TechEduk8ing!

First of all…CONGRATULATIONS!!!!…to everyone who has finished this course.

I know at times we all struggled with finding the time to get everything done. But, we’ve reached the end.

Although I’ve had opportunities to use many of these tools, I found this to be an interesting way to introduce teachers to them. Finding time to attend workshops is always difficult, but this gave participants the opportunity to do it on their own time.

I like the introductory nature of the class, but feel that most teachers will be overwhelmed by the thought of using all of this in their daily lives, let alone their classrooms. My suggestion for teachers is pick one tool and become very comfortable with it before you move on to a new one. Explore it and its possibilities, looking for way to use it in your class. You will find that as time goes by you will pick up new tools more quickly, sometimes finding uses for them before you even know how to use them.

As a teacher and tech person who believes in knowing content and tools well enough to integrate them, I’d love to see a version of this class that focuses on just a couple tools and how they can be used in the classroom. This would give teachers time to learn the tools while walking away with a project to use right away.

I wish all of you luck in using these tools to improve your professional development and classroom teaching. Remember, your tech coach can help you figure out how to integrate any of these tools! (Shameless plug! Had to! )

Here we go, again! A couple years ago I read a paper entitled Perverse Incentives about NCLB and how the mandates have changed education. Unfortunately, as the title suggests, the changes weren’t for the better. It noted how schools began to change (lower) standards, how test were adjusted to reflect new standards and how teachers, supported by booming companies, began teaching to the tests.

It highlighted how in order to get funding, schools had to resort to less than desirable tactics to ensure they were not put on a watch or warning list or closed all together. We see a similar concept in Everything You Need to Know About Education Reform (by Rona Wilensky) posted by Larry Cuban.

In her post, Wilensky points out that raising the bar, standards, expectations and the like, without supporting students in meeting the new standards defeats the purpose. Instead of increasing achievement, it encourages pushing out of those who don’t achieve or watering down of the measurement tool.

In Wilensky’s Boulder, Colorado school board members denied increasing the math requirements for graduation stating that changes needed to be made to how students were being educated and not just what they were expected to learn.

In a response to the post a college math professor questioned what “resources” and “needed change” Wilensky referred to. He claims to be unable to identify the “needed change” she referred to. In response, Wilensky wrote about how elementary teachers are typically “math phobic.” Wilensky suggests this phobia leaves students with “emotional baggage” related to their ability to understand and do math.

What I find most interesting is her suggestion that not all students need higher level math to succeed. And I completely agree. She recommends lowering the level of math required and focusing on ensuring that students know it well. I know I asked when I’d use Trig and Calculus, just as our students ask. Honestly, I don’t recall using either since high school.

There are few jobs that require higher levels of math. Being a socially active, politically aware and productive member of society doesn’t require advanced mathematical knowledge, so why do we require it? And why does the educational system put such emphasis on testing rather than critical thinking? How do we change this high-stakes testing mindset?

I attended the k-12 online conference “stopping” at the “Using Computer Games as a Context for Learning and Social Interaction.” The session was about helping students move from elementary to high school. The school used Guitar Hero to help students get to know each other and transition into high school. The initial step was done at the elementary school where students researched bands and musicians, planned world tours using a given budget, considered their environmental footprint, made band logos and even sold their band’s t-shirt at a parent night. The goal in phase one was learning through bringing together students from different schools in order to work collaboratively and build core skills.

Phase two focused on social interaction through team work and getting to know one another. All 200 of the elementary students went to the high school to compete in a battle of the bands, Guitar Hero challenge and peer led task. During the battle students compete with new classmates in the game. To the surprise of the teachers, students actually helped each other rather than competing against one another. The Hero challenge consisted of meeting 4 new people and creating a new band with name, logo and song title all related to who each person was. This required students to talk about who they were and what they liked. The last activity, peer led tasks, was conducted by the upper classmen who designed tasks related to the Guitar Hero theme. This allowed the new students to be come more comfortable with the older ones and gave them an opportunity to ask questions they might no otherwise ask.

Phase three involved the teacher and focused on reflection and moving forward. Teachers were directed to talk with the students and ask questions about the students through the context of the game. Students also designed Guitar Hero postcards, then, with their English classes wrote letters to their elementary school teachers.

The group who created the project found that students were mostly positive in their reflections of the transition. Students felt better prepared for high school and were more comfortable with their new classmates and the school itself. The plan is to continue this program and, by 2010, open it up to an international audience of school.

This is definitely not something I had thought about as a way to use games in school. I had focused more on regular classroom use to build cooperation, problem solving and critical thinking skills. This is a great idea for any group that is transition from smaller segments to a larger population.

As for attending an online conference, this seems a lot like listening to a podcast. Download it and listen at any time. I prefer the real-time online conferences by Classroom 2.0 or the workshops I’ve led and attended in Second Life because they allow for interaction and discussion at the time of learning. This makes for a much more meaningful workshop since you are able to discuss and brainstorm ideas or questions you have, possibly walking away with a new project instead of having to wait for someone who is also interested in the topic to find your blog.

Overall, it was a worthwhile experience.

This is one video I’ve used in teaching digital citizenship and it really get students’ attention.

Here’s another that I just happened to see on TV recently.

Knowing how to be safe online and protect one’s information is a crucial skill for everyone to learn. Unfortunately, too many students are engaged in online activities with little regard to their safety. So, how do they learn to be safe online? We educate them -parents, schools and the community.

This isn’t an easy task of course, and needs to begin by educating parents about what their children do online. I believe that schools should offer informational sessions for parents on Internet safety and how to talk to their children about online safety. Too often schools are the catch all for educating students, and even the community about academic and social issues, but many communities have no other source for educating the community.

Within the classroom, teachers need to continually remind students about what they should and should not share online. Cyberbullying should also be discussed as part of Internet safety. These conversations shouldn’t be reserved for computer class or the occasional computer project, but should be part of any conversation related to safety, bullying, computer use or responsible use of technology.

To help educate students, Internet Service Providers, social networks and online games should work with communities, businesses and schools to educate students about Internet safety. Public service announcements or required safety reviews before access to games and sites can help students learn to protect themselves. Some states, including Illinois, have started requiring Internet safety and cyberbullying programs for students in grades k-12.

I took the digital citizenship quiz and I have to say I was quite confused. I’ve taught digital citizenship-about being safe and responsible online- and thought I was pretty knowledgeable about it. I still think I am, but I got a 48 on it!

It seems to me that there’s a problem with the web site, not my knowledge. I had talked to a couple of the 23 Things participants and they were shocked that they had done so poorly. When I got such a low score, I had a couple other tech savvy people take the quiz and they also got really low scores. After some investigating and looking at the answers, I noticed that the scores weren’t correct. First off, it showed 11/15 for quiz one, but only 1 correct for the second quiz even though I got 12/15. It showed the same for those I had take it, just one correct for quiz two. Another issues I noticed was that you couldn’t get Gathering Information points.

Despite the technical issues, the site is a great way for students to consider what they should and shouldn’t do when faced with bullying online.