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...