Monday, May 25, 2009

Schools that Learn Response

The book “Schools that Learn” is engaging and keeps you thinking about the pros and cons of our current educational approach. It touches on a lot of issues faced by educators and attempts to take a realistic stance. To a large extent it is successful, while it does neglect some problems faced by educators. I think many of these realities, testing, time crunches etc. can be overcome with a little creativity and vigor. I guess I can’t help but feel the book is a bit idealistic. For instance fostering creativity by pushing our students’ inner passions is a great idea. I have many students that are saturated with ideas and have found things that they are passionate about, even at a young age. This is often missed by educators and this treasure trove is overlooked. On the other hand I also have many students who either have not developed such passions yet or are unwilling to relate them to school. It begs the question; will this work on the most difficult of students? Is the most unmotivated student going to assess their own strengths and weaknesses? Will they strive for personal mastery? I hope so!

Sage can’t help but get you thinking about changing the structure of education: by using strategies such as team learning. I think this is a challenge but do find that even the students who are the least interested can find ideas or topics to relate to on some level. This will ignite passion for the topic and foster creativity.

The power of group learning is very important and is what we at team use as our foundation. Doing away with the production line method of education and developing a learning community can be successful in the future. To a great extent our educational system places a great importance on standardized exams. This seems to be the wrong path. Students need to have the freedom to explore questions and develop a passion for learning.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Salon #6 Passport to Digital Citizenship:

The key question of how great the gap is between those who grew up with technology (digital natives) and the idea of teaching this properly. Mike (Ribble) explores this idea in his article “passport to Digital Citizenship”. He focuses on what is appropriate behavior in his “nine elements of digital citizenship” such as “digital etiquette” and “digital communication”. These are issues faced by people using technology with their students. This year, I began blogging with my students, and I was faced many of these issues. My students were used to a certain mode of communication that is often not appropriate to an educational setting. The nine elements are supposed to prepare them to help tackle this task of facing this new digital world. This world is changing around us, and we need to evolve to face new challenges in using technology. While teaching proper ways to use technology can often be pushed off as a parent’s job that is not always the case. Many parents are simply in the dark in terms of the technology. Teachers need to step up, help bridge this gap, and teach the proper way to use technology when a teaching moment fits into a lesson being taught. If this is started at a young age, it will become second nature for new digital citizens.
I have some issues with the article in general. I cannot help but wonder if I am a full participant. What does this constitute? Many of my students are immersed in the digital world far beyond what one would have imagined just a few years ago. Is it good? Many of my students simply forgo the outdoors to spend time on the computer. They have a hard time putting down their phones and have to be constantly told not to send text messages in class. While it is great to stay in touch and in many cases technology does foster greater education, it also impairs many aspects of people’s lives. Instead of meeting face to face we communicate using social networking, instead of speaking; we text, instead of going outside in some cases, people are glued to their technology. I think this can have more than simply a physical impact on people. It makes them rely on technology and become disconnected from the “real world”.
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Salon #4: Digital Technology and the End of Social Studies Education (Bill Tally)

This salon (#4) was based on the article by Bill Tally titled “Digital Technology and the End of Social Studies Education”. In the article, the author touches on the realities that are often faced in education. He poses questions that need to be considered while stating that technologies do have a role in social studies education. They add vigor to the material, and complexity while grounding the content in real issues that “matter to students and their communities”.

While I am not a social studies teacher, I found this article and our salon discussion invigorating. It was interesting to envision the use of technology beyond the scope of simply a tool; to do the same thing already being done with yesterday’s technology. This brings up how once chalk boards were the main visual focus, then white boards, and now Smart Boards. While this is the case, there is a lot of potential that can be used to bring students into the history and promote a greater understanding of any subject that could be learned about in society, history or (in my case) science.

The quote "Technologies as tools that amplify and extend fundamental human capacities to observe, understand and communicate about the world” has great meaning as a science teacher. While this article is geared to social studies, it is also extremely true as a science teacher. Science is based on the idea of understanding our world through observations.

In general the whole idea of fostering creativity and to “slow down” or “dig deeper” is great. The problem usually lies with the way the curriculum is structured. This is dictated by the policy makers. For example, one of the two state tests (8th grade ILS exam) is in the beginning of May. That means I am forced to omit almost two months of material that may or may not appear on the exam. At the same time, I am expected to review 6th and 7th grade science as the exam is cumulative. This is a daunting task to say the least. My two Regents classes have 12 months worth of material crammed into 10 months which leaves little time. Most of my creative work is related to work done as out of class assignments. I find that, with my students, I have to manage them more closely than I would like because at this age (13-14) most of the students simply will not take the task and run with it. I often get stuck managing them closely using rubrics, which are not that far from filling in a worksheet, and they have to gather information etc.

The Museum Box Project was very interesting. I love the idea of gathering information, then taking it, and presenting it to others in this out of the box way (ok I could not resist!). This is something that I try to incorporate and find very affective. It is great to have the ability to get learners excited about a concept and Museum box does that. It is interactive and allows you to represent you ideas, events etc. in any form you choose. This is definitely something my students would find worthwhile and engaging. As educators, we need to keep an open mind and try new things. Every attempt does not need to be a smashing success, but if we do not try we are selling ourselves and our students short.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Brenda Dyck Discussion:



My favorite point during the discussion centers around teaching students to be “digital citizens”. Students need to have appropriate skills and an understanding on how to communicate using technology. Where are students to gain such skills? We want our students to be life long leaders and learners. As educators we need to pass on some basic skills. It doesn’t have to be something that is a specific lesson but can rather be something we apply to an array of applications. Plus there are also many limitations. This might be a copyright issue or access to a program or the internet. I have personally gotten plenty of support from the students and their parents. Some may have been apprehensive but when they realize the benefits, they get onboard. I think that as education and technology continue to intergreate we need to press this issue and continue to help sutdents investigate with technology properly. Let students have freedome and simply teach them the skills so they can handle the risk of the unknown.