This summer has been one of extraordinary change and growth for me. I enrolled in 21st century learning knowing that online courses are more time-consuming than face-to-face courses. Nevertheless, I was utterly unprepared for what I was ultimately asked to perform, and for what I learned and did.
I am most proud, perhaps, of the lesson plan and rubric I wrote as the culminating project. This was the first genuine collaboration I have been able to experience with a colleague. We are both eager to begin this unit with our students next year.
The hardest part of the course was conquering the idiosyncrasies of the Mac and its applications. They are written to be intuitive, but I have worked on PCs for nearly 30 years and I am still learning MacTalk. YouTube became my personal University for all things Mac and save me more than once from utter failure.
How this course changes my teaching will be evident in how I engage the students. There will be no stand and lecture next year. I was fortunate enough to take a refresher course in strategic lesson planning this summer as well. The two courses together have created a new attitude for me and how I think of teaching and how I think of how my students learn.
On a final note, I am also proud to note that I was presented with a copy of MacSpeech several weeks ago. I've managed to install it, train it, and wrote this blog entry entirely by dictating it. If that's not a life-changing experience, I don't know what is.
I will miss my 21st century learning group. I am enrolling myself in as many blogs as I can before the forums evaporate. Thanks to all my companions on this journey. Your perspective and willingness to share made a great difference for me.
Fordham Icon
Monday, August 16, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
When it's time to change, then it's time to change
If you remember this song, you're at least as old as I am. Congratulations! You also were a teenager in the 70's. You might have seen the first "games" as a type in and wait, maybe as long as twenty minutes for the server to process and return the results of your hero's action. You saw the first personal computers in the early 80s, back when a green screen was an amazing development, worked with single density, single sided floppy disks (the 5 1/4" ones), fussed with modems and dial-up and people's complaints about constant busy signals and endless load time. In the 90s, computing was the World Wide Wait. Now it's something else. Something faster. And tomorrow, it will be something else again. Faster? How much faster?
Which brings us to the changes needed in education. I'm not sure we can be fast enough. I do know that, as fast and as adaptable as children are, we need to at least try to meet them halfway. And with all this Friedman "Flat World" talk (and having seen my own family clobbered by it with IBM's moving most of its workforce offshore -- but that's for another blog), we have no choice but to bring the New World to the next generation in our educational methods.
The value of what we teach endures. Reading, writing, speaking. Critical thinking. We need to acknowledge, though, that our students read, write and speak online. They don't even want to make phone calls; it takes too long.
I'd like to see a Twitter discussion of literature. Or a class blog, where students were required to post comments. I'd like to see a final project that asked a student to maintain their own blog exploring "Huckleberry Finn," point by point in successive posts, and illustrated with images from the Library of Congress, and supported by articles found in a Gale database.
A traditional teacher might argue that student achievement will be compromised. But an innovative teacher will understand that we cannot only teach our students to be classically trained scholars anymore.
We also need to teach them how to learn and to adapt. We need to teach them survival skills for a world we cannot imagine.
I hope that we will teach them to be what we are not: the Future.
Which brings us to the changes needed in education. I'm not sure we can be fast enough. I do know that, as fast and as adaptable as children are, we need to at least try to meet them halfway. And with all this Friedman "Flat World" talk (and having seen my own family clobbered by it with IBM's moving most of its workforce offshore -- but that's for another blog), we have no choice but to bring the New World to the next generation in our educational methods.
The value of what we teach endures. Reading, writing, speaking. Critical thinking. We need to acknowledge, though, that our students read, write and speak online. They don't even want to make phone calls; it takes too long.
I'd like to see a Twitter discussion of literature. Or a class blog, where students were required to post comments. I'd like to see a final project that asked a student to maintain their own blog exploring "Huckleberry Finn," point by point in successive posts, and illustrated with images from the Library of Congress, and supported by articles found in a Gale database.
A traditional teacher might argue that student achievement will be compromised. But an innovative teacher will understand that we cannot only teach our students to be classically trained scholars anymore.
We also need to teach them how to learn and to adapt. We need to teach them survival skills for a world we cannot imagine.
I hope that we will teach them to be what we are not: the Future.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
New Learning, New Tests
The online course I've been taking this summer (yes, librarians and teachers do take extra courses, even after we graduate) has made me think about learning and assessment. So, how do you take a test in the 21st century? Is it enough to offer a multiple-choice scantron?
I've been learning that students can be tested with more than the brute force of written exams. Written exams are excellent for assessing how much a student has memorized in Latin, or geometry, perhaps. But a student also needs to be tested in the use of technology, in solving problems, making judgments, and in collaborative and communication skills. These skills will be the true skills of their life work. Learning how to learn, and to re-learn, is part of the 21st century curriculum. How can we test for this? Is it possible?
Sure we can. It's already being done in some of the English classes with Powerpoint interpretations of literature set to current pop music. The physics classes are using interactive assessments. And there will be more. I'm hoping to use a rubric for student reflection on my database instruction this coming year. I'd like it to help students mark what they've learned and what they might have missed.
I've been learning that students can be tested with more than the brute force of written exams. Written exams are excellent for assessing how much a student has memorized in Latin, or geometry, perhaps. But a student also needs to be tested in the use of technology, in solving problems, making judgments, and in collaborative and communication skills. These skills will be the true skills of their life work. Learning how to learn, and to re-learn, is part of the 21st century curriculum. How can we test for this? Is it possible?
Sure we can. It's already being done in some of the English classes with Powerpoint interpretations of literature set to current pop music. The physics classes are using interactive assessments. And there will be more. I'm hoping to use a rubric for student reflection on my database instruction this coming year. I'd like it to help students mark what they've learned and what they might have missed.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Let it be a lesson...
I stressed out about deadlines on Saturday night. Sunday morning, I resumed stressing and finally stumbled upon my teacher's online post: "You probably won't get all this work done by Saturday night, so I'm changing the due date to Monday."
Woe is me! I'd just posted my self-assessment and down-rated myself for being "tardy."
Note to self: Check messages and emails before beating self up. Lesson learned.
Woe is me! I'd just posted my self-assessment and down-rated myself for being "tardy."
Note to self: Check messages and emails before beating self up. Lesson learned.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Blogging Communities 101
The assignment to search for blogs was not easy to complete. I finally had to review Jen's hints on how locate educational blogs (they are incredibly well hidden in a general Google search!). Then I was able to understand and begin to complete the assignment.
I reviewed two blogs. The first concerned a school in the South Bronx and its decision to institute learning stations so that each child could choose learning that addressed his or her best modality. This school had seen a 28% increase in test scores in one year.
The second blog addressed how the iPad impact education. My comments compared the conversation I'd had with my vice principal concerning the Kindle, the Nook and the iPad The. We are both eager to see how students respond to the dropping prices of the first two and the availability of the third: the newest, hottest item to hit the market this past year.
The blogs reviewed or at the following addresses:
http://1to1schools.net/2010/03/teacher-centered-technologies-do-not-transform-education.html
http://1to1schools.net/2010/06/the-ipad-and-education.html?cid=6a00d8341c855d53ef0133f2b7814b970b#comment-6a00d8341c855d53ef0133f2b7814b970b
I reviewed two blogs. The first concerned a school in the South Bronx and its decision to institute learning stations so that each child could choose learning that addressed his or her best modality. This school had seen a 28% increase in test scores in one year.
The second blog addressed how the iPad impact education. My comments compared the conversation I'd had with my vice principal concerning the Kindle, the Nook and the iPad The. We are both eager to see how students respond to the dropping prices of the first two and the availability of the third: the newest, hottest item to hit the market this past year.
The blogs reviewed or at the following addresses:
http://1to1schools.net/2010/03/teacher-centered-technologies-do-not-transform-education.html
http://1to1schools.net/2010/06/the-ipad-and-education.html?cid=6a00d8341c855d53ef0133f2b7814b970b#comment-6a00d8341c855d53ef0133f2b7814b970b
As long as I'm thinking about it...
The nation is preparing for the new school year and, with it, another year of adolescent sleep debt. How are we supposed to teach classes full of sleepy children? Students sleep with their cellphones close by (or under their pillows), check their Facebook status in the middle of the night and generally are targeted nightly with the "why aren't you in bed yet?" parental rant.
The following articles examine sleep deprivation in adolescents and ideas for change.
http://nysut.org/research/bulletins/981202adolescentsleep.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/from/
It's an interesting topic, especially when you consider that 21st century learning skills can, effectively, time-shift learning opportunities and take advantage of adolescents' most alert hours. How can we use this? Would it be effective? And how can we assess the results?
(http://wilsonshistoryclass.com/blog/2008/11/)
The following articles examine sleep deprivation in adolescents and ideas for change.
http://nysut.org/research/bulletins/981202adolescentsleep.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/from/
It's an interesting topic, especially when you consider that 21st century learning skills can, effectively, time-shift learning opportunities and take advantage of adolescents' most alert hours. How can we use this? Would it be effective? And how can we assess the results?
(http://wilsonshistoryclass.com/blog/2008/11/)
Friday, July 30, 2010
New Skills for New Times
When we say that the world is changing quickly, we need to understand that even our children will have different perspectives on technology. My son, four years younger than his sister, is far more facile with technology than she. She wants more minutes on her cell phone, and he wants more texting and data capability. She doesn't want Skype on her computer, and he uses it to keep his girlfriend company while she studies.
Even my databases are changing, and at a rate that's difficult for me to continue to absorb. I will spend time in September to re-learn the library's online resources. Then I'll adjust my lesson plans to reflect those changes.
Still, I have skills now that weren't mine a month ago. I'm planning a suite of podcasts to bring the databases to my students: in their own home, on their own time, and at their own pace.
Even my databases are changing, and at a rate that's difficult for me to continue to absorb. I will spend time in September to re-learn the library's online resources. Then I'll adjust my lesson plans to reflect those changes.
Still, I have skills now that weren't mine a month ago. I'm planning a suite of podcasts to bring the databases to my students: in their own home, on their own time, and at their own pace.
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