Thing 21: YouTube and More

I just watched a video on TeacherTube by Rachel Boyd from Nelson, New Zealand on why we should let our students blog. My first reaction when watching this was--these students look like they are in first grade; they are just lil'uns! How do they know how to type or write yet, let alone blog? If they are blogging, well, there is a lot of learning going on in that classroom.

I wonder how much technology is too much technology in the classroom? How much use of it will take away from the basic core of what I want my students to learn? Everything takes time to teach and that is something that seems to be eaten away at all the time, with unexpected pep rallies, state testing that seems to multiple, more, more, more, which leaves classroom teachers with less, less, less.

Yes, I want my students to have the skills to negotiate the turns of technology. I also want them to be able to write beautiful and eloquent essays, read literature that will change their perspectives of the world, and be critical thinkers. How do you pick and choose what you'll throw out of the curriculum to add new pieces while teaching time seems to be ebbing every year?

Now, on a lighter note--TeacherTube has many interesting features. One of them is called BrainPOP, which is a curriculum-based site focused on students from third to twelfth grade featuring movies (more than 600) and then has activities that go along with them. I don't think I would use this enough to warrant the fee, but I think it is interesting that it is searchable based state standards tools.

Another video I watched on TeacherTube was one called "Have you been paying attention?" It talks about the value of using technology to teach keeping their learning styles in mind. It asks the question "How much richness does your curriculum provide?" I watched this video twice actually. The statistics are interesting, the ideas were definitely out of the normal teaching framework. I am left with these questions: Can teachers that are not as technologically savvy as their students improve the "richness" of the curriculum by using technology? Doesn't one have to be an expert? How does one become an expert when one is not a native speaker of that language, a wanderer in that world, and you don't have language brain?

The last video I will address here is called "Did you know? 2.0" The video states that "In ten years, it is predicted that the country that will be the number one speaker of English will be China" and "there were more than 2.7 billion searches on Google--this month." That is a lot of information (that might not be reliable) to have been accessed. How about the fact "that if MySpace was a country, it would be the 8th largest in the world"? That is a lot of social networking! It must be working though, since the video also stated that 1 in 8 marriages in 2005 started by meeting on the Internet.

This video then directed the viewer to go to the wiki: shifthappens.wikispaces.com to join the conversation for "everyone must be involved in the conversation if we are to come up with a system of education for our children that prepares them for the 21st century" (shifthappens.wikispaces.com). The video really made me think about how I teach students. I don't know how I will be able to change my teaching, how much I will be able to change, or how fast, but at least I am thinking about it. The video also quoted Albert Einstein, which is how I will end this entry tonight: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

Thing 17: One New Thing

Today in my special library class I discovered a thing called librarything.com. I am sure many librarians and tech savvy adventurers have heard of this before, but I had not. I have to wonder, having said that, if I had heard about it in another class before but hadn't had enough tech savvyness then to even recognize that I should check it out. Today, however, I logged on. How exciting it is!

This is a website where you can catalog all the books in your personal collection. From there, the options are endless. You can meet other people who have similar book interests, you can import cataloging records from anywhere including Library of Congress, you can get recommendations and reviews, give recommendations and reviews, join book clubs, add your books onto your blog--really, what can't you do once you get on this site? Seriously though, as an English teacher and library science student, I couldn't be more intrigued with a website! Check it out and see for yourselves!

Things 32: Wikis

I am torn between labeling this blog entry "Wikis" or "Collaboration " since it is both--but since I am using a Wiki, I have named this thing--Thing 32: Wikis. I have used wikis in some of my library school graduate courses, but had never heard of them before. They were used as a way for the teacher and students to have one place to share information and post questions. One professor used a wiki as her syllabus. All the assignments for the class had to be uploaded into her wiki. She then gave us her comments and the grades for the assignments via email. Talk about using technology in education! It was frustrating sometimes though when the wiki was down and then we all scrambled on what to do to get our assignments turned in on time--resorting to emailing her individually, which was not an ideal situation for her.

As I shared this experience with other teachers, I realized that many didn't know what I was talking about when I said wiki. I thought, "Is this library jargon?" and worried if I was being rude talking about these things called wikis. It isn't library jargon though; it is technology jargon, which made me think that I should create a wiki for teachers to use so they could become familiar with them and then they could possibly use it with their students. I am going to create one for one of my English classes as well, but I cannot decide which one I will choose. I am slightly worried that once I create one, I'll become obsessed and create one for every class. In theory, this would be great; in reality, many things would get neglected in my life if I sat around all day creating wikis--but I digress.

I decided to create a wiki for the Ninth Grade Academy at Central, one of the committees I co-coordinate. I have never created one before and it took me a while to figure out what I wanted it to do. I ended up spending a lot of time setting this up, but now I know how to do it and I feel really proud of that.

One of the co-coordinators for Ninth Grade Academy is also familiar with wikis, but not enough to create one for us. The other three co-coordinators are not familiar at all with wikis. I plan to show them what I created at our next meeting (this Tuesday) so they can get familiar with it and then launch the wiki at our next Ninth Grade Academy meeting, which isn't until October 23rd. This will give me a chance to add all the lesson plans onto the wiki and add any other features I can think of before then too. I am excited to introduce the wiki as a collaborative tool; I have high hopes for it, but only time will tell if others will find it useful.

Adding Personal Pictures

I have enjoyed adding pictures to the four blogs I am now maintaining. It adds a piece of my perspective of the world without having to add too much personal information. I did add a picture of myself per Ballroom Queen's Blog of 23's request. I know it is kind of hard to see me in it, but that is why I picked that particular picture. I think my newness to online posting leaves me feeling slightly uncomfortable posting a picture of myself in such an open forum. I hope this picture gives enough detail so you can recognize this picture is me while not giving enough information for just anyone to see me. This might seem strange, but I don't like having my picture taken in general so it probably follows that I wouldn't want people looking at the ones that are taken of me. If I could have my twin sister pose as me in all pictures, I would do it. I do love to take photos though so I have a lot of pictures of trees, oceans, mountains, and doorways (some of my favorite subjects) that I love to share with others.

Blogging observation for the week

An interesting thing happened today as I went to monitor my Bloglines. Next to four of the feeds was a red exclamation point. When I clicked on this added feature, the following message popped up: “Bloglines has encountered an error trying to fetch the latest version of this feed. Bloglines handles errors automatically, no action is required by you. The error was:

The feed does not appear to exist. This can be caused by the feed URL being incorrect, or it can be caused by a configuration issue with the server hosting the feed. If this error continues, you should check the feed URL and, if it is wrong, subscribe to the correct URL.”

This baffles me. How can these blogs not exist when I have had these blogs in this feed since I created by RSS feed—and they are four blogs from the MILP? Additionally, how can the message simultaneously state no action is required by me AND you should check the feed URL and…subscribe to the correct URL? I don’t know what to make of it. I suppose I could delete them and then re-subscribe. This makes me think of Robert Burn’s poem “To A Mouse…”—“The best laid plans of mice and men…” When it comes to technology, despite trying to plow ahead—possibly because one is trying to plow ahead—one never know when one will unknowingly run into a mouse’s house. I think I am all set up and then the error button pops up and I am at a loss. I imagine for those who have grown up with this technology it is solving this problem is intuitive, but for me—I have to stop, sigh, and then breathe deeply to rally myself to jump back in for possibly hours in order to fix the unexpected problem.

Online Information Literacy Learning Activity

Today, I had my AP Literature and Composition students go into the computer lab. With everyone on a computer (it is a very small class), I could walk them through using the databases to research their poetry papers. After the students did some preliminary research, each student had to choose three poets they are going to research. They then had to post their selected poets on the class blog. This created a competition between them because none of the students can research the same poet. There was such a flurry of typing and researching--and a little bit of negotiating too.

I also went online at the same time and found some useful websites they could use besides the databases. When I found an interesting one, I would tell them about it so we could all look at it together. This helped them in their selection of poets because some of them had no idea who and where they should research. I posted this list on the blog as well so they can return to them throughout their research.

It was interesting to learn that seniors in AP aren't all as fluent with technology as I had assumed. It was nice to get everyone on the same page and know they all know how to access databases, reliable websites, and the blog for the class.

Someday, when Central has a bigger computer lab, I could bring all my classes in and do activities like this. It was really fun! I couldn't believe how fast the class flew by and all the students were truly engaged in research the whole time--very exciting!

Online learning

I created a blog for each subject I teach. I have been having a lot of fun creating each one to have its own personality--just like the class. I have posted the major assignments for each class. For my AP Literature and Composition class, I have added some useful websites for them to explore as well.

I have already had two blogs used, which already makes me think it is a worthwhile thing to have created. It is really interesting to me to see how much more of my personality I can show through words and images in the blogs that I might not feel comfortable doing in class--or don't have time to do in class. I can include my own favorite poems and phrases and show more examples of the work I am asking them to do. This really will be another resource for students and I am really proud of using more technology. I think it also makes me a more dynamic teacher, which is rewarding in itself.

I hope that I will be able to maintain these blogs now. We'll see what happens!

Avatar notes

Here is my avatar and after the struggle I had adding her, I feel victorious that she is here. She was stubborn, but that is because I don't know the rules in fighting technology. I have to read directions and I had to search these out on the avatar.yahoo website. It ended up being very easy, but I had to read about it first before I discovered that. Now that I have done it once, I am sure that I will be able to add avatars to blogs again and again without any frustration. I wonder how my students deal with confusing assignments; if they give up before they finish simply because they do not have the tools to find the correct answer to succeed--while attaching avatars to blogs might be intuitive them. How do I empower them to keep trying until they accomplish the task at hand?

Avatar

Thing 3: RSS

Saturday morning I was in my Special Library class for my Library and Information Science program. The guest speaker this chilly morning was a special librarian from Target. One thing she spoke about was RSS feeds, something that she creates for many of her users at Target. Everyone in the class seemed familiar with this concept, shaking their heads and agreeing at how useful RSS feeds are. Most people in the class already work in libraries and they are fluent in the technology that is so common in the world outside of the little cocoon of education. For some reason, as educators, we aren't in the same technological loop. I don't know why since we should be inovative and thinking about future trends.

I left class after the guest speaker to arrive at the MILP meeting where RSS feeds come up again. How wonderful to have a tutorial on this the very day I discovered I needed to know about it. I am always a little fearful when I hear about new technology--wondering if I will be able to figure it out, but it turns out it is very easy to create an RSS feed. I told an English teacher friend of mine and she hadn't ever heard of an RSS feed before. I think that this program is such a great opportunity for me because I am slightly below the curve when it comes to my MLIS program in technology, slightly above of the curve as an English teacher; I believe MILP will bridge the gap by forcing me to initiate the conversation about technology and to use technology that I would never do on my own.

Thing 2: Blog

Creating and maintaining a blog seems to be pretty simple--once I can get over my initial hesitation on using one in the first place. My personal connotation of blog makes me think "open and available"--rants left unedited, personal thoughts exposed--where my writing is usually kept private and personal. Since this is an assigment, it gives me a rational to create a blog, which probably brings me into the 21st Century.

Now, I begin to imagine all of the ways blogs could be used--beyond the personal journaling definition that is now archaic. It would be fun to create a blog for each class, each committee I am a part of, so that people could be constantly sharing, collaborating, networking--and from the convenience of their own time and place too. I wonder though how often these kinds of blogs would be used. How many people my age or older feel the way I do/did about blogging. It might be useful for certain classes, but I cannot imagine that committee work will start blogging any time soon.

Thing 1: Understanding Information Literacy

The articles on information literacy brought several things to mind. First of all, the first article posted by ACRL states that information literacy "extends beyond technical skills and is conceived as one's critical reflection on the nature of information itself, its technical infrastructure and its social, cultural, and even philosophical context and impact." I wonder how I will be able to not only teach this "critical reflection on the nature of information itself," but how I will know that I have successfully taught this, especially when I am still teaching things so much more basic to many of my students. I wonder if knowing more about brain development theory would be useful in knowing how much to expect from my students, how to teach them critical thinking skills more appropriately in order to evaluate and synthesize information--and when and where I can find this information, which leads me into my own quest for information literacy.

Also, the idea of collaboration with other staff members is both exciting and daunting to think about. When will there ever be enough time to collaborate in the way we would need to in order to successfully integrate all the things necessary to create the supportive atmosphere that the articles speak of. If there were a day to work on technology integration, how many people would welcome that versus a day to get caught up with grading papers? Where does the reality of the pressures of teaching end and the practical opportunities for cooperation among staff to "promote a vision of liberal education as an empowering and transforming endeavor that develops students as skilled independent learners" begin? How can we realistically create this in our staff first?

Lastly, "21st Century Skills Information Literacy" article made me think that I need to find out more about the information seeking behavior of my students and the 21st Century teen--generation y--in order to better understand how to facilitate their information literacy. This could then lead me to create more appropriate pathfinders to initiate their searches. I believe that they seek information in a vastly different way than I do and this must be understood first.