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I now have a Second Life. In SL I'm Ernestine Snoodle. Tonight I went to a presentation on Project Based Learning given by Jane Krauss and Suzie Boss. I enjoyed it and it was quite interesting, but I'm somewhat overwhelmed by what I need know how to do in SL. It took me quite a while to figure out just how to sit down at the amphitheater and forget learning how to raise my hand during the presentation, instead I accidentally jumped up in the air when I tried to follow the commands people were sharing in the chat. Opps. I have a lot of questions about how to move around in SL. After the presentation I wandered into the ISTE headquarters building and started hearing voices of people talking around me, but I couldn't really see them. Hmm... I don't want to be a lurker, but I'm not sure where your SL person goes when you quit or log off. Do you store your person somewhere? I've definitely got some reading and figuring out to do.
I'm not an educational technologist, not by training, but I do love to share what I learn with other teachers and show them how they can use digital tools in their classroom to build literacy. This year in the Reading Writing Center I did a lot of that. If the RWC is truly a literacy-rich place where I demonstrate best practice literacy instruction then it makes sense to incorporate the "new literacies." Ewan McIntosh twitted a question about new literacies this morning asking if Twitter would be considered a new literacy. First I found myself thinking about what mcIntosh and others mean by "new literacies."
I favor Elliott Eisner's definition of literacy as the ability to encode and decode symbolic forms used in a culture. Encode means to produce, like producing content for a traditional school assignment or for the web. We can encode an algebraic expression, sales tax percentages, persuasive speeches, letters, essays and more. We can also encode web content. Blogging and twittering are just two examples of this process. Decode means to make sense of to understand and mine meaning from. We decode language both spoken and written as well as tactile, visual and audio information. Aren't decoding and encoding the essence of Web 2.0, the read/write web?
If I'm using Eisner's definition of literacy then I'm standing under a fairly large umbrella. One that sees literacy as a thinking process one applies to an infinite number of texts. In my mind then, Twitter isn't a "new literacy." It is a symbolic form of Web 2.0 culture. It's a product or a Web 2.0 text type. If it's a text type then I need to teach students how to read it just as I'd teach students how to read the dictionary using guide words or how to make sense of a map. The other half of that lesson is teaching students how to apply what they learned by teaching them how to create their own text, a map, dictionary, delicious page or twitter spot. Decoding and encoding. Does that make sense?
I'm thinking of thank you cards and fishing for ideas and what did I find, but a library catalog card generator. How cool is that? Now if each would only print so neatly so that I could use it in a collage. This one I created thinking Donna Maria.
Our Kentucky trip was amazing. Let me just sketch it out and I'll come back later to write the real stories. Wednesday night: arrive at Shelia's house awed by the expanse of green, indoor lap pool, painted murals and super-sized basement play paradise. Thursday: drive through Southern Illinois to Paducah awed by blooming red bud and dogwood trees as well as tulips and my favorite, daffodils; relax on Donna Maria's porches, sip wine and share stories; venture to a tribute dinner at Cynthia's and feel totally celebrated. Friday: wander the quilt show in the morning awed by how quilters transform stitches and fabric into intricate designs; enjoy a catered lunch from Artisan Kitchen at Etc Coffee House while being wowed by Gretchen Smith's story and art demonstration; take a walking tour of Lowertown galleries and meet some really cool artists, among them Bill Renzulli who gave us a fabulous clay monotyping demo and answered all of my burning questions. Wrap that with a light pinor noir (Writer's Block), shared memories , funny stories, porch sitting to the sounds of children playing and birds flitting and you'll have a taste of what we experienced in Paducah. Definitely pink stone days.
This week Mom and I are taking a trip to the quilt show in Paducah, KY. We are going with Maura and Mrs. Sullivan and will visit Shelia and Kathleen while we're there. Maura is the one holding the skunk, bottom right on the page from my childhood scrapbook. The Sullivans were our neighbors on Darcey Drive: Brian, Michael, Maura, Kathleen and Sheila. Kathleen is my age and we ran fast and tight as kids. What times we had! I found this page from the scrapbook I made before we moved away--now I'm wishing I'd raided by Dad's slide collection for precious Indian Princess photos. Maybe next time.
We have a new flock and indeed have just set up our new chicken condo. It was supposed to be a chicken tractor. For those of you that have never heard of such a thing, a chicken tractor is actually a portable chicken pen-- part coop, part run and movable. You're supposed to be able to move a chicken tractor around the yard so that the chickens eat the bugs in the garden/lawn and leave precious "nutrients" behind. Here's our new chicken tractor:
How much do you think eight 2 x 4s weigh? Apparently they weigh more than I can lift, drag, or move without motorized assistance. I guess that's where the tractor part would come in. Rick, Collin and I built the tractor in an afternoon. We'd pre-painted most of the wood and had the plan down, so it was just a matter of sawing, nailing, screwing and stapling. We finished all but one panel of wiring when we decided to move it. Man is it heavy! Our tractor (really just a riding lawn mower) won't start--the battery needs charging and that fix is a day away at least, so we had to move it more creatively. Rick lifted one end and we put it on our garden card (heavy duty utility cart). He took the non-carted end and I took the cart end and we managed to get it to the bed by the driveway. After some repositioning -- Rick lifted and rotated the thing, to my amazement he's still able to stand straight--we got it settled.
The chickens are in and we think quite taken with their new home. They still haven't quite figured out the whole ramp to safety thing, but they've been inside the nesting box and come out, so we're thinking they'll catch on soon. So what do we have this time? Spice chickens again, well almost. We have: Saffron, Honey, Cinammon, Nutmeg, Yoda and Sugar (or Old Salty if she turns rooster on us). Yes, Yoda (a.k.a. Yomogi, Japanese Mugwort) because Collin said "she" could have a Star Wars name and a spice name.
I'm listening to and watching a presentation Will Richardson gave at Manhattan High School yesterday I wish I could tag the video and write notes (tag) in places as I watch it like you can on Viddler which Ryan showed me the other day.
[Twitter Moment: I couldn't remember the name of the taggable, shareable video site and unfortunately I didn't post it to my delicious, so I just sent Ryan a message via my new Twitter network. He replied within minutes. Incredible.]
Richardson says we should start with what teachers love to teach and then find what tool fits it. He goes on with words that really stopped me in my tracks:
We've been doing this the wrong way for about 30 years. Come and learn wikis. Come and learn blogging. Come and learn podcasting. We should have said, 'what do you love to teach?' The next question I would ask and see if we got any traction is 'where do your kids struggle the most in the
curriculum'? . . . We can't have technology lead staff development.
I noticed something the other day. Try not to laugh, but I think the light went on in terms of tags. I use tags, though I think mine are a bit random, but as I was reading Will Richardson's blog the other day I started to see how many people's tags fit together. Just a small ah-ha I suppose. How much time does it take folks to cull through tags. I'm thinking of David Warlick's August presentation here in Orange County . He asked the audience to tag any blog entries we wrote about his presentation with David Warlick, literacy and something I've now forgotten. I had just started my Classroom 2.0 tech-thinking blog at that time. Who invited me here?
On another note, I've been blog surfing. Skimming and reading what interests me. I want to make a chart to sum up what I've learned about blogs and bloggers-- I acknowledge the nerdiness LOL, but I'm thinking it might be useful to use w/ teachers at school and my own teacher friends (the geese).
I finished Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools. It's a good starting place for teachers I think. I wish I had read it a year ago, simply because much of the step-by-step instruction (for Audacity for instance) is something I already know. The classroom examples, especially the blog that Sue Monk Kidd participated on (in?) with students fascinates me. I am still having problems with my students and blogging.
The service learning blog that I set up is really just me delivering the same-old-same-old via a blog and reading it online instead of on paper. Perhaps that 's just one step on the teaching continuum or teaching with technology continuum (because surely now, that one will parallel the other)? There are a few differences though: students can comment, students can link to new content, etc. They just aren't doing it... yet.
I started this posting thinking about two things:
1. edublogs I've been reading
2. links to postings that illustrate instructional cell phone usage Alice Bedard-Voorhees
Letting Them Show What They Know
I want to go back to that later. Bedard-Voorhees also sent a link to her Rocky Mountain Ride blog postings which she said shows pictures sent from phone to blog. I need to try to do that. Hmm... how? I imagine it's about finding the right code to text the pictures to, right?
Using a blog with my service learning students has been a challenge. I want to say failure, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. Besides, failure is something to celebrate (like in Meet the Robinsons)--failure means there are lessons to be learned!
What's gone wrong? Here's the short list (warning to fellow English teachers, these will not be parallel or grammatically correct):
Students don't understand the difference between a blog post and a comment.
Students can not figure out how to log in.
Blogger.com is accessible from school, but not Gmail which students must have in order to have a blogger.com authorship account.
Names are not on posts
All150 students were posting comments to the same blog in random order
Students are posting but not talking to each other.
Students know how to log in but don't remember their password.
Students don't read what is on the screen in front of them.
What's working?
Many students are posting.
I can post content for students to view/read and then have them respond to it.
With students listed as authors on class period blogs we can now dialog or post comments to each others' writings.
Entries or posts are time and date stamped.
Assignments are available 24/7 .
I know what I want out of class blog: discussion, dialogue, resources and links we can visit and discuss. I want a class blog to live as an online version of our classroom--filled with a variety of resources and reflecting rich student work. The trick is teaching students how to do it or how to develop problem solving attitudes so that they are not flummoxed and shut down by log-in or other issues.
Our class blog is titled, At Your Service . Eventually, I would like to restructure how my service learning classes are run, so that we really are studying issues and creating projects to address them-- the class blog would become the space where we could trace, keep and reflect on our work.
I reviewed blog posting again today. We'll see what happens.
It's February and I missed posting here in January. I've lived the busy teacher's life since returning from winter break. It's been a whirlwind.
I can't access this blog from school and perhaps that's why I'm writing less, but I do want to continue to note and journal about the technologies I'm trying and how they are affecting student engagement and my own practice. So, what's changed? What's new this month? In terms of my practice, I started a blog and a wiki for my service learning classes. So far so good. Our blog, At Your Service, is going well. I was quite excited the first day to see the postings/comments climb as students accessed the site and posted entries from home. I introduced my second semester students to the blog the first day of the semester. We did an ice breaker writing in class based on American Express print adds. Here is one student's entry:
Denise S. 5th
Childhood Ambition:Lawyer
Fondest Memory:Going to Disney for the 1st time
Soundtrack:Chris Brown
Retreat:Bahamas
Wildest dream:Wanting to fly
Proudest Moment:Passing the FCAT after 3 times
Biggest Challenge:life
Alarm Clock:Mom
Perfect Day:Hanging out with people i love
First Job:Pizza Hut
Indulgence: Chocolate
Last purchase:Jeans$32.50
Favorite movie:The Notebook
Inspiration:Cousin
My life is amazingly crazy
My calling card is weightlifting
Today I'm thinking about the digital tools I've been using lately with varying success. I'm also thinking about David Warlick's recent apology to teachers. He apologizes to teachers for talking about them to administrators and others invested in improving schools/education. Does he really apologize? His apology is for talking about teachers and "getting them to teach differently" with administrators and others-- or for reporting out conversations he's had. I think that's how he words it. I can't help but wonder about those conversations. What does he see? What do teachers and others tell him? Why does he feel guilty about telling?
What's the subtext here? One subtext is that teachers are not performing up to snuff (again). Teachers are not learning or making use of instructional technologies consistently in their classrooms. Another subtext is that teachers are unwilling to change how they teach. Are we? I'm not, but don't we have an entire segment of the profession that is or that is resistant to change?
In his post, Warlick says that we need (at least) these three things in order to teach differently:
It's been two weeks since NCTE (National Council of Teacher's of English). Reading David Warlick's blog post this morning puts in mind of teachers using technology. Teachers who do and teachers who don't. Interesting post. Ultimately it comes down to doing your job as a teacher for Warlick. He says, " Teachers who aren’t using computers and the Internet in their classrooms with their students every day are depriving their children of the opportunity and the right to use basic literacies as working skills. You can be a good teacher an not use technology. But you’re not doing your job." How far removed from the reality of the classroom is this? How many teachers could actually use technology every day? At my school, a school with over 200 teachers and close to 4,000 students, I think we only have 45 LCD projectors installed in classrooms. We have two computer labs that are booked solid for students in reading remediation classes. Fortunately our media center has probably 50 computers available to for class use. Am I making excuses?
I don't mean to and certainly I agree with Warlick (for the most part anyway). Teachers need to use technology fluidly, seamlessly and almost unconsciously, but to do that they need to develop automaticity. I think that is part of the picture. I also think that teachers need to choose the tools that authentic instructional moments need. Technology and its use should be purposeful like reading is purposeful.
I use technology almost everyday with classes in the Reading Writing Center. The students who work in the Center are always on the computers when they do not have clients to help/coach, but the whole class demonstrations I do, do not always have a tech-piece, and at my school I'm a high end user. I am no where near Sara Kajden fluid use of Web 2.0 tools, but I aspire to be. So what's really happenening out there? How can teachers incorporate, use, model, demonstrate or make technology a daily workable skill for students if they lack equipment? or if school electronics policies exclude us from using available technologies the students have in their pockets or backpacks? Hmm.... just thinking.
On a different note, I just learned how to Skype! Skype is a free computer to computer calling program/platform. Once you sign up and download Skype you can contact other Skype members for free. If you have a webcam you can video conference. How cool is that? Kylene Beers and Bob Probst added Sara Kajden to their struggling readers session at NCTE and Kajder talked about the most amazing classrooms. Can you imagine using Skype to call authors and other experts to participate in literature circle discussions? Kajden works with a class in Virginia that does just that. It sounds incredible. I can't wait to become one of the million plus subscribers to their literature circle podcasts in iTunes!
Well, last month's attempt to embed video into my blog post obviously did not work. I thought about editing the entry today. Cleaning it up. Sweeping away all the code. I stopped myself as I deleted paragraphs, changed words and erased the codes. Why not leave it? Leave it so that I can learn from it. Obviously I didn't embed the code correctly. So, I went searching for solutions and posts with answers. I've found a few but am still reading.
And reading, and reading... that is one thing about web 2.0 tools. As you're learning you read a lot. What are the implications for students? There are tremendous implications for students that are struggling readers--the practice, actual reading time and practice, with authentic text(s) of interest and practical use to students. I read to search and seek solutions to tech problems I have or to tech topics I want to learn.
That frame of mind--that constant reading, seeking, writing/processing, and searching is what I want to teach students. I want to teach students (and teachers) to set their tech-frustrations and fears aside and simply go exploring. It is by play that I've learned on the computer--through exploration, trial and error.
How do I teach that to students? Many of the students that work in the Reading Writing Center have that habit of mind; many are problem solvers or problem seekers (my thinking for the curious that create tech-challenges for themselves so that they can learn to conquer them). I'm a seeker. And right now I should get back to it--figure out how to get the video to embed correctly and appear as a play screen in my post. Errggg.
<embed width="340" height="290" wmode="transparent" flashvars="file=http://ugv.abcnews.go.com/ChannelRssHandler.ashx%3fcontentItemID%3d694149%26mi%3d1&autostart=false&overstretch=false&LinkOnScreenClick=0&InitialVolume=40" quality="high" name="mpl" id="mpl" src="http://ugv.abcnews.go.com/dbox/3/flvplayer_abc_small.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/>
What are your three words? That's a question I want to ask my students. I can't wait to show them this video--when I first saw it, I immediately thought of my service learning students. How could three words change your world? or someone else's? What three words would share? I'd use the video clip as a hook, then we would write. Then I would show them how I might create my own "y3w" piece. Then I would invite them to create their own. Then I would teach them or show them the tools they could use to create their pieces: iMovie, Movie Maker, iPhoto, or PhotoStory. Oh the possibilities!
IWho knew there were so many instructional possibilities lurking out there on the web? recently graduated to DSL from dial up. I admit it. I was late zoomer. Not by choice, but by location. We live in the country. We lack infrastructure. We don't even get cable TV out where I live (and it's a good thing I think). DSL became available last spring and we signed up with BellSouth.
Now, my son and I get lost in the wonderland of YouTube regularly. "Funny Cats" is one of his favorites (he's six). I'm recently taken with "Your 3 Words" (above), and "I CAN from Team Hoyt." There are so many instructional possibilities, learning opportunites. I can only imagine.
<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-uulmhtAeGI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-uulmhtAeGI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
I'm amazed at all we were missing simply because of the speed of our connection. I find myself trolling for good videos to use in my classroom quite often. Recently I searched for files about being an American. I want to use in with a unit called Get Over It! Character, Conflict, Cause & Effect! The core text is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and I've collected a variety of other texts to use. This will be the first unit where I actually the capability in my classroom to include multi-media. Needless to say, I found several moving "Proud to Be An American" type videos I could use. I can't help but think about Marzano talking about how we need to make an emotional connection to content in order to aid memory. Janet Allen always says make it "meaningful and memorable"-- I can get a lot of M&M by pulling video clips into my curriculum.
I love that I can search google for video files (topic + video extension). I can't access YouTube at school, but I've learned how to use ZillaTube to download YouTube files and then convert them to a format that will play on my iPod or in Windows Media Player.
I've learned to download to my Mac too. Things are different on a Mac. Think different. Quite a marketing coupe; trite as it may be, I'm thinking differently. When I think about my process, I'm really beginning to notice that my problem-solving processes are the same whether I work on my Mac or PC. I search. I read. I wonder. I ask Google. the more specific I get my search strings, the better the returned results. I've noticed that I don't let the tech-problems or snafus bog me down so much anymore. We can find the answer to almost anything on Google... I'm discovering answers for myself. Talk about liberating.
For instance, after I downloaded the video downloader plug-in for Firefox and began to caputre videos using the Mac laptop, I was dismayed to discover (during a presentation no less), that Quicktime could not or would not play YouTube's "flv" videos. I had no idea. I had not paid heed to the file extensions. That afternoon I Googled: quicktime + "play flv" discovering Perian and a solution to my problem.
I learned that I could download a plug-in for Quicktime that would play YouTube "flv" files in quicktime (A future blog post will surely have to revel in the vocabulary I've aquired: plug-in, file extension, caputre, etc.). After reading about Perian, I downloaded it, installed it and was able to play the files I'd captured using the Firefox Video Downloader plug-in on my Mac.
This is the first time I've tried to embed a video into a blog post. We'll see if it works. If not, it will be one more problem for me to solve--one more failure to celebrate.
Hmmm... the embedded videos did not work, but I can see the links there! Hmm... I wonder what I need to do in order to get them to just appear and play?
So, today I attended Orange County's inservice conference at the convention center. I must say that David Warlick's presentation, inspired awe. Redefine literacy. Literally. We have to. As Warlick says, it's not about integrating more technology, the pencil & paper of our time--it's about integrating literacy. I would add, "critical" as a descriptor there. Digital dectives are critically literate. Digital detectives who can, as a matter of course, or with some level of automaticity "track back a URL" to dig deeper as they read, operate at Bloom's highest levels. I used to do this with students using a five-finger rule--actually it grew to seven fingers, (ie: 7 Questions for Highly Effective Web Surfers). It's an activity that I adapted I think from Kathy Shrock's web evaluation materials. I realized as Warlick was talking about digital detectives today, that I need to revist that lesson and revise it. Model simple strategies such as "URL track back" that students can practice immediately on classroom computers. Then, I need to figure out a way to build in enough practice, enough varied and engaging activities that this kind of critical thinking/critical reading becomes spontaneous for students. Because I can tell you, it's not spontaneous for most of the seniors I teach. How spontaneous is it even for most adults? most teachers? There is no question in my mind, nor has there ever been that we need to teach students (and remind ourselves) to thinking independently and critically. I need to do a better of job of it.
So, I've been exploring and thinking and researching topics Warlick brought to my mind today. One of them is Second Life. My mother, a retired dental hygienist, of all people introduced me to Second Life (SL) about six months ago by telling me a salacious story about a mutual friend (also retired) and her SL Avatar. Apparently, "Suzy" met someone and in-World experienced a little paradise by the dashboard lights if you know what I'm saying. Hmm... I wondered what else people did in Second Life, so I went online.
I found all kinds of information about Second Life in postings here, from news articles, to conferences about SL to this great parody page, but I've yet to really wrap my mind around it. I mean how would I ever create an Avatar? What would she look like? How would she move? I enjoyed Warlick's comments about his older-than-himself Avatar-- I wonder what kind of Avatar I could/would create. Could I be part animal? Could I have wings? What kinds of Avatars would my students create? What kinds do they already have? Hmm... surely I can learn something here. There's a community building activity in here somewhere--I just need to tease it out.
Reconnecting to literacy, I was browsing around the Global Kids Media Initiative when I stumbled upon an anticipation guide... well, an anticipation guide reincarnated, I suppose. Anticipation guides (Readance, Bean & Baldwin) anticipate reading or content. They help us form opinions and change those opinions as we learn more information. Done before reading (or learning), anticipation guides activate students' background knowledge about a topic. Such tools help teachers connect the new to the known by connecting the material students currently know or have opinions about to material they will learn. Anticipation guides build bridges between information. In this SL version, called the Human Barometer, students actually move their avatars to express their opinions.
This is when the Campers played human barometer in Teen Second Life! They seemed to be very split when they were asked if they agreed, disagreed, or were unsure about the statement, "Online relationships are not as important as real life ones".
How cool is that? So, do you agree or disagree: "Second life educational applications are just as engaging as real life ones." Seeing as I've just spent an entire evening engaged in Second Life exploration, I know which I'd choose.
Readence, J. E., Bean, T. W., & Baldwin, R. S. (1995). Content area reading: An integrated approach (5th ed). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/ Hunt.
So, I've learned a lot about viruses this past week. Who knew that viruses, adware and spyware were mutually exclusive but similarly symptomatic? My laptop picked up something at camp--and no not band camp. Though that whole idea and a recent comment from a pastor at church got me thinking about people that use computers for porn (if you're not following my tangents the American Pie movie is running through my mind while I contemplate a unit I taught to a health class in the Reading Writing Center on STDs ). I bet a lot people that use the web inappropriately pick up a STCD (sexually transmitted computer disease or STCV sexually transmitted computer virus). This was not what my computer had, but it sure had something.
I upgraded my Norton but that did not do the trick. Lucky for me I have a fantastic tech-team at my school, so I asked one of them, Curtis, who explained this kind of rambo-marketing many people, who actually understand this techno-world, would call Ad-ware. Then a friend told me to download two freebies: Ad-aware and Spybot (or something with Search & Destroy in its name). It worked, or the combination of Norton, Spybot and Ad-aware worked. My laptop, while still sluggish, is at least not assaulting me with urgent messages about Trojans which send me to commercial sites selling virus protection. My laptop, having deleted over 200 infected files is relatively clean. That's a good thing.
Ever feel like someone is trying to tell you something? I recently learned about avatars. I don't even know enough about them as virtual personalities to write much of them, but I'm hearing avatar everywhere... even my mother, a retired dental hygeniest brought it up in conversation this week. She actually told me a rather amusing (if scandolous) story about a friend and her avatar. So... I'm thinking, how could I use avatars and Second Life in a high school? Safely and cleanly of course--surely those are issues ed-techies are talking about. How could I connect it to my service learning classes? or use it with an English class duirng a thematic unit? Hmmm... certainly it would be fun to set up a novel's virtual world. A kind of Atwellian, who would you invite to dinner (virutally) from some of your favorite books or content areas. How cool would that be? Hmm... I'll have to explore and learn more.
I've decided to use this blog to journal about technology and Web 2.0 tools in my classroom. As a mentor for the Florida Digital Educators grant program I am expected to conduct action research in my classroom. I plan to use these musing and posts to gather my thoughts and process my experiences toward that end. My apologies to any readers who wander by... this is truly going to be a working place for me... a work in progress that I can later shape.
What is technology integration? This is a question I've been carrying around in my mind lately. I mean, I know what it means to integrate technology into my classroom. I've used a smart board. I currently have an LCD projector which I use almost everyday to engage students with live multimedia content that's relative to our daily lessons. I've used my iPod, my teacher computer, laptops, microphones, digital cameras and yes, even overheads (as antiquated as that technology is). The key here is "me" and "I". Nancy Atwell once wrote about teachers as "creationists." We love to create things for students to do. We love to create units of instruction, questions to answer, projects to complete and more. The problem with creationists in the classroom is that the teacher (creator) is the one doing all of the work. The teacher is doing all of the thinking, the problem solving, the analyzing and the synthesizing. More often than not, the students are merely filling in blanks, jumping through hoops, or more recently using the copy/paste commands on their keyboards.
So, what does technology integration really mean now? I think it means to shift the creative power from teachers to students. To truly integrate technology we need to teach students how to use it. How to use it effectively and with purpose for a given task. I've done that a bit, but I'd like to make technology and the tools we use our anchor---our tool for constructing new knowledge.
I teach students how to create podcasts (audio only so far) and I've supported students as they've participated in the International Science and Technology Fair. Still, I wonder. What is technolgogy integration? Surely it is not just "me" using all of these tools to wow kids. No, the real meat of integration is teaching students how to use digital tools to locate, analyze, process and synthesize content. Perhaps my question then becomes what would it take to create a fluid, technologically rich classroom in which students had the creative power?
I think it starts with projects. Finding or leading students to create digital or multimedia projects that build community and build shared content knowledge. That's where I think I'm heading.
It's soccer season. Yesterday was Collin's 2nd game this season. During his first game (first for us since we were out of town for the official first game) he scored 2 goals and had 1 assist. He didn't have his uniform shirt yet, but that didn't matter too much. Rick took him to the first game and when they came home from, Rick said that parents on the other team were grumbling, "who's that kid in the red shirt--he's not 6." Well, now I know how those parents felt.
Yesterday the final score was 1-0 . Collin's team lost. They didn't win but they sure played a great game against a team filled with ringers! There were at least 3 big kids. One of the side-lined parents joked about checking IDs because they sure looked older than even Collin. You know what it reminds me of? Reading research. Yep, Dick Allington saying that 100 years of eductional research has proven one thing about children: "kids are different." They are, even on the soccer field, their difference are noticable.
How grateful am I that we didn't move Collin up an age slot? It's good to be one of the big kids!
Practicing what I'd like to paint on that background. I actually painted this lady on a watercolor postcard. Then scanned it, deleted the background and "pasted" it onto my scanned canvas image. Just thought I'd play around with placement, size and whatnot before I actually paint on that new background.