Social Networking for Teachers

I enjoyed watching the video Alan Levine-New Media Consortium. He discussed the importance of networking between colleagues and experimenting with new technologies. I think it is important to realize that he is correct with the statement that we need to give up on the idea that we will be able to keep up with technology. Instead, we should be willing to adjust and take the challenge of keep going regardless of how many difficulties we have. It is important to be willing to keep trying, even it it means re-learning things over again. We need to realize that we are not ever going to know everything about everything, especially in a constantly changing world. This is why networking with colleagues is so important. Emailing, blogging, and joining social networking are great ways to keep up with trends and changes.

This is why I joined the site Flipped Learning Network. The mission statement of the site is, "to provide educators with the knowledge, skills, and resources to successfully implement Flipped learning." Flipped learning is when direct instruction is moved from group teaching space to the individual learning environment. This means that class time is spent more productively because students are using higher order thinking. I think the site is providing a positive outlook on the classroom and providing resources for teachers to "flip" their own classrooms. I thinking that hearing from experienced teachers are a great way to build your own teaching repertoire. It is like the saying goes, two heads are better than one, but in this case its many more!

Learners are like a growing tree

I kept trying to think of something more technologically advanced than trees, but I couldn't think of anything else to better describe what I was thinking. Trees are an important part of our environment, just as students are in the school environment. As trees are constantly taking in carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, students are constantly taking in information and turning it into knowledge to access. Learners of today come from all different kinds of backgrounds and lifestyles. I like to compare these to the roots of a tree. Learners are constantly bringing in new information, but they are still grounded by who they are and where they came from. These roots hold them in place just like the roots of a tree. I think it is important to also relate that trees are also trying to fit into a new world of constantly growing cities and technology. The tree itself, like a student cannot help but adapt to this world. This means that no matter what both are growing through the changes they constantly facing and growing.

When choosing my analogy, I kept thinking about the branches of a tree being similar to students trying to connect with each other and the world and branching out. I have not heard of Connectivism until reading that article, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Siemens. Connectivism talks about how "learning can reside outside of ourselves, is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing." This ideology of learning emphasized the importance of realizing how important adapting to the idea that the world is constantly changing and what might have been a source of information yesterday could possibly be outdated tomorrow. George Siemens elaborates more in depth in the video What is Connectivism. The video is similar to a PowerPoint, where his lecture is put into different sections and discussed. In one slide he talks about the key points of connectivism and states, "the experience of learning then is one of forming new neural, conceptual and external network, this is increasingly occurring in complex, chaotic, and shifting spaces rather than a somewhat formulaic approach to learning that defines much of traditional schooling." In essence is is discussing how technology is causing us to not only think outside the box, but be willing to travel outside of it to grasp new and better sources of knowledge regardless of the environmental changes.

Learners, like trees, are constantly growing and adjusting to a new world around them. They must take whatever path to continue to grow, even if that means breaking through new barriers.

Organizing Bookmarks and Information on the Web

There are benefits to using both DIIGO and Scoop.it. I think both sites are great ways of storing information based on certain topics. However, there are also some advantages that the sites have over each other.

DIIGO allows you to highlight text within the webpage. This is an interesting feature that Scoop.it does not have. What is cool about this too is that when you open DIIGO in another tab or on another computer, what you had highlighted will still be highlighted. This makes finding information on the webpage much easier. Instead of having to re-read the page and find what you were looking for you can simply just look where you highlighted. Another feature that DIIGO has that Scoop.it does not, is the ability to tag the webpages you find. After collecting so much material on different subjects, it would be extremely difficult to look through all the different pages just to find ones that are relevant to what you need. The tagging that DIIGO allows you to to makes a list on the side of your library. All you have to do when you are looking for a specific subject or theme is go through and click the tags that are relevant to that subject. The webpages you found and tagged are then easy to find.

photo credit

Some of the benefits of Scoop.it are that you can create specially themed "folders" to hold the webpages that you found. You become a curator of the information that you choose to find. I also like that people can comment on the pages that you have found. This allows for people to communicate how they feel about certain materials or if they have any materials that are relevant to what you have posted. I also think finding relevant and worth while material can be very time consuming and difficult, so it is nice that they offer suggestions based off of what you are looking for.

                                                  photo credit

These sites both allow for users to follow each other. I think that they are both great sites to have because they give you a place to put all that information that you couldn't possibly hold in bookmarks or saved material. I also like that you can access these libraries anywhere and are not held down to just one computer. I believe that instead of bookmarking like crazy, which I am thoroughly guilty of, I will use these sites to create a neat and tidy space for my saved materials.

New Age Classrooms

After watching Classroom of Tomorrow, it amazes me how much technology can be used in the classroom. I have seen a lot of use of smart boards and projectors, but that seems to be just the starting point at what can really be done in the classroom. I worry that not all classes are able to afford this kind of technology in the classroom. It is a bit ideological that students will be able to use their phones to pull up a PowerPoint to present to the class. My student teaching placements where in city schools where few students even had paper and pencils to bring to class. I know schools are constantly developing and moving towards better classrooms, however I'd still prefer schools to spend more money on having more teachers with smaller classrooms than to provide an IPad to each student. I guess in that sense I am a little old fashioned. I hope that progress continues to happen and that classrooms do continue to grow. The best investment to make is toward the education of our future generations. I believe that technology is a great tool to use in the classroom. Students are usually tech savvy and are more than willing to show what they can do on a computer. I think technology education is also important because many of their future careers may be based on the functioning and operations of the technology that is available today. Students need to be well prepared for the ever growing world around them.

 

Another video that I enjoyed watching was A Vision of 21st Century Teachers. The video started of with the quote, "adapting and evolving, teachers digitally empower diverse learners to connect, communicate, collaborate, and create in an interactive technology-rich environment." This could not be more accurate. Teachers are the window to helping students use technology in a productive and empowering way. With our help and guidance students can learn to communicate with each other and produce material that is relative to them yet using advances in technology as the medium in which it is shared. I also enjoy that they ended the video with the quote, "who dare to teach must never cease to learn." With a constantly changing world, teachers need to always be adapting and learning new and better ways to communicate and teach with their students. The video gave a lot of examples of how those teachers are, but you could also see that they spend hours researching newer and better ways to develop their classrooms. The video is a good way to inspire teachers to always be willing to learn something new about the benefits of technology in the classroom.

References:
smart board photo
IPad photo
Never Stop Learning Photo

Teaching Benefits of Blogs

I've only ever really considered blogs to be something similar to an online journal. I guess that was because I was not as educated about them as I believed myself to be. When I picture a blogger, I think of some person sitting in their parents basement trying to tell the world about some conspiracy theory that they've been working on. I know, extremely biased. Know that I've grasped the concept more, I have learned that it is something much larger than that. It can be an extremely helpful tool to opening up the classroom to your students in a new medium.

I enjoyed reading about how a blog can be a tool for working cooperatively. It is a way for students to contribute and provide feedback to their peers. While reading Blogging in Language Learning, by Rita Zeinstejer I felt a connection with what was being discussed. Getting students to work together in a productive and exciting manner isn't always the easiest. However, by using blogs students are able to comment and express opinions and ideas that they may not have been willing to speak up in classroom discussions. Students will be able to engage in real conversations using the English language compared to the often scripted conversations they are often subjected too.

Working online can also be a benefit to students as well as teachers. If allows teachers to constantly be able to update information and provide it to students. It also gives students more time to think or process what they are going to write or say. I know that I was always that students that couldn't work under the pressure of writing at school during a timed session. Allowing students to feel more personalized and giving them time to be creative allows for better material and in turn a chance the students is actually learning.


STANDARDS:
Standard 1: Students will listen, speak, read, and write in English for information and understanding
Performance Indicators-
7: Present information clearly in a variety of oral and written forms for different audiences and purposes related to all academic content areas.
8: Select a focus, organization, and point of view for oral and written presentations, and justify this selection.
English as a Second Language NYS Standards