Thing #4

RSS feeds do speed up the process of staying current without continually going to the "favorites" list. I see many teachers use these at school to stay current with the news and such. Hence, the classroom has the ability to stay relevant. Sometimes, however, I see teachers get sucked into these time-consuming interests instead of paying attention to their class. They can be addicting. One needs to be careful.

Yes, there is always going to be information overload. There simply is too much "stuff" out there to process. One filters these feeds like they do the nightly news - sometimes you're in the right frame of mind and sometimes not. I enjoy reading feeds and such on Sunday mornings - it's better than the newspaper (and saves trees!) I'm also rested and ready to process the information again. Everything is a balance....

Thing #3

Wow, look at all the resources for the blogs! I really love this one http://supportblogging.com/Links+to+School+Bloggers I'm curious to know how to link other blogs to mine. I imagine this is in future "lessons". It would be great to link the other educators' blogs at my high school as well as facilitate information I find useful on the web. It not only would be useful to share perspectives but ideas for the classroom. Students would naturally gravitate to this type of communication. They are already pros at Facebook, My Space, and IM. Now teachers can assess students with a medium that appeals to the learner.

Imagine asking students to explain how a certain biology concept works or have them make their own study guides for tests. Each person gets one topic to explain in their own words. Or in Language Arts a whole class can discuss and reflect on a literature piece. The possibilities are endless. Students could find web links to certain topics in history, math, etc. and share. You can use this for any content area.

So, what if someone prints inaccurate information on the blog? I think a lot of learning is discerning fact from fiction. How do you know and validate the inconsistencies, half truths, and misrepresentations? I once had a teacher who refused to haggle over test points. If you disagreed with the "correct" answer, you needed to give a written response with proof from the text or another reliable source. This caused me to dig deeper and clarify my own thinking. Is this not true intrinsic learning? Isn't this what we want our students to be able to do as a real world application? I think so :-)

Welcome to my new and "improved", blogging page. Yes, I am still on a learning curve. There is no success like failure (or so I'm told). Being the imperfect perfectionist, I deleted the page I had worked on all afternoon in an attempt to edit some paragraph spacing. Although temporarily frustrated, I will begin to recreate. Where is that "undo" button when you need it?

The purpose of this blogging exercise was to complete an online technology course titled "23 Things" in which you learn, obviously, 23 new technology tools. I decided to begin my course work for a variety of reasons. Yes, I certainly need the skills to facilitate change in the building in which I work. If we are to educate children quicker and better, we need to adjust how we deliver content and how that content is learned. Secondly, in the leadership survey I sent out to staff to assess my leadership capabilities, staff responded that this was an area for me to seek improvement. So, with their honest feedback I begin the journey. However, I'm not traveling alone. I asked staff if they were interested in starting a technology user group on Mondays after school. Over half the staff responded affirmatively. Hence, the Teacher Geekers were born. We meet weekly to teach each other. Last week we were introduced to podcasting. This week we are working on IMovies and the PC equivalent. Next week two teachers will teach us LuLu with blogging slotted after that. We all take turns with the lead. The purpose is to familiarize ourselves with new techniques that we can master over the summer to use in the classroom next fall.

With that in mind, the article in Thing #1 ("A day in the Life of Web 2.0" by David Warlick) was a timely piece of what life in a real Millennium class (or whatever they are now called) might look like. We say we are good users of technology, but in reality we haven't a clue what the end result should look like. The article articulates the meshing of cross-curricula with technology. We, as teachers, are not just facilitators of knowledge. We "allow" learners to be self-directed, intrinsic, individuals - learning, truly, for the sake of learning in ways that meets their needs (and not just ours). We can no longer be the sage on the stage. We, simply, do not have the amount of knowledge the children of today will need tomorrow. The information is increasing exponentially minute by minute. We just can't keep up. The best we can do is to show students how to find and evaluate the information available and to synthesize that information to problem solve tomorrow. I am going to pass along the article on Monday. It is rich and deserving of much conversation.

Thing #2 dealt with creating a blog. As I've already elaborated, practice makes perfect. Lots of practice! No, I am not intimidated that my writing is posted for all the world to see. Human beings enjoy feedback and being able to express our position on topics. We enjoy giving our perspective even when others do not agree. If we were all of the same mind, the "group think" would kill us for sure. We learn best from each other as we build our knowledge framework. We continue to adjust and readjust as our learning is enhanced. Many cultures respect the aged because of their rich knowledge and experiences. How better to capture that than with this type of journaling. Yes, I did postpone starting my assignments due to Spring break. I'm ready now to dig in my heels, learn, and pass on what I know. Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride... well hopefully not too bumpy :-)