Next Steps

This class has been an eye-opening experience.  It has really transformed the way I see education and the teacher’s role in it.  There is a great shift happening and we need to be at the forefront of this shift.  The video Shift Happens was somewhat scary, because it made it very clear that unless we make changes in education, we will be left behind.  As a teacher and a mother of two small children, I want this shift to happen now.  We need to make sure that our students are prepared for the world out there.  The Web 2.0 tools we used are instrumental in ensuring that the shift happens and that our students are prepared.

The countless numbers of open source applications is incredible. I can see how these applications would have real-world relevance to our students.  We need to teach students to be creators collaborating on imaginative content.  We need to teach our students how to be resourceful and find new ways to use these applications.  I am particularly excited to use MuseumBox in my classes.  I plan on using it on oour uniton The Joy Luck Club.  I’ve used Wordle with my 10th grade American Literature.  I’ve also used xtranormal with the American Literature students with much success.  hey seem to be more engaged in these kinds of creative endeavors where there is more than one way to accomplish a task.  I know that I will start using podcasts.  Next year, i plan to set up blogs for all of my students.  I know that Vocaroo will be an important part of our preparation for the IB oral assessments.

This has been such a great class and I can’t wait to take another class with you, Rolly!

My Podcasting Experience

As I looked through and listened to different podcasts, I came up with a number of ideas for using podcasts in my classes.  There are a number of podcasts for English language learners and these would be ideal for our ESL students.  There is one called the “Daily Idiom” which looks at idioms commonly used in English.  Another site helps students practice conversation in different situations such as going to the gym, school, etc.  The podcast is called “Learn English”.  In iTunes there are a number of podcasts one can subscribe to that would be of use in the classroom as I discussed earlier in my posting, “Podcasts in the Classroom”.  I think I will start a podcast series on “how to..” do things well in the English classroom.  The podcast I created with Vocaroo is about how to write a quote response.  I find myself repeating these instructions to student over and over again.  This way, I can record it and even send it to parents who are always asking me what the kids should be doing.  Next year, the English department is going to do a big push in vocabulary building and so a podcast on vocabulary would be good—more things to search for.

Social Networking Sites

I joined Classroom 2.0 (see my page by clicking here)at the beginning of the class and even posted two differnt discussions on the site.  I ot a couple of hits and even some good suggestions, but not much after that.  I think that the way in which discussions are worded and teh questions one asks determines the kind of traffic that one receives.  It is interesting to look through the wiki and see all the teachers collaborating to make education better, more interesting, more relevant.  At times it is overwhelming and incredibly daunting, and at other times it is so inspiring to see so many people who still truly care about learning and education.

I looked at the Ning sites as well and saw some groups that looked interesting such as Teachers Using Technology, PBS Teachers, etc.  I need to make it a point to visit these sites regularly to see whatis going on and to find new ways to integrate technology into the curriculum.

What’s next?  I think that now that i have joined the Classroom 2.0 group, I need to participate in contributing information, rather than just posting discussions.  The whole point of Web 2.0 is to be collaborative, so this is one way I can take part in educational collaboration.

Closing with The Flatteners

Friedman brings up great arguments for why the world has become flat.  It is an exciting time to be alive and to be a teacher.  We can either be at the forefront of the change or be left behind—I really don’t think there is an in-between.  In December of 1989 I was in Europe studying in Austria for my year abroad.  During that Christmas break, I traveled to West Berlin to see the broken Berlin Wall.  Seeing history first hand was exciting and invigorating and right then and there I knew that the world was changing.  You could feel the energy emanating from the broken pieces of concrete people were colecting as souvenirs.  Who would have thought then that this was the signal for the flattening of the world.

In education, the flattening of the world is deeply relevant to the way in hich we are preparing our students to become product citizens in an increasingly competitive global economy.  In his book, Friedman talks about Globalization 3.0 and this is the world we must prepare our students for.  The world has changed significantly since I graduated from college in 1991.  Since then I have had to rethink the way I see education, the job market, and the skills required to be successful.  In the past, the computer was just a tool —one of many that a person could use.  Today, the internet (accessed through a personal computer, phone, handheld, etc) is THE tool.  Access to the internet and its applications has leveled the playing field.  With the advent of the $200 computer, the playing field will become increasingly flattened.  How, then, can we prepare our students to become successful in this ever increasingly competitive market?  They need to be media savvy, tech savvy, collaborative, creative, inquisitive, and imaginative thinkers.  Gone are the days when students worked by themselves on projects that had no connection to the world outside the classroom.  We need to prepare our students to think beyond what they can see and imagine a world they will create.  This is no easy task and there is no hard-fast guide to how this can be done.  What I do know is that Web 2.0 is an incredible tool to help educators see beyond what they know and imagine a world of teaching that they will create.  If we don’t act, we will be left behind (which wouldn’t be so horrible for us, we’re old), but our students will also be left in the dust (and that would be horrible, because they are still young).

The three flatteners that I feel are incredibly relevant to education are the following : uploading, in-forming, and “The Steroids”.

• As an English teacher, the rise of open source software and the popularity of blogs has great significance for the English curriculum.  Blog posting can be a meaningful opportunity to teach essay writing, descriptive writing, etc.  There are a number of blogs out there that are well-written and interesting and these could be shown to students as real-life examples of good writing.
• With the rise of the internet, students have access to so much information.  They must be taught how to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate such information.  They must also be taught how to navigate their way through so much information that can become incredibly distracting and overwhelming.  Students should be taught how to use this information responsibly and to respect the rights of the owner of the content.  With search engines becoming more refined in their searches, students can find content for their papers within seconds.  The challenge for the English teacher is to teach the students how to use this content found on the internet in a responsible way.
• “The Steroids” are the hardware that makes it even easier for students and teachers to stay connected and informed.  Generally such tools are banned or confiscated in the classroom.  As educators we need to find a way to use these tools effectively so that students will learn the educational applications of these tools.  We need to see these devices as tools, rather than contraband.

What I learned from my Reader (Thing 7c)

I looked through my reader and was amazed at how much I had to read!  However, because everything was tagged and categorized, it was easy to go through the articles and figure out what I wanted to read and what I could skip over.  One of the things I ran across was a blog which listed 20 other blogs which teachers would find useful.  In the mix was a link to Dangerously Irrelevant a blog by Scott McLeod, a leading figure in educational technology.  The blog is filled with information about podcasts regarding education and technology, as well as the latest trends, etc.  Another thing I found was another blog about teaching by a veteran teacher.  The blog itself didn’t interest me as much as a site that he recommended—BeeWell Miles which is a site by Bumblebee Foods.  Those who sign up can log in the number of miles they walk each day and for every mile, Bumblebee Foods will donate 15 cents to Breast Cancer Network of Strength.  Not exactly what I expected to find on the blog, but quite useful nonetheless.  The writer/teacher was writing about not getting enough exercise and how this site motivated him to move for a cause.  If Ihad more time I would have looked through more of the 20 blog sites from that one article, but I had to move on.  I think that I will probably have to make it a point to red through the reader to find out about the latest things. There really is so much to learn and to keep up with.

On-Line Conference in PJs

The on-line conference I attended was

Leading the Change
Teaching Web 2.0 – Everything you need in one place

This on-line conference was presented by Wendy Drexler, a teacher and instructional technologist from St. Petersburg, Florida. The on-line conference was quite short and dealt with the site http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/ which lists and reviews Web 2.0 tools.  The conference also included suggestions for getting a “revolution” started in one’s own school to see teaching in a new way and to use new tools to instruct our students.  One of the important pieces of advice she gives is to include skeptics in the revolution because “holdouts are our best critics and they get us thinking.”

After I attended the conference, I checked out the site and it is pretty awesome.  It lists a multitude of Web 2.0 tools and the reviews are incredibly helpful.  For each tool, users can write about the particular tool’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT).  This gives the educator a way to get to know what they are getting themselves into.  Some of the tools have quite a bit of information on it and others—not so much.  As Ms Drexler states, this is a collaborative site, so though it is monitored, the information comes from the actual users of the tools.  All are encouraged to contribute any information about the tools.  Agian—collaboration its best.

I liked the confernce, because I could watch it in my pjs.  Though the presentations were short, there was quite a bit of information included in it.  The presenter also gave her email address, skype name, and blog site so that the conference attendee could ask questions or make comments.  Of course, there was also a section on the K-12 On-Line Conference page to make comments.  Overall I thought this was great and I can’t wait to attend another conference.  I’m thinking of making it a point to attend at least one a week.  It is defintiely something worth sharing with other teachers, especially those who are reluctant to use teachnology in the classroom.

There are a number of advantages of attending the on-line conference, most important of all CONVENIENCE.  As is the mantra of Web 2.0—there are new ways to learn.  This is clearly one of them. The conferences are available anytime and anywhere.  Of course, there is something lost in not being there face to face.  And the energy of being in a room full of excited teachers is not present either, but when youlive on GUam and the nearest conference is thousands of miles away, this is the next best thing.

Podcasting in the Classroom

As a frequent listener of public radio, I have become quite familiar with the term “podcasting”.  Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Ira Glass’s This American Life, as well as “Fetch” with Ruff Ruffman are some of the podcasts that I have subscribed to.

I looked at “Podcasting in the Education” as well as the Apple site, “”Podcasting in the Classroom.”  Both sites were quite helpful.  In the process of looking for items to add to my RSS/Google reader, I was able to find some podcasts that I could use in my classroom.  “The Quick and Dirty Guide to grammar ” can be helpful in the description of the basic functions of the part of speech and the different uses may be.  Because the podcasts are quite short, the listener is able to fully focus on what is being said.

One of my favorite podcasts is “This American Life” because it is a show that we did not have on the local NPR station.  Once I subscribed to the podcast, a new episode of the show would be sent to me every week.  The same is true for podcasts of a number of children’s shows that are available totally free.  These could be used to teach the short story, narrative writing, essay writing, etc.  One of the added benefits of the podcasts is that it encourages students to refine their listening skills.

You Tube for Thing 19

There’s so much in you tube that is just frivolous junk, but there are times when one can find valuable videos that would be good for an English classroom.  Here’s one that I found and which I could use for the unit on Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.

It’s a great short piece of an interview of the writer.  The excerpt is short enough to hold their attention, but long enough to be meaningful to a reader.

I also found some School House Rock videos which brought me back to the past.  As these videos are no longer played on television, you tube has given me the opportunity to be able to show these great videos to my own children.

You Tube can be a valuable resource, however, one must be fully aware that one has to do research on the topic to find the appropriate videos.  There’s so much out there that is poorly produced, but there are also some great things that others have done.  In terms of use in the classroom, I’ve used it before to show students a musical interpretation of Sonnet 18.  I know I will use it in the future to look for videos about topics I am teaching.

GoogleDocs for the Writing Classroom

I’ve used googledocs pretty frequently in the last year.  Whenever I have kids write papers in pairs, they complete their documents on googledocs and that way I have a clear record of how much each participant actually contributed to the final product.  The function which keeps track of the “history” of the document is particularly useful for this purpose.  In the past kids would have to physically be together to write a paper or work on a project, but with googledocs/spreadsheets/presentations, each student can be in the comfort of their own home and still be working collaboratively on a project with another student.  Here are some of the ways I have used googledocs in the classroom: 1) In American Literature, students wrote a poem (as a class), with each student writing a stanza about Holden Caufield of The Catcher in the Rye. Students could place their stanza in the place they thought it would best fit.  2) In 9th grade, students responded to quotes on googledocs and then the following evening other students responded to their interpretations.  I could have used a blog, but since we didn’t have that set up, this was a quick and easy way to have responses completed. 3)Students working in groups have worked with googledocs to create outlines, collect quotes and evidnce, and prepare presentations.  The idea of course, is that they are able to work together without actually having to be together.  It’s a great tool with numerous applications.

LibraryThing for Book Lovers

This is a great site for anyone who loves books.  As an English teacher, I believe that this can be an incredible resource for searching for new books to teach.  The feature that I liked was the one where a person can type in a book and then receive recommendations for other books that the reader might enjoy.  This is similar to the recommendations that Amazon.com would offer, but I think this is even more refined because the readers of the books actually give the recommendations and it is not entirely based on booksales.  When the IB teachers are looking at the IB Booklist we often are not familiar with the books, so LibraryThing would be a great resource for research.