Questions from Post #1

As I looked back on my very first blog post as a brand new blogger I reflected on the questions that I asked about my classroom and 21st Century Learning: 

Does my classroom grow that learning or suppress it? (In reference to my students and their ability to use technology that we teachers try to keep up with at a rapid pace)

Does the classroom I guide at least recognize this reality?

Honestly I think oftentimes my classroom suppresses students' 21st Century skills. I do not mean to suppress their knowledge and ability to use the latest and greatest technology- but I do not think we always use what students bring to the table. The hardest part about allowing students to use the latest and greatest apps and devices that they have at their fingertips is making sure that all students have an opportunity. Though my students for the most part have newer and greater technology than even the school does, that is not true for ALL students. I think I should focus on giving students OPPORTUNITIES to use their latest and greatest tools. Besides, differentiation is all about choices, right? So if one student uses their iPad to create science sketches at home and one students uses good ole colored pencils- aren't they still meeting the same objective? And, those students who may not have the resources at home, we can develop their 21st Century skills as best we can at school, just like for everyone else. 

One of my small successes this year was I got my students really excited about an online game that has students practice identifying that nerve cells are connected by axons. It is called the axon game (http://axon.wellcomeapps.com/). We played it on the interactive whiteboard in class and one of my class periods in particular LOVED the game. They ask to play it months later whenever we have free time. The key here, though is that we found out it is an app for Apple and Android. Many of my students in this particular class period downloaded the app and tried to beat each other's high scores outside of class. I don't think these students will ever forget how nerve cells work. 

I also found out Quizlet has an app. So, each Chapter when we have a Quizlet review available, I remind students and their parents (via email message) that Quizlet is available as an app as well as on the web. I am celebrating these small success in recognizing my students' reality in the 21st Century. 

Goals for Next Year

Tomorrow is my last day at work for this school year, as I begin my maternity leave on Wednesday. Though I am thinking heavily about the upcoming changes in my personal life, I am also wrapping my mind around the fact that I won't be back at school until August. Naturally, I have begun to consider my goals for the next school year.

Next year will be my fourth year of teaching and I will no longer be considered "New Staff" under our district induction program. I am also going to be a new, working mother. How will I balance baby and work? The eternal 21st Century question indeed. How will my professional goals change? Will my career path go stagnant? Will I feel guilty going to work everyday? I am tired now- how tired will I be in August? Will my child grow and learn at Daycare? Will my students suffer from the effects my tired days? I bought a book called I Love Mondays by Michelle Cove on the work life balance. My goal is to read it this summer. 

I have also been reading about Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In and her philosophy that women could gain more work life balance support if they put MORE energy into their careers and achieve higher positions in the work place. With women having higher positions, they can better advocate for a family-friendly workplace, she argues. 

I am struggling with the notion of best laid plans and the contrary belief that one must set goals and stick to them. I have come up with a list of goals for next year. I know they need to be flexible as I do not yet know what my daily life will be like with an infant; but I also know that my goals need to be set and I need to have a plan to achieve them. 

Goals for 2013-14 (wow...2014!)

1. Connect with students- I will not be coaching because I want to spend more time with my daughter and I have always found coaching to be a great way to connect with students. I hope to make connections with students so that they would feel comfortable coming to me with their problems or their successes. Hopefully a little Mommy instinct with help with this as well. 

2. Stay Positive- and know that the choices I have made for my career and my family are right for me.

3(The not so serious one). Save pennies for coffee- I can sleep when I am dead. 

4. Continue my graduate studies- by taking at least one class per semester. This is important enough to me to take the time to do it. 

Happy Summer!

A picture is worth a thousand words...

... and at least a blog post    

I have struggled with blogging regularly. I truly believe blogging has been a good experience for me, but I have had trouble generating ideas for blog posts. As I was reflecting on my course work today, I thought to myself, I wish I could do a post of images. I am awaiting the arrival of my first child this week and I wish I had baby pictures to share. Albeit, I do not, I got to thinking about how I often search Google images for pictures in my classroom presentations and how my librarian recently showed us how to look for pictures that are not copyrighted and can be shared. In advanced search, you just choose "Free to Use or Share".  This has made me a much better image borrower. So today, a blog post- "A picture is worth a thousand words"- on 21st Century Learning. These are images that I associate with 21st Century Learning. 

I love my classroom set of clickers

What good teacher wouldn't have a non-example, right?

To YouTube or Not to YouTube

The discussion board from class this week got me all riled up about YouTube and teaching 21st Century Learners. I wanted to repost some of my thoughts here and add to a couple of them as well. I would also recommend "Make Those YouTubes" by Marc Prensky; I found it to have a good idea and it was what really got me thinking.

Marc Prensky makes some great points in "Make those YouTubes." For one, like Prensky says, it allows for a great resouce of sharing teaching ideas; the more teachers that post quality instructional videos, the more quality instruction videos will be available. I think of Khan Academy, a mostly math based video site. I love searching Khan for videos because of the amount of videos and the fact that they are generally accepted as high quality. I even feel more comfortable searching for a Khan video as opposed to any old video on YouTube, because I don't feel like I have to filter through videos that are inappropriate for school. Which leads me to think that if we as educators buy into Prensky's ideas, we need to create a network (YouTube or otherwise) of trusted, educational videos. You might be thinking, well TeacherTube already exists. I think TeacherTube would be great for this forum, however as it stands right now, I find TeacherTube to have very limited, difficult to search for resources. As I stated before, though, the more teachers that post quality instructional videos, the more quality instruction videos will be available. Secondly, I agree with Prensky’s assertion that a concise video tutorial could be a much more effective learning tool than a linear PowerPoint that takes more time to develop and still requires a teacher explanation.

I often use YouTube to find videos for my lessons. Our district even provides a Firefox downloader for YouTube so that I can save YouTube videos as FLV files and insert them into my Smart Notebook presentations. This allows for no commercials and no school-inappropriate ads when I show the videos in my classes.The one drawback to using YouTube is I spend a lot of time searching and previewing videos to make sure they are relevant and appropriate. I think a better user base for TeacherTube may be the solution to this problem.

YouTube is blocked for students at our school, but not for teachers. I think that this is an appropriate safety measure at this point in time. When I read Prensky’s article my one worry was that posting videos of students would be against school privacy rules; which currently it would. I completely support teacher posted videos for classroom use, however having students post videos has more roadblocks. I do not doubt the benefit to students from creating videos (if you can teach something you probably know it…), but at this point in time I do not think that posting these videos would be allowed. Should those rules change? Maybe. But, for a first step, I think teachers creating quality to be shared is a great way to integrate 21^st Century technology. I also think that students creating videos to only be shown at their school in the classroom is a great compromise as well and would promote 21^st Century Skills.

It's almost April...

With April showers comes testing season, spring sports and arts and teachers and students stretched in many, many directions. I was thinking today about all the things I worry about as a teacher in the 21st century. As my list grew longer, I knew I needed to change my attitude; so I made a list of the most wonderful things about being a 21st century teacher. 

Things I worry about most as a 21st Century Teacher:

1. Will my daily lesson be effective?

2. Will I be able to manage my classroom with high expectations and still make connections with students?

3. Is my school safe? Are we safe at school?

4. Am I enjoying my job?

5. What will the parents think?

6. Will there be computers available???

Things I like about most as a 21st Century Teacher:

1. The work day ends at 3:30

2. When students "get it"!

3. When students who are difficult show a hint of caring

4. My SMART board

5. Being goofy with students

6. Enjoying the nice weather outside with students

May April showers bring May flowers and bright last weeks of school!

 

Wordle- Uses in 7th Grade Science

I tried out Wordle today for my graduate class and I was impressed by how easy it was to use and how many different visual products I could create very quickly. I have been thinking about how I could use Wordle in my 7th grade science classroom. This is week in grad class we talked about how students need to create and re-create what they have learned, in order to retain their knowledge. Wordle seems like a simple web tool that could be used for creating. However, Wordle does not seem to require a lot of creating on the part of the user. For example, I entered a vocabulary word list for the chapter on forces that we are working on, then I hit create and I had all sorts of options for what my product would look like. However, I did not need to think through the content in order to create my product.

Wordle allows the user to enter any text and then takes the most used words and enters them into a graphic (like my forces example above). The more the word is used, the larger the word appears. So, maybe students could use this to pick out the most used, read the most important, parts of a text. Students could also use Wordle to create a visual product from a written sample that they create. I think maybe entering a lab report into Wordle would help students pick out the themes in the lab report they have written. I think Wordle can be good for a visual reminder of ideas and themes in science, but not necessarily an assessment of learning.

I am excited to use some Wordles in my classroom for visual reminders of vocabulary and main ideas. I have a colleague who changes the background on her computer each chapter to a Wordle with the vocabulary words. When her interactive whiteboard displays her desktop, students see the Wordle. 

The only drawback I saw to Wordle was it was possible to have a URL link to a specific Wordle. There was a code to embed the Wordle, but no URL. The Wordles I created were added to a public gallery, however the public gallery was not searchable by title or topic. I think if Wordle will be used by students, they will need to print their product right away in order to have easy access to it.

Here is a Wordle using the text from this Wordle blog post:

On Skills & Technology: More Questions than Answers

How do we integrate 21st Century Skills using 21st Century Technology if our technology resources are difficult to get a hold of in the classroom? Are there ways we can promote 21st Century Skills without access to the technology? Students have many technology resources at home- what can we realistically expect from them if we ask them to create at home?

In the midst of state testing season, it is near impossible to use computers in the classroom, because they are being utilized for testing. This is simply a reality. So how do we continue to integrate 21st Century skills into a more 20th century looking classroom? Or do we send students home to their own technology and expect that they are working on their skills there?

At my school, we do have interactive white boards as a resource but it is difficult to have many students working on the board at the same time. We have clickers, but it is difficult for students to collaborate and create with these.

I am optimistic that we will continue to do everything we can with what we have in order to guide our students to the 21st Century economy, but I think I need some new solutions. I think I need to put an ad in the paper (so 20th century...). My ad will read "21st Century teacher seeking solutions for integrating 21st Century skills with limited technology resources." 

On the other hand, it would probably be more effective to conduct my research using 21st Century technology. Social Media- here I come- I'll see if my tweets and status updates can generate some good discussions. 

Onward and Upward!

Post Script: I have created a Quizlet site where my students can review and re-teach at home. There is also an app for Quizlet, so I hope my students can utilize that. There are ideas out there- I just need to find them!

Is blogging the 21st Century tool for this teacher?

I have to admit, this blogging makes me a bit apprehensive. I don't want to sound like my grandmother, but I am just not sure I can wrap my mind around this whole blogging thing. I can say that I enjoy reading other people's blogs. I often feel like these bloggers are obsessed with every little minutia of their lives, but it is nevertheless enjoyable to read. I suppose I am afraid that my thoughts aren't worthy of publishing. Sure, I have thoughts, but who wants to hear them? And, I don't mean this is a self-depreciating way; I just rarely think my musings were noteworthy.

I am truly thankful for this opportunity to blog for my graduate class, though. I hope it will open my eyes to the world of blogging. I am optimistic that there is hidden value in sharing my ideas in this sort of arena. My goal is to have a casual blog that reflects my stream of consciousness about 21st Century Learning. 

I suppose one begins a blog with a bit about the blogger. I am a 7th grade science teacher in my 3rd year of teaching. I am working towards a masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction. I teach at a school where technology is readily available by comparison to other schools in the area. My students have access to even more 21st Century gadgets at home and we as teachers struggle to keep up with the latest apps or devices that our students are using. They are truly the embodiment of 21st Century Learning. Now, the question is, does my classroom grow that learning or suppress it? Does the classroom I guide at least recognize this reality?