This idea came from an article in my Zite paper. The article is a list of 100 quotes that innovate and inspire people. Here is the list of 100 quotes.
As I was standing in the back of my classroom, watching my students start the daily routine with the starters on the board I found myself thinking I'm bored. Of course, I decide to give myself a little pep talk here, self talking isn't just for the students. My self pep talk sounded something like this, "Whoa brain, stop there! This is my time to take attendance, get any paper together, and label work for missing students…not to make more work for myself. This isn't the time to start something new, everything always feels like playing catch up in the first few weeks of a new class and quarter, leave well enough alone." However, my pep talk only lasted so long and I started to wonder why I was feeling bored or uninspired in my routine with my kiddos. The problem was I have been in this class 14 weeks, they have only been in this class 5 weeks. I needed to shake things up for me, not them…everything is still new for them. I wanted a change but not something so drastic it would create more work for me and still be a starter students can complete without my assistance.
The directions to get their portfolios, sharpen pencils, download the needed document for the day stayed the same, but instead of starting the day with a problem or question I decided to include some of these quotes that promote innovation in people. Engineering is such an advanced curriculum no matter how you break it down, sometimes I forget just how young my students are. As learners they continually amaze me with the products they can create and the ideas they have, I forget they don't know how to self-talk, deal with frustrations, realize not everything has a right answer and reflect. I decided to start with a simple quote that I have displayed in both my classroom and prototyping lab also number 6 on the list.
"If you can dream it, you can do it." - Walt Disney
I love my Disney theme in my classroom, it keeps things slightly magical! In my classrooms I have a quote from Christopher Robin on the wall, Disney decor with fun character quotes about dreaming big and believing in yourself, and a Meet the Robinsons quote about Keep moving forward. This quote felt like a natural place to start in asking my kids to think about quotes. At the bottom of my regular directions students had the quote with the directions to write their response in their engineering journal either digital or paper. My directions were simply tell me what this means and respond. My kiddos all started on this quote quickly and shared plenty of information in their journal entires. They were entertained by the idea of talking about Walt Disney and cartoons in something as serious as engineering. However, they were excited and engaged, I couldn't wait to read all the entries! The second quote I tried about 2 days later was "Do not fear mistakes. There are none." - Miles Davis. The kiddos came in and started to get their supplies ready for the day. I can tell most are about to start their reaction to the quote as the classroom starts to settle down. I don't hear little keys typing away like the first time, instead I hear silence as they start. I look up and they are all (and I mean all) staring and the board and slightly confused. By the 3rd class I was starting to have deja vu! This was a universal reaction from 6th graders to 8th graders. In general things went the same way in all classes. I wait about 3 minutes, they aren't talking and they aren't writing..they are seriously perplexed looking at the board. I asked what was wrong and almost all the kids raise their hand and I start getting information. "This is weird, I don't understand this, I don't even know who Miles Davis is, how can there be no mistakes, you can't grade something if there are no mistakes...is there more to this quote?"Alright then! I told them to write that down, that's part of their reflection on this quote. When they have had a few minutes I started to discuss what this might mean. All the classes really just didn't get this quote, they couldn't take it for what it was worth. The more I think about it the more I realize why they struggle with my class the first 3-4 weeks. They are so used to being given direct instruction, detailed directions, and answers are either right or wrong. If you are wrong then you don't participate anymore. I honestly think a majority of my kids are smarter than we know but they are scared to participate and risk being wrong. This was amazing insight for me and why they want one answer in our designs...they want me to tell them if it is right or not and I can't. I can only ask them if they met the required criteria.
The third quote I've tried had to work a little differently, I knew this would be challenging. This is one of my favorite quotes, as most Einstein quotes are! "You can't solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level." - Albert Einstein
The kids came in the room, got their supplies, started the process to prepare for the day and started their quotes. This was one of the best quotes because the kids have never experienced problem solving like my class before. They want to fight the problem solving and no right answers, but in the end those who start to let those ideas sink in succeed the most. The kids who realize being right isn't the number one goal are the kids who say my class is their favorite. I was shocked at the way my kids felt about this quote. They shared things I never expected them to tell me, we've only known each other for 4-5 weeks. I heard stories ranging from witnessing abuse to parents with drugs to stories about the hardest problem kids have ever solved. Kids all found a way to relate this quote to a problem in their lives and how solving that problem required them to requires them to think differently than they have been raised to think and what has been taught. In a poverty cycle most kids don't realize the value education offers them, but I saw many of my kids seeing STEM as their way out of the cycle their family has. Many kids, both highly intelligent and the academically struggling felt like this class was giving them options they didn't have before. I agree with them in a way, some kids would never know engineering was their passion if they hadn't experienced it. The kids who never understand how science and math relate to each other get to see that magic.
I loved all the insight my kids shared and how willing they were to open up through their writing even though they hate writing! It was emotionally exhausting to read all the stories and provide feedback on each individual response. Still, I think this is something I will continue at least once a week. I think it was a wonderful source of inspiration and reflection. The kids were engaged and connecting the quote to their own personal experiences. Sometimes shaking things up works out nicely!
Portfolios can apply to any learner regardless of their education level or work setting.
K-12 Students
Portfolios can be used in many different ways for a K-12 learner. Options include a portfolio showing growth from kindergarten to 12th grade, accomplishments for each IL standard strings or Common Core strings, growth during a course, or growth during a series of courses. All situations create an opportunity to help students organize their work.
College Level Students
Many universities require an educational portfolio from pre-service teachers. As pre-teachers continue through their education courses they create a working portfolio to display their educational philosophy, created lessons, proof of understanding of students, and ability to utilize and communicate standards.
Educators
Current teachers can use portfolios to keep a record of student work, lesson plans including pictures/videos of students engaged in the activities and a reflection of the lesson and analyzing current teaching methods.
Professionals
Professionals can utilize many different types of portfolios. Engineers use portfolios to display and organize their work. Contractors use portfolios to show types of designs they have created. Artists keep portfolios of sketches, drawings and paintings. Writers keep published or private work in portfolios. Models keep a portfolio of pictures and photo shoots they have completed.
Regardless of age, education or working atmosphere a portfolio keeps information organized in one location.
What kind of portfolios can I use in my classroom?
E-portfolios
E-portfolios can be any type of portfolio created in an electronic format such as websites, pages, scrapbooks or PowerPoint presentation. Electronic portfolios allow learners to utilize technology while creating a flexible portfolio that can follow the learner.
Currently I am testing two different platforms for digital portfolios. In my classroom we are using a free website creator called Weebly to create websites. We are also using Wikispaces giving each student a page to display work and reflections on a classroom wiki.
Display/Best Work portfolios
Display or best work portfolios display artifacts a learner believes shows off their best learning. Display portfolios provide an opportunity for learners to invest in their work with the knowledge it will be a product they share with others. Both the learner and teacher experience a sense of pride with best work portfolios, learners show what they can accomplish and teachers see engaged learners as a result.
Working Portfolios
Working portfolios have a mixture of completed and in progress work. Many classrooms could implement a working portfolio in their current notebooks or binders used for class. Learners keep artifacts that are complete, like homework and tests that are graded, and work in progress such as classroom projects.
Working portfolios best fit a single content area classroom. Learners would be able to evaluate and analyze the portfolio on a quarterly basis with their teachers.
Assessment Portfolios
Assessment portfolios are used to show what content a learner has mastered in a specific curricular area. Learners complete reflections on each artifact included explaining why the artifact is included in their portfolio and how the artifact shows their knowledge.Assessment portfolios require the learner to select appropriate pieces and be able to communicate the reason behind including the artifact.
What do your students put in their portfolios?
Students have endless options when it comes to artifacts included in their portfolio. Students have the ability to choose any artifact meeting the teacher's established criteria.
Engineering Portfolio Artifacts can include, but are not limited to...
Engineering journal entries
Design Sketches
Inventor Parts
Inventor Assemblies
Inventor Drawings
In Class Activities- pictures or videos
Program Codes
Learning Profile
How do students benefit from portfolios?
Creates self-confidence by displaying best work
Work is meaningful and will be kept for a time period
Encourages computer and technology skills
Engages students in the learning process
Allows students to have choice in the selection of their work
Learn organization
Practice evaluating quality work
Treated as an individual with a valuable point of view
Improves communication skills with adults and teachers
How do teachers benefit from portfolios?
Teaches organization through application
Helps students see their growth rather than independent grades
Students are able to review concepts and activities, reflect on the artifact, make connections between portfolio artifacts
Allows students to be responsible for their learning
Meaningful assessment displaying thought and knowledge rather than memorized information
Allows teachers and students to evaluate and assess learning as a team rather than the teacher telling the student how he/she did
Individuality: Getting to know each student on a more meaningful level
Splits the responsibility of assessing and evaluating work with the student
Promotes higher level thinking skills such as Bloom's Taxonomy analyzing, evaluating and creating
How portfolios changed my classroom
Engaged Students
This year was my first year using a website creator with my classes to make website portfolios. I introduced the concept to my students in the first week of school, however we started to run short on time in the classroom. The students had barely set up the websites by the end of the 2nd week of school. As a group, my 6th graders decided they needed an opportunity to learn and practice the website creator with some help from me. I asked them what they thought I should do because we really don't have the time in class. Students came back with a proposal the following day, have a "website party night" on Sunday evening-websites and pizza. I stood there confused for a few minutes...did my kiddos just ask for an extra night at school to do work voluntarily? As a teacher I can't ask for more, my students are demanding more time for education. In less than two days we had permission for an evening school event, pizzas ordered, and parents willing to come help monitor students. In the end, this 3 hour investment was the best and most rewarding thing I could have done for my classroom atmosphere, to get my students engaged in learning, and jump start meaningful relationships with my students.
Changes Classroom Assessment
I believe portfolios have changed my classroom assessment entirely. I am more involved with my students on a daily basis because of their digital content. I can constantly check in on my students and their progress, learn their frustrations and concerns, and examine their growth easily. I no longer depend on tests and quizzes for assessment, instead 3 times during each 9 week course I have one on one conferences with my students. My students are excited to have their conference with me, they want to show and share all they are accomplishing. It creates a time where my students are allowed to brag on their work and hear me tell them how proud I am.
I also use rubrics to help with assessment in portfolios during each course. Students have a list of required elements for each portfolio submission. Requirements include some artifacts I ask for specifically and others students choose based on the required criteria. It allows my students to still have choice in their artifacts but also meeting my needs as far as my curriculum goes.
I feel portfolios have changed my entire grading system. Students are more involved and excited about their work because it has meaning to them. My students take pride in their work and find meaning in each assignment rather than feeling like it is just another worksheet. I see my students working harder and communicating after the implementation of portfolios.
During each portfolio experience I realize frustrations will always happen. Students are coming to my class with different background knowledge and life experiences. However, most of these frustrations come from the lack of skills my students have. No one is teaching students how to evaluate, how to be creative, how to be organized or why they should care about their own work due to the stress and concern of state testing. It is a unique opportunity to be able to teach my students life skills they can use in any job, no matter what that job may be.
Some frustrations I have experienced with my students
No understanding of what reflection means or looks like
Students have never created and used a table of contents
Students need taught how to use dividers and tabs, that papers belong behind the tab
Some students never find an artifact that shows quality of work
Organization
Making meaningful connections in artifact reflections
Technology skills have never included website creations or using wikis
I believe middle school students are ready for some of the necessary life skills that can be taught through portfolios.
Organization
I see my students who have never used a three-ring binder or dividers learning how to organize themselves, a skill all middle school students need. I could not imagine sending my students to high school having never used anything but a paper folder for organization. My 6th graders needed a 30 minute lesson on how to put the dividers in the binder, label the small file labels, make sure the dividers were in order, and papers go behind the tab instead of in front of the tab. I didn't realize just how new of a concept dividers would be for most of my students.
Reflection
My students are getting better with more experience in reflecting on their artifacts. The process of reflecting on a piece of work, what happened during a class period, or looking back on choices continues to be a challenging topic in my classroom. While my students are mentally capable of reflection, they have never practiced before. I find myself doing think-aloud reflections like math teachers solve problems step by step. My students roll their eyes and think it's silly, but are becoming better at reflecting on their own work. They don't realize this is a skill no one has ever formally taught them, and it takes repetition to get better. I know portfolios make a difference in student reflections when I look at some of the 6th grade beginning reflections and 8th grade final reflection, the growth is incredible. Student's ability to grow in their reflections is one area where I am always surprised with the results.
Student Relationships
We often talk about middle school students as social creatures, which they are. However, most middle school teachers forget their students don't just want to be social with their friends but also their teachers. Middle school students are at a unique stage where scratch and sniff stickers and a good job on their paper is still exciting to them. By utilizing electronic portfolios I have the ability to leave comments throughout the entire course on their webpages or wiki space. Many of my students open their pages and go straight to their journal to see if I have commented before they start working. As a result of these small exchanges students start to share more information and feelings about school, life and connecting the content to real life. They find themselves opening up to me in their webpages and my comments opening myself up to them as well.
Teaching Digital Skills
Now that I utilize websites and wikis, I find myself needing to teach my students what proper online behavior includes. I make sure they understand what information is appropriate to include, how to respond to other people's comments, passwords and usernames, online privacy, and how to respond to peer portfolios in a positive way. While these are all digital skills, my students are learning to utilize these skills in my classroom.
Ash, K. (2011). E-portfolios evolve thanks to web 2.0 tools. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/06/15/03e-portfolio.h04.html on November 1, 2011.
Association for middle level education (2011). Assessing and reporting progress through student-led portfolio conferences. Retrieved from http://www.amle.org/Publications/WebExclusive/Portfolio/tabid/650/Default.aspx on November 4, 2011.
Barrett, H. (2003). Recent research on electronic portfolios. Retrieved from http://electronicportfolios.org/research.html on October 23, 2011.
Barrett, H. (2003). The research on portfolios in education. Retrieved from http://electronicportfolios.com/ALI/research.html on October 21, 2011.
Danielson, C., & Abrutyn, A. (1997). Introduction to using portfolios in the classroom. ASCD.
Department of staff development, George counting public schools. (2010). Portfolio assessment. Retrieved from http://www.pgcps.org/~elc/portfolio.html on October 27,2011.
Edtp504 (poster)(2011). Digital literacy-using technology in the classroom. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5ySocUyI7I&feature=related on November 4, 2011.
Kelly, M. (2011). Student portfolios: Getting started with student portfolios. Retrieved from http://712educators.about.com/od/portfolios/a/portfolios.htm on November 1, 2011.
Slidedesigns.net (2011 April). Puzzle [image]. Retrieved from http://www.slidedesigns.net/2010/04/phttp://www.slidedesigns.net/2010/04/page/2age/2 on November 3, 2011.
Teacher vision. (2011). The portfolio process. Retrieved from http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods-and-management/experimental-education/4537.html?detoured=1 on November 2, 2011.
Venn, J. J. (2000). Assessing students with special needs (2nd ed.). UppeSaddle River, NJ: Merrill.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
My Personal Learning Network/ Environment
I was very overwhelmed as I started thinking about my personal learning network. I feel like I have a large learning network, but there are still times I feel isolated in my own engineering curriculum-being in a mix of everything but not always defined! I started to think of what resources and tools I run to when I need support.
The first thing I thought of wasn't technology or my go-to tools online, instead it was my "tribe". My "learning tribe" consists of the people who can give me a little support when my own pep-talks aren't enough anymore. Tribes and their unique impact are described in The Element. "When tribes gather in the same place, the opportunities for mutual inspiration can become intense." The people who give me the most intense inspiration in my immediate environment made by my students and other staff members in my building. However, I also have other connections in my professional communities like my support from Eastern Illinois University, Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Project Lead the Way, and National Science Teacher Association all give me energy to continue the daily work.
I also thought about the way I get information and communicate my information with others. I thought of gmail, talk, aim, Skype, my blog, twitter, scoop.it, and zite. I have direct emailing, interactive communication IMs, and curation sites.
I feel that I use software in my everyday learning and teaching like Autodesk Inventor, Evernote, Dropbox, iTunes, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, One Note, Word, Powerpoint, and Kindle readers. I create many of my lessons and notes for students in power points and word documents. The software portion of my network is not providing information back to me, however I still find it amazingly valuable in my network of learning.
The section that I felt had the most information and really could have expanded more on was my internet based resources. These are the tools and apps that use the internet. I have so many, but they are not all related to the way I am learning…more the tools I use in the classroom to enhance learning. For this reason, I limited the number of internet-based items I used to RSS feeds, email, youtube, google, ask, digg, delicious, vimeo, teacher pal (app), moodle, flicker, google earth, dropbox, blogger, and edmodo.
In most cases, I have arrows both leaving me and pointing back at me because I contribute and gain information from these sources.
The diagram I most related to was Katherine Pisana because her network was organized and easy to understand, she included common tools, internet resources and her own learning areas. I feel like she was able to give a unique glimpse into all of her learning styles not just internet based.
I believe I would add more to my PLN if it was able to be organized. I would have webs or continuations from my learning tribes including the internet-based tools I use with them or from them, I would have communications connecting to learning tribes and internet-based applications and more than just the basic software on my list. However, I didn't want to overwhelm everyone so I concentrated on the topics that were most important to me currently.
I believe my PLN is a hybrid of sorts because I do have technology based connections but I also include my personal connections outside of the Internet. I think I have a combination of curation tools, information gathering tools, publishing tools, and other software that would cover not only tool oriented learning, but also people oriented and use oriented resources.
Resources
Deleket (poster). 3d cartoon icons pack [icons set]. Retrieved from http://www.freeiconsweb.com/Free-Downloads.asp?id=86 on November 1, 2011.
Eastern Illinois Univerity (2011). Panther logo [picture]. Retrieved from htpp://www.eiu.edu on May 2009.
Effectivefive (poster). Social media icons set [icon sets]. Retrieved from http://www.freeiconsweb.com/Free-Downloads.asp?id=1582 on October 31, 2011.
ICTM (2011). [picture]. Retrieved from http://www.ictm.org on November 1, 2011.
NCTM(2011).[picture]. Retrieved from http://www.nctm.org/ on November 1, 2011.
NSTA (2011). NSTA logo [picture]. Retrieved from http://www.nsta.org/ on November 1, 2011. Pizana, K. My ple [wiki post]. Retrieved from http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams on November 1, 2011.
Robinson, K. & Aronica, L. (2009). The element: How finding your passion changes everything. Viking Adult
I do like my paper.li paper from CI 484, when I started it was ok but not great. Now, I am finding more content and like the format of my paper.li paper. However, I really like Scoop.it much more! Considering the alternative of curation is RSS feeds like google reader, it was love at first sight for curation and I. Once I started curation, I never considered the option of just a feed again.
I really like how both Paper.li and Scoop.it will email you the "updated" paper. The set up of paper.li is a little more like a traditional newspaper with the headings to categorize your feeds. I do feel like this is one of the best qualities that paper.li offers!
I am starting to understand how scoop.it works and functions, now I am beginning to think I would like to introduce my paper to my students. I don't want to ask my students to curate, I just want my curation to be a "resource". Using my paper would be a guided google search for my students. If I put pages in for a web quest, approved sites for research, or help sites my students can use the paper instead of being bogged down by a google search.
I had a hard time getting my scoop.it to get my RSS feeds, but once I figured it out….it's easy! So for those of you who are using scoop.it…..click on your paper, then manage, manage sources, advanced. This lets you add any RSS feed, any single twitter person or a twitter list. This was neat! I was a little frustrated because scoop.it didn't have any help on this, so I started clicking around (and secretly hoping I didn't kill my paper).
As I am experiencing more with both curation options, I am still very hesitant to bring this into my classroom! As I was working on my paper, I found a topic that was entirely inappropriate. It didn't fit any of my content, but somehow was put in based on someone who I follow on twitter. I not only removed the person from twitter, but then had to remove the content from my curations. However, I do think I have more control in scoop.it than paper.li. This incident happened in paper.li, but wasn't easy to get rid of the article. When I use scoop.it, it contains articles and websites that I "scoop" with the icon in my web browser. It also brings in articles and content based on other papers I subscribe to. If you have content that you want removed it is much easier to remove through scoop.it. I will not be asking or introducing my students to their own curation pages until I have full control of their dashboards. I can't control who my students are linked to, following, or receiving posts from. If one student gets the wrong piece of information, that means I expose my entire school!
I think scoop it is the only curation tool I am ready to bring into my classroom. I can make as many papers as I want, so if I want to create a paper for robotics I can have that. I am currently creating a paper for a presentation at a training for my program focusing on the importance of e-portfolios in my classroom. Right now, this is a collection of articles and websites I find to support my topic. I see this as an option for my classroom since I can have a paper for STEM education, robotics, flight and space, motion and physics, chemistry, etc. I can basically create my own source pages for my students to use as research or suggestions to guide them. I plan on starting I my trial with my 8th graders in Robotics in January. If they can handle it, then I will continue with the rest of the topics and courses.
My previous post on curation: I am not sure that I like either of the two sources for curation. I think the concept is awesome; I like the idea of things coming in and being organized before you even have to worry about how many new posts there are. We all know the scene, the kids are gone, staff has stopped coming by to chat and plan, you open your email and there are 40+ messages. Your heart just sinks! Same thing when I open the feed reader. The idea of not having that overwhelming number of items show up in your email or reader is really nice. I think if I had 2 more hours in my day I could commit to reading weekly. The curation tool at least makes it an option to read all my feeds!
Curations like Tweeted Times and Paper.li narrow your sights into the topics that you really want to see and picks up on the tags that you request. I think using a curation tool would be helpful for me because it limits the number of items coming in and allows me to focus on the ones I really want to see. I really liked being able to pick the people or the items that are similar to my interests.
I don’t know that I would be brave enough to do this with my students yet, the main reason being that I don’t know how to monitor what is coming in to all their accounts. From a teaching perspective this is a big disadvantage not being able to control anything with the students. They could be following people on twitter or Facebook who post comments that are not at all appropriate for school. I also can’t control if there is someone posting good content with a connection to someone who is not, then my students have access to the appropriate and inappropriate content. Even with my good kids I would need to worry that their connections are good connections with appropriate material all the time. I have to worry about the kids who don’t follow directions and end up with inappropriate content.then share that with the rest of the class since they would all be connected followers. Until I can go in, edit, control, and view all student dashboards I do not see this as something I can use with middle school students. They are so smart and creative with ways to get around the rules, I don't want to put myself in that situation.
I think there are other disadvantages depending on the curation tool you use, I didn’t have much luck with paper.li gathering my feed information. That didn’t help me get any new information or organize what I did have. Tweeted Times was slightly overwhelming visually; everything felt like it was just blobbed together. While the information was what I asked Tweeted Times to gather, it still wasn’t organized by person or topic. This left me feeling like I was having all of my good information dumped on me, just a little bit more organized when it was dumped compared to the RSS feed.
I liked in Paper.li the option to bring in only certain feeds I had subscribed to, choose certain keywords, or to just bring in tweets from one person you are following or everyone associated to your account. I felt like this gave me more of an option in controlling what I wanted to see and when. Between the two curation tools I would say Tweeted Times worked better only because paper.li didn’t grab any of my information. I assume part of the issue was some of my RSS feeds are not updating very often, but that doesn't explain my twitter connections. It didn’t grab any information from the last 24 hours. I even had a few feeds from this morning that it didn’t recognize as new. I am not sure what setting needs to be adjusted but I know that isn’t right.
I don’t feel like either one of them really did much for me. I have never used any type of curation device so I had no reference point, but I was really disappointed. Then I tried scoop.it. I love scoop.it. It has a ton of cool features that I thought the other two would be offering. Scoop.it makes a tool in the toolbar that lets me link any website that comes across my browser to my “paper”. I also like the fact that you can find other papers you like and follow them. I don’t have to keep subscribing to feeds that I only get one or two good things a year. I found some people who had the same types of articles and feeds that I did so I can just follow their feeds instead.
I think I would much rather use a curation tool rather than an RSS feed due to the way it filters my information. I really appreciate the way it organizes and offers me information relevant to me. The RSS feed was really overwhelming since everything was just dumped in my folders. I can’t even say that I would consider going back to the RSS feed when I have an option like this.
I decided to use Camtasia Studio as my media creation tool.
One of the struggles I have in my classroom is creating independent problem solvers while still providing my students the opportunity to review skills they learned in a whole group setting. In Design and Modeling, my students learn to use AutoCAD software called Inventor. We do one whole class project to give students experience with the new software and it's basic abilities. The software comes with a "help wiki" students can use to review the basics, but isn't very easy to navigate for my students. I also have resource books in the classroom but they are HUGE and scary for the kids to go use as a resource. For me, this resource is amazing! I can create basic video tutorials and my students can watch them anytime they want to.
The following movies are all individual files so students can watch a portion they are confused on, but still try the next section or part on their own. I like the sense of independence these movies create for students!
Resources needed: Jing (free) or Camtasia capture software, computers, microphone (if wanted, internet connection
I don't believe I would assess this since it is more of a resource, but I would ask my students if they felt this helped them or was useful for my own knowledge. All students do an exit survey in each unit/class, I would be able to get feedback between courses.
In the year 2025, I would expect to see many changes in K-12 learning. I think classrooms would be more like a learning center rather than a lecture classroom. In 2025, I would hope to see students who are being engaged, collaborating, and have access to appropriate learning materials for all student-learning styles. I believe learning will become more student centered focusing on individualization, personalization, choices, and independent learning. Students will have more choice in their learning products and processes. Teaching will be moving from the “basics” of classroom subjects to problem solving, social skills, and information gathering. Current teaching can’t be left behind entirely; there will always be a need for students to understand reading, writing, mathematics, science and history. I do think the process and content will change in the future of education. Students will need to be utilizing the basic skills across the categories and classrooms primarily learning life skills that are supported by the basics of classroom education.
I would like to continue with my path of STEM education and discovery learning. Students are discovering the possibilities of science, technology, engineering and math on a daily basis in my classroom. I am not lecturing on the mathematics or physics of motion, but instead my students are conducting experiments and using the prior science and math knowledge they have to understand concepts that are well above their grade level. Students aren’t just learning the basics, but learning how to problem solve and work collaboratively in the classroom.
Some of the changes that I would like to see in educational environments would focus on technology. Ideally, I would like to see changes in the number of technologies and websites that are not allowed in school districts. I would like to see IT leaders focus on the value of using technology in education to help students learn rather than blanket coat what websites are appropriate and blocking the rest. There should be more education for both IT leaders and teachers on using technology to enhance instruction rather than replace a teacher teaching. There is a huge potential for change in the way a teacher can present text to students. Many students are held to the same textbook because the school owns 30 of them, but with new technologies like e-readers, teachers can use more meaningful texts to engage students and individualize student instruction.
The changes ahead will have an impact on everyone involved. Teachers will be asked to be risk takers, think outside the box, never settle for the minimum, be continuous learners, and learn from their students. Students will be asked to make more choices and take more responsibility for their own education. Parents will be asked to be more involved in their child’s education and learning community. Getting your child to school is no longer enough from the parent. Parents will need to commit to their own learning so they can help their children make important educational choices during their K-12 education. Most parents in my area do not have an education over 8th grade, so our schools will need to offer more parent education and community education. Schools will need to change the structure of the building to include more opportunities for experiments and hands on learning. Schools and administration will need to step up to inspire staff and create an environment that promotes change. Unfortunately for administration, this means they will also be required to do some extra “remediation” skills for teachers who aren’t willing to change and aren’t willing to teach any differently than they have in the past.
In the end, everyone involved will need to be movers and shakers, never settling for just ok. I have used these two videos before, but I think they both bring out the main points in what it takes to really change a large system like education. We need people who are willing to say ok isn’t good enough and we need leaders who will risk it all to make a change for students.
So I guess the question is…how will you react when education is “stuck on an escalator”?
References:
CaptDate (Poster).Escalator Engineer [video]. ( 2007, February 4). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S8P5HhHg8w&feature=related .
leemijeehoon (Poster). Honda ok factory ad [video]. (2006, October 29) Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9B9UD5Hlp4 .
JayMJ23 (poster). Michael Jordan “failure” nike commercial [video].(2006, August 25). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc
Whitehouse (poster). A STEM education, tools to change the world [video]. (2010, September 16). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biWQZlUl-vE.
Have you ever had a student who constantly interrupts, wants to be the class clown, doesn’t turn in homework but is still one of the brightest kids in your class? We have one of those in our 6th grade class this year. Our sixth grade team has four new teachers to the building and two first year teachers. This particular student has decided what classes and teachers he can identify with, the rest he does not try to behave. One of the first year teachers has had enough of his behavior and couldn’t take it anymore. She has given him referrals to the office 4 days in a row. During our daily team meeting we started to address this student’s behavior. The idea that came to mind was nothing less than inspired.
This student LOVES my class because he is a hands-on learner and is continually challenged to do more than the minimum. He wants to use technology for everything and doesn't understand why it isn't an option. He has even gone as far as telling a few of the new teachers they don't know how to teach because they don't use the classroom technology they have. He insists he would do his homework and be better in class if they used technology. With me, his class is typically one to two days ahead of all my other classes. So...I thought why not have him teach my rather difficult (behavior) 7th graders. This class has chronic issues with students shouting out answers, they aren’t in the seats during a lesson, not following directions and continually talk when they shouldn’t be. Hmmm…sounds just like his behavior.
Here is how it all played out:
Wednesday
· He is totally pumped about this idea. He thinks it is going to be so easy! · He was given the 20-page packet that I made for the steps and process of creating a toy in our Inventor software. · He was given a PowerPoint presentation that would be given at the start of class. · He was given a lesson plan outline that he had to complete and return Thursday after school to be ready for his lesson Friday.
Thursday
· He finds me before school to say he has questions about this lesson plan when can he ask me. We plan on study hall time. · During study hall he spends 40 minutes talking through how to create a lesson plan and make notes on his handouts. -He took the PowerPoint and added audio, uploaded to authorstream and has his video ready for class. I was impressed that he wanted more than a PowerPoint, he thought the kids would like a video more! Of course, we had to do this together but a great way to get him to use technology in the classroom. - He comments on how he had to read this and work on his plan for over 60 mins working on understanding the handouts last night. He wanted to go to the homecoming parade and had football practice and it was really hard to do all of it. ⁃ We talked about how teachers do this every single night and he looked at the science textbook and realized how little information was included in a teacher edition compared to student edition.
Friday
· I was doing hallway duty in the 7/8th grade hall. (I switch between 7/8 and 5/6 depending on where people are needed) He was going ballistic looking for me everywhere (6th grade hall) and flipping out that he couldn’t find me, he needed to create his starter page on my laptop. (I was thinking that this was a good panic for him, he needed to know what it felt like to need a question answered but no one available to do that.) · He came in before school to create the starter page to display on the board when students come in to the classroom. · He had to come in early from recess to be ready for his class (that couldn’t be planned better). · He stood at the door taking attendance and letting students in as they were lined up and quiet. · He monitored students and their progress on the starter, reminding them of certain steps he could see were not yet done. · He did an excellent job at reminding students politely to check step 4 they missed something. Very proud of his patience here, patience is not usually his strong point! · He started the lesson; the classroom was quiet and confused as to what was really going on. Many kids were asking me why he was teaching when he was a 6th grader and I kindly ignored him. Finally, he said I’m the teacher you can raise your hand and ask me if you have a question. Miss Watson is just observing today!! P.S. This was so funny for me! · As the novelty of the situation began to wear off the students started behaving more like themselves, not raising hands, shouting out answers, not following along, and asking questions that didn’t relate to the lesson. · I was starting to worry they might be too overwhelming as they were asking questions about why he was there or why they should listen to him. - He asks why he should listen to one of his new teachers often, I like that students asked him but I didn’t want to shut him down. - He answered the same way I would, he asked the student “is that going to help us in this lesson right now?” the kid answered no and he said “you can stay and talk to me after class if you have a question then”. I was so proud *After the lesson and time to think, my student said he would not have known how to answer this question if he hadn’t heard me say it a million times to him. I am glad to know he is starting to process things and reflect at this point. · He expressed his biggest fear was the students laughing at him. I want to make sure we go back to this point in our after the lesson conversation. - I believe all teachers feel like this at some point in their teaching experience. We don’t want our kids to think we are stupid, make silly mistakes, don’t know what we are talking about or be laughed at. This is a fear tons of teachers have!
After the lesson
· He was given some reflection questions to think about and post back to me through his classroom website blog. -In his blog he talked about how hard it was to create technology resources to use in the classroom when students aren't cooperative. · He cannot stop trying to share all his feelings with the students in his class and his teachers. I had to actually tell him to stop talking about it and sit down so we can start our class! · He went home and told his mom everything for about 50 minutes, I called to make sure she knew about the reflection and she thought he learned a lot of important lessons today. · When he went to the football game on Friday night he couldn’t stop telling the counselor (his best friend’s mom) all the things the kids did and how they behaved. He wouldn’t stop talking!
Follow up
This cannot be the end for this student. He is amazingly bright and capable of doing anything he wants. We need to start differentiating his classroom materials so he is not just bored and following along in a textbook. Part of the challenge will be helping the new teachers understand that his behavior is a result of not being challenged. There is nothing wrong with pre-testing a student and challenging them to do more than the average student. I think we have a clean start with this student if we can show him that we care about him, we know he is smart, and we are going to challenge him appropriately. He needs more connections in the building with teachers who are willing to be a support for him. I believe my staff and my building is made of teachers who are willing to reach out and support him.
What I learned
I learned a lot in this process myself. I thought about my own instruction and how I incorporate technology. I have yet to convert all my previous powerpoints and notebook files into a more exciting application. I don't run to prezi because it takes so long to change content from PPT to prezi. I just haven't had the time to do all of them in a movie format either, I hesitate because there are not many times I just lecture. The times I really do have a powerpoint I have to alter the presentation depending on the group I have. Some require more information, some less, some more examples, some need longer wait time for questions etc. I found the video very engaging and the kids liked it, but they were not all paying attention either. I use an interactive whiteboard, I use technology and computers on a consistent basis, but there are still kids that are not engaged. The web 2.0 tools I asked him to use for this project really changed how he viewed academic content. He was loving his blog, his website and using authorstream to change a powerpoint to a movie. After all of this he suggested changing more of the interactive whiteboard notebooks and powerpoints into movies. I may try more movies that will create a more individualized lesson to engage students. I agree with his statement that teachers should use more technology, but now he understands how difficult it can be if your students fight you.
This student and I have a unique opportunity, we have three more years together. He will get to see my changes with technology and I can’t wait to see what he is like in 3 years.
During this first quarter of school, I decided to try something new with one of my well-behaved group of 6th graders. I suspect most of these students will decide to continue with engineering during their middle school career and possibly even their high school career.
I thought, hey it would be cool to have a digital portfolio with my 6th graders to help them keep all their engineering information together from 6th, 7th, and 8th grade! The last thing a senior engineering student completes in engineering is a portfolio showcasing all of their work from their first course in 6th grade to the last course as a sr. To do this I decided to use a website creator that allowed me to monitor student websites and blogs with ultimate control being mine.
I tell my students about this project and they are pumped! They think this is the best thing they have ever heard and are very interested in how they will do it, what they will use, when they get to use it, etc. Then I realized just how much time getting these sites to a usable place was going to take. I stopped talking about them for about 5 school days. I wasn’t sure what in the world I was going to be able to do! Then, in class, one student raised his hand to ask when they would get to use their websites. GULP! I explained we just don’t have time to stop and set them up. I really wanted to do it, we just don’t have time to set up websites right now. Then he suggested maybe doing it after school or one evening. I thought yeah right, no one wants to do that! The kids all agreed. I was shocked. We looked at the calendar and realized there wasn’t a single day without a baseball, softball, soccer or football. Someone suggested doing a website party on Sunday night. So with the number of kids agreeing to attend, I set up our Sunday night event. Sunday night rolls around and 16/20 students are in my room working on websites. How many times can you get a class of students to come in and do EXTRA work willingly?
So here we are, 6 weeks into school, 3 weeks until the first unit of engineering is complete. Looking back at the idea of websites, I still think it was a good one. The entire idea has had its hiccups along the way. However, I think I have learned a lot in this experience. I was terrified to start something new and unclear especially with kids that I want to keep in my program!
Pros of student sites
• Kids are engaged
• Excited to share their learning
• Creating a community of learners
• Sharing information in their blogs they normally wouldn’t verbalize
• Creating a personalized learning space that has meaning to themselves
• Simple communication and display
• Love the website features (makes for easy websites and free publishing on their domain)
Cons of student sites
• In the start of blogs, my students were commenting and writing on random topics rather than what they should be.
• Takes time to set up and prepare each student
• Students need instruction to handle the website creator successfully
• Not always classroom related materials being put on the site
Examples of Journal Entries students are sharing with each other:
Example 1)
Today we got to upload our first picture to our site. My was a "Nerdy Smile." If you go to the parts section you can see it and a paragraph to go with it. Please go see it. I can’t wait to see what everyone else is making. I really like being able to use Inventor to make whatever I want. I am a little worried about making the pegboard, it looks kind of complicated. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to do it by myself. Miss W has started to let us do things on our own, now I’m not sure that was a good idea!
Example 2)
Today I learned a lot about Inventor, but I feel that Inventor has many things that I have not learned about, like IAM. The fillet tool is amazing because it helped me make a car without sharp edges. I finished the checklist, and I saved four files; three were extruded, and one was a robot. I had trouble revolving, and drilling holes.
Example 3)
Today we worked on inventor again. We began our pegboard toy. I think I'm going to have fun on this project. I never realized how complicated it was to make something as simple as a baby toy, let alone a gadget such as an iphone or computer.
Students are starting to share their realizations, fears, questions, concerns etc. The other students are starting to respond and create discussions about topics that I don’t have time to cover in 9 weeks. They are creating personal connections to our material in a way I couldn’t even plan. I am finding my students are much more willing to put questions and fears out there when other students are responding to their blog pages. This experiment (that I was ready to throw out 3 days after I introduced it) has really changed the dynamics of my classroom. The students are creating more connections and honest evaluations of classwork. To me, this is an advanced skill for a 6th grader. So while there are occasional comments that remind me they are 6th graders, the overall content outweighs the random comments everyday.
Now, looking back, I don’t regret any of the days I gave up to make these websites an option for my students. I hope as they mature through the years their websites will become a reminder of where they started and where they want to go. I hope they are able to find this as a resource to communicate and partner with other students in our class and find inspiration from their peers.
Using a wiki is an awesome way to share information while creating interactive and interesting pages. There are other programs that let you write collaboratively, but a wiki easily lets a student add pictures, videos, links and widgets. The concept of a teacher creating a private wiki is very powerful in the education setting. This gives me confidence that only the members I invite or add are seeing my classroom wiki. I think the privacy allows students to feel they can share more authentic feelings knowing who will see what they write. Teachers can upgrade to a free educational wiki and get paid options for their classroom wikis, this includes an easy upload for student usernames and passwords.
I feel like writing collaboratively is a great idea, but I still completed my portion of the assignment in almost total isolation. If a teacher is planning on student collaboration and communication as an end goal, there will need to be some guidelines set up to help students understand how to do the communicating effectively. Each member of the class worked on the wiki as a whole, but I don't feel like we truly did much effective collaborating to gain a deeper understanding of each topic and how they relate to each other.
A potential weakness could be students are becoming an expert in their assigned topic, but not connecting the information to other writer's pages. Depending on how you structure the wiki, some students may complete their page and never look back. These students do not get the intended goal of writing collaboratively and learning how to take someone's opinion and make changes or add information to their topic.
The wiki has many strong points when it comes to writing collaboratively. A wiki gives an option on the left hand side that will let you see the recent changes to a wiki. This feature allows each group member see who is working, where they are working, and what they are working on. I think students will see this as an accountability system for each other within their own group. When you think about middle school students and group work you hear "that's not fair" often. I think using this as a way to keep students accountable within their own group and without teacher interference.
Using the wiki gives the learner instant updated information. There is no waiting for a document to be emailed, no trying to pass large presentations back and forth and most importantly no dealing with files being too large to get to everyone. The universal access to a wiki is a huge strength. It doesn't matter if a student is at home, school, cell phone, etc. if they can use the Internet they can use or see the wiki.
I have previously used a wiki in my classroom and it was one of the best "technology experiments" I have ever done. I had students who were logging on to check, comment or change information on their wiki page at all times of the afternoon and evening. I hadn't seen many students rush home to do homework at night, but using the wiki they were updating and checking constantly. Imagine if we could our kids to do this with all their homework. They were really impressed with being able to share information instantly and get a peer reply.
Something I ran into that I hadn't really planned for was my students wanting to talk about EVERYTHING. I did have to make a "chat place" that allowed them to comment on random school things because they were just so excited to talk to all of the math classes at once. Once my designated random chat space was there, they really buckled down to keep the information on the pages and discussions on topic.
I was so scared to do a wiki the first time. I thought my students would not be able to do all of these things, I have to teach them step by step and this is going to take too much time to teach them all the skills before we can even start. Oh my, was I so so wrong! I let my students play for 10 minutes in a practice wiki before logging them into my classroom wiki. Just like your little pre-k kiddos, my kids just wanted to play and see what they could do with the new toy. I truly believe, no matter what you are teaching, this is the best teaching practice out there. Kids want to explore and play with a new toy before they care how you (an adult) are going to use it. After 10-20 minutes of playing in the wiki, my kids were ready to find out what the heck we were going to be doing with this really cool new toy.
I have actually used a wiki for many different activities in my classroom.
I have used a wiki for professional collaboration with some of the high school teachers teaching in my subject area. We were talking about planning and issues we found our students were having. This was a great place to share ideas, talk about plans, find out what was going wrong in our curriculum all without having to be at school or meeting in the same building!
My first classroom adventure was doing a culminating year activity for my math students. We watched the Ron Clark movie, decided how students impact their own education and created a multimedia presentation with ideas to impact their own education. I loved using a wiki because it could embed and share the video without making it publicly available to everyone out on the Internet.
I also had a classroom wiki that students would use for a math resource page. Students would post questions they had on homework and other students would reply to the question either with videos or questions that would help students solve problems. They posted websites that were helpful, calculator tricks, and overall were more engaged with math homework than I thought possible.
My best experience using a wiki was using it in my engineering classroom during Automation and Robotics. It happened that I only had enough parts for one classroom but two classes trying to build. The students had to keep a page to communicate all information from one class so the second class could continue to work. The students had to write down all changes to programming and construction, leave information that the next group would need to continue and also ideas or issues that they couldn't figure out on their own. This was one of the most impressive things to watch. I was watching students learn technical writing and collaboration without me teaching or presenting how this would work. Engineering classes work differently than core classes, my ultimate goal is to give students confidence and independence. I want them to move from depending on me for knowledge, but instead feel confident they can find the information they want or need. I want to move into a facilitating role rather than the provider of information. I believe using a wiki made this role switch possible in my classroom. Students were depending on each other instead of asking me if something was ok or right.
I think this categorization has some definite flaws to its system. While I can identify with parts of the terms in digital natives, digital immigrants, visitors and residents, there are still big gaps for me.
Digital Natives, as defined by Marc Prensky would be someone raised in the “native language” of computers, video games, and Internet. If we talk about digital natives that can be a large category of people included in the term. I have an issue that I am compared to a child born in 2000 and both of us would be digital natives. My level of experience and understanding is different than their level of understanding and experience would be. Are we all in the same cluster just because we had digital technology available to us during our childhood?
Sure, I will be the first one to admit having technology available to me made me more comfortable with the concept of new technologies while growing up. I also feel like part of my comfort and confidence in technology is a personality trait. I often feel like I am capable of figuring new things out, technology related or not. I like to get input and advice, but in the end I like to figure things out on my own.
In my educational career, I did not come from a school district that put their money into classroom technology. My mom went to school early to prepare her classroom and I would sit outside her classroom on the computer playing all of the games like Gizmos and Gadgets, Math Blaster, Oregon Trail, Super Science Show and more. I knew the technology was available, but it wasn’t used in my classrooms for educational purposes. I also can’t entirely blame my teachers for not using technology as most of my class couldn’t follow directions or obey rules.
I can’t remember most of my teachers even having a projector in the classroom, but I knew they existed. In my K-8 career I only had one teacher use a laptop or PowerPoint to present information. He used his laptop hooked up to a TV and we wrote down the slides instead of him putting it on the overhead.
Then in high school I had my two teachers that changed how I saw math and science. My math teacher, thank goodness I had the same one from 9-11th grade, was a mover and a shaker. She was a younger teacher, about 27 when I was a freshman. She wasn’t constantly using things like computers or projectors but She she let us use graphing calculators. I have to say; this was really exciting and not just because I’m a math nerd. This was the first time someone looked at our “high track” class and thought about giving us a shot at technology. Sadly, this was the first time in my educational career someone let me use a piece of educational technology in the classroom. My goodness, why on earth did I have to wait until I was in high school for someone to realize we could use technology in the classroom?
Up to this point, any technology I had used was strictly for a science fair project, something my mom let me play with in her classroom, or something my teachers let me use when I was done with my work for reward time. I see this discrepancy in many small town school districts, without enough technology for everyone technology becomes more of a “reward” instead of a teaching tool.
Note: To be clear, I understand (from a teaching perspective) the lack of technology with my particular class, we were the ones teachers had nightmares about…there were just too many naughty ones who didn’t care and would break something just to break it. However, there were about 6 of us that could have handled it out of 60. Even so, these teachers didn’t have access to it with the classes before or after mine.
The second teacher that made an impact was my high school chemistry teacher. He had taught both my parents, all my aunts and uncles, and cousins high school chemistry. He had retired 5 years earlier but they couldn’t find a replacement chemistry teacher so he continued to teach high school chemistry. He was 67 my sophomore year of high school and finally was able to retire in 2009. This man was clearly not someone who grew up with the same technology I did, but he was willing to learn and try something new for the sake of chemistry. His passion for chemistry was stronger than his lack of technology experience. He was able to buy some of the microscope cameras, temperature probes that attach to graphing calculators, and pressure sensors with his extra budget for labs. This class was had 18 students, only high track science and math students, and only if we had decided to take advanced chemistry. He didn’t have to worry about us stealing, breaking, or misusing technology. We were all so thrilled to be in a class that didn’t have discipline issues; we would have done anything he asked us to! He allowed us to use the tools in any way we thought would be helpful. If we were doing a lab and could find a way to use it the cabinet was open to us. The freedom to be creative and have an opportunity to use technology gave me back a passion for science and math that was almost destroyed by uneducated teachers and troublesome peers.
Note 2: The funding was not equal for most teachers in the district. Elementary teachers had $50 including all supplies like pencils, pens, tape, construction paper, book replacements, etc. while the high school teachers had a $200 budget each year plus additional funds for a “lab” class up to $1000 more.
As a kid I felt odd knowing my teachers as the teachers during school and outside of school because my mom worked with them. I would watch teachers after school and see half my teachers couldn’t log into their computer or use it themselves, there is no way they were going to rely on a computer instead of an overhead. Needless to say, my technology experience or my understanding did not come from my experiences at school.
I can’t exactly say my technology awareness came from home either. Growing up I didn’t have all the new and fun technology toys; my mom was a single mother on a teacher’s salary. I can’t remember a time when we didn’t have a computer and Internet, but that was the big technology in our home. When my mom got married and had two household salaries, technology didn’t change much in our home.
I had a cell phone in junior high and texting was a pastime. I wasn’t a text abuser; I didn’t have thousands of messages, so my parents allowed me to text. The problem came that not all my friends were allowed to text due to the fact they couldn’t control the number of texts.
To my mom new technologies were a want and not a need in our household. I had to save money from doing odd jobs around the house, grading papers, mowing the lawn, save birthday money to buy the technology I wanted. My mom was more than willing to let me spend my money how I wanted and she was encouraging and open to technology. I watched her openness to technology but also realized you can’t run out and buy all new things because they are fun. I had friends with parents that bought anything new and great, I had friends with parents who would buy the new toys and not be able to pay house payments, and I had friends who were told when they had the money they could get it. It really was a way of living and priorities where I grew up. Watching how my mom handled me wanting some new technology, taught me to consider how I spend my money. I can remember my mom being so excited when the first iPhone came out, she wanted to get it for me, she thought I would love it. I couldn’t get past the price and told her I wasn’t willing to have her buy it at that price. Here I have a parent willing to buy me something new and I can’t let her spend that much of her money on it!
All of that being said, I don’t feel like I wholly fit as a digital native but I am certainly not a digital immigrant either. I can identify at least 20 teachers (in my past 2 schools) that would not even qualify as digital immigrants. At this point they haven’t even acknowledged the boat exists, let alone get on the boat and travel across the ocean of technology to be an immigrant! This leaves me leaning more towards digital visitors and residents, but it really doesn’t hit the mark for me either. David White defines a resident as someone “who lives a percentage of their life online” and a resident as someone who “uses the web as a tool when the need arises.” Some people who are avid technology users choose not to live their life online, but instead utilize the applications they find necessary.
In my college education I have had some professors who utilize software at the age 60+ proficiently teaching college students how to use a piece of software to enhance their classroom lessons. The same professors also were the ones that couldn’t check their emails. Just because you can utilize and teach with one “piece” it doesn’t make you a resident. People find coping mechanisms that let them work through the issues they need to and the rest they won’t worry about. I find there to be just as many gaps or levels in residents and visitors as well. Someone might choose to be a visitor because they see the computer as a tool for an intended purpose, not to be their entire socialization. Just because a person is a resident there is no guarantee that the technology is being used effectively for yourself or learners.
I loved the video with Howard Rheingold. He had amazing and accurate things to say. While he isn’t a native, he does allow himself to use the tools at hand effectively. It is because of people like Howard and my personal experience that I am thinking we should reconsider the terms we are using to describe our technology levels. Brian Sullivan addressed the same leveling issue in Are You a Digital Native or a Digital Immigrant? deciding to include levels such as avoiders, reluctant and eager adopters. Dr. Zur suggested other levels such as avoiders, minimalists and enthusiastic participants. In the end I feel like we should be looking less at frequency with media and more to effectiveness and efficiency. Perhaps we should consider terms like effective users, social users, acceptors, and absolute refusers.
To me, a user would be someone who is on the technology bandwagon. I would consider two levels in the user category, the first being effective users, those people who are using technology effectively, efficiently, and proficiently. The second would be social users that accept technology, love technology, and don’t realize they could use it more effectively and efficiently. I believe many of my students are capable of using social media, their brains are wired for it, but they are not utilizing many of the technologies that would help them be better learners. While a powerful connection to social media could be an effective tool, I don't see a majority of teenagers viewing it as a tool to encourage or support their learning. These users are relying on being more social users than effective users of technology.
An acceptor would be someone who acknowledges some people learn better with technology and are willing to try. This doesn’t mean they have to run out for every new piece of technology with confidence. It does mean they are willing to try and accept guidance on how they might be able to use this new technology. I believe you will find most teachers are very willing to try new digital technologies with a little guidance.
An absolute refuser would be someone who wants nothing to do with the concept of technology. Sadly, there are many teachers who will not even consider using technology in their classroom. This teacher is not willing to listen or try anything new or innovative. These teachers tend to feel if it worked 30 years ago it can work today. I hear this type of teacher say kids don’t pay attention so why should I reward them with technology for not doing their work. I honestly feel that this type of teacher is no longer considering what is best for students. Both their passion for helping students learn and their passion for education need to have a “come to Jesus moment”.
I think teachers tend to be more open to technology and new ways to create an exciting learning environment, but our careers also leave us in a position that we cannot purchase many of the technologies available for our classrooms or even ourselves. I think if teachers were able to afford more personal technology there would be a burst in confidence and in classroom use. I understand no one wants to stand in front of a classroom of students, unsure if a lesson will be successful or bomb out. I see that fear increase when it comes to relying on new and possibly unfamiliar technology. It isn’t fair to say someone is in a using category or a not using category; there are some people who are willing to take the risk and jump out to new technology.
In education, sometimes we have to take the risk with new technologies regardless of training, and meet or students where they are in the best way we can. I think this video applies to taking a risk with classroom teachers and technology usage, we always have a chance to learn from our successes or our failures, but someone has to try.
JayMJ23 (poster). Michael Jordan “failure” nike commercial [video].(2006, August 25). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc
Prensky, M. (2001, October) Digital natives, digital immigrants. NCB Univeristy Press (Vol 9 No 5).
Sullivan, B. (2011, August 12). Are you a digital native or a digital immigrant? Big Design Events. Retrieved on August 17, 11 from http://bigdesignevents.com/2011/08/are-you-a-digital-native-or-a-digital-immigrant/
Sullivan, B. (2011, August 12). Brain plugged into social media [photo]. Big Design Events. Retrieved on August 17, 11 from http://bigdesignevents.com/2011/08/are-you-a-digital-native-or-a-digital-immigrant/
White, D. (2008, July 23) Not “natives and immigrants” but visitors and residents. Retrieved from http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/
Zur, O. & Zur, A. (2011): On Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives: How the Digital Divide Affects Families, Educational Institutions, and the Workplace. Zur Institute - Online Publication. Retrieved on August 17, 11 from http://www.zurinstitute.com/digital_divide.html.
I would say my learners and I have some similar experiences and some new experiences as well. Growing up I had access to a computer at school and home with Internet; I can’t remember a time that I didn’t. However, during school the utilization of computers were not always effective. Most of my elementary school computer experiences revolved around Oregon Trail, Word, PowerPoint, and typing software. My students have the opportunity to have 1-1 laptops providing them constant access to information. Having their own laptops creates more opportunities to relay information in new and exciting formats. I can’t think of a single presentation in my K-12 career that was done with something other than a poster, a product, or a PowerPoint. My students are now using sites like glogster, wikispaces, ning, edmodo, e-portfolios, animoto, website creators, and wordle to share the information they have gathered.
My learners are Generation Z kiddos. I teach students from 5th grade to 8th graders, ranging in ages eight to fourteen. Students live in a small rural community with roughly 3,400 residents. Growing up I lived in a small town of 6,500 about 40 minutes South of where I teach. Like my students, almost all of the students I started preschool or kindergarten with I graduated with. The classes I teach range in 100-150 students per grade level, not much different from the numbers when I was in school. My students understand the concept of a smaller city, but have no idea what it would be like to be near a large city like Chicago. Most students have access to a computer at home, but not necessarily Internet or printers. We are in a unique location that keeps the atmosphere of small town living, but creates new issues such as some homes being “too far” in the country to get Internet access without having expensive cables placed in the ground.
My students either fall in the haves or the have nots categories. While talking with my students about how we can use apps in the classroom I found roughly 80% of the students have access to an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. I found that my students who have smartphones also have computers, internet, printers etc., while my students who do not have smartphones also do not have internet and printing access at home. My students have a clear digital divide when it comes to access outside of the classroom. Most of our classrooms have some version of an interactive whiteboard, writing slate, projector, voting devices, document camera or some combination of the items.
Unfortunately, the ISAT trap has caught us! My learners have been trained to function based on ISAT, bubble an answer and no more thinking required. They are not used to struggling through problems, having to use critical thinking skills, working with partners, and being able to communicate effectively. Students only know how to solve problems that have a clear answer, students expect everything they experience to have clearly labeled steps, they would rather work alone than deal with a partner, and they don’t understand that communication is more than talking and texting.
The good news is we are changing that in our school. We have the 1-1 laptop grant, we have engineering classes in middle school, and new reading strategies that emphasize reading skills and comprehension. We strive to make connections to everyday life with our students. I am in a unique class that allows me to give open-ended problems, criteria and constraints for design, discovery and hands on projects. My students still don’t want to struggle, but they are becoming more willing to go through the process. They leave my classroom with pride in their designs and creations, they feel like they are better at math and science, and they think they can solve problems more effectively. The truth is, they were capable of being good problem solvers all along but need the opportunity to find that out.
The methods that I have found to be effective with my students are teamwork activities, hands on activities and limiting the number of absorb-type activities. Teamwork activities encourage students to work as a team towards a common goal. They enjoy working towards one large goal and keep each other on task. One barrier of teamwork is meeting the needs of all the students. There are some challenges are difficult, I want to challenge my students but not overwhelm them. My students love doing hands on activities that let them do something and feel productive. Students have commented they enjoy my class because they don’t just sit and listen then do homework. Instead they get to create and try to solve a problem. I also find my students are less tolerant of letting me share information because they want to do something. There are very few days that I have to get them information, but when I do it is usually a large amount of information. I find that limiting the number of absorb-type activities really keep my students interested in the topic we are exploring. Absorb activities like me giving them vocabulary, supplying instruction before an activity, and or presentations of principles will burn them out if I try too many. (Horton, 2006) Instead, I have to balance presentations with activities so the students can get a little information and apply then return for more. (Horton, 2006)
I do not believe that comfort with technology and technology proficiency is the same thing. I see this every time I assign a PowerPoint to my students. I sit astonished at how painful listening to all the PowerPoint presentations are. I also get to enjoy the view, watching the back of my students’ head as they read from the board to me. Students know how to run PowerPoint, how to type information, know how to find a picture and drag it in, but they don’t know how to create an effective presentation, put only the important information (as opposed to every word) or save a picture and cite it. Our students and many adults have coping mechanisms for working with technology. People have found something that works ok, but don't continue to find out how technology should be used.
My students are currently using technology in their learning with almost all of the teachers, but they are not all learning with technology effectively. In my opinion, many teachers are not prepared to teach students using effective technology even though they are effective teachers. As David Perlmutter said, training is an obvious step to help close the technology gap between students and teachers. Teachers don’t have the education they need to be proficient in technology and pictures of the process doesn’t give a teacher thorough understanding. Just like the video You Can’t Be My Teacher, our kids are looking at how we are reacting to the new laptops. Students already know what teachers refuse to use the interactive whiteboards and technologies. They are already making assumptions that those teachers won’t let them use their laptops. The teachers are all good teachers, but don’t have the experience to use the technology. All teachers know when they are strong in their content their lessons are smoother, students understand more, and the students are more engaged. I believe learners who are comfortable with technology are more likely to become proficient if given the appropriate opportunities to learn or are self-motivated to find the training on their own.
Resources:
dcannelli (Poster). You can’t be my teacher [video]. (2009, October 25). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VSymMbMYHA&feature=youtu.be .
Horton, W. (2006). E-Learning by Design. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
leemijeehoon (Poster). Honda ok factory ad [video]. (2006, October 29) Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9B9UD5Hlp4 .
Perlmutter, D. (2011, July). Bridging the generational tech gap. Retrieved August 7, 2011, from thechronicle.com: http://chronicle.com/article/Bridging-the-Generational-Tech/128304/
