Pilkerriffic!Musings, ideas, and juicy links from a DEN STAR and MD LC member…

Who am I kidding?  I never even stopped “preparing” since school ended!  I have spent almost every evening, after the kids go to bed, sitting at my kitchen counter, head buried deep in my laptop, researching new ideas, devouring the entries in my Google Reader, planning lessons (I’m in the process of TOTALLY re-writing my curriculum), and sometimes goofing off on Facebook (all work and no play…).But I’m really starting to get excited.  I start back Monday.  None of the other teachers will be there, but I will be busy getting their computers ready for them.  And hopefully I can start getting some things ready for my classroom too.  I want things to be so different this year.  I really want to challenge the students and take them beyond powerpoint shows.It’s hard to break my mindset, though!  And I’m a techie!  How must all my colleagues feel…those that need me to help them figure out how to send email… (I’m laughing WITH you, friends, I love you all!)  I’ve been reading a lot lately about transformation and change in education.  And I sooooo want to be a part of it.  But it is not easy.  I know this year is not going to be perfect, but I hope that I can at least begin making steps in the right direction.Some goals for this year:

1. Student-Centered lessons.  I want to be less of a “Sage on the Stage” and let them own more of their learning.
2. Effective, yet flexible, assessment.  I envision at least half of the students’ assignments to have some level of personal choice to them.  I want to make sure they have mastered the skills, but how they demonstrate that can be flexible.
3. Less down-time.  In the past, students would whiz through assignments, doing the very least amount of work possible, and then spend the rest of class playing games.  No More.  Their assignments will be more challenging, require more thought, and if they do finish they will use their time wisely, such as practicing their keyboarding skills.
4. More 21st Century Skills.  There are so many wonderful free web apps for students to tinker around with!  I want them to unleash their creativity for an educational purpose.  I want them to work collaboratively towards a goal.  I want them to solve problems and create programs and express themselves in ways not previously overused!
5. More Global-Mindedness.  I have applied for the Flat Classroom project for this year, and I plan to seek out more opportunities to take kids out of their cushy comfort zones and introduce them to the world around them.  Discovery Student Adventures, anyone?

So there you have it.  I put it down in writing so I will not forget these goals I have set for myself and my students.  I can’t wait to begin the journey!

I’m new at this.  Not teaching computer skills- I’ve been doing that for nine years now.  But for the first time I feel I’m really stretching beyond my comfort zone and trying some new things with my students.  And boy, is it time.  Don’t get me wrong, they have been learning a lot- they have become so good at word processing, PowerPoint, and other software applications that their parents are frequently telling me about how much their children know and can do on the computer.
 But I’m afraid that the children know so much that they are getting bored.  So it’s time to move forward.  Time to stretch the boundaries and go beyond the basics.  For me, and I’m sure for my students, this is exciting.  But for the administration (and maybe for the parents) it’s a bit scary!  While I, being the techie geek (and proud of it!) that I am, jump into social networking and web 2.0 apps with both feet, those more practical than I warn of all the dangers involved.
But I am not oblivious to the dangers.  Believe me, I know.  I have seen it first-hand.  However, my theory is that the students are already doing these things!  They may not know the educational applications of animoto, but they are most certainly uploading their cell phone videos to youtube, so why not guide them towards appropriate usage and give them the tools to make wise decisions when choosing who to accept as a friend and what to post on facebook.Today is Leadership Day 2009, and it’s time for the technology teachers, and the administrators who love them, to forge a path to the future!

#leadershipday09

Well, last week I attended the LC Symposium at Discovery HQ in Silver Spring, MD.  And I wish I was still there!  I had such a great time, meeting new people, making new friends, enjoying great workshops and delicious food.  I think it was the whole experience that made it so great for me.  I could have watched the livestream, but being there was so much fun.  I’ll give you a quick run-through of the events of those 2 days:Thursday, June 25:Arrived just in time to meet my roommate and head over to 1 Discovery Place for breakfast.  We got to know the DEN Managers, learned about each of the LC roles.  I attended the Chair meeting, where there were so many good ideas I couldn’t even keep up!  I’m glad Matt was taking notes!  Then we enjoyed some lunch and fellowship.  After lunch, we rotated through workshops on Wufoo, which is an online form creator, Google Tools (I SWEAR by Google Docs, Reader and Calendar), and MediaShare, where Steve Dembo showed us some of the great resources available and how to upload our own to share.  Last, we got a sneak peek at the new DE site, due to roll out this summer.  It looks great!Dinner was a Cruise-A-Pa-Luau in DEN Vegas!  Wrap your brain around that!  We played Bingo, WiiSports, and Poker to win tickets, and used our tickets to try to win prizes.  I won, like, 70 tickets playing Bingo (oh, I’m sorry, DEN-go!), but didn’t win any prizes.  Oh, well.  I was tired, so off to bed for me!Friday, June 26:The next day was even better- we learned about the new application process, and how they were working to make the application easier to fill out for our future STARs.  Then we had a session which was, for me, one of the best of the whole event.  Jannita Demian gave us some sample schedules for events, and then we got to meet with our LC team to start planning events of our own.  So Renee Henderson, MD Events Coordinator, and I got right to work.  We have some great events planned for August and September- but more on that later!  After a refreshing lunch, we were schooled in the art of Second Life by none other than Riptide Furse and his team of SL’ers.  We also got to hear from some of the teachers who have gone on the first round of Discovery Student Adventures to Australia and South Africa.  Absolutely amazing!  Where do I sign up?  I’m ready to go right now after watching their presentation.The drive home was sad, and my transmission somehow busted on the way.  I just enjoyed being there so much, and I hope to participate in many more DEN events in the future.

Ok, I know the title of this blog post is, like, blasphemy on this site.  However, I have to get this off my chest.   I have been reading a lot lately, on my Google Reader feeds, and throughout the educational community, about the push towards 21st Century Learning.  The NECC blog is filled with examples, such as this post by Wesley Fryer and this link to one of many similar youtube videos. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I completely agree that we need to engage our students in a way that we have not ever done before, and are still not doing, for the most part.  I agree that education has to be innovative.  I agree that we need to produce students who don’t just memorize facts, but can think and speak for themselves.  And don’t even get me started on No Child Left Untested Behind. 

But, we can’t differentiate everything.  We can’t sacrifice basic standards.  We can’t continue to lower our educational expectations, because what we expect from our students, we will get. 

I recently assigned a PowerPoint project to my computer lab classes.  Each grade had a different topic, and they were to research their topic and compile their information into a presentation that would be shared with the class.  Let me tell you, I have taught research strategies to my students many times, but they often struggle with finding even the most basic facts.  They want the information to come to them.  They avoid reading web pages like the plague!  If the information doesn’t jump off the website and bite them, then “I can’t find anything.”  Students are becoming too used to the instant gratification of “info-tainment” and games.  They are forgetting how to work for their learning.  And we can’t allow this to happen.  After the presentations were complete, I encouraged them to edit, proofread, and double check their work.  I feel bad saying this, but when I saw the finished presentations, I was appalled at the spelling and grammar errors.  I don’t expect perfection, but some of them were barely readable!  What does that say about our standards?  In my opinion, they are slipping.  And we can’t allow this to happen.  I’m so upset while writing this, I think I may dig up those presentations and make the students find and fix all their errors.  I can’t let them get away with mediocrity.  I want them to be the best that they can be!

What our students need is not more tests.  We need to have more time for basic, solid skills on which to build a foundation.  Yes, I want our students to solve problems and think creatively, but they need to know how to read, write, and add first! 

I teach Computer Lab in a K-8 private school.  Depending on the grade level, my classes run anywhere from 30 minutes (K - 1), to 40 minutes (2-5), to 50 minutes (6-8).  Especially for the older students, I allow them to play appropriate games if they have finished their work.  Part of the problem is that the students often work at vastly different paces, and I can’t have them finish it for homework because most of them don’t have the same programs at home that we do in school, so I need to allow class time for the majority of students to finish in class.  However, the more I read on the subject of computer lab management (which is not that much- it’s surprisingly hard to find!), the more I think I should stop doing this.  I realize that it’s an easy solution.  I already write all my own curriculum, with separate lessons for each grade level, integrated with their classroom studies, and to have to write more enrichment lessons for early finishers would pile on even more work.  Plus, the reward of game time is a pretty powerful motivator!  Even if I did go to enrichment activities for early finishers, it seems unfair to me to give them extra work after they already finished the regular assignment! 

So I need your input… What do you do?

I recently read a post by Will Richardson which referenced the 2008 National Cyber Security Alliance’s Baseline Study on Cyber Security, Ethics, and Safety.  I was shocked to find out that less than 25 percent of teachers feel comfortable talking to their students about these types of Internet Safety topics.  Why?  I’m thinking it’s something along the lines of not wanting to have “The Talk” with your kids.  So many parents fear that discussion as well, although again I wonder why.  I think parents and teachers are afraid to broach uncomfortable subjects with kids.  I tend to think that many parents these days try to protect their children from any discomfort, which I think is horribly wrong, but more on that another time.

So I read the full report to find out what teachers are saying about why they feel unprepared to discuss this topic, and basically their responses are either “It’s not my problem, ask the IT guy,” or “I don’t understand this myself, so how can I teach my students?” or “Stop giving me more things to teach my students, I’m already overwhelmed!!!”  (Ummm, those are paraphrased, by the way…)  First, I have to say that I totally understand where they are coming from.  Teaching is an extremely difficult profession, and teachers get nowhere near the respect (and pay!) they deserve!  So now you add Cyber Safety to the mountain of other subjects that teachers have to be trained in, so they can properly educate their students, in addition to all those ridiculous tests (oh, don’t get me started on tests…), and no wonder we are overwhelmed. 

But I think what the teachers who don’t feel comfortable with this topic don’t realize is that Internet Safety is not just something we have to teach our students, it’s something we ALL need to know about.  Just as someone else said, we don’t think twice about teaching our children to look before they cross the street!  The Internet is here to stay.  It is part of our world.  And if you are going to use a computer, then you should know what to look out for, so you can stay safe.  It’s not hard to find the information you need to get informed.  Ask a friend, look up Internet Safety on the Internet(!), invite your IT guy to come explain to the class how he keeps them safe every day (a new superhero!)  We can’t be afraid that we will scare our students, or rub their parents the wrong way by teaching them about the dangers that are out there in Cyberspace.  Wouldn’t we rather be safe than sorry?

I, for one, am fascinated by the possibilities of technology.  I spend way too much time a lot of time surfing the internet for information about the latest trends, as they apply to education.  And also, as they apply to making life easier and more interesting.  My “Totally Tech” elective is going to be discussing the topic of New Media, so here’s a little cross-post from our class wiki:

“Recently we have begun a discussion of New Media. What is it, and why do we care? Well, our class did some research on what it means, and the consensus was that:

“New Media is any kind of digital, interactive way of getting and producing information.”

Some of the examples that we listed were:

• Youtube
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Myspace
• Blogs

So, why should we care about this? Well, the way people receive information is rapidly changing from even the way our parents did. For example, when your parents were your age, they may have watched the news or read the newspaper to find out about current events. For today’s students, there are countless options available through the use of technology. Sure, you can still watch the news or (gasp!) read the paper, but you can also have your RSS feed reader send you automatic updates from MSNBC.com, or use your iphone Twitter app to check updates from your “following” list, which may include our new president. If you just said “huh?”, don’t feel bad. Technology changes so rapidly it is hard to keep up! Check out this link to one of my favorite blogs for another way phone and internet users are changing the way we get our news.”

My recent pesonal example of this was the CNN/Facebook live Inauguration “party” (although I doubt that’s what CNN would call it).  Basically, if you went to http://www.cnn.com on Inauguration Day, and logged into your Facebook account, you could stream the video of the ceremony and comment about it with other users (hmm… I wonder how many people signed up for an account that day just so they could comment…clever marketing, Facebook!)  It was very interesting to watch the Inauguration from this perspective.  And one of the most interesting things that happened to me that day was that the news about Ted Kennedy broke on the live chat BEFORE it even appeared on the television news!  For a person who is on the verge between being a Digital Native and a Digital Immigrant, this was COOL!  You see, in my classroom I had both the TV and the live CNN stream on the computer going at once.  There was a bit of a lag in the online stream, but not much.  However, I suddenly started seeing user comments wishing Ted Kennedy good luck, and things like “I hope he’s okay,” and so I turned to the TV and started flipping channels so I could figure out what they were talking about.  NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, etc. had nothing about this.  I did a quick Google News search on Ted Kennedy.  Nothing.  Comments were flooding in to Facebook.  About twenty minutes later, the NBC news reporter mentioned something about it on TV.  So, somehow, the online community learned this news before the television news media got a hold of it.  That’s pretty interesting, and I think this is only the beginning.

We are the creators of our news.  Just watch and see.