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.