Week 4 - Posting #8 - Reflections on Blogging

Blogging, Blogging, what great things can I do?  Before I started, I never knew!  It is a vast new world of typing fun, to share ideas with everyone.  Who will read it?  What will they think?  Will they like it?  Will they think my ideas stink?  To share or not to share that is the question ... 1 Web 2.0 ... The Mac... mwesch             but know that a new blog is created every 1/2 second! 

Web 2.0 tools are important to mention ... 

What tools would I use, which ones would I leave behind?

I like blogging, podcasting, video conferencing, digital story telling, and will use them the whole year through, 

but wikis, second life and texting on iphones remain yet a little far fetched but I must admit they grew on me, too.

Looking to the future of my blogging career, I will keep my mind open as new media and technology I explore,

While it is overwhelming at times, ... it is never a bore.

A strength ... one thing that I hope web 2.0 tools will bring to my class ...

now students will be engaged and will want to create in a collaborative community culture,

A weakness ... although my supervisor is almost convinced using technology is like taking out the trash ...

necessary but somehow nobody wants to do it.

So, I will leave of like nike, whether your style is as different as ballet is from hip hop,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06ooGrzi0KU.. just do it!!!

Week 4 - Posting #7 - Second Life

There is observational learning, imitation, and behavior modeling taking place in Second Life (Bruner, 1990; Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). When I first visited second life, I was more than a little skeptical.  It was hard for me to see the educational uses for this social networking platform.  Everywhere I went there were avatars representing people from all over the world taking time out of their day to become someone they were not.  Chatting and instant messaging for purposes that hardly seemed educational.  

Many people kept telling me that there was immense potential for learning in second life and to keep looking.  I was directed to many different groups and sites within this second world.  I joined groups such as edublog and fullsail that helped me to see other purposes for communicating in second life.  People were sharing information that was helpful to me as an educator and they were sharing just for the sake of sharing and helping me learn.  Slowly and surely, I am beginning to grasp that this is an opportunity for me to learn but also for my students to explore their ideas and use their creativity in a safe realm before bringing their efforts into fruition in the "real" world.  I think it would be a great place to expose students to other perspectives, kind of like Oregon Trails meets web 2.0.  Also, another way I would use second life inside the classroom would be to have students create virtual businesses.  Here is one video that really helped me to understand second life better, and get a better idea of what second life was all about:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMGR9q43dag&feature=player_embedded  Really, second life educational possibilities are wonderful and should be explored.  Don't limit yourself or your students.  Don't just think about the reasons everyone else is there, think about how you can use it to benefit your students.  It would be a shame to miss out on this social networking tool in the classroom.

Week 3 - Posting #6 - Communities of Practice

"Communities of practice members solve problems and share information. Learning is social. They talk about their lives, interests, and ambitions. They even mentor and coach each other. Knowledge is shared with the community, which gives group members a sense of identity." (Wegner, 2002)

When I read this information about communities of practice, I think about Disney and google.  How they successfully created communities where their workers not only work, but live and laugh and learn in a collaborative environment together, constantly sharing information.  These companies have mastered the art of creating communities of practice, why can't teachers?  Why are there so many unsuccessful classrooms and failing students?  What can we do to help create better classrooms more conducive to community and social learning? Here is a video I found that describes some of the characteristics of a community of practice and how to implement one in the classroom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ZINuOYm2s.

Week 2 - Blog Posting #4 - 21st Century Skills & Lifelong Learning

I can't remember exactly what the stat is, but it said that by the time today's students are 38 they will have had 20 or so different jobs or careers, not many of which exist yet ... that is really interesting.  So we are supposed to be teaching skills for jobs that we really don't have too much of a clue about.  Many people are making predictions.  This discussion about 21st century skills is an interesting one.  Different experts weighing in and creating different labels for what they think today's students are going to need for tomorrow.  Take a look at this video that describes 3 steps for teaching 21st century skills in the classroom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yCB4i7GJuM.   Our students will need to be adept at communicating with all different types.  Making useful products by collaborating with a wide variety of multicultural, multilingual, multi-taskers ... where gaming, social networks, texting, IM's and other media and technology is used in a highly creative and interconnected way for a larger context.  Global connections inside a global community to increase global communications ... Hmmn.  How do we get our students ready?  

Related to 21st century skills is the idea of Lifelong Learning.  A video that does a great job of defining lifelong learning is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh6yd6wfCgU&feature=player_embedded.  One idea that stood out to me, was that if you take 30 minutes a day to learn something you want to master, in 5 years, you can become a world class expert at anything you want to become.  What if we encouraged children starting at the age of 5 to take 5 years to master a new activity.  Then at age 10, take another 5 years to master something else?  Each student would be a master at at least 4 separate things specifically tailored to their unique talents and skill sets.  Wow.  Wouldn't that be amazing?  

Week 1 - Posting #2 - Learning 2.0

When I think of learning, I think about students and all the vast information that they need to learn in order to pass standardized tests and pass on to the next grade level. I don't think about cell phones or texting.  However, after watching a few videos about learning 2.0, I realized that learning in school is only a small fraction of where learning is taking place for today's students.  One video that I watched,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEFKfXiCbLw&feature=player_embeddedshowed the statistics for how much time the average student is spending reading, texting, gaming, watching TV and being on the computer or Internet.  I was shocked.  

The video also discussed ways we could use tools the students are already using, such as iphones, to give assignments.  This would allow us to teach students in a way that would engage them and encourage them to create something meaningful.  The assignment gave students 10 minutes to find out information from 5 different people via text message with extra credit given for responses from people that were out of the country.  Then the video went on to list ways this information could be used to teach a wide variety of subjects and ideas.  It was wonderful.  And it made me think of all the times I had argued with students and battled over cellphone use, all the time wasted, just to get students to leave their cell phones at home or at least hidden from view.  What if more teachers created meaningful lessons using cellphones? 

I must admit, I used to hate cellphones and really get angry when I saw a student with a cell phone.  I looked down on parents who would pay good money to provide their children with cell phones that had Internet to students with poor academic grades.  Now, I must admit, I am slowly beginning to "learn" that cellphones could be used in a good way inside the classroom.  

Also, another video that I wanted to share was a TED video with Howard Rheingold, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahTKdEUAPk, he talks about people getting educated out of creativity ... that children are born with extraordinary talents and capacities for creativity.  That kids are willing to take chances whereas adults are afraid to be wrong.  He stated, If you are not prepared to be wrong, you won't come up with anything original.  As sad as that sounds, I think he is right.  Learning 2.0 not only applies to students, it applies to adults who are given that task of teaching them as well.  

We must learn a new way of thinking ourselves before we can engage our students.  We must radically rethink our understanding of intelligence.  Share this video with other educators in your school and see what they think?  Brainstorm ways to bring creativity back inside the classroom.  Rheingold said he was writing a book about how people discovered their talents ... conduct a survey with staff and see what their talents are and have a talent show?  Do the same with students?  How many of us know what talents our students have?  What if we have the next Shakespeare or writer of Phantom of the Opera in our classroom?  We have the opportunity to help guide them in a direction that will help them blossom or, not.  It is up to us and how well we learn about our students and what is important to them that matters.  Can we show them how to use that knowledge to help them build skills that produce meaningful creativity?  Or will we ignore what makes them unique in order to maintain order and control in our classrooms?  I will start by embracing cell phones as a viable tool for learning.  What will you do?

Week 3 - Posting #5 - Social Media

Most people have heard of the digital revolution ... but how about the social media revolution?  How is social media changing the way we communicate with each other?  The way we share information?  Everything is quicker, that is for sure and every one is able to have an opinion and get their voice heard.  Such diversity, creativity and opportunity for unique and varied perspectives have not been possible.  But what do we use all of this technology for?  Everyone uses technology for their own purposes.  Some people believe social media is bringing people together to forge real change.  In Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, the author states, "Our social tools are not an improvement to modern society; they are a challenge to it.  New technology makes new things possible: put another way, when new technology appears, previously impossible things start occurring.  If enough of those impossible things are important and happen in a bundle, quickly, the change becomes a revolution." (Shirky, 107)  I wonder what impossible things can start to happen when we use social media in the classroom?

Not only can our students join global conversations on important issues, but now they can journey towards self expression.  Social Media Revolution is approaching us all at a dizzying rate.  Gone are the days when people only wanted to consult the expert.  Now we all have opportunities to share information.  The children we teach want to share, too.  What type of things will they want to say?  Around what issues will they want to organize?  We must consider that, "Our social tools remove older obstacles to public expression, and thus remove the bottlenecks that characterized mass media.  The result is the mass amateurization of efforts previously reserved for media professionals." (Shirky 54).  Students are already becoming amateur reporters, photographers, videographers and social researchers and scientists using iphones, myspace blogs, skype, facebook, IM, and twitter to name a few.  It is our job as educators to offer them suggestions and point them in directions that will help them to become responsible, contributing and socially conscious members of society.

Week 2 - Blog Posting #3 - Media Literacy

"In the 20th century, literacy meant the ability to read, write and present cogent arguments on paper. In the 21st century, literacy is going to extend well beyond that and into what could be termed, a language of screens." (Barish, 2002)

If somebody asked me to describe how media has affected literacy, … the first thought that comes to mind is, … who uses paper anymore?  Really?  As teachers, we still have to give assignments on paper inside the classroom, but as students in an online environment, we don’t have to touch our thoughts on paper unless we want to.  Now we type in Microsoft word where our words are displayed across the page displayed on an image of a piece of paper that we cut and past into a blog or load to a internet platform … not the same thing.   

If we are working collaboratively in groups, with such tools as google docs, we can even type on our screen and click save so that our thoughts are immediately shared with others who can access that information from anywhere they can get onto the internet. 

So what, then, is the effect media has on literacy?  Many people are striving to define media literacy.  Some terms being thrown around are: play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking, negotiation, art, speaking, presenting, formatting and storytelling, to name a few … whew what a mouthful. 

 Gee (2004) calls these new informal learning cultures "affinity spaces". If we are able to embrace the learning curve, these environments "bring differences in age, class, race, gender, and educational levels. People have varying skills and interests and an participate in different ways. We teach each other, and are motivated to build on our skills and knowledge."  So learn, and add knowledge to what you know.  If we share what we know with others it will help us all create a more meaningful world of collaborative communication.