Hello TLN participants!
I really hope that you enjoy the workshop and take away so things from it. As a member of a learning community of professionals, it is essential that we all learn from each other.
Excuses teachers use for not using technology in their classrooms.
A practical example of Wallwisher within the classroom
As I have (or will explain to you later!) next week I am planning on bringing in some of my students to showcase some practical examples of what they have done and get them to share their thoughts on what it means to be a ‘Digital Native’ living in 2010 in an Education Queensland classroom. I hope that you find that process as exciting as they will. They are very excited to show you some of the things they have been working on. The key quesiton is this: What do you want them to showcase? If you could leave a comment at the top of this blog entry, letting me know what you want to see them do, that would be fantastic. You could also email me at aprou8@eq.edu.au
Also, for next week, I want you to share an example of where you have incorporated ICT into your practice. Outline if it was a success or a failure (I have had more failures than you could poke a stick at!) and what you would do differently next time. No idea is to small – we all have to start somewhere!
Thanks for your attention – don’t be afraid to ask a ‘Digital Native’ for assistance. Your practice and their leanring can only improve by your attempts to incorporate ICT into their learning.
Ash
I am the first to admit, that I blog a lot with my kids. It is a part of our regular day and a vital part of getting feedback from them about what they know and how they are going. I almost make it compulsary for them to comment on each others blogs and particularly mine. They generally do a good job at adding comments, but the quality of their feedback is often lacking.
So the other day, I posed the question to them: “Why do we find commenting so hard?” I got some really interesting feedback from ‘Well i think that we find it hard because we have to read it and then think about what we are going to say. Some of us comment really well, but others just do not enjoy it or think that it is to hard,’ to ‘I agree that people think commenting is hard becuase they don’t want to hurt others. I try not to offend anyone because I always finish my comments with something posistive.’ This one was my favourite ‘I think I know why people don’t want to comment is because they either can’t be bothered or maybe they are scared of you because of your deep loud voice.’ Lucky that kids was only joking!
So is it just me or is commenting really hard? I know that I constantly lurk and read but struggle sometimes to add productive information to the usual outstanding pieces of information that is presented to me. I stuggle to add value and don’t want to sound like an idiot by just saying ‘I agree David’ or ‘Awesome post’. If I contribute, I really want to add value to the bloggers entry. If I can’t add value, I just don’t feel right adding.
So isn’t the whole purpose of web 2.0 to contribute and share? Is it just me or do others feel this way?
Leave me a comment (ha ha) outlining your thoughts on this important issue.
As I sit here on the last Friday night of my school holidays, I reflect thoughtfully (which is a skill in itself) on the term that my class has had in our new learning environment. At the start of term 2 last year, I began to investigate the possibility of setting up a 1-1 class at my new school. I was new at the school last year and was not overly sure how well this would go down with my colleagues / administration. After looking at the fantastic 21 steps document produced by my employer (note: great sucking up!) and talking to a teacher of a year 7 class at a nearby school (Arlene Smertherst) it was decided that our school was going to take the plunge and dive into the world of 1-1 computing in the primary school. All systems were ‘go’ and we were going to implement this in 2010.
Various other things came up throughout 2009, and around half way through term 4 (October) it looked as if it wasn’t going to go ahead. An expression of interest was sent home to parents and my principal warned me that he didn’t think that it was ‘going to get up’. I began to get disenchanted and prepared myself for the worse. I then went of paternity leave for 5 days and came back to school to a pleasant surprise. Out of our 90 odd year 7 students, over 60 had applied to be a part of the program. Now our principal decides that we are going to have two classes in year 7 involved in 1-1 learning.
So our year begins and our kids receive their laptops and they are so excited. My fellow teachers on my year level were very supportive but there was some apprehension from other staff members. One actually said “I would love to do it but I don’t know if I could use it enough to make it worthwhile.” I just smiled at this comment and thought to myself “Got to love teaching in the 21st century!”
So what have I learnt throughout this term in 1-1 environment?
So many things that I already believed in were reinforced and it was amazing to see the risks that some of my kids took. The hardest thing that the students have had to adapt to was the fact that they were more in control of their learning and had flexibility to demonstrate their understanding in lots of different ways. One example is that we did a science experiment early on in the term and I asked the students to demonstrate their understanding of the experiment however they wanted. They all were a bit dazed for a moment (it was kind of freaky actually) and then a light bulb switched on. I received very different pieces of work all getting to the same destination (note to self: a new blog entry – does it matter how we get to the destination?)
I have also had reinforced that technology is a very engaging tool for learners if you can tap into what works for them. If I use the analogy of a piano player playing the guitar, it is going to be ugly and not a lot of fun. If learning is not engaging, authentic and meaningful to students, then we are going to struggle to get to them excited to learn. I realise that engagement is not the ‘be all and end all’ of 1-1 learning but boy does it help! My students regularly come into the room before school starts and students emailing me throughout the holidays and uploading items to their blogs.
So has 1-1 learning lived up to its hype so far? My definitive answer is yes and much much more! I can only see the learning experiences of my students improving as we try and implement more flexible learning situations. If I can be inspired by the great work of educators such as Shane Roberts and Joseph Perkins, my kids will receive the quality educational outcomes they deserve (and hopefully go well on everybody’s favourite test: NAPLAN!)
One final thing: thanks to everyone who left a comment on my previous entry. I am looking for feedback. I am enjoying using Twitter as a means of spreading the word. Comments just inspire me to keep on going.
So I have been wanting to start blogging for a while. I have been extremely hesitant to get started but I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer. For those who follow me on Twitter, they know that i am extremely active on the ‘Tweet Stream’ and am a big believer in the power of the PLN and how it can help us achieve what we are employed to do – quality educational outcomes for the students that we educate. Before I had discoverd the world of Twitter, I used to follow a number of blogs via RSS (which I got the idea from Sue Waters and the Edublogger) and the sheer volume of information that I could access in my own way amazed me. As my Twitter journey has continued, I have decied to reconnect with my RSS feeds and in turn blog my own journey. What an exciting journey it has been and will continue to be.
So how did I come up with the title for my blog? Over the past three years, all teachers in Education Queensland have undertaken (or will undertake) compulsary literacy training. One afternoon, I was talking to my neighbour across the road (who is also a teacher) who was doing her literacy training at a different venue. We were comparing our training and what we had got out of it. I realised that Jonathon Nalder, a very prolific blogger / tweeter was at the same venue. I mentioned to her that he was there. Her response was “Oh, he is one of THOSE people!”. I was a bit stunned by that comment and then realised what she was talking about. He was a digital immigrant living in the digital natives world trying to engage 21st century kids using 21st century methods. I then informed her that I was one of THOSE people as well and our conversation came to a polite end.
I am thinking about using this space in many different ways. I will use it to report on some of the things my kids are doing in class, look at web 2.0 tools and their possible uses in the classroom and reflect on my lifelong learning journey.
Let the fun begin!
