Reflection

I have been taking a masters course called Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work and Society. This course has given me some new perspectives on how students of today learn, and on some of the Web 2.0 tools that I can use to engage the students.



One benefit of this class was that I was given the time and opportunity to utilize blogs, wikis, and podcasts and learn to use them to complete simple projects. This allowed me the chance to become more familiar with the tools so that I can understand how I can best utilize them with my classes. I also had the chance to set up an aggregator so I can get RSS feeds from other classmates and other sites of interest.



As a result of taking this class, I have a better understanding of how students learn. Since most students have been surrounding by digital media and information devices throughout their entire lives, they are comfortable learning in a more hyperlinked sort of way. Many teachers, including myself, like to think of learning as a linear process - where you start at the beginning and progress step by step. But, today's students can often process information better if it is presented in a more linked and multimedia format.



I have always been more of a student centered type of teacher. I do some direct instruction, but a majority of the time in my classes has students working on project based assignments that utilize technology skills they have learned. One of the things I would like to improve on is developing more collaboration among students in their projects. I would also like to change the projects so they are based on inquiry questions that the students generate.



Two long term goals I have for transforming my classroom environment:

1. Utilize effective team building activities in my classroom so that students can learn how to effectively collaborate with one another. I want to develop some projects that require collaboration among students and I realize that the students don't know how to collaborate without some specific activities designed to enlighten them. I will work with our Student Achievement Coach on finding and teaching some collaboration and team building activities.

2. I would like to gradually integrate blogs, wikis, and podcasts into my projects. This may require some institutional changes since I know some of these tools are currently blocked by our internet filter. I will be persistent in trying to change the mindset of policy makers who deny access to these important tools and I hope that in the end I will prevail.



I think it is important to realize that although technology tools can be very beneficial to teaching students, it is perhaps more important that we teach students to be good consumers and creators of information. Because anyone can publish information it is critical that students know that they need to scrutinize information before accepting it as fact, or that they recognize bias when they see it. Also, students need to be able to take existing information and create new knowledge. I'm excited that a new school year is beginning and I can begin using some of these new technology tools.

Podcast - students using technology at home and school

Here is a podcast of a discussion concerning how students use technology at home and at school. Click on the link below to hear the podcast:

http://podcastmachine.com/podcasts/1403/episodes/6898

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/) is a coalition of community, business, and education groups with a mission of implementing 21st century skills into today's school classrooms. I applaud their mission because I think it is necessary to get broad support to push this kind of agenda. After looking at their site, there really isn't anything that I disagree with.

One of the first things I noticed is that Colorado (the state in which I live) is not yet a member of the partnership. This is disappointing, though not surprising to me, since I believe that Colorado's education department is behind the times regarding technology and education. I am convinced that legislators must take the lead in changing education because they set the policies that govern what the rest of the educators do.

The partnership of educators, businesses, and policymakers seems like a good group to improve the education in the classrooms. However, I think it is the policymakers who are the furthest away from knowing what students need and making the necessary changes to make it happen. Unfortunately, they are the ones who actual control what is taught (standards) and what is assessed (state assessments). The policymakers need to get up to speed with what educators and businesses already know.

I will be curious to see what the self assessment tool that the P21 initiative is developing looks like and if they will provide it to educators to determine what we need to work on. I'll also be curious to see what type of assessment it is, since technology skills can best be tested using project or peformance based assessments.

Using blogs in education

I have been thinking of ways that I could use blogs either in my own classes, or with other classes by helping teachers utilize some of the benefits of blogs.

One idea I had was to integrate one program we are using that is designed to improve student writing with a blog that would allow them to publish their finished work. I really like the idea that a blog can provide an authentic audience for student writing, and that they will likely be more motivated to write better if they know that a potential large audience will see their work. Not only that, but we could encourage other students to comment on the original posts and either asks questions of the students, or provide some constructive feedback. The idea would be that once students have revised their writing into a final draft, they would publish their work on the blog for their classmates, parents, and others in the community to see and read. This would also be a great school to home connection. I teach in a middle school so the students who would be publishing their work to the blog would be in grades 6-8. Teachers could use the blog in any content area, and this would be a great way to publish student work.

A second idea I had for using blogs would be to pair up students and pose an interesting question to them that they would need to discuss and then provide a response to. This would follow the "think, pair, share" process where students first think about the question, then partner up with someone to discuss their ideas, and then they would finally post their response to the blog. The question posed to the students would need to be something that would be interesting and engaging for them, as well as a higher level question requiring critical thinking skills and not just the reporting back of facts.

I can anticipate several challenges to using blogs with a large number of students. First of all, since I teach in a middle school, I need to be careful about setting up accounts for students who could then post personal information and risk becoming a victim of an internet predator. I could use Google reader to keep tabs on student blogs, but I think that could be overwhelming if the number of students gets too large. I do think that the rewards outweigh the risks, so I intend on trying one or both of the above ideas.

I looked for any data out there that would support using blogs to improve student writing. I came up empty, except for many blogs and sites that claim it does. Has anyone know of or done a study on this, and if so, what were the results?

Communication with colleagues

This blog will be used to communicate with my classmates on different ways to utilize technology in the classroom. I will be discussing the various aspects of blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools with others, and commenting on their ideas.