Week $, Blog 8-Reflection on Blogging

Week 4, Blog#8-Reflection on Blogging

Bloagging has its purpose, in that it allows people to state what they believe and have it availabe to the entire world. Private thoughts, however, should not appear in blogs, for the same reason that President Obama told America's youth to "be careful what you put on facebook." He was warning these kids to watch their future. If ever they had illusions of grandeur, they will be swarthed in grief if they said or reproted something on facebook that was considered "offensive."

The type of blog we completed this term, is also a bit edgy, if our administrators took offence to what we have written. I though, strongly believe that the pupose of thie clas was to put us on the edge. We are examining topics that are up coming, and futuristic, but already here and being used. Several times, I have heard my peers in this class state that they are "pushing peoples buttons" at their schools. Inherantly, humans don't like to change, unless the see the motivation to make the change.

School districts have invested millions of dollars on "traditional" tools for educators to use in the classroom. Using other peoples stuff, found online through home computers (because these sites are blocked at the schools) is frowned upon, even though the educational experience is enhanced by using these new found, and often free, tools.

I am of the belief that students are engaged by technology, hence, my purpose for attending Full Sail University. These students have been brought up surrounded by technology. My children were 4 when they stated using computer games; many kids are even younger. In the past, values were things taught at home, but with technology, educators are the ones who are having to teach the value of technology as a learning tool. Unfortunately, the educators are behind the proverbial eight-ball, since they are only familiar with basic programs, and don't have the chutz-pah to change.

Week 4,Blog #7-Second Life

ATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2009

Learning in Second Life would probably shock the socks off our students. They are so used to entering a room, opening a book, and reading as a group, that if they were asked to open a computer and go to a site called Second Life and create their own Avatar, they wouldn't know what to do!

I do agree that places like ISTE Island in Second Life could be benefitial to learning. The teacher would need to have a great deal of knowledge about the site. I can envision a teacher creating three avatars representing him or herself, and holding groups sessions with the students in this site. The ISTE site had a multitude of meeting palces, some more specific than others. But a Language Arts teacher could hold group meetings: one to discuss literature, one grammar,etc. and so on, all in second life, and all relevant to student learning. I would have liked to visit Eduisland, but for some reason I was told it no longer existed.

I think my only issue with secon life is that it is so much fun, studetns would want to be flying and battleing in the air all the time the class was there. Also, I would need to learn more about the differnt sites before I brought my students there. I believe we could trust sites like the ISTE, but maybe not so much sites that were set up by people in general.

In our second month of school, we had to explore Second Life and decide upon a section to report on to the others in the class. Our group chose Ecology as our project and I was to report on Etopia Eco Villiage. Which is agin, a nice site to explore, but the teacher could have considerable out put of funds to make this workable in the classroom. Below is a picture from Second Life Etopia Eco Villiage.

This viliage is easy to explore, they have interesting areas to visited, such as the one above that shows a peacock and horses hanging around a watering trough. There are also special events that are advertised throughout the park-like villiage. Once agin, though, the teacher would need extensive knowledge of the site and its attributes before embarking on a classroom visit to the site.

Week3, Blog #6-Communities of Practice

Community learning has been around for several years, however in the classrooms of the United States, they call it "co-operative learning," and it is presented based on the teacher's notion of what it should look like. As a teacher who has used cooperative learning groups in the classroom, I know factually, that most teachers have no clue what-so-ever how a cooperative assignment should look, or how the resulting assessment should look.

Bringing this tools into the classroom, through the use of computers, iPods or cellphones would revolutionize learning. So, the technology iPods and cellphones are banned from campus, the computers are all being used for traditional testing. In addition, the websites that might offer our students a fresh, real-life look at a problem that could be solved through discovery on the internet, are blocked from use by both students and teachers.

It seems as if everyone in education has a new idea about where education should be headed, but, as stated in Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, by Etienne Wenger(1998), "students go to school and, as they come together to deal in their own fashion with the agenda of the imposing institution and the unsettling mysteries of youth, communities of practice sprout everywhere..." This paragraph continues to name the places where these communities of practice are held, but anyone who has driven past a community park can see evidence of their existence.

Through researching the concept of Communities of Practice, I was able to find several papers and articles on the subject through Sharedwork.org, a National Community of Practice site where educators, administrators, and parents may access and share information on what makes a highly qualified teacher. I found several articles concerning the ability or lack of, for co-teachers to step into each others shoes when needed. I think this site would be great for my co-teachers at school to read and learn from.

This site offers information and resources to evaluate teachers, the outcomes the produce in student achievement, and does it all in a community of practice environment. I am currently going through my annual evaluation, and this site has information on this type of evaluation, and how it may not be fair to co-teachers to be evaluated in the same manner as single-teacher classrooms. I should show this site to my supervisor!

Reference List

Wenger,E (1998) Communities of Practice: learning, meaning, identity,Cambridge University Press, New York, NY http://books.google.com/books?id=heBZpgYUKdAC&dq=communities+of+practice&printsec=frontcover&source

Retrieved September 21st, 2009

http://www.sharedwork.org/

Week 3, Blog#5-Social Media

"Shift Happens," as relayed to us in Did You Know; Shift Happens, one of the video files Dr. Siegel included in this weeks blog assignment, is a take off of another, eerily similar saying from the 1980's. The older of these sayings, referred to the Murphy's law of life: anything that can go wrong, it will go wrong.

"Shift happens," however, refers more to a pardigm shift, and shift in our way of thinking, and interrelating. Our way of interacting with others in our global population, is the primary focus of this shift. Speculation about the change in brain structue in students, for whom technology is the "mother's milk" of their social lives, has caused this idea of brain alteration. Unfortunately, the persons in charge of teaching these technically brilliant students are not up to the challenge, mostly because the technnology they are required to teach wasn't even invented until after they had completed college.

This video also include the scariest projections of our global future that I have ever seen or heard. To think that the current development of technologly is growing at such a pace, that college students just entering school can count on the technology available to them when they enter school, being obsolete when they reach their junior year. It seems as though technology is growing exponentially.

I also enjoyed the analogy of the video, Social Media in Plain English,which discussed the ever changing landcape of technology. The idea of forming friendships and social networking buddies based on interests is fascinating. It is ineresting also, that students who learn through networking, can establish these friends without ever meeting them in person, yet establish long lasting relationships based entirely on interest.

I believe that the paradigm shift needs to occur in schools rapidly, before the shift becomes a crevase, and then a cavern.

Reference List

lamybethhale (2008, October 21) Did You Know? [Video File]. Video posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY&feature=fvste1

leelefever (2008, May) Social Media in Plain English [Video File]. Video posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE

Week 2, Blog #4-PLN's

よこそう

Welcome

I have personal experience with "Personal Learning Networks," as my daughter, Maggie, has been engaged in one for the past year, or two or three. She fell in love with Anime' and computer animations almost overnight, and asked me to buy her a Japanese dictionary. I, of course, thought it was a stage, but I bought her the dictionary anyway.

She is now involved in several internet groups, too many for me to keep up with. She has books, Japanese language sets, and she has moved beyond conversational Japanese to the more advanced levels. When we visit EPCOT, we have to go to the Japanese pavillion, and eat at the Japanese restaurants.

She is still interested in Anime' and has begun to create her own artwork, both on the computer and off. She also asked me to buy her a scanner, so she can scan her drawings onto the internet to share with her "netwrok" of friends. I never thought my daughter could be that committed to learning anything. The funny part of all this, is that her grades in the general education classes at school have also improved, along with her Japanese. She is more motivated in her school work, and would like to attend college in Japan, or thorugh Full Sail, where she can study graphic arts and animation.

I know from personal experience that this type of learning is not only good for kids who lack that type of motivation, but it is high-interest to the students who are involved with them. Who wouldn't want to succeed in creating your own artwork and animations?

As I have discussed my daughter's self-challenge with other educators, it is highly disappointing when they remark," What's she going to do with that?" Even her own grandmother asks these narrow-minded type of questions, and I have to try to explain the neccessity , in our current economic climate, of creating your own skills. Educators aren't providing kids wiht hte skills they will need for the future.

In example, my school cut out many of the reading classes this year because of budget cuts. According to the site provided by Dr. Siegel, Warlick's CoLearners, by David Warlick(2008), the skills like reading, writing and arithmetic only scrath th esurface of th eskills that will be required of the students graduating form school in the near future. He states,"the concept of literacy in the 21st century will be far richer and more comprehensive than the 3 Rs of the one room school house, a legacy that still strongly influences today's education environment."

Based on this assumption, the entire educational system would need to be revamped, starting with the tools and skills a child will need in kindergarten. But teachers will need ot play catch-up with all the rest of the grade levels.

Reference List

Blair,Maggie (2009) daughter of Bonita Blair

The Art & Technique of Personal Learning Networks http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.TheArtAmpTechniqueOfCultivatingYourPersonalLearningNetwork

Week 2 Blog #3- Media Literacies

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2009

The following quote was taken from ERIC. The article was written by Jason Ohler for Academe (May-June, 2009). I think this quote, which starts his article, states the reality of the modern juxtaposition of learning.

"Being literate in a real-world sense means being able to read and write

using the media forms of the day, whatever they may be. For centuries,

consuming and producing words through reading and writing and, to a

lesser extent, listening and speaking were sufficient."

Unfortuantely, it also brings to light the essential problem with most education systems. We as educators are teaching outdated materials for a group of students who, a) will never need it, and b) see no value in it. Although I and most educators think that the teaching of Shakespeare is necessary for a good education, if we consider honestly how often a student will use that knowledge, we couldn't help but realize that it makes little sense to teach it. Only actors, all but rarely, need to study Shakespeare in depth.

Is itno longer appropriate to teach new learners old stuff? How do we, the educators, change? What is needed before we can change?

Although I don't have all the answers, I do know that the onset of online education is a start. Those of us who have ventured into thisnew type of learning are learning not only the content of our courses, but also the importance of the new-medias that are available to online learners.

Literacy used to mean that you knew how to effectively communicate, through reading, mostly, but also in the ares of writing, speaking and listening. At least that is the standard educators have been pushing for the last half-century. Initially, the only classroom use for computers was deemed the reading-and-testing of students in reading programs, like Read 180, and others. This was called Media literacy. Andrew Trotter wrote in his article in Education Week (2008) the following quote:

"I think it has been challenging for teachers and educational

institutions in the formal school space to incorporate all of these

[communities]," Ms. Ito said. "Part of what we're seeing is a

generational gap" between parents and teachers, on one hand,

who tend to perceive the online spaces as threatening, and young

people, on the other, who view them as full of positive potential.

The researchers found that young people commonly use online networks to pursue two different types of activity — one that is friendship-driven and one that is interest-driven.

We now consider Media Literacy to be the abilities a person holds for managing the computer, its programs, and all the websites of the internet. This is the power fo future learning that teachers need to harness. This is the new media literacy.

Reference List

Ohler, Jason (2009) New-Media Literacies Academe, v95 n3 p30-33 May-Jun 2009. 4 pp. (Peer Reviewed Journal) Retrieved September 12, 2009

Trotter, Andrew, ( 2008) Much of New-Media Learning Said to Occur Informally, Education Week; 12/3/2008, Vol. 28 Issue 14, p8-9, 2p, Retrieved September 12, 2009

Posted by Bonnie at 3:20 PM

Week 1-Blog #2-Learnng 2.0- New designs for educational success

Created by Bonnie Blair September 7, 2009

Learning occurs through interaction with both technology and each other.

This includes creativity, exploration, discovery, analysis and synthesis of materials both online and in the local library. The videos associated with this question were very interesting, and although I don't see school districts adapting to social networking sites in the immediate future, I do believe the tools discussed in the "No Future Left Behind" video and "Bringing 21st Century Learning to Your Classroom," are possible in the near future.

The only way to effect change in American schools is through a grass-roots movement; a collaboration of teachers, students, administrators and parents who believe there is something wrong with education as it currently exists This seems to be the idea behind the book Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirk . The idea is similar to the fight over evolution and creation, in that there are two distictive groups of people fighting. One group is tech-savvy, and understands the need for technology in the classroom as well as the workforce. The second group holds close to the standards established in a time-gone-by which have little relevance to the future of the American classroom, or the future of our society.

I like to believe that most educators are of the first group, but I am sad to say, not all are. The same holds true for district officials, adminstraotrs, and people in a position to affect this type of change. But change is happening, students are changing, and the sooner educators react, the sooner grades on the "assessments" that schools are forced to teach to, will become a thing of the past. I look forward to the future of education.

Reference List

Shirky, Clay, 2008, Here Comes Everybody,Penguin Press, New York, New York

KnowclueKidd (2009, March 04) No Future Left Behind [Video File]. Video posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kra_z9vMnHo

elemenous (2007, August 29) [Video File]. Video posted to Bringing 21st Century Learning to Your Classroom

Week 1-Blog Posting #1-Web 2.0- Why aren't schools using it already?

"Web 2.0, New Tools, New schools," Soloman and Schrum (2007), included in chapter 1 the following:

"We used to talk about reading, writing, and

arithmetic as essential skills for literacy.

To be literate today involves aquiring new skills,

including those of using technology, understanding

Science, having global awareness, and most

important, having the abililty to keep learning,

which involves gathering, processing, analyzing,

synthesizing, and presenting, information, as well as communicating and collaborating. Free online tools can play a large role in helping students

aquire these skills."

I believe this paragraph sums up the importance of the book: change must happen in our schools, schools that are already strapped for funds, therefore, free tools are the way of the future, and many educators agree.

Take for example the following,from Wesley Fryer as found on Tools for the TEKS, a free tool for educators:

"In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most students and teachers in schools were sharply limited in the potential audience for which they could share their ideas and publications. Gone are the days when the top destination for exemplary student work was the family refrigerator. The potential audience for student work has changed dramatically in the 21st century with the advent of read/write web (web 2.0) tools like blogs, wikis, social networking websites, and video publication venues like YouTube. The ability for anyone with access to a web browser to publish text, audio, and video on the global stage of the Internet is a disruptive, challenging, and empowering phenomenon."

Most of us agree that schools and teachers need to change toward modernization. The future comes closer everyday, and the adminstrators of modern school districts need to move at lightspeed, not only to catch up, but to get in front of the curve. A flood is coming, and our schools will drown, unless The Department of Educations across the country lift internet blocks and allow teachers to use these free tools to teach the skills that students need to compete in the global market.

Go2web2.0 is an awesome place to start with this change. It has apps that are not just accessable, but also fun, which is often a component missing in traditional education.

Reference List:

Solomon,G;Schrum,L;(2007),Web 2.0,New Tools, New Schools, International Society for Technology in Education,Eugine,OR ISTE

Fryer, Wesley A., An Article for The TechEdge: The Journal of the Texas Computer Education Association, (Updated 26 November 2007) www.speedofcreativity.org Retrieved from site 9/14/09

.

.

Creation of blogfor ETC- Web 2.0The new dimension in learning

I made a fascinating discovery today in my office at school--Web 2.0 isn't blocked! Almost everything else is blocked by my school district, and I have a hard time believing that they would allow Wikipedia, and not allow site like Internet for Classrooms.com, a site devoted to teaching teachers how to use technology in the special needs classroom.

http://internet4classrooms.com/assistive_tech.htm

I suppose that the ideas put forth in "Here Comes Everybody," by Clay Shirky, will undoubtedly be the way in which change occurs in United States school systems. As in, using the power of internet social-networks to motivate educators, parents and politicians to change. Change is not needed just in the physical structures of schools, that which our government thinks should be funded, but rather the investment ought to be in the teachers and technology they need to be using.

Web 2.0 has some valuable tools for teacher, who can get new ideas form their houses if not from their schools. I will be nice when the top brass at school districts begin to see the importance of these tools enough that they " get their heads out of the sand" and make some changes. Not changes like which textbook to use or how to make sure teachers create good lesson plans, but changes that will rock their educational world.