ConnectedTalk

Darren Draper’s blog post yesterday entitled Who’s Afraid of Digital Natives echoed some thoughts I have had myself about teaching, learning, education in general. I left a response over there, please go and take a look, here I have cross posted what I said there.
Darren, as we all know the future is now, the world has changed and it is not going back. We in education have to face the fact that it is not acceptable to teach the way we were taught. We are doing students a disservice in not using the tools they use in their daily lives, whether it is cell phone, iPod, MP3 player, digital camera, or online tools. We talk of modeling learning for students, the educational community needs to update their skills with the use of tools to engage students in their learning. I agree with you we do need to start thinking about what we do, and how we do it, and it will require time on everyone’s part. Yesterday Carolyn Foote was conducting a workshop and I had the pleasure of participating in a Skype call along with David Jakes, Patrick Higgins, and John Maklary. The conversation centered on connections, how we connect, the benefits of connecting with others outside of our own workplaces, and how the connections help us learn. The primary concern I hear most often from teachers, when introducing something new to use in instruction, is they have no time to learn about technology, it is still considered an add on by many, something else to teach.

David made a great point yesterday, he said we all have to make time to learn these new tools, take 15 minutes a day to focus on our own learning, over time it adds up. Those of us that understand the positive benefits of these educational technologies have taken the time to learn how to use them, taken time to understand their implication for use in teaching and learning. Yes, we are the ones who like technology, over the top to some, but we try, we make the effort, because we see the future, we know we have to do more to engage students. We are trying to make their learning relevant to their everyday lives, because the world has changed, and schools have to change as well.

Our students are connected all the time, I am sure they could explain the contributions they feel their connections bring to their lives and learning. So why not encourage their development, as you said, teach them responsible use, not ignore reality, its too easy to say no iPods or cell phones in school, students will use them to cheat. Instead when do we start to teach them to be good digital citizens, teach them ethical use of the tools? If we would only begin to imagine the possibilities.

Recently on twitter Konrad Glogowski posted this - When kids don’t do well we often think of what they must do to conform … not of what we’re not doing for them. Students are blamed for not wanting to learn, not caring about school, being lazy, these are the reasons they are not successful. I agree with Stephanie Sandifer, we must begin to look at our classroom practices, and begin conversations on how we can change those practices in order to help all students be successful and engaged in their education. Teaching the way we were taught is not acceptable, it just doesn’t get the job done today. I love what I do, I love being in the classroom with students working with them using whatever possible to engage them, trying all the time to help them find relevance in their learning, develop a love of learning. My own children are “grown up”, one has a master’s degree and is an elementary guidance counselor, the other a college senior. I look back at their education, especially high school, and while they received a good education, it could have been more. Maybe some of my thinking is shaped as a result of what I perceived they missed.
Most students move through school, graduate, go on to higher education, vocational school, or enter a trade. But for some the system fails and it is a life altering failure. Our son’s best friend dropped out of high school at the end of their 10th grade year. He failed his 10th grade year, he was one of those students who was labeled as lazy, one who did not care about school. He didn’t fail because he could not do the work, he failed because the work did not interest him. He was not engaged in his learning, did not see the purpose between what was being lectured to him and the world he lived in. He left school with parental permission to work in his family’s business, a business today that is no longer viable. At the age of 22 his future is uncertain, and he feels as though his options are limited. He spends a great deal of time with us, we consider him our third child, and I can tell you it is heartbreaking to see a young man whom you love, just getting by. He is at a time in his life when he should feel the world holds endless possibilities for his future, instead he feels he has few options. I think of him everyday when I am in the classroom working with students, hoping in some small way I can make a difference in the life of a child, hoping I can help one child avoid a future that is not filled with promise. I hear people everyday talk of students who are lazy, students who cannot learn, but I never hear anyone speak of what needs to change in their classroom practice to bridge the gap for those students who may not be the most interested in school. We all have to be reflective in our practice, when students fail we must look at what we have the ability to change, so it doesn’t happen again.

Recently there has been a series of rapid fire introductions to new tools ustream.tv,
operator 11, google presentations all propelled to the forefront through the invisible connections of twitter and other social networking sites many are connected to as part of their learning communities. I have to say at times I feel overwhelmed with all of the discoveries passed on, trying to find the time to look, explore, evaluate, and understand the potential either for classroom use or as a suggestion for use in someone’s own professional development. I have to be cautious of what I pass along, classroom teachers may be likely to try one new thing in a year’s time so I can’t throw too many things at them and hope something sticks. I have to have a clear understanding of how the tools are being used by others in education, have examples to share and talk about. In all of the commotion of new tools I also have to deal with whether these new tools are accessible in my district. Not all are, filtering seems to work differently everywhere. I have to be mindful in this area as well, when something is blocked I have to try to figure out why, and before I ask to have anything unblocked I must try think through my reasons to ask for the filter to be lifted and the ramifications of having the status changed. At times I feel as though I am on a never ending road that twists and turns and sometimes I just wish for a flat stretch to get my own bearings before thinking about sharing one more new tool that has appeared and captured someone’s eye.

Update: How does anyone else do this, how do you decide what has merit to introduce as tools you feel has value, what process do you go through? I am looking for help, suggestions, models to follow, you see in my district I do not have anyone else to bounce these ideas off of and feel at times at a loss for what direction to take. Thanks for your help!

Well our first “open” professional staff development session of Social Software in the Classroom took place on Wednesday September 19, and everything that could have gone wrong did for Darren and I. It was an example of technology at its best and worst within the 3 hour time span. We thought we had prepared well, here were our thoughts, and by the way we had tried out the ustream.tv and yugma/skype ahead of time with several other people joining us! Remember, Darren is in Utah and I am PA, we planned on the audio/video stream so all could follow along with what we were doing and participate in conversations during class.

• audio/video stream original idea, Darren started the stream, I could not connect, nor could anyone else
• move to ustream.tv, seemed to work well, audio issues caused difficulties so everyone could not hear
• switched to Yugma/Skype, worked but had people in different chats, we started in one skypechat room and had to move to another, confusing
• Sue Waters came to our rescue and offered us a room in Elluminate which saved us, literally

Despite all of these hurdles, the evening demonstrated the extent people will go to help one another in this participatory culture. Once we were started in Elluminate we were able to show Karl Fisch’s video and have conversations about its content and the implications for teachers and students.

I have never taught an online course before so this was new to me, the idea of being able to share screens and talk to each other during our presentations was reassuring, knowing even though we would be roughly 2,000 miles apart we would still be able to see and hear each other, because of the difficulties we went through I learned quite a bit about how I teach. Darren and I worked together on Thursday, talking about the class and what we would change to make the rest of the sessions better. I also told him what I had been going through the night before, which I believe anyone who has ever taught will relate to. Sitting at home, computer connected, online through skype, the connection to Darren made, knowing he is starting, tells me to pick up the video stream, I try - nothing, no connection for me, the co teacher, panic! As the evening moved along, we were able to keep our audio connections, share screens, etc. and have our conversations. What struck me most was the realization of how much I depend on visual cues when I teach. Whether it is with another colleague, co teaching, or the visual cues from my students, I know how to pace the session depending on their non verbal feedback. All of a sudden I found myself with no visual or audio cues. Darren was having some technical issues with headsets in his lab, so when he was away from his computer, I was completely in the dark, with no one to look at or listen to in order to gauge what to do next. I was thinking to myself, do I go ahead and keep talking about how to navigate within wikispaces, how to edit? Knowing he was trying to troubleshoot, I didn’t want to ask any questions, he wasn’t close to his computer, do I ask a question and make him stop what he is doing to walk back to the computer, press the mic, answer me? Or do I wait patiently hoping he will resolve the issue at hand, come back and say we are ready to move ahead? My point being, if we had been in the same room, I would have known what to do, I could have read the faces of the others there, assessed what was going on and made a decision that would have kept the class moving while freeing my colleague to do what was necessary to get everyone in the same place. Something I learned about myself, something I had not thought of prior to this course or as part of teaching. We are looking forward to the rest of the sessions and hope any and all interested will join us at http://socialsoftware07.wikispaces.com Wednesday September 26 6:30PM Eastern Daylight Time.

I have an exciting opportunity beginning this week, I will be co-teaching an online web 2.o tools for the classroom course with Darren Draper. Darren will actually have some participants face to face with him in the Jordan School District in Sandy, Utah. I myself have encouraged and invited teachers in my area to sign up, and our participation will be virtual. A few weeks ago Darren blogged about his idea of open staff development. We talk of free open source applications, conducting staff development in the same way seems to be the direction to go. Our course is called Social Software in the Classroom. Here is what we are planning, please visit Darren’s blog for all of the details regarding the applications you will need to install to be ready to go.

• Class begins Wednesday September 19 and meets every week for 5 weeks
• Time - 6:30 to 9:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time. Click here for your time zone.
• We will use our class wikis http://socialsoftware07.wikispaces.com and there will be QuickTime audio/video feed set up by the tech wizards who work with Darren. Please make sure you have the latest version installed, free download, just follow the link.
• If you would like to join us please send me a message through skype, robin.ellis1, I will be moderating the skype chat and will need your contact information.

I believe we have a great deal to share, there are many online resources available to be used in classrooms with students, as well as for collaboration among teachers and district colleagues. Please join us, we look forward to meeting and working with you.

Additional information: if you would like to attend please visit the wiki to join the class. If you are only available for a few classes and are not looking for any kind of in service credit you do not have to attend all five sessions.
This course is being offered as a starting point for anyone interested in learning about web 2.0 applications and how they can be used in education. We also welcome all who may be interested, the more people we can share our information with the more we will all learn.