Course Reflection

It’s been eight weeks since I created this blog. Back then, creating a blog seemed like an amazing and impossible task. However, that was the easiest of the tasks I’ve worked on in this course. I learned how to use a wiki and I created a podcast. My skills and expertise and especially, my confidence, increased due to the information I’ve gained in this course. Like many teachers, I use technology for research and homework examples, for critical questions to assess deeper a level of understanding from my students, and for increased student collaboration.

As a teacher, this course deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process. I gained insight about the instincts and awareness of my students and their learning progression. Prensky’s articles assigned a name, “digital natives,” that defines those who have grown up in the digital world (Prensky, 2001). I find his explanations to be extremely understandable, insightful, and useful. Additionally, the use of learning objects to enhance student understanding puts a name to resources I’ve been utilizing with the Promethean Interactive Board, thereby validating my instincts and professional skills (Cramer, 2007).
These and other articles gave me increased knowledge of my students abilities and encouraged me to consider student use of cell phones, video games, and Internet social spaces as ways to harness the skills they use so often and competently outside of the classroom. This course caused me to change my mind about the impact of technology. Rather than viewing these things as a hindrance or as competition to education, I can see the benefits they offer. Administering a technology use survey to my students showed me that student use of the Internet and other technology within the school building is really much less than its use outside. I now look at its use in a different way.

I feel increasingly competent in my ability to introduce and use technology in new and different ways within my classroom. As I experience the pitfalls of the first few collaborative experiences, I know that I will learn navigation skills. I’ve also learned that I’m not alone. The internet is not the scary place I imagined where everyone else is an expert compared to novice me. With the plethora of blogs and search engines out there, if I have a question, I now know that I can send my question out there and a helpful person will most likely answer my question or point me in the right direction.

Developing technology skills will enhance student engagement. This course advocates the use of critical thinking and reasoning skills as 21st century skills that will be crucial to student success. Because I am a “digital immigrant” (Prensky, 2001) I have to work to keep up the momentum I felt at the beginning and middle of the course as I created a personal blog, collaborated on a wiki, and interviewed students for a podcast. At the time, I couldn’t wait to integrate these exciting resources into my classroom. I signed up for classroom wikis, I reserved computer labs, and I created an assignment. However, the computer labs were needed for school-wide testing, I had trouble navigating the wiki space, and my student assignment was pushed back. It would be very easy to fall back into old habits, old teaching strategies, and old assignments. But, I can’t let that happen. This weekend, I plan to jumpstart my ideas, sharpen my skills, and ready myself for the wiki experience.

Increased engagement leads to increased achievement. I envision that creative, authentic assignments, repleat in student digital native skills will result in less missing, incomplete, or sloppy student work. In this innovative classroom, my hope is that I will not be tracking students down to complete their work; they’ll be tracking me down to turn it in.

Two long term goals I have are to use technology to do different things and to update assignments to have a student-centered approach. I have begun to change my perspective from being teacher-centered to being student-centered. In the last few weeks I have incorporated more student discourse in my classes by including opportunities for students to collaborate on some part of the lesson as often as possible. My goal is to make this happen daily (at the moment this occurs about two to three times per week).

The biggest difference I can see so far is that the reading I have done and will continue to do has made me examine my habits. As Thornburg says, “Teachers must do new things, not just do old things in a different way…It’s not ok to put old wine in a new bottle” (Laureate, 2008). My plan in the short term is to incorporate the use of wikis in my classroom. This quarter, I expect that students will have the opportunity to publish at least two projects there. The long term goal I have for the next few years is to look at my curriculum with a new set of eyes. Presently, each quarter, there are common assignments that are mandated to be written across the county. Rather than looking at these as an obstacle, I plan to use my students’ interest in technology as an impetus for creative assignments. These “must-do” assignments can be “tweaked” to include a student perspective; I need to make the learning and the application as authentic as possible. For instance, instead of just talking about the humor in Shakespeare and hoping students notice and understand it, I asked my students to bring in examples of humor they see on television, in books, in movies. Using these ideas as a stimulus, we then looked at the humor in Shakespeare in a new light. My students are beginning to make connections between the past and present easier and more enthusiastically. We all win.

References

Cramer, S. (2007). Update your classroom with learning objects and twenty-first century skills. Clearing House, 80(3), 126–132.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, & Society. "The Changing Work Environment, Part I." Baltimore: Author.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5).

Podcast - Understanding Student Use of Technology at Home and School

I surveyed three classes of 7th grade English students to find out how they use the technology we have been learning about at home and at school. All of my students say they have computers and most say they have computer access. As you'll hear in the podcast...we need to work on enticing students to use the technology for good (education!) instead of teenager stuff!

21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a Web site dedicated to infusing 21st century skills into education. I spent several hours perusing the site and reading many articles (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/). It offers information on the topic of technology and its importance to education. One of the things I discovered that surprised me is that there are only ten states that have initiated discussions and programs to address the issue of specific technology skills. My state is not one of them. This surprises me because we have a great education system that seems to be in the forefront of new initiatives. Perhaps we are in a “wait and see” mode.

My initial reaction to the Web site is that it seemed to be one-sided, a “cheer-leader” for 21st Century Skills and a shopping mart for education resources. As I delved deeper, I was happy to find opposing viewpoints. Bill Tucker, the author of “Beyond the Bubble: Technology and the Future of Student Assessment” comments that these 21st century skills will be invaluable if they result in more equitable and effective schools. I worry that the access or non-access to technology will create an even wider education gap between those students with home access to computers and those without. I especially agree with his comment about American education, “…a tendency to run after every shiny new idea often leads to faddishness that slights the most disadvantaged students” (Tucker, 2009). In the quest to do what’s best for our students, it’s easy to jump on the nearest and newest bandwagon. I’ve been through a myriad of “this will work; use this!” vocabulary programs, reading programs, thematic units, grammar teaching, no grammar teaching, etc. and it’s hard not to think that this focus on 21st century skills is just another wagon. The article, “What to learn: ‘core knowledge’ or 21st –century skills, debates whether one or the other is the best way to go. E.D. Hirsch is quoted as saying that without core knowledge, critical thinking can’t occur. He advocates leveling the playing field for all students by teaching extensive background knowledge (Toppo, 2009). I believe that a more centric approach is important; to teach content in a technological environment. Claus von Zastrow proposes this in his blog that, as educators, we shouldn’t have to choose between content and skills (Zastrow, 2009).

The implication of this debate is not earth shattering at this time. I will continue to teach the English curriculum content. I will however, acknowledge and implement critical thinking skills and the collaborative process in my lesson planning. This knowledge of the possible (and probable) future expectations my students will most likely meet requires innovation on my part as an educator and also as a leader of other teachers in my department. It reminds me that teachers need to be learners too.

References
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Retrieved March 25, 2009, from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

Toppo, Greg. (2009, March 5).What to learn: ‘core knowledge’ or ‘21st-century skills’? USA Today. Retrieved March 25, 2009, from http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-03-04-core-knowledge_N.htm

Tucker, Bill. (2009, February 7). Beyond the bubble: technology and the future of student assessment. Education Sector Reports. Retrieved March 25, 2009, from http://www.educationsector.org/research/research_show.htm?doc_id=826893

Zastrow, Claus von. (2009, March 2). Do we have to choose? Blog. Retrieved on March 25, 2009, from http://www.publicschoolinsights.org/node/2343

How to Get Students to Care?

I've just survived the first day of state testing. My students were well-prepared and ready. We have read, written, discussed, quizzed, laughed, wondered, re-written, developed, homeworked, graded, peer-graded, reading strategized, etc. all year. Why, then, do some of them choose to RACE through the state test? Either I've helped them become brilliant and efficient test takers and students, or they just want to finish and move on to something else? I'll keep my fingers crossed that it's the former! Have other teachers experienced the same feeling of disappointment, dismay, or disbelief that I am at this moment? What can we do as educators to help children see that everything really does matter?

On the other hand, there were many wonderful, dedicated students who took the test today very seriously. I guess I've answered my own question...

Any ideas?

Blogs in The Classroom

My 7th grade English students have just chosen an independent novel related to the unit theme. They read the books on their own and then meet every so often in a Literature Circle to discuss (with three other students who are reading the same novel)questions related to theme, characterization, plot, etc. Instead of the traditional "sit around four desks and talk about the book when the teacher walks by," discussion, I wonder if students could be assigned a specific question on a blog, asked to respond to the question, required to read the posts of the other students in the group, and then asked to respond to a certain number of comments. It seems to me that the students might be more interested if they actually put their comments where others can see them and then have the opportunity to also put their comments in a public place.

I have several concerns about this:
Is it possible to create a blog that is only used by students in my class? At this time, my school district does not allow for public blogs, so I'm wondering if there is a "private" blog.
To keep it appropriate, do I have to monitor every post and comment before it goes up?
How does a teacher manage this without having to read a huge amount of entries?

The other idea I have is to use a blog to showcase student work. Students choose a writing assignment to post and share with the rest of the class and perhaps the school.

I look forward to hearing from teachers who have done this before.

Donna

English Teacher Blog

Teaching English to middle school students is a challenge, a trial, and an exciting opportunity. On the one hand, students strive to show their knowledge, sophistication, and maturity. On the other hand, they like to play, dream, and act silly. The adolescent learner wants so much to be grown up, respected, and cherished. Being around middle school students makes a teacher feel old and incredibly young. Bringing technology to my classroom and my students may help to combine the old and the new. If I'm interested in the newest technology, I imagine my students are too.

Donna