Week 5 Post #2- True Confessions

Week 5 Post #2

True Confessions of a Teacher- Dr. Mazur Video

 

I love how Dr. Mazur started this video talking about confessing.  He went on to confess all of the mistakes he made early on in teaching.  He also talked about how he ignored some of the signs that it wasn’t working and followed the “how it had always been done” model.  I think this is the greatest benefit elementary school teachers get from summer vacation.  It gives that time to step back and say, “What worked and what needs to be changed?”  I find being reflective in the middle of things very difficult.  Vacations give me that time to rethink things.

He also brought up one of my favorite topics, data.  We have been an RTI school for several years.  We have been working on what data to collect, how often to collect it, and how to use it.  He quoted the former president of the Carnegie Foundation as saying, “The plural of anecdotes is not data.”  

 It made me think back to our Child Study meetings a few years ago when we had a few scores to bring to the meeting but it was mostly anecdotes.  Now we come to the meetings with dates, scores, interventions tried, and results.  Anecdotes still come into play but in a much smaller way.

I can’t imagine trying to make a class of 200 more interactive, but Dr. Mazur tackled this issue with questioning and peer interaction.  Explaining something to someone helps you cement your own understanding.  It also shows you really understand the material.  That is why we have open response questions on the NECAP that ask students to explain their thinking.  These are also the questions students find the most difficult.  They cannot simply recite information, they must know it on a deeper level. 

A few years ago I started using the Jigsaw method for some lessons.  Students are broken into groups.  Each person in the group becomes an “expert” on part of the material.  Students from the various groups work together on common material to learn the subject and then go back to their original group to teach the material to the rest of the group.  It forces the students to be actively engaged in the learning.  It does require more planning, more class time, and more varied materials than the standard lecture type lessons, but it is worth it.

Confessions are good.  It means you have thought about something and admitted there is a problem.  Once you have confessed it you feel more obligated to do something to change it.  A supportive PLC is the perfect place to this.  You can get the support and the accountability needed to make some changes.  I just don’t want my confessions posted to You Tube.

Week 5- Post 1 It's Not About the Tool

Making It Stick- The Tools and the Standards

Week #5- Post 1

David Wees blogged this week about a moment in his high school career that was etched in his mind.  He called it “stickiness”.  There are moments of learning that just stick with us.  We have all had them, so how can we provide them more often for our students? 

Sean Capelle discussed the need to connect the Web 2.0 tools we have to the standards we need to teach.  With the large amount of material I am expected to teach in a year, I don’t have time to make a wiki with my students, just to make a wiki.  It needs to be embedded in the content.  Time is so precious in the classroom that any large project I undertake with my students must be meeting multiple standards.

My dad can make or fix anything, but he believes in having the right tool for the job.  When I look at my curriculum I need to have the right tools.   Pencil and paper might be the perfect tool for one learning task, a field trip might be best for another, and creating a video the best for another.  It is my job as a teacher to always be adding to my toolbox.  Henry Ford said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether they are eighty or twenty.”  I don’t want to be old yet so I keep adding to my toolbox.

Anyone who has been in the classroom any length of time knows that students work harder when they know someone is going to see their work.  Having an audience inspires all of us to work harder whether that audience is a peer, last year’s teacher, a parent, or anyone in cyberspace.  Blogs and wikis can offer students an audience for their work.  The first graders who created the America wiki had to make sure their writing was top notch because others were going to read it.

Teaching based on the standards, using the right tool, or having an audience can all help students learn, but when these are all combined at the same time that is when we get the “stickiness” David Wees was talking about.  Crafting lessons and projects that combine all of these is challenging and takes time.  I used the word “crafting” because these things cannot be thrown together and just throwing in technology will not help it stick.  Only good teaching can do that.

Week 5- Webinar- Becoming an Email Ninja

Week 5- Webinar Post

Becoming an Email Ninja

We have recently become a Google school and I have been trying to learn the ins and outs of the tools available for teachers and students.  In looking through the list of suggested webinars I found a large list to choose from at Google Apps for Education.  Email is the first tool we were required to use so it seemed the logical place to start.  I watched “Becoming an Email Ninja” by Chris Craft.  This was recorded on January 4^th and posted on YouTube so I did not participate, I only watched but I was able to stop and rewind when I didn’t catch something.  He had a list of his top 10 tips.  I highlighted my three favorites.

His first tip was to install Google Chrome.  This was a lesson I learned the hard way.  When our district first changed over to Google Apps, our IT person suggested changing to Google Chrome but I didn’t want to take the time to do that right away.  I tried to continue using Internet Explorer.  It doesn’t work!  I also found there is a long list of other apps that kids can use on the Chrome website.

Chris Craft introduced a fun way to keep up with email called 0Boxer.  This works like a game.  The idea is to earn points by keeping your inbox down to zero.  You earn points by deleting unwanted mail, archiving old items, responding immediately to items and moving items to keep into folders.  It is good incentive to keep up with your inbox.

The best tip Chris shared was how to change my gmail when signing up for different websites.  Google will ignore anything that comes after a + sign.  If I want to sign up for the Walmart website I can use my existing email address and just add a plus sign and key word.  If my real gmail was cherie@gmail.com, I could sign up for Walmart using cherie+walmart@gmail.com.  All of that email would still get to me but now I can easily search, delete or block email from that address.  You know as teachers we end up signing up for lots of sites, some you end up liking and stick with but many others you may never go back to and this is a great way to quickly stay organized.

I'm not sure I'm an email ninja but I did learn a few new tricks.  I have found Webinars a great way to learn what you need know right when you need to know it.  It would be fun to watch one live and ask questions as they come up but the times do not always work.  I like that I can put my laptop next to the pile of laundry or dishes that need to be done, press play, and learn while I work.  Just be sure to keep a pen and paper close by to jot things down.

Week 4 Post #2

Week 4 Post #2

Who reads directions anyways?

I have to admit when it comes to diigo, I feel a little bit like my husband who doesn’t believe in reading directions.  I started my diigo account a while ago without reading the directions.  It seemed easy enough.  Sign up for the account, find sites, tag them, and presto…instant organization.  It seemed like a good idea and I used it for a while but then I fell back into adding them to my favorites list and emailing links to myself between home and school.  I think this happened because, I was only halfway there.  I only understood one side of diigo, the bookmarking side.

The transcript of the Skype interview with Michele Drechsle rmade me realize the social part of using diigo.  Finding other active bookmarkers looking for similar material will help keep me up to speed on possible resources for my class.  

 Drechsler says she spends about an hour per day looking for new material.  I don’t have an hour a day just for looking for new material.  Building a network of good resources will make the search time I have more productive. Diigo does have an Ardroid app which would allow me to use those times when I'm waiting in the doctor's office or sitting in the bleachers between innings to add to my account.

Making lists was also new to me.  I missed that one extra layer of organization.  If I had read more about diigo in the beginning I might have stuck with it.  I have include a You Tube video that shows how a teacher uses diigo with 4th graders.  If a 4th grader can do it, so can I...now that I have read the directions

Week 4 PBS Video

Week 4 Post #1

PBS Video- Digital Media New Learners of the 21^st Century

This video gave me a lot to think about and made me ask myself a lot of questions.  One of the first quotes in the video was from John Dewey, “If we teach today’s kids the way we taught them yesterday then we rob them of tomorrow.”  If I think back over my twenty years of teaching, my teaching has changed but has it changed enough to prepare students for the world they will be entering.  As I watch these videos most of the examples show middle and high school students and the projects they are involved in.  How do I back that up to second grade to give these young students what they need to be ready for those middle and high school projects?

In the video, Henry Jenkins talked about how society views hours spent on video games as an addiction rather than as problem solving and practicing skills.  John Gee discussed the importance of play and tinkering for learners.  How does that translate to second grade?  I do use some online resources to engage my students.  CarrotSticks is online math practice.  Students can create an Avatar and then complete math tasks.  They can also see who else is online and challenge them.  They can also use IXL for math.  They work to earn rewards.  The kids sometimes use these at home.  I also have them set up on Spelling City to practice their spelling.  Are these a good start toward those middle school students who were creating video games?

The video also stressed the importance of having kids create collaboratively.  The museum scavenger hunt and community project were both very interesting.  We visit the Remick Farm Museum as part of our study of early American life.  We visit four stations during our day.  Each team of students visits every station but is responsible for taking pictures and becoming an expert at one of them.  They use the pictures to create a PowerPoint slide when we return to school.  We put all the slides together to share during our school wide monthly meeting.  This gives them an audience for their work.  This project is closer to the type of project I would like to have them involved in but then time constraints begin to enter in.  These projects are time consuming so how often can they be done?  What is a good tool for the project?  What projects fit with curriculum?  Which tools and projects are appropriate for the grade level?  Questions, questions, questions!

Week 3 Post #3

Week 3 Post #3

The post by Scott McLoed really resonated with me.  He offered ten things to get started with.  His first recommendation refers to social networks like Facebook.  He urges educators to teach students how to change their privacy settings rather than ban them.  Similar sentiments were echoed in the Portal to Media Literacy video.

Many parents are not fluent in FB but they are allowing their children to use it.  There isn’t anyone advising or guiding them through this environment that can be so rich and powerful but is also full of pitfalls.  FB even offers help to teachers who want to try.

As educators we have been teaching children to work in groups to help prepare them for working and getting along in the world.  Working in groups online is now a necessary skill.  We also teach how to write and communicate for various other purposes.  We need to add this online medium to our teaching repertoire too. We can start in the early grades by teaching students how to carry on an online conversation using something like Kidblog and move on from there.  We can educate students on reasonable safety measures.  Convincing administrators and parents will be the tricky part.

Week 3 Virtual Learning Communities

Virtual Learning Communities reminds me of a nursery rhyme from when I was little by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that went like this,

There once was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good,

 she was very good indeed,

But when she was bad, she was horrid.

 I have been part of some online learning that was collaborative, encouraging and supportive.  I have also been part of some that were horrid.  Many of my recent experiences were contrived due to the nature of taking classes online.  We were taking the classes to get grades and meet requirements not necessarily to build a network or community of modern day pen pals.

Schwier contends in order for these groups to work the participants have to be hospitable to each other.  In the class environment a teacher watching is usually enough incentive to keep participants hospitable.  Schwier also discusses the need for it to be authentic.  This can be hit or miss depending on how relevant participants feel the topics are to their specific situation.

Schwier says “communities spring up everywhere”.  These communities that spring up are the ones that are more authentic.  The participants have chosen to be there and are looking for the connections and learning.  I also prefer the communities where I have had the opportunity to meet the participants.  These communities also take some time to develop. This video about using Twitter stresses shared experiences such as all the participants being second grade teachers.

I also think there is a little bit of magic.  Every once in a while I get a class that just seems to mesh and work well together.  It is the same online.  The people make an almost instant connection and have both the personal connection and the learning connection.  That is when it is truly energizing.