Digital Story

Podcast 101

PLN Development Reflection

For many years a professional doing good work would almost require hiring a publicist to their their name out there to reach a mass audience. Today, whether we think about it or not, there are free and very easily used APPs that are quite powerful, allowing you to make thousands of connections while you stroll down the street or wait for your car's oil to be changed. I think most people have some degree of interaction with blogs, but not everyone uses Twitter or Google+. Before this assignment I mostly stuck with Facebook as my main focal point of online communication with others. In recent years I really didn’t put much time into Facebook either, so Google+ and Twitter didn’t have much hope. I didn’t really appreciate Twitter all that much, most of my friends who did have a Twitter account hardly ever used it, and I didn’t go about following many people. I think the only thing I tried using it for was keeping up with what people were saying about the NBA, and maybe I followed a few comedians as well. Time was the biggest issue, and I soon stop caring about it. Since I started using Twitter for this class, I found out that a couple educator friends of mine are the moderators for a teacher chat, and I was glad to get involved with the “slow chat” every Monday. The would ask five questions and we could respond to them throughout the day. These chats have been a pretty good experience and I spent time trying to craft a good answer with limited amount of text. I searched around and found quite a number of active social studies teachers that post regularly and followed them. The problem that I see that all of us find “cool things” on in our surfing of the internet and send them out on tweets. There are so many that you begin to not really look into what we are all sharing. It seems like the most useful aspect for me would be to continue joining the “slow chats” in the future and grow those relationships. As we become more acquainted, we might start caring about what the other also finds interesting.

Blogs have always been a source of varying types of information, personal interest and professional. A few years ago I attempted to create a travel/food blog on my adventures around Taiwan. Time became an enemy once again, I don’t think I completed one post. During this semester I have followed 3-4 blogs that I really appreciate. I have responded to a few that I naturally had a response to, but have had no interaction from my comment. Neither have I received and response from posting a blog about another’s. Over all, I will definitely continue my active subscription to a few of the blogs and look for others. I cannot promise that I will keep my own blog in the near future. I’d need to hire a personal assistant to keep me organized at my school before I’ll have time to produce a quality blog.

I still don’t really have much time for Google+, but my opinion of the application has definitely risen. I have a real interest in trying to find more ways to utilize google applications for my professional use. The communities I joined are quite active and because we are all there to share and find out more ideas, it is easier to find and share items that others want to read as well. I think because the Google community is more focused than an opened Twitter account, I have a better idea what others would like to talk about. As I gain more time in the future, I definitely plan on developing my personal network through this venue. Comparing Twitter, Blogs, and Google+, I find Google plus to be more useful and more flexible. It can do all the same things that blogs and Twitter both do seperately.

To conclude, it is becoming much easier to make new acquaintances almost anywhere in the world that can make a big difference in your classroom or even career. A few years ago it would be almost impossible to get connected with a talented educator who could give me tips on what they know and do. Today, I can do that with a few clicks of the button. Most people use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other APPs for their personal entertainment and keeping track of friends. But we free and easy to use APPs such as Google+ and Twitter, you can get connected with thousands of people who have a similar interest as you, and can share our collective experiences to help each other and gain so much in return. Now that smartphones are becoming almost commonplace, all those venues are constantly at our fingertips. You should consider their use as integral in helping you perform better, interact with valuable connectors that knows everyone, and a free convenient “club.” It does take being consistent in developing your network, and be mindful of what and how you put yourself out there. The returns can be great.

Subscribe to five active blogs in Feedly

Comment on a post on three of the blogs

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• Google+

Join two public Google+ communities

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• Create one posting or comment in one Google+ public community
• Capture screenshot of your post or comment
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Add three Google+ users (from the communities you joined) to a circle

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• Twitter

Follow at least six people/groups on Twitter

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Re-tweet two interesting tweets

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Tweet five times with a hashtag (Capture screenshot of your tweets)

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• Tweet once with a @mention (Capture screenshot of your @mention)

Tweet once with a @reply (Capture screenshot of your @reply)

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Participate in one Twitter edchat (Capture screenshot of your TweetDeck)

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Why I Friend my Students on Social Media

Not everybody wants their students at home, on their vacation, or pretty much everywhere we go. But that is almost what it turns into being once you add your students to Facebook, Twitter, or whatever social media venue we use. We don't want to filter anything we "say" to be student/school acceptable. There are concerns that our political standings or religious beliefs  might become awkward sometime in the unknown future. It just seems safer and better for everyone to keep our students segmented out form our personal life. We just need to have time to relax and worry about our job, its better for our health. From a school's point of view, we wouldn't want to put our teachers in a compromising situation that through some miscommunication, a well intentioned message turns into a legal/media nightmare. As a parent, I recall the many times that teachers lured students into inappropriate and damaging situations. It just makes sense to segment our students out of our personal life. If students need to contact us outside of school, they should use the school's email or other venue setup specifically designed for that purpose. 

With all these concerns, I decided to add my students as friends on Facebook when the fb craze hit us nine years ago. My policy went as follows

• I never "requested friendships" from any student, I only added them as they requested me to add them.
• I make a serious effort to stay out of my students personal lives. I don't follow the majority of their feeds.
• I never post anything that I wouldn't want my most immature student to know about me.
• I don't use fb as a diary, its more of a online super convenient "phone book" to keep track of people that I don't want to lose track of.
• I untag myself from any photo or post that would be awkward for my students to see.

It takes effort but I believe the benefits are worth it. I just don't have the solution on how to handle the potential for disaster if all teachers added their students. On the other hand, with the exposure our students are getting to all kinds of people online, maybe the key is educating our students about internet safety. At least they know who their teachers are. 

How One Teacher Changed for the Good of Her Students

Having our students love school, is so, so... first grade, isn't it? Somewhere around fifth grade our students were ready for graduation, and by graduation, I meant from college. There are always a group of students who had enough of summer and were excited to be back in the classroom, but that would wear off by the middle of September. Pernille Ripp describes how students in our classrooms, in her classroom, somehow stopped loving school because of the manner in which we tried to fit them into a system that works for the teacher, and in the process, squelching the enthusiasm for learning of our students. In her classroom, she dealt primarily with straight edges, classes had a specific recipe to be followed. As a result, student's eyes soon glassed over and just burned time as they sat through another lecture. 

Once she realized the issue, she had no one else to blame but herself. I believe that if all of us sat down and considered, many of us have played our part. For me I can recall assigning work that bordered on busy work, and lectures on "boring" topics that was an amazing sedative. Now that we have allowed students to go through our classrooms wishing that "school" didn't exist. Ripp states that is time to create a classroom in which  creates passionate workers. 

So what to do? Rip asks "what is in my control? Homework, grades, punishment, the ways information is presented, the community building, the shared ownership." I really can agree with her perception that we constantly need to question if there is a better way. As I teach history from year to year, no course can ever be the same. I want to go after my passions each year and allow my enthusiasm spill over onto my students. Let's find ways to get the involved in the class, let's get them out of their seats. We need to focus on how our students learn, and not how I can teach the subject more efficiently. Its not a simple matter, students may enter into our class already burned out. But that doesn't mean that we as teachers are helpless in bringing back an enthusiasm for learning. It begins with us. 

21st Century Skills or Just Uncertainty?

Title: 21st Century Skills: Why They, Matter, What They Are, and How We Get There

Author: Ken Kay

Ken Kay brings up the issue that many states are facing some serious economic issues in which our countries big employers are restructuring and eliminating jobs and if you add that to the downturn in our economy, we are facing big budget cuts across the board. In a recent study on where American’s work, researchers found that America still produces 21% of the world’s manufactured goods. But the nature of manufacturing has changed. Factories that had once been a source of jobs for unskilled workers is no longer. Today’s manufacturing workers are higher-skilled than those of 40 years ago and are among the most productive workers in the world. They are also among the most innovative (“Office of Parks and Factory Floors : Where Americans Work,” 2012). The majority of Americans work in some kind of service job, which is not unusual if the economy also includes a strong base of production jobs with a strong export margin. These facts are major concerns for our country and brings some serious questions how and what we are educating our next generations.

In this situation, we want to make sure that our young people are receiving the education that will make them valuable additions to universities or the workplace who employers desire to hire, and have the tools to bring our country into the future. To do this, we need to make sure that they are learning the 21st century skills such as; technology, writing, math, science, creativity, critical thinking, and the list goes on. Just as important are “themes” such as global awareness, health, financial, environmental, and civic literacy. If you look down the list of the skills that our schools systems prioritize, how many of them are innovative? How many of them seek to prepare our children to be career ready rather than ready to learn a career when they graduate? Kay believes we are at a tipping point in public education. This is something we need to embrace.

As a society, change is not something we inherently seek after. Individually we might enjoy the notion of change, but may find it hard to anticipate wide-scale change happening. Risks are high when we push for big changes in systems like healthcare, education, and environmentalism. Changes in these systems are broad and far reaching. The futures of our children, our own personal beliefs, and fears are entwined. But the trends in our economy are clear, we cannot continue as is and hope to remain competitive in a global economy where developing nations are improving quickly.

It may seem like an obvious statement, but we as a nation need to agree on what skills are key to success in our joint future. We can want to improve all we want, but nothing will happen if we don’t make a serious to committing to go through the process. We need to commit to come together on agreeing to a plan and do what it takes to prepare our society for the future.

References

Bellanca, J. A., & Brandt, R. S. (2010). 21st century skills: Rethinking how students learn. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Center Forward. (n.d.). Retrieved October 02, 2014, from http://www.center-forward.org/

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

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Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

By Marc Prensky

Is our education system failing us? Do we need to spend more money on education?  Or have we failed to evolve our system to match the needs our today’s student? Let’s continue the digital immigrant metaphor. Can you really blame a immigrant for not being able to adjust into a new culture quickly? The life they grew up with and identified with is not the norm in the new culture they live it. The language is very different, the natives seem to all understand each other so well, but they speak all these strange words that the immigrant doesn’t have any background knowledge in. With so many new words, phrases, and processes, the immigrant might feel inclined to give up at the enormity of the task of acclimating themselves. The immigrants who grew up in the culture and language can function without even processing on what is going on around them. But although they are fluent in the language, its quite another thing to try and explain it to an immigrant. I believe anyone who has tried to explain grammar to a non-native English speaker understands that challenge.

Since our children are growing up surrounded by TV, video games, Internet, and smart phones, they have spent fewer and fewer hours reading actual books. All this technology that surrounds them are a given or the reality. While many of adults might marvel at the power and potential of technology, our children know nothing else. Studies suggest that the brains of the “digital natives” actually work differently than the “immigrants.” Most teachers today are still immigrants, and often struggle to adapt the teaching techniques to work for the today’s students. Many teachers may go so far as projecting the idea or even “believe learning can’t or shouldn’t be fun.” (Prensky, 2001, p.3) There should be a step by step, methodical process humans should go through to learn the necessary skills for life. Afterall, isn’t that how most people have learned for generations? “But that assumption is no longer valid. Today's learners are different.” It appears that their brains are actually different. (Prensky, 2001, p.3) Students today no longer naturally focus on one thing until they complete it. The “digital natives” brain parallel processes and multi-tasks. The author believes it key that teachers do our best to understand our students and how they can learn best.  

We as educators need to be much more proactive in adjusting our methodology that considers parallel thinking and random access. Though education may take on a different appearance, it doesn’t me replace what is important for our students to learn. Prensky suggests that we use our “digital natives” to actually guide us into creating new methodologies for all subjects in order to best teach in ways that our students can learn through. “Its dumb and lazy of educators to presume that digital natives must learn the way the digital immigrants learned, not to mention ineffectual” (Prensky, 2001, p.6)

References

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. S.l.: Marc Prensky.