Week 3 - Integration my way

When I introduced myself to my students (all 289 of them in 17 different classes from pre-K through 6^th grade) I first made a list of what I wanted to share with them about myself. Then I looked at where I could add an visual component and as the images came to life I moved from my thought of a Powerpoint to a Prezi to add movement to my images and provide a “pretty” backdrop. That backdrop inspired me to add an animoto video (rather than just a series or collage of pictures) and some animation to a section while a relevant audio piece was being shared. The audio and video each enhanced the other and had the kids sitting up and taking notice of that section. I still had “slides” that contained bulleted lists but I stressed to the kids that those were more for me so I wouldn’t forget anything. http://prezi.com/swweljwaatpx/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

One list contained “what we will do this year” and included a short discussion of finding information and learning how to present it since presentation is the key to sharing information. I used the metaphor of finding something really great and trying to share it with an adult when they are busy doing something else. Almost everyone was able to recall a similar circumstance so when we get to that portion of our “program” I think I will have them interested.

Technology integration to me is having tools to support the objectives of the lessons. Teaching research skills and website evaluation is very difficult without online access and computers for the students to use. Creating videos won’t work without cameras, storage devices, and software for recording and editing footage. But having the technology won’t serve the purpose if the students don’t learn the HOW of doing the tasks. If they don’t know how to take notes or assess the information then having access to information is unnecessary. If they don’t understand story elements then any video created will simply be a recording of life events without a true purpose. I plan to use technology in my lessons as a tool to practice and enhance skills. As a librarian, I like to pick a picture book to use as a stimulus that will drive discussion and investigation of concepts encountered in the book or as a model for us to recreate in our own fashion. For example, All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan will serve as a stimulus to identifying our own places we love and present us with the opportunity to use technology to create a persuasive argument project that will campaign for the places we love.

Another lesson that will start with a book and use technology to create the end product begins with the picture book Baby Bear Counts One. We will look at the concepts in the book: counting book, seasonal changes, habitat, relevant animals. Students will pick a subject of their project and recreate the counting and informational style of the book while using technology for research and book creation.

Both these lessons could be done without technology but students should be able to create more complete projects in less time by using accessible tools. I want to see my lessons and classes move from teacher-dictated to teacher-guided where I put out the question and students discover their own answers and, most importantly, create the meaning that allows them to own, defend, and deepen their beliefs in themselves and their answers.

week 3 - my view of media literacy portals

·  ````My pre-college education occurred pre-Web so using technology in class wasn’t even a glimmer in any teacher’s eye at that point. Teachers used overhead projectors, CHALKboards, and mimeograph copies. As I got into high school, mainframe computers became more common but were still basically a business item and not for use in the classrooms for teaching. Going back to college for education, found me in a more technologically-available environment but it was still pre-Smart Board and pre-Web 2.0. Presentations were designed for Powerpoint and interaction and collaboration were designed into individual activities but still contained within the classroom environment. Any virtual excursions outside the classroom occurred through email and electronic pen pal systems. Research was still done through paper with some searching done in electronic databases, but you had to be at the library to use those resources. This new incarnation of schooling at PSU finds me only setting foot in the campus library twice in a year and that is only to physically borrow texts for some courses. I wouldn’t even be there if they were available online for free or if I could afford to buy the books from an online bookseller like Amazon or Abebooks. I have not met any of my classmates or professors in person unless I already had other dealings outside the college environment with them, so even though I may know what people look like and have learned lots about them through their intros and posts shared through class, I wouldn’t really recognize them if I passed them on the street somewhere. It seems that the bigger our social circles become through technology, the less personal and long-lasting those connections can be. That being said, I loved what Wesch did in his classrooms to create stronger personal connections especially in a class of 200 where you would be lucky to know the name of the person to either side of you and your professor would only know you as a name on the roster.

Wesch says at 19:15 “RSS taught us that information can find US” and that to me is a good thing because I don’t have time to check up on everything and everyone that I want to stay updated with/about. The one problem with that though is the illusion that we are truly informed because we are receiving up-to-date information but it may not be the only information available on the topic because we haven’t subscribed to the RSS feed of other sources with similar or opposing information. http://practicalpedagogy.blogspot.com/2011/06/pros-and-cons-of-as-rss-feedssocial.html blogs about similar issues and this article goes into depth about the pros and cons: http://www.llrx.com/features/rss.htm.

One of the most important messages I take away from the Wesch’s video is the thought that we need to create meaningful connecting and significance for our students. Wesch mentions Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self” (http://www.popularsocialscience.com/2013/05/27/the-looking-glass-self-how-our-self-image-is-shaped-by-society/) and I think that is a very apt correlation. We define ourselves based on how we connect and with whom we connect and without those connections our personal definition may lack the grounding we need to flourish. For myself, I know I am a teacher but because I am not officially a faculty member (I am a specialist!) I feel like an illegitimate staff member. I teach but I’m not a teacher. I fight that image in my mind and it does cause me to take a step back or garner support before moving forward as I would if I felt a legitimate member of the faculty. The more one feels a part of the group, the more secure they feel to contribute to collaborations especially if those contributions include challenges to group ideas. One area where we may feel disconnected is when our students seem more at ease with technology but as Wesch states “there are no natives here” and we can’t assume that students know how to effectively use the media just because they can use it for entertainment.

Wesch demonstrated how to change from a teacher-led, authoritative environment to a collaborative, student-driven, media-rich portal. I hope to incorporate some of his ideas in my own library classes especially in the upper elementary classes. I especially like the idea of students taking notes online in a shared document and filling in a shared vocab list. Both of these reinforce student understanding through collaborative communication as well as providing an assessment tool that can drive the formal testing. Another “innovation” he used was the sandbox that replaced the syllabus. How better to help students create connections and understanding but to have them work together to guide the discussions to answer the essential questions. I want to use that approach, in a modified form, with my upper elementary students as we use a model book, Baby Bear Counts One, to guide our research with the end result being a student-produced counting book that share important scientific information with primary grade students. We will not be quite as online or technology-based  but Wesch says at the end of “A Portal to Media Literacy” that “technology is secondary to collaboration” so we will be focusing on the collaboration with technology as a background element.

Week 2 - Initial thoughts, chapters 1&2

Technology is always an interesting topic for me, probably because of how I started out with technology in high school. Going to a vocational school, we had recent tech - not the latest and greatest, but definitely better than the average kid at home experienced. That being said, we started out with punched cards and everyone was really excited to get an IBM Model 36 which allowed for "online" entry. Imagine how frustrating it was for us to have to wait our turn to run our programs and if something didn't work then you had to get back in line to test the fix! Looking back, we had an infinite amount of patience. This is something today's technology doesn't foster in kids. But we must utilize our patience now as I need to step away and will return with a fully realized blog entry.

Okay, so after a few days where the juices were simmering, I am back to try to finish this blog entry. I found the Venn diagram from p.13 of The Connected Educator by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall very interesting especially given that our school has instituted a month-long focus on cooperation. We are also looking at using cooperation as a standard for grades (alongside skill) that would encompass cooperation, attitude, and effort, but is it cooperation we need to encourage or would it be more valuable to model and reinforce collaborative efforts? I think it will take some dedicated thinking on that one!

I think the "Did you know?" presentations on the evolution of technology amazes young people who have seen many types of new technology as basic and universal only to find that, if they had been born a few short years earlier, the new technology is in fact very recent in relation to the technology field as a whole. Older persons have had more experience with the speed of evolution in technology and are less amazed and sometimes much more dismayed at the speed things change, realizing that not all changes are completely positive. Yes our students can do research 24/7 from almost anywhere and yes they can participate in social networking, but do they play together as part of in-person social events or experience the world to make their own discoveries? This is not a new concern as evinced by this NY Times article from 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/fashion/02BEST.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 or this Huffington Post article from late-2011: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/09/children-texting-technology-social-skills_n_1137570.html or even this article from the journal Children and Computer Technology from back in 2000: http://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=45&articleid=205&sectionid=1342. People have been asking and researching these questions for decades, but the emphasis on technology never really loses any steam in this world where STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) is the buzzword that gets people looking towards the future without truly seeing the present as it stands.

It will be interesting to see where technology takes us in the education field, who drives the bus, and how well equipped our students are at the start, during, and after the trip.

Week 2 - Here to there and back again

KWL - Great learning starts with examining what we already Know, looking at what we Want to learn, and then reflecting on what was actually Learned.

K - I already know that using technology in the classroom is essential not only for creating interactive activities but for engaging today's fast-paced learners. I've used passive technology such as Prezi and Powerpoint to present information to my students. This engaged them in that I could include image movement, video, and sound, but the students still sat and listened/watched. Granted, they were more engaged than if I had been lecturing or having them follow along in a textbook, but they still weren't excited beyond belief to be in my room. About 10 days ago, I realized that my new position came with a great gift for my teaching career. Until that fateful moment, I had never been fully-oriented as to what a Smart Board could do, let alone taught how to do it. It was at that instant that I was blessed with the realization that the Smart Board in my library was a TOUCHSCREEN! I probably felt the same way about the leap in technology that I felt in high school when we switched from a punched card IBM System 3 Model 10 to the dedicated terminals of the IBM System 36. It might not seem like much of a leap from an outsider but when you've been working with less powerful technology, the gift of advancement is a very big deal!

W - So now I want to know how to utilize it more fully and how to step back from driving the lessons to let the kids use the technology to uncover the answers we are working on as a class. While personal learning and use of the technology is a great goal for me, it is self-centered to think in those terms. Instead I need to learn how to take advantage of technology to create an environment where students can sharpen their skills of self-directed learning so they become the life-long learners that educators want to nurture in our schools. I need to learn how to promote technology for my students while still ensuring (to the best of my ability) that my students are learning in safe environments. While helping marry student learning and technology, I need to be aware of possible disparities between what I'm teaching and the home environment, finding ways to include families in this adventure so my students have a stronger and wider professional learning network. After all, students are professional learners just by the act of being in school and if we foster that attitude that learning is an important accomplishment throughout life, then we increase the chances of learning occurring beyond the walls of our classrooms.

L - I hope that my final reflection at the end of the term will include successful strides towards creating integrative lessons utilizing student-led use of technology to generate successful learning experiences that will promote positive educational interactions proving a solid foundation for my students' futures. I expect to find that the experiences are safe and positive, building students up and carrying along their home members to share and appreciate the achievements made. At the start of this course, I was using a Prezi to introduce myself to my students, incorporating an Animoto video, audio tracks, and images. Students sat and watched. (Feel free to take a gander at the Prezi: http://prezi.com/swweljwaatpx/learning-about-mrs-damon/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy ) By the end of this course, I want to see students investigating who I am through QR codes, webquests, and making use of research skills that I have taught them because one of my goals for all my students this year is to work on presenting information so that people pay attention to it!