Entries from March 2008 ↓

From the start, I have been overwhelmed by the wealth of information available to me with just a click!  Creative Commons just multiplied that window  of information X 1000. I feel like Pandora lifting the lid on her box when I clicked on the links…all kinds of stuff came out!

I have never noticed the “cc” logo on any websites so this is all new to me.  I totally understand the videos and the information was very clear and sounded cool on the podcast…BUT, when I went to click on the directory and other sites that were linked, I was overwhelmed for sure.  It was just too much.   I know  I have to take more time to surf these websites and actually “look” for the cc on sites,  and maybe then it will come together, but right now, I’m just getting comfortable finding this blog and posting! whew!

I really like the idea of my students having a place to go where we know they can use material, and giving them some guidelines using cc, but I’m not sure how I’m going to use it with my class. But I have definitely learned something…..just because it’s on google doesn’t mean I am free to take it and use it!  I may be a sister in serious trouble!

I guess Creative Commons gives the wonderfully, creative people a way to share but not give up ownership totally.  I guess when I get creative and get that “thing”, I will feel the same way!

Wikis are cool!  Vicki Davis’ experience was a little more exciting than mine, but I do see all the possibilities she talked about.  Kids are excited about seeing and hearing themselves online…an acceptable chat room of sorts!

My class wiki on Animal Farm was used as a new way to display projects on our novel.  The students were excited the first year, and then I let the students the next year go back and edit the wiki which I thought would be boring at first, but with them adding their name to the wiki, they were just as excited. That was a little hard to believe!  This year my students are more interested in where people have logged onto our wiki….a group went to Peru and signed on just to see if our map worked!  We hope it does!

I am planning a wiki for an upcoming novel, Whirligig, which will be very different in nature.  Because the theme is so deep and meaningful and the students can really relate to it,  I am going to include some kind of writing assignment where they will post their thoughts and respond to each other.

The one thing I noticed on Vicki Davis’ wiki that I want to improve on my upcoming wiki is to make it more interactive, rather than just posting material for others to look at.  I want the students to collaborate more on the wiki with their ideas instead of doing the collaborating in class, then posting an idea.  I will assign more out of class collaboration and see what happens.

Well, talk about technology gone wild!  Yikes!  It’s just too much!  TMI (too much information) comin’ at me from all sides. 

I subscribed to the google news, Sunday book reviews, and Words of the Day . It’s a good thing that we were instructed to “skim” the entries.  I’m skimming for all I’m worth, and still feel overwhelmed.

The one thing that I think I need to do as a newbie in technology is to get my mind wrapped around the fact that my computer can do it all for me.  If I can organize my resources and make a habit of going to my google reader for info, it will be valuable and time-saving.

I have subscribed to a few things that are strictly trivia focused like dilbert.  I never have time to read the comics because we don’t subscribe to the newspaper anymore.  I need a laugh every once in a while.

I am the only one in my family without a laptop……maybe if I had a laptop, I could access my info from anywhere…maybe the lounge chair outside on the deck! :-) 

Ok, once again, it was like I was “slap happy” and clicked on everything in site.  My google reader was loaded! No problem…I just deleted them all and started over in a more organized fashion.  Thank God for the delete button.

                             Task/  Part 2

I really enjoyed reading the article on the Students 2.0 site about What is Learning?  Every time my department gets together, we struggle in the reading department with the concept of how best for our students to learn.  Some teachers think we should have everything in neat little boxes that the students will read, memorize and spit back at the appropriate time.  I don’t.  “Rote learning” requires very little of the learner. It doesn’t challenge them to think or take responsibility for their learning.  My philosophy  has been and will always be that students must take responsibility for their learning and become independent learners asap.   I know we have to hold students to a body of knowledge that they must show proficiency with, but I love to give open ended questions which give students a chance to “think” about something beyond what they have learned in the classroom.  I enjoy grading 18 answers that look and feel different.  My rule of thumb is…produce an answer that is thoughtful and insightful, showing extended thinking beyond what we have discussed in the class. Support what you say with facts and details, but draw some conclusions on your own and have an opinion.  I’m tired of students using every example I give in class almost to the point that I want to eliminate examples.  It is wonderful to read answers that are beyond even what I have come up with and it motivtates me to be a better teacher.  And I don’t feel obligated to put an A or B, etc. on everything they write. (The idea may have been creative, but they did not organize their thoughts well….and so on and so on.)  Sometimes our writing and sharing are purely  for learning/sharing purposes.   There are guidelines for what they are doing, but it is not a “spit it back in my face” kind of assignment.

The sad, but truthful conclusion in this article was that many students want to be kept in a box.  They like knowing exactly what to do, when to do, and how many lines it should take.  They don’ t want to think about anything.  They have no confidence in their ideas and have not had opportunity to test out their ideas in class or their writing which is another reason I like for students to collaborate with ideas after reading a selection.  They hear their peers saying things that maybe they thought, but were not comfortable saying themselves.  I guess that would be the outlet for “voice” before blogging came along. Now, we can let students share their creative ideas to more than just their classroom which may motivate them to do more than basic answers—everyone is reading and commenting.

I agree with the quote by a student in the comment section of this article about using the term “student and learner” as synonyms.  They are not.  He said “ that all learners are students, but not all students are learners! ” So true.

Another concern I have about whether students are learning is this:  there are students that sit in my class, have all their notebooks organized, study the material, and spit back information.  They have high executive function and are very successful in my class, but they are only doing what I ask them to do…….nothing more.   Then I have that messy, unorganized person who can’t remember their book or notebook, but what I do get from them in the way of writing is insightful and has meaning.  They give synonyms on SAT cards that are higher level vocabulary; their sentence writing shows a uniqueness missing in my other students.  At the middle school level, you’ve got to love them all, but push the messy, unorganized ones to the top, and don’t discard them–they are the thinkers of the group in many cases.

In response to this article, I would like for students to understand that education today is driven by grades—not necessarily by the  learning taking place.   It may be frustrating for students, but KNOW that it is frustrating for teachers also.  I wish I could teach without having to log in grades every two weeks for parents.  The education system seems to want immediate feedback when realistically learning takes place over a longer period of time, not to be measured in classes/grading periods and semesters.  So maybe technology will allow us to change some of the formatting of how we teach and learn within this system that up until now has held us captive!