Life Long Learning

Check out this blog: Life Long Learning! A New Blogger's Beginning. She is a classroom teacher turned technology coordinator for her district and her focus is to support teachers in integrating technology into their classrooms.

In one of her blog posts, Is Web 2.0 A Relevant Term? she gives a really basic overview of what exactly this whole "Web 2.0" concept is. Clearly I am familiar with this term and the jargon that goes with it because I am enrolled in LAI 684 and am fortunate enough to be employed in a district where educational technology is at the top of the priority list. However, a year or two ago I was not as well versed in "Web 2.0" as I am now-in fact, things are still fuzzy at times since there is always so much to keep up with! When the educational technology craze hit my school district a couple of years ago, many teachers were hesitant to jump on the bandwagon. Many felt as though it was just another chore to tackle during the daily school schedule and lots of terms were thrown around that we were expected to know and be able to use in our classrooms.

Speaking for myself, had I read this blog at the time I think I may have been a bit more comfortable with the subject instead of feeling like this was being thrown at me so quickly. I love how she gives examples of how we are already using "Web 2.0" and don't even know it (email, online shopping, photo sharing, etc.). It is also great that she realizes that during this panel discussion there were many "newbies" who felt overwhelmed and weren't familiar with the social media that is available. I think this is how some of my colleagues must have felt a couple of years ago, as did I.

I also love how she says we should stop trying to find a definition of "Web 2.0." Instead, she says we need to examine its characteristics, its programs, and realize we are already a part of it. As teachers, that means we need to continue to interact globally and figure out how we can help our students to interact with the social web as well in the classroom.

Classroom 2.0

I am a member of Classroom 2.0 and the specific social network I belong to is WSCSD CLC (West Seneca Central School District Curriculum Leadership Cabinet).

This cabinet is comprised of staff from all over my school district: classroom teachers, administrators, teacher aides, etc. Our purpose is to "collaborate, share and explore future initiatives in curriculum and instruction." Basically, we get together several times a year and discuss, realistically, various initiatives in the district, where we want the district to go in the future, and currently, we are examining and editing our Critical Elements for Success, which is essentially what we want our students to know and be able to do when they leave our district.

This is my 3rd year on the cabinet and for the past three years, we have been pulled out of our classrooms twice a year to meet as a whole group for a whole day in addition to taking a few hours over the summer to do the same. We also communicate constantly via email throughout the school year and summer months. However, this past August our fearless Assistant Superintendent has created a Ning account for us to accomplish our goals in a virtual space! We may still meet as a group-sometimes a social network just can't replace face-to-face conversation and the results you get from that-however we now have the opportunity to tackle things asap instead of having to wait for the next meeting or, we can do things little by little, throw out some ideas and see where they go. Plus, I think that it will make those times when we do meet altogether much more efficient, effective, and productive.

A learner is like an athlete

A learner is like an athlete.

An athlete begins with a passion for a sport. He learns the rules, watches it on TV, goes to competitions, comes to idolize top performers in that area and then pursues the same path for himself. He trains, he conditions his body, he practices and he perfects his game. The final step is to compete against other athletes. Here is when he shows his skills, sees how he measures up to his competitors, shares his talent, and most importantly, he sees how he can improve.

A learner has an innate desire to gain knowledge-the passion. He goes to school, he is taught new information from his teachers and he uses it everyday in the classroom. He does his homework to practice, he studies to retain the information, and he is challenged with various assessments like tests, quizzes, essays, debates, and experiments. The final step is to DO something with that knowledge. Here is when he shares it with others who are also interested. They can debate theories; they can apply it to real-world, out-of-the-classroom, practical situations; they can use it in real life; and most importantly, they are constantly adapting what they have learned to the changing world.

Just like an athlete cannot simply train and be done, a learner cannot simply learn and do nothing with this knowledge. The athlete must compete and DO something with his skills. He must share them with others so that he can improve and adapt as needed. A learner must utilize current forms of communication to share his knowledge with others and make it work in today's world. For an athlete and a learner to not ultimately reach that final step would be a waste of talent and of knowledge.

In George Siemen's article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, he says "Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today." It is not simply a learner's knowledge that is enough. He must synthesize that knowledge, expand on it, and use today's technologies to increase that knowledge or find the answers when they are lacking.

We must teach our students that they are not simply receptacles to be filled but rather that we expect them to apply their knowledge. In today's world, that requires the learner to go outside of himself to the social networking world, blogging, creating things in web 2.0, etc. Siemen's echoes this thought in his video The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature when he says we should "focus less on trying to bring knowledge into the mind...more on developing skills...to function in a distributive manner." A learner is not meant to work and think alone!

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

Immediately, one of the first things that caught my attention when I viewed the video A Vision of K-12 Students Today was the amount of time the kids said they spend with technology, and not actual people. Between the TV, the computer, the iPod, videogames, and cell phones it makes me wonder-do kids play outside anymore? Do they have "storytime?" Do they build forts with the living room furniture or play make-believe when they're stuck at home inside on a rainy day? Kids seem to have less and less human interaction every year they come into my classroom. They prefer to text one another rather than talk on the phone. People can obtain their degrees online without having to interact in a classroom setting with others.

Now, don't get me wrong I am all about embracing technology. Much of it has made my life easier and I have seen the awesome products teachers get when they incorporate things like blogs, for example, into their classroom. This is where the kids are, and where need to go as well. However, this lack of people-to-people interaction, or at least its evident decrease in frequency, worries me at times. I think it's necessary. No matter what kind of technology might be out there, students still need to be able to present themselves face-to-face in job interviews, meetings, personal relationships, etc. In terms of interaction, I guess I'm not really sure if the old way of doing things is any better or worse than the new "digital" way...just different.

The Web is Us/ing Us

After viewing this video, The Web is Us/ing Us, I realized how much I never really thought about what goes behind all of the applications, websites, and tools on the internet. I never paid much attention to who is responsible for putting all of this stuff out there, who wrote all the "html" codes, etc. It's weird, one day I just dialed up to the internet and-Poof! There it was! I watched on the video how several sites had "mashed" their data together and I realized that I take all of it for granted. I do almost everything on the internet these days-pay bills, watch TV and movies, and even take a course online without having to set foot in a classroom!

The video also made me "wake up" in a way when it talked about how WE are the ones who are putting all of that stuff out there. It was just last year when I started getting to know exactly what this "web 2.0" stuff is about and how we are no longer passive users and consumers of the internet. We are creating what is out there and we are working together to create virtual spaces where we can put our minds together to create whatever it is we want to create. Pretty cool!

Blog Post #2: Blogging safety

Important things to remember about safe blogging:

1. Make sure you know who is reading your blog. Use your "settings" to control this.

2. Be careful what you put about yourself in your blog. Don't give away personal information.

3. If you are posting information, make sure it if from a reputable source and that you can backup anything you write (personal opinions, research references, etc.)

4. Only write what you want people to read/know. Once it's out there, it's out there!

5. If voicing personal opinions, be sure to speak your point of view, but try not to offend those who might read your posts. We are free to say what we want, but be sure you can handle the responses you may receive.

Blog Post #1-Blogging and me

Many teachers in my school have been using blogs for the last 1-2 years and I hear great things about it. Mostly these are Social Studies and/or English classes but they can definitely be applied in a foreign language setting.

I would like to use blogs in my classroom. Like the book said I’d like to “start small.” I can see myself using them for homework assignments and eventually group projects for the kids. Specifically, though, I would like to use them to:

1) Post prompts for writing in TL-Depending on the vocabulary/grammar topic, I can ask a question or throw out an idea weekly, and have students comment on it using that chapter’s vocab/grammar in TL. Eventually this can grow to writing letters or essays, but it would also be good for short little assignments to ensure they are writing in TL often and not just once or twice a chapter for the final writing task.

2) Provide online readings for students to read and react to. A lot of times when we do a reading together in class it can get tedious. Either one student reads aloud and we follow, or I jigsaw it and we come together to talk about it. Since class time is so short anyways, this could be something I can have students do at home over a longer stretch of time, or it can be done partly at home on the blog, then we can expand in class and reference the students’ posts. This way they can read and write at their own pace.

3) Complete project work in small groups. This would be mostly for student use. Since often times they might be grouped with peers they don’t talk to outside of class, they could communicate via the blog. This way they wouldn’t have to worry about meeting up outside of class (or at least not as much), they can check each other’s work easier, I can check up on their progress, and we wouldn’t have to worry about that dreaded student being absent the day of the presentation and messing up the group.

As far as my own learning, I can see my department and even my school/district on a larger scale, using a blog to share cool ideas, projects, etc. easier. I am on one of the committees in my district and we actually just started a Ning (it’s a blogging type of site) so that even though we are all at different buildings, we can still swap ideas and work throughout the year more often than just the one or two meetings we have each semester.