but it's interesting to view this as a teaching tool for students.  Students could use any of the myriad of quizzes online to test their knowledge on a variety of topics:

- U.S. Presidents

- Harry Potter Characters by number of references

- Shakespeare Plays

- Countries of the World (one day I will get all of them!)

- The Periodic Table

- Most common English words

- the list goes on forever, with new quizzes added every day

Would some people consider some of the knowledge required for these quizzes unnecessary?  Do our students need to spend time taking quizzes on "Bugs in Song Lyrics" or "Name the Countries with the highest Sheep to Person ratio?"  I'd argue that quizzes of seemingly random-as-you-can-get topics help our students to think outside the box in surprising ways.  I tried doing the sheep to person ratio quiz and started thinking about geography of countries and economies where sheep herding might still be a profitable lifestyle just to see if I could get at least one answer.  Some of these quizzes rely on multidisciplinary subjects do they not?  A question that was posed to the class Thursday was this idea of "what goes on intellectually" with games and our students?  These games test student knowledge on a variety of things with the extra incentive to finish before the time is up.  They're low-stakes and obviously don't count for a grade.  I think these games should be encouraged to test the factual knowledge we have stored in our brains..if not to let off a little steam on a quick fifteen minute break.

Gettin' the BrainPopping!

My sister and I once owned an N-64 and played Super Smash Bros. on it only a handful of times.  My cousin on the other hand had a plethora of video games for us to play with whenever we visited, and I think only now at the age of almost 23 can I say that I’m mediocre at best when it comes to Mario Kart.  My boyfriend and I once played Super Smash Bros. and I don’t think you need to think very hard about who won that round.  Needless to say, video games aren’t exactly my forte.  To me they represent this realm of toys and gadgets that I have just never really gotten into.  Sure I grew up playing computer games like Pajama Sam, and the school appropriate Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Zoombinis, and Oregon Trail but since about 5^th or 6^th grade my knowledge of these games has dwindled to slim to none.

Looking back on my middle and high school years, I don’t think my teachers really implemented Internet-based games into their curriculum, I vaguely remember when I was in 5^th or 6^th grade we had Computer Class where we had the opportunity to delve into a few when we weren't learning how to type—but obviously games have come a long way since then.  Due to my lack of knowledge about video games in general, I decided to focus my assignment for class this week on BrainPop.

This website offers a multitude of resources for all of the major subject areas we’ll be teaching.  The first thing I noticed was that a lot of the resources offered by BrainPop can only be accessed by creating a username.  However this would allow teachers like us to communicate with others, share lesson plans, read BrainPop education bulletins and design online assignments for students.  They have a really great introductory video to BrainPop educators that explains all of this!  And in the era of standards, there’s even a section dedicated to searching via standard even narrowing the search down by state and/or subject!  So I think creating a username is worth it for the access it provides.

I really liked the variety of topics that were covered under the subjects of English and History.  I think there is information on here for just about everyone.  Within the English section alone there was a section on Study and Reading Skills where students can access a dictionary/thesaurus, information on mood and tone as well as paraphrasing.  Each one of these topics includes a video that the student must watch first before moving on.  Although the movies are animated and include a robot, I’d like to think that my middle and most of my high school students can still learn something from the information provided! 

Just for fun I perused the free English section titled “Main Idea” and watched the required video. 

Afterwards students are prompted to take the quiz, go to questions/answers, look at more information or to do the worksheet activity.  I really liked how the quiz could either be graded, serve as a review or could be printed.  The worksheet is a nice addition (albeit seemingly easy) to help the students understand the topic.  Overall, I think it would be a nice addition to a lesson plan, but I wouldn't base all of my teaching off of this website and what it has to offer.

Ultimately I think educational games are fun and should be implemented in the classroom to a certain extent, especially since some aspects of school should be fun!  Kids need a break from the droning voice of a lecture or repetitive slides on numerous Powerpoints.  I think games serve the function of breaking up the monotony that schools sometimes fall into especially with tight curriculum and standards guidelines.  BrainPop seems to be a fun, interactive website with bright colors that will appeal to a wide array of students.  Check it out!

Teaching about Wikipedia

How many times have we been told to never cite Wikipedia in a research paper while we were in school?  This started in high school, if not middle school for me.  But I’m a pro-Wikipedia user.  I understand where teachers are coming from when they say not to directly cite Wikipedia due to the fact that its platform is based off of the contributions of others, but I once had a teacher who I think thought along the same lines as I do regarding this website.  He said, “I don’t want to see Wikipedia as a main citation on your papers, but you can use it as a starting point to get your research ideas flowing.”  Now, I agree that there are a few caveats to this statement.  What if the students just cite the references on Wikipedia without doing further research?  What if they take everything on there to be true and only look at the topic from that point of view?  Wikipedia and its usage in academia needs to be addressed from an early age since I think it really plays into this idea about skepticism we discussed in class yesterday.

 

I find Wikipedia to be a great starting point for any random thing I don’t know really anything about: literary theory, random battles in major wars, atomic particles and the like (I’m open to exploring other pages if you have suggestions!).  However, I was eventually taught that I should actually click on those references at the bottom and see the sites they take me to.  Sometimes they prove to be another springboard for even further research and then other times I’m disappointed at the lack of actual information presented.  Students should be intrigued by the information they read on Wikipedia as a means to delve further into more “academically-approved” research outlets.  

Obviously, teachers might want to tread the water carefully or else their students might just use Wikipedia for everything, but I think this would be a great teaching opportunity for teachers to explain that skepticism is important when doing online research.  We as teachers need to open the right doors for our students so they can understand the content on the web and to become more critical users of information from all sources.  Students shouldn’t take everything they read online as fact, and should do more in depth analysis of what webpages and articles they’re actually looking at.  We as teachers in this technological world should set examples of what proper Internet research is and implement it within our teaching practice; a possible teaching assignment could be to analyze and correct a Wikipedia article, so that other users are provided more accurate pages.  We might not remember how we learned about things on the Internet but now we're in a position to impart our learned knowledge to our future students.

Xmarks the Spot

Have you ever had that moment when you’re on a computer other than your own and you have a really great Internet bookmark saved?  Like a really precious laughing baby video that you just have to show someone but can’t remember the title?  Well I think I’ve honestly found the answer for you!  Xmarks.com provides a platform for bookmark synchronization in which you can access your personal bookmarks on any computer!  Sounds pretty great right?  I know I’ve made a list of my bookmarks before to make sure that if they ever got erased I would have a way to access them again, but this sync is literally instantaneous (it's updated every time you add a new bookmark)!  Unbelievably all you have to do is log-into the website on any computer and BAM! all your favorite websites saved at your fingertips.

It seems like a great website for teachers because you have the option to keep work and personal bookmarks separate.  So ideally, you could open up an educational resource on your computer (that you might have synced with Xmarks on your home computer) in your classroom you’re your Xmarks and your kids wouldn’t see your list of fashion blogs, or your affinity for cute cat videos.  And you can add tags and descriptions to your bookmarks for ease of searching.  You simply create a separate profile and can authorize it on another computer (I’ve only used Chrome with this website and it creates on extension, so I’m not quite sure what the results are with another browser).  And I think it would be really helpful for students as well!  They can also keep a home/school bookmark separation.  This could be super helpful for sorting project and resource ideas, keeping citations and for looking up other bookmarks that other users have recommended.

I really suggest taking a look at the site and testing it out for a week or so to see if it’s the bookmark organizer you want to use!

Teaching Natives About Technology

We read an interesting article in class yesterday (like actually passed out a paper copy in class and read it right then and there).  I’ve been thinking a lot about my experiences with technology throughout my life and one of the quotes that really caught me off guard was:

“Anyone younger than 25 years old has lived in the world of digital electronic images her entire life.”

Wait. I paused, did some quick mental math, remembered that I’m soon to be 23 and connected to this vague notion I seemed to have overlooked upon first reading the sentence: that person is me.  Digital images have been an integral part of my experience growing up on everything from billboards, cartoons, commercials, video games, television shows, computer games, digital cameras, iPods…the list continues to grow.  Newer forms of this have manifested themselves in the form of Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest over the past few years and I even managed to upkeep a blog while I taught English abroad.  Yet despite all of this I still wouldn’t consider myself to be a “digital native.”  I still have problems using the correct remote to turn on my television, I don’t have a Twitter, and I’m still hopeless with any sort of video game. 

When I was teaching abroad in the country of Georgia anything that was technology related fascinated the people I interacted with.  They always wanted to touch my computer and loved to use my digital camera to take pictures of themselves; I was frequently seen as a cure-all technology savior when it came to computer issues because I came from the United States--land of the iPhone.  Mostly due to the fact that access to these fancy toys meant your family had some more money to spend, all the kids I met were grossly unaware of how to use technology like an ideal "digital native" should.  My host brother didn't treat the family computer like an expensive purchase that should be taken care of but frequently bought black market Russian video games to play on a computer with no virus protection.  The majority of the people I met didn't have daily access to Internet, let alone Facebook and when my host family attempted to search for something online it was ultimately fruitless since they are still very much "digital immigrants" in terms of their small technological knowledge they have.  It's an interesting comparison to think about as I watch my students at Scarlett Middle School successfully navigate the games of an iPad while listening to music on their iPod while talking to their friends about their Twitter updates.

Back in this country, I think it’s safe to say that my future students will definitely be “digital natives” and any child who is born after them will definitely be a living in a world of electronic media their whole lives.  They might not know how to craft the best Facebook statuses or they might be naïve to the fact that what they post online is completely public unless privacy settings are adjusted but they’re definitely surrounded by and interact with digital images every day and will probably continue to get better at these things everyday.  

I think that as a teacher in the 21^st century, part of the education I hope to instill in my students is the smart way to interact with digital tools.  I want to model for them how to have a social media profile that doesn’t contain reputation-damaging posts, I want to show them how to correctly scour the Internet for educational websites that will improve their studies and make their papers richer, and I want to help them look into forms of digital media such as photography and movie-making that can give them a new artistic outlet.  I want my students to be more informed citizens not only in terms of English and History but also in terms of their lives in relation to digital media in all of its forms.  

More thoughts to come...

John Dewey and Teaching for the Playground

John Dewey could be one of the most influential people you (and I really) have never heard of.  Take a quick look over his Wikipedia page and you’ll get a small sense of just who this guy was.  In a nutshell, he’s a pretty prolific educational reformer (among other interests) of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  He wrote exhaustively about education and his beliefs, many of which disagreed with famous philosophers such as Rousseau and Plato.  Needless to say this is a pretty influential guy that people still hold in high regard and are still trying to determine if and how we could implement some of his thoughts into today’s American classrooms.

For class this week we read through his Pedagogic Creed which just one example of his overarching teaching philosophy and it is where he makes the claim that school is a “social institution” where experience should play a key role in learning.  Ultimately the core of Dewey’s beliefs construct this idea of “communities of learning” that should be present in every classroom and school.  I like a lot of what Dewey believed in, and he was definitely ahead of the curve in terms of ideas for educational reform at the time.  He wanted to move away from the stereotypical vision of teachers standing in front of the room and lecturing for hours and wanted a classroom to be more student-centered, but the concepts should be scaffolded by the teacher.  Dewey didn’t like a boring classroom and neither do I, so I think we’re on a similar page overall.

Yet, the idea I was struck by most and one I’ve seen mentioned briefly in the blogs of my fellow teaching interns stems from this quote:

“I believe that the school must represent present life - life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the play-ground.”

I like this quote so much because I think it truly speaks to this idea I’ve been contemplating lately through my other classes and readings: teachers should aim to educate the whole student, both academically and socially, instead of just solely overwhelming them with knowledge of our subject areas.  

School is a social institute in this way, where kids learn about so much more than their required subjects: they learn about rejection, failure, accomplishments, relationships with friends/boyfriends/girlfriends/family and a whole myriad of life and academic transitions that happen in the span of middle to high school.  Whatever we end up teaching we should find some way to be applicable to the home, neighborhood and playground since that is where our students will be at in their lives when we see them.  Our students are growing up in increasingly diverse communities and they need to be prepared for the variety of things that occur in life.  We as teachers-in-training need to find a balance within our instructional practices that accounts for both academic and social/cultural influences our students are living.  We can then hope that these skills and lessons will then be carried on with them throughout life in a positive and beneficial way.

Looking forward to the next post!

Kelsey

Conflicted Initial Thoughts

Since I started kindergarten around 1995 I think I’ve experienced a gradual, yet slightly alarming, evolution of technology inclusion in the classroom upon completion of college.  What started as cassette tapes and big headphones for small group activities moved onto to the use of CDs for class-wide listening activities; clunky televisions once rolled in on carts yet morphed into individual televisions mounted in each classroom.  The evolution of plain chalk boards made way for white boards and colored markers.  The development of projectors stemmed from overheads and transparencies.  And once I arrived at college the inclusion of i-Clickers, iPads, and other top of the line technology used by my professors became the norm.  

One of the questions we’ll be asked to think about in this Teaching with Technology class is, “What are the possible benefits stemming from the use of technology in our classrooms?”  It’s a big question, one that I hope to refine my answer to throughout the year at my placement.  When I initially think about my future English Language Arts classroom I have a lot of high hopes for what I’ll be able to do with my available resources especially since I hope to work in an urban environment.  I’m a bit thrifty myself and hope I won’t totally overlook a good activity grounded in the use of pen, paper and imagination in favor of using a fancy piece of technology instead.  I’ve been avoiding tablets for reading since I enjoy writing in my books with pen or pencil.  I still don’t know the extent of technology I’ll use in my classrooms but I’m definitely intrigued by the possibilities now that I’ll be on the planning and teaching side of things.

But when we pause to think about it, maybe technology is becoming a truly integral part of a classroom learning experience.  I’m currently writing my thoughts for this post on Microsoft Word since my Internet modem at my apartment has decided to quit for the week.   Without readily available Internet from the comfort of my home many of my collegiate assignments and readings are difficult to complete and submit.  But what if this process of submitting homework was entirely online for those students we’ll be teaching in middle and high schools?  I certainly think technology will be a benefit in many ways to providing a more in-depth learning experience.  But will the Internet become the main repository for assignments in the future?   I think (hope) this is still a few years away, since I’m still holding out for educational traditions from the past, but I think I’m ultimately conflicted yet still excited about the role technology should play in the classroom and hope to explore these ideas further in class. 

Thanks for reading this blog, look forward to many more posts and thoughts from me!

My "Ideal" Classroom

We opened class today by taking a few minutes to draw a version of our ideal classroom, specifically with inclusion of technology in mind.  It was really interesting hearing what everyone else had to say about their own!  I don't think I thought out of the box enough, some of my classmates had iPads for every student when I still had plain ol' bookcases lining the back wall of my room!  We're really looking forward to learning more about teaching with technology with this class!

My drawing of my ideal technological classroom. I didn't like the first one so much...