Waning, Pouring....No One is Snoring?

Well, catchy title for today I guess.  But really, as the Ed Tech course winds down, the work wanes a bit as the final projects begin to take form.  A few more weeks, one more "live" class, and then.....the next course.  So what have I got to say for Ed Tech at this stage of the game?  One cool class.....lots of thinking points.......fun on the web.......a refueling of sorts or a reconfiguring of my teaching strategies....(we do that a lot in education..."change" they call it) much exploring online.......found many great ideas, sites, signed up for a few new things as well.  Haiku, the online LMS (ok, for those not jiving with the lingo...Learning Management System), Xtranormal...actually had known about it a while back, but fun to use, Voice Thread....Really, I was the only one who did the video?  How cool is that?  Teaching on the Fly........got to take that farther......further?   

2012 "senses" and rambling

So a week or two ago there was a knock on our door.  It was one of the many "did you vote yet?" campaigners.  I informed them that we were in the know, had voted, and maybe it was time for them to come to their "senses".  Hm, how many senses was I really talking about?  Well, initially I had always referred to the main "5 senses"........................you know the ones we learned way back in elementary school.......and then we had that conversation in Ed Tech class.  Sense of class?  Common sense?  Really, there seemed to be many senses...even some which are still being thought up of.  Okay, so more than 5 senses...maybe 9, maybe more?   So how to work with these in a classroom?  Think about all the senses at work in the process of learning.  Movement activities verses seeing vs hearing vs....etc.  The list goes on.  Students need to receive information using as many senses as they can.....why they even use their sense of time..."Is it lunch yet?"  So forward we go...bottom line...we have many more senses than the five we learned about a long time ago.  Imagine.....changing the paradigm.   Who would have thought?

Knowledge Building....Birthday?

Ok, so decided to post my new character or "toon" from my WOW account and enjoy my birthday at the same time.  Well, it was about a week ago now, but how much knowledge I have built since I was a "wee" one.  Investigating knowledge building in educational settings this week.  Read a few online pdf's, searched for more kb sites to enrich my experience, settled for some "how to's" or theories of how to do these knowledge building concepts.  I wonder how it really works in an educational elementary setting.  What has to change for it to be successful?  What has to change in me for it to work. How exciting to think the classroom can hum along with student inquiry and knowledge with guidance from me.  What a cool concept!  Much of what I have read suggests that teachers have a lot to learn and to "give up" for knowledge building to take hold.  We would have to develop a student's ability to ask questions, to search out answers, and to redefine their roles as learners into learner-explorer-questioner-thinkers.  Little Star Trekkies on a mission to go where no other elementary student has gone before......?  More to follow after I game a little now.....

New Technology?

Jeezum crow, there's more new technology? Like we do not have enough already....... (Kind of like the old weather statement:  If you don't like the weather now, wait a minute....)   No, really what we're doing here now is responding to the statement similar to "what new technology are you going to use to connect your students out of the classroom"........ One of my 4th graders wanted to use the Starboard to check out Google Maps...well, I suppose that would take us out of the classroom.  But I also had this Minecraft idea that seems to be the only virtual world I may be able to use in the classroom...assuming it will not be blocked.  So I might do that some time this year.  Maybe link up to another elementary classroom and do some Skype work or sharing on Google Docs...some writing prompts, journals, pictures...lots of ideas.  I am supposed to be communicating with a group of students from Uraguay as we trade vidoes and pictures using Dropbox.  See if that pans out.  Have access to Ipads now....the list goes on.  I'd better just pick one and do it soon  'cause there's new technology coming in just a minute.....

Mosh Learning Pits?

Okay, how's that for a title!  So far in the course we have been looking into different theories and styles of learning and teaching.  Seems as though I like to use many different styles of teaching (or at least I think I do) based on the many styles of learning I get in groups of students each year.   So I look at how I do things in a typical week in the classroom.  Most activities and learning situations seem to be more instructivist than I thought.  So when I try to break things up a bit and let the students "run away with an idea"....lots of things happen, just not a lot that I planned.  Well, no surprise there.  That's the most difficult thing for a teacher to do is let the students "take it away....".    Part of it is that we have a curriculum....we have to show coverage of it and assessments of it to know what the students really got out of it.  So letting the students "run away with it" means more significant guidance and more demarcation of learning territories.....Kind of like, "okay, here is the topic, here's what I need you to learn about, how would you like to do that"?  It is a new kind of learning for sure, but of course a new kind of teaching as well.  Yes, as an experienced or "matured" teacher, this was not how we started.  And like anyone else, learning new tricks means breaking from a comfortable environment into a possibly "unstructured learning mosh pit".  Wow, what does it really look like?  Can I be comfortable with how the room sounds?  Too loud, looks chaotic?  But is learning happening, and is it better?  And what about the kids who need the traditional structure?  Would I run multiple classrooms in one?  Multiage is one thing...is it different than where we are going?  Am I asking too many questions?  A true "mish-mosh" 0f learning and teaching....or is it really going to be learning and guiding?   Are the kids really ready for this transition at a young age........

Cool animated GIF site:  http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~andyl/stuffyoushouldknow/bravery/

The Borg......

All the learning theories.....all the possibilities....and then I made a connection.......I remembered the "Borg"!  The amazing science fiction creatures created for the Star Trek series:  Voyager.  Captain Janeway, commander of the Starship enterprise (really, Jane!), guided the Enterprise crew through an array of space anomalies, worm holes, misguided planetary misfits, when finally they ran into the Borg Collective!  "We will assimilate you!" was their motto.  It suddenly occurred to me that the Borg Collective seemed a lot like connectivists and their knowledge was connected everywhere...now we are the connected knowledge...we are the Borg!  The Borg communicated as one being, sharing all their thoughts, channeling all their power....they traveled in black cubes...it was so cool.  Sounds like the Internet, doesn't it?  "We will assimilate you"..................

Site Surfing

So I spent some time these last two weeks site surfing.  I do a lot of site surfing in my work as I bring technology into the classroom.  I pick the sites carefully....they must have some educational value to me in order to use them in the class.  If they look like a game, they probably are....but there are activities with learning opportunities that use game-like screens that are useful in small doses.  Students like some fun in their day...they can learn by having fun.  While we need many different approaches to reach student, we do not always have to push useful ways aside.  Connectivism works just fine, as does constructivism.  Sometimes together, sometimes separately.  There may even be a need for instructivism and behaviorism.  They all have their good points.  Not unlike comparing democracy to socialism....are there good and bad about both?  You bet.  So as we discuss the best practices for teaching and learning......I don't think we have to stop one for another....blending makes a better smoothie than not...but I'm not really a smoothie eater.  Surf's up.......

Learning and Knowledge 2

Musings on learning and knowledge.....

Learning:  Collecting information, sorting and putting it away for later use, retaining and regurgitating pieces of stuff,  storing like little chipmunks...how much can we hold is yet to be seen.

Knowledge:  Using the stuff we have gathered and stored, reorganizing it, knowing what to use and when, retrieving it and disseminating it like dandelion seeds......connecting and reconnecting it in so many different ways.

Just like I used to be.....

Interesting.   I sat in my Ed Tech class today and I do not think I said more than two or three words.  I was listening to the info on the 4 theories Jane presented.  I listened to comments and questions from some others in the class.  I formed some thoughts, some opinions, some possible theories of my own.  I completed or started to complete the scavenger hunt with my neighbor, I looked out the window at the great colors beginning to appear on the trees.  I watched a butterfly flutter by......twice at different times.  Almost like it wanted to join the conversation inside..  I heard some "joke" comments, a few questions, a "from the heart" story.  But I was quiet most of the time.   As I was driving home, I thought about how I learn in a group.  It goes way back.  I am by nature rather quiet.  I listen well, sometimes daydream, but still maintain most of what I hear.  If someone talks too much, I will begin to tune out.  If someone does not ask me for an opinion, I may not offer it.  If I offer something but do not get chosen, I will not insist I be heard.  I'm flexible in that way.  And maybe what I had to say really wasn't that important...or was just something to make me want to participate even though it added little substance to the topic.
      So I thought about how I learn and how I think my students learn.  And I pictured myself being a student in my current classroom (or myself in a past classroom) as an elementary student.  What was it like for me then, or what is it like now for them.  Two parallel spaces happening years apart, but still the same.  Assume a student is quiet by nature.  He/she will be drowned out by someone who is not.  The quiet student will be listening....to the teacher, to the other students, and then making decisions on IF and WHEN they themselves will participate...or will not participate.  Or will they just "tune out"?   So what would the teacher assume?  Quiet students may be listening, but not understanding?  Quiet students will not do as well as outspoken or witty students?  Quiet students may have a learning disability that is yet to be uncovered?  Or will the teacher think....maybe the others talk too much?  Maybe others are dominating the conversation and taking the class into their own hands.  Or maybe the teacher may feel he/she is not facilitating the discussion well enough to allow for other learning personalities the time to prepare an entrance or a space to be involved..........Much like a roundabout...many cars entering, only the pushiest drivers cruise through at breakneck speeds while the "quiet drivers" wait for their space to go.    Or maybe not everyone has to say something everytime?  Is that okay too?  Do I do this in my class?  Do I let or provide enough opportunities for the quiet students to speak even though they may feel outnumbered or even "less-learned" than the talkative students...who can say a lot but mean less? 

Just some thoughts

Post a little here, post a little there.  Read some posts, have some thoughts....to respond or not to respond.  So far we have had quite the discussions about the Bruner readings, and now the New Science articles.  It is interesting to try to figure out who is a current educator, who is wanting to be, and who is not at all in the course.  And then, what grades or types of school are they in, or not.  Lots of different perspectives, but all with something good to say.  How interesting how so many of us responded negatively (or at least with a spark to our posts) to the articles and concepts so far.  What is learning or knowledge...why do they have to be different?  Why do we have to define them in a narrowing way?  Are they really that separate...do they have more in common than not? Can I think of more questions to ask myself....or for someone to read?  Purely pondering pervasively, probably.......

Not alone in this idea...

So I felt like I was one of the few to think that the Bruner article smacked of "I'm smarter than you" concepts, but not so.  As I waded through it, picking out this point and that, it was indeed "heavy" as we used to say way back when........but my overall view of what we are doing nowadays in education is this:  we as educators REALLY DO know what our students need as learners, but once again, those outside in the "other" world (can't be the real world...'cause that's the classroom...) decide what is important and we test to their ideas, not what the students need.  We see kids on a daily basis, we have to be teachers, learners, psychologists, counselors, sociologists, food service personnel, technology experts, sometimes even their health care technician...(notice I said technician...as that is another profession going through major changes based on someone's idea of the perfect "delivery system"....gee, babies anyone?)  So yea, we use all we have every day and every year DESPITE those in the towers of knowledge who have come up with the next "Great Idea" (based on years...and years...and years of research) to teach kids.....Just like the wheels on the bus go round and round (c'mon, you know the tune...)...so do the "new" systems of educational change.....Wait until the Common Core really kicks in......WE ARE SAVED!   (right..........)

(Picture from this blog my caption added:    http://www.personal.psu.edu/ama267/blogs/tesl_internship/)

Time for Ed Tech

Greetings.  Seems like a need for a new blog as I continue with my studies.  So, here it is.  Isn't it just so calming?  More to do on it as time goes.  Stay tuned!  Me