View part 2 of a three part Bill Moyers interview of Isaac Asimov in 1988. A summary of Asimov's thoughts follow. Through computers, each child can have an individualized education that was in the past was only accessible to the wealthy. If all children have access to computers, the creative minds of children will not be stifled by our current system of education. Students will be guided by teachers on how to access common knowledge, and to interact with others students. All students can enjoy personal learning, and people of all ages can become learners. Most people seek good sense, clarity, and truth (Saul Bellows in Herzog). Things are changing so fast, that we must embrace change.
Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts
17 July, 2011
Web 2.0 Integration Plan
Integrating Web2.0 tools into both my personal and professional lives requires strategic planning, especially in August when my principal advises his goals for the year, and we take off down the runway, all while teaching our students. I am by nature a hard worker, and fortunately a "short sleeper" with sisu (Finnish word with no exact translation, but here is good one). I also pride myself in finding shortcuts; why do the task the hard way? As an educator, it is also difficult to extract the personal and professional lives, that by nature and by job description are intertwined, especially from mid-August to mid-June. 21st century tools blur the lines even more, while challenging our efforts to obfuscate our private lives (Rupert Murdoch not withstanding).
Personal
Teaching in a public school, we must always align to standards, thus clarifying and guiding my actions. Maryland has Teacher Technology Standards (2002), but I will use the ISTE National Standards for Teachers (2008).
1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity through modelling and facilitating digital experiences that connect to real world experiences, and that utilize Web 2.0 collaboration tools. This step is crucial, and if we start with one or two tools, such as wikis and blogs, our digital native students will be ready for the challenge.
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments through use of technological ad digital tools that link students' outside world lives with schoolhouse experiences. Alignment of content standards with technology standards is an essential component of the plan. Students will be instrumental in sharing the tools they use to communicate, and to develop classroom goals that will enable them to be more engaged in and responsible for their learning. If we incorporate one new tool in each unit, the learning experiences will be remarkable.
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning, not only to students, but to staff as well. As a teacher leader, it is imperative to communicate and model the digital innovations with staff, administrators, students, parents, and community members if we are to excel in preparing our students for college and career readiness. In addition, we must find ways for students to integrate digital tools in ways that will enhance higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, evaluation, application, synthesis, and creativity, while promoting scholarly research. Many teachers in our building utilize social media to engage students, but we must remember that learning is not about being a "sage on the stage", but "guides on the side".
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility through collaboration with the Library Media Specialist and other staff, in order for our students to understand ethical implications and obligations in a digital world. Engage and collaborate with teachers in other regions of the world to promote global responsibility. [This summer I am a participant in an online professional development experience with educators around the world, through IEARN, where we are building plans for collaboration projects for our students.]
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership that is meaningful, and ongoing. Too often when teachers are introduced to new ideas, it is done in a "drive-by" or "speed-dating" method. Teachers spend 30 minutes learning one tool, then either go back to the classroom with no follow-up, or try it with no support. If teachers participate in a PLN, and regularly discuss tools, share their knowledge, even invite other teachers to see the technology in action in classrooms, we will all learn and grow, making digital tools second nature to our lesson planning and delivery. We need our administrators to be leaders in this change as well. Too often faculty meetings are sit and take, rather than share and give. Our leaders must include "infusion of technology" in the improvement plans for our school, as well as input from teachers, students, parents, and the community, in the vision for change.
Personal
- Try to not get distracted when I am performing a task. (personal and professional)
- Use Web 2.0 tools to connect, organize, and share with friends and family
- Find more tools to add music to my daily life
Teaching in a public school, we must always align to standards, thus clarifying and guiding my actions. Maryland has Teacher Technology Standards (2002), but I will use the ISTE National Standards for Teachers (2008).
1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity through modelling and facilitating digital experiences that connect to real world experiences, and that utilize Web 2.0 collaboration tools. This step is crucial, and if we start with one or two tools, such as wikis and blogs, our digital native students will be ready for the challenge.
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments through use of technological ad digital tools that link students' outside world lives with schoolhouse experiences. Alignment of content standards with technology standards is an essential component of the plan. Students will be instrumental in sharing the tools they use to communicate, and to develop classroom goals that will enable them to be more engaged in and responsible for their learning. If we incorporate one new tool in each unit, the learning experiences will be remarkable.
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning, not only to students, but to staff as well. As a teacher leader, it is imperative to communicate and model the digital innovations with staff, administrators, students, parents, and community members if we are to excel in preparing our students for college and career readiness. In addition, we must find ways for students to integrate digital tools in ways that will enhance higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, evaluation, application, synthesis, and creativity, while promoting scholarly research. Many teachers in our building utilize social media to engage students, but we must remember that learning is not about being a "sage on the stage", but "guides on the side".
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility through collaboration with the Library Media Specialist and other staff, in order for our students to understand ethical implications and obligations in a digital world. Engage and collaborate with teachers in other regions of the world to promote global responsibility. [This summer I am a participant in an online professional development experience with educators around the world, through IEARN, where we are building plans for collaboration projects for our students.]
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership that is meaningful, and ongoing. Too often when teachers are introduced to new ideas, it is done in a "drive-by" or "speed-dating" method. Teachers spend 30 minutes learning one tool, then either go back to the classroom with no follow-up, or try it with no support. If teachers participate in a PLN, and regularly discuss tools, share their knowledge, even invite other teachers to see the technology in action in classrooms, we will all learn and grow, making digital tools second nature to our lesson planning and delivery. We need our administrators to be leaders in this change as well. Too often faculty meetings are sit and take, rather than share and give. Our leaders must include "infusion of technology" in the improvement plans for our school, as well as input from teachers, students, parents, and the community, in the vision for change.
09 July, 2011
Cell Phones in Learning
One answer to educating students to become 21st century learners, is finding ways to integrate cell phones in learning. Most students have smart phones, but the question is how can we convince our policy makers that they really can be used as learning tools? Resources ~ From Toy to Tool: Cell Phones in Learning
Even the NASSP has issued a policy notice about mobile and social technologies in schools (May 2011): http://www.nassp.org/Content.aspx?topic=Using_Mobile_and_Social_Technologies_in_Schools
Even the NASSP has issued a policy notice about mobile and social technologies in schools (May 2011): http://www.nassp.org/Content.aspx?topic=Using_Mobile_and_Social_Technologies_in_Schools
Using Mobile and Social Technologies in Schools
Purpose
To promote student learning through the use of mobile learning devices and social media in instruction that further prepares students to be active, constructive participants in the highly connected world in which they already live and will soon work.
Issue
The rapid growth in the use of social media and mobile devices has created both a crisis and an opportunity for school leaders. Unfortunately, many principals first became aware of social technologies under unpleasant circumstances, such as conflicts stemming from social media exchanges. And school leaders would often be paralyzed by cyberbullying and sexting incidents for which guidance was often inadequate and contradictory. It's no wonder that school leaders responded by attempting to eliminate the use of mobile and social media in schools.
Yet as mobile and social technologies become ubiquitous, attempts to block them are increasingly ineffective. For example, in schools that prohibit cell phones, 54% of students still report sending texts during the school day (Lenhart, 2010). And it's the rare student who can't do an end run around Internet filters with a simple proxy server. More importantly, as mobile devices become more powerful and more affordable, their potential for enhancing student learning has come into clearer focus. Social networking sites provide platforms for student creativity by enabling them to design projects using words, music, photos, and videos. In recent years, there has been explosive growth in students creating, manipulating, and sharing content online (National School Boards Association, 2007). Recognizing the educational value of encouraging such behaviors, many school leaders have shifted their energies from limiting the use of these technologies to limiting their abuse. As with any other behavior, when schools teach and set expectations for appropriate technology use, students rise to meet the expectations. Such conditions allow educators to focus on, in the words of social technology guru Howard Rheingold (n.d.), educating “children about the necessity for critical thinking and [encouraging] them to exercise their own knowledge of how to make moral choices." One process for creating the necessary conditions is reported in From Fear to Facebook, the first-person account of one California principal who endured a series of false starts to finally arrive at a place where students in his school were maximizing their use of laptops and participatory technologies without the constant distractions of misuse (Levinson, 2010). Other similar processes and programs are emerging, and they all share a common theme: an education that fails to account for the use of social media tools prepares students well for the past, but not for their future.
Nowhere is the vision for the use of mobile and social technologies more clearly articulated than in the National Educational Technology Plan (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). The plan describes new models of teaching and learning in which students and teachers are virtually connected to one another, to colleagues, to fellow students, and to a variety of resources that maximize opportunities for anytime-anywhere learning. With a 2015 deadline for realizing this model, the mandate for school leaders is clear: we must overcome our fears and other obstacles to get students connected in school. Fundamentally, this means ensuring that each student has a connectible device—a tablet, a netbook, a laptop, or a smartphone—and further engaging students in the creation of responsible-use policies so that they can access social technologies without unreasonable obstacles.
NASSP Guiding Principles
School leaders should:
Lenhart, A., Ling, A., Campbell, S., & Purcell, K. (2010). Teens and mobile phones. Retrieved from the Pew Internet and American Life Web site.
Levinson, M. (2010). From fear to Facebook: One school's journey. Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education.
National School Boards Association. (2007). Creating and connecting: Research and guidelines on online social—and educational—networking. Retrieved from www.nsba.org.
Rheingold, H. (n.d.). New media literacy—Lesson 1: Vision of the future—Part 1. Retrieved from the MasterNewMedia Web site.
U.S Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2010). Transforming American education: Learning powered by technology: National educational technology plan 2010. Retrieved from www.ed.gov.
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Adopted by the NASSP Board of Directors, May 2011
To promote student learning through the use of mobile learning devices and social media in instruction that further prepares students to be active, constructive participants in the highly connected world in which they already live and will soon work.
Issue
The rapid growth in the use of social media and mobile devices has created both a crisis and an opportunity for school leaders. Unfortunately, many principals first became aware of social technologies under unpleasant circumstances, such as conflicts stemming from social media exchanges. And school leaders would often be paralyzed by cyberbullying and sexting incidents for which guidance was often inadequate and contradictory. It's no wonder that school leaders responded by attempting to eliminate the use of mobile and social media in schools.
Yet as mobile and social technologies become ubiquitous, attempts to block them are increasingly ineffective. For example, in schools that prohibit cell phones, 54% of students still report sending texts during the school day (Lenhart, 2010). And it's the rare student who can't do an end run around Internet filters with a simple proxy server. More importantly, as mobile devices become more powerful and more affordable, their potential for enhancing student learning has come into clearer focus. Social networking sites provide platforms for student creativity by enabling them to design projects using words, music, photos, and videos. In recent years, there has been explosive growth in students creating, manipulating, and sharing content online (National School Boards Association, 2007). Recognizing the educational value of encouraging such behaviors, many school leaders have shifted their energies from limiting the use of these technologies to limiting their abuse. As with any other behavior, when schools teach and set expectations for appropriate technology use, students rise to meet the expectations. Such conditions allow educators to focus on, in the words of social technology guru Howard Rheingold (n.d.), educating “children about the necessity for critical thinking and [encouraging] them to exercise their own knowledge of how to make moral choices." One process for creating the necessary conditions is reported in From Fear to Facebook, the first-person account of one California principal who endured a series of false starts to finally arrive at a place where students in his school were maximizing their use of laptops and participatory technologies without the constant distractions of misuse (Levinson, 2010). Other similar processes and programs are emerging, and they all share a common theme: an education that fails to account for the use of social media tools prepares students well for the past, but not for their future.
Nowhere is the vision for the use of mobile and social technologies more clearly articulated than in the National Educational Technology Plan (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). The plan describes new models of teaching and learning in which students and teachers are virtually connected to one another, to colleagues, to fellow students, and to a variety of resources that maximize opportunities for anytime-anywhere learning. With a 2015 deadline for realizing this model, the mandate for school leaders is clear: we must overcome our fears and other obstacles to get students connected in school. Fundamentally, this means ensuring that each student has a connectible device—a tablet, a netbook, a laptop, or a smartphone—and further engaging students in the creation of responsible-use policies so that they can access social technologies without unreasonable obstacles.
NASSP Guiding Principles
- Education should prepare students to be active, constructive participants in a global society.
- Technology-enhanced instruction has the capacity to engage students deeply in their work, connect them with countless resources, and allow them to collaborate across time and space.
- Schools should provide a student-centered, personalized, and customized experience for all students—a fundamental tenet of the Breaking Ranks school improvement framework.
- Schools should advocate and model values that are essential in a civil and democratic society.
- Learning can take place only when students feel free from violence and harassment.
- Schools should offer meaningful roles in decision making to students to promote student learning and an atmosphere of participation, responsibility, and ownership.
School leaders should:
- Encourage and model the appropriate and responsible use of mobile and social technologies to maximize students' opportunities to create and share content..
- Lead the conversation around connectivity and involve students in the creation of policies.
- Incorporate the responsible use of mobile and social technologies into acceptable-use policies.
- Promote one-to-one access to connectible devices, including students’ own devices, to allow for anytime-anywhere learning.
- Incorporate cyberbullying and sexting prevention guidelines into the student code of conduct.
- Participate in and provide teachers professional development on the effective use of mobile devices and networking in schools.
- Articulate clear technology policies that have sufficient latitude for schools to connect electronically without fear of retribution or undue consequences.
- Provide technical and financial support to schools that aspire to connect students and adopt one-to-one programs.
- Reduce Internet filtering to maximize student access to online learning tools and to provide opportunities to exercise judgment in the selection of those tools.
- Provide a funding stream to ensure broadband infrastructure and mobile learning devices for all students.
- Enact reasonable, enforceable policies on cyberbullying, sexting, and other forms of electronic harassment that clarify the legal liability of school officials.
- Engage school leaders in the conversations that inform policies that are designed to curtail and punish online harassment.
Lenhart, A., Ling, A., Campbell, S., & Purcell, K. (2010). Teens and mobile phones. Retrieved from the Pew Internet and American Life Web site.
Levinson, M. (2010). From fear to Facebook: One school's journey. Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education.
National School Boards Association. (2007). Creating and connecting: Research and guidelines on online social—and educational—networking. Retrieved from www.nsba.org.
Rheingold, H. (n.d.). New media literacy—Lesson 1: Vision of the future—Part 1. Retrieved from the MasterNewMedia Web site.
U.S Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2010). Transforming American education: Learning powered by technology: National educational technology plan 2010. Retrieved from www.ed.gov.
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Adopted by the NASSP Board of Directors, May 2011
12 June, 2011
Creating a Wiki
This school year I have grown to love wikispace as a tool. In the fall of 2009 when I was first introduced to a wiki, it was used as a forum for an inquiry to action research group. I will admit I was so busy that I did not take the time to communicate with the members and used email instead. Wow. That seems so long ago, and regret not taking the time to use it. However, I did start several wikis that year. I now have created wikispaces for each of my classes. I also completed an Online Professional Development course for Government teachers where we used a wiki for discussion, and an Open Source LMS. This is where I learned to collaborate.
Through the readings in this class I now understand the purpose and rationale of using a wiki. I want my students to become wikispace users, but this has been a little bit of a struggle. Students love to use social media, but I think even online writing assignments are seen as a chore. As I integrate more collaboration on the wiki, I think it will be more accepted. Out of 100 teachers at my school, there may be less than 10 that use wikis, and most do not use with the students. I have even had parents tell me they are confused for their child when the child did not complete the assignment. I modeled wikispace discussions in class, and we used the media lab twice. Still there are students who are not motivated to write online. I will work on this factor over the summer. One problem is that our school has few computers that work, and many students have no technology at home, or have no internet. I have advised that their phones will work for discussion comments.
I have begun to join other wikis. Teachers have created entire courses that include textbooks on wikis. Many a simply a storage of documents, but several include student to student and student to teacher collaboration. The teacher created sites that are formed around the topics of literacy and differentiation are so helpful. I have learned a great deal just from reading and linking within these types of wikispaces. So, the next hurdle will be the collaboration element for both students and teachers.
Through the readings in this class I now understand the purpose and rationale of using a wiki. I want my students to become wikispace users, but this has been a little bit of a struggle. Students love to use social media, but I think even online writing assignments are seen as a chore. As I integrate more collaboration on the wiki, I think it will be more accepted. Out of 100 teachers at my school, there may be less than 10 that use wikis, and most do not use with the students. I have even had parents tell me they are confused for their child when the child did not complete the assignment. I modeled wikispace discussions in class, and we used the media lab twice. Still there are students who are not motivated to write online. I will work on this factor over the summer. One problem is that our school has few computers that work, and many students have no technology at home, or have no internet. I have advised that their phones will work for discussion comments.
I have begun to join other wikis. Teachers have created entire courses that include textbooks on wikis. Many a simply a storage of documents, but several include student to student and student to teacher collaboration. The teacher created sites that are formed around the topics of literacy and differentiation are so helpful. I have learned a great deal just from reading and linking within these types of wikispaces. So, the next hurdle will be the collaboration element for both students and teachers.
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