Computer Teacher, Teach Thy Self!

Two very cool things happened today:

1. I was interviewed by doctoral candidates about concerns I have for my school’s technology program.  I gave pretty lengthy answers on all the new things I wanted to do with my classes, so on of the candidates decided to use Garage Band to record my interview. After we were done he showed me how easy it was to select a drum track to accompany my voice, then bass, then a mandolin.  Before we realized it we had a semi-cool product.  In the span of 10 minutes a piece of work was created that I will later post on this blog.   We started talking about how “this” is some of the stuff that our students would love to learn. It would take their creative writing to a whole new level. 

2. I RSS Will Richardson’s Del.icio.us account so anything new that gets added I  receive.  The newest one was regarding Tabblo, a service that allows you to upload photos and arrange them into collages.  One very powerful Tabblo was created by Thomas Hawk. After looking at Thomas’s work especially in the “City that Care Forgot” I realized that here is yet another awesome opportunity for a lesson in my class.

Possible Activities:

1.   Have students select a piece of literature that speaks to them or create one expresses a certain mood or feeling. It could be as simple as having one of the kids colorfully narrate the findings on the lunch line! Later have students record this using Garage Band, and then add three elements to it such as drum, bass and guitar. Later the work can be published on their blog and recorded into a digital portfolio. A follow  up could be for the students to view video blogs such as lonelygirl15. Yes, a young 15 year old girl did not make these videos but film students did.  This is also a great opportunity for a poetry slam.

2.   Using Tabblo- have students collect pictures on a Flickr or upload their own pictures (great for yearbook, or journalism students) create a collage with available text space. Then have them write on the feelings that the collage invokes.

The very begining to blogging is to start reading blogs. One of my favorite bloggers once said ( I am paraphrasing) “when I don’t blog it doesn’t mean I don’t have enough time to write, I don’t have enough time to read”. Blogging takes on many different steps. The first of which is reading, being aware of how others blog.  I have about 30 “feeds” that I try to read on a daily basis. ( Some of the bloggers I look up to read 200+ feeds a day!) From these blogs I find out about new technology, D.O.P.A reform, and online resources that I currently use to learn about Web 2.0.

 In the book Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts Will Richardson suggests that using an aggregator to find and continue reading blogs you find relevant is and important first step. We will eventually explore bloth Bloglines and Netvibes as a resource to keep your feeds organized. 

Your assignment:

Look at Will Richardson’s blog post on what is happening in a Middle School class using the book Guerrilla Season. Will Richardson who did something similar in his journalism class writes:

Just a quick link to another example of how teachers can use blogs to enhance the reading of a book in class by extending conversations past the school day, linking to resources and relevant materials, inviting parents to read and study with their children, inviting students from other parts of the country to collaborate and have students learn directly from interacting with the author of the book. What a concept!

1. Explain how your perception of education would change if all your teachers were using Web 2.0 technology as a part of regular instruction. 

2. Why do you think this type of education is also called learner centered?

3. In a mature fashion, please describe how you feel teachers could change to motivate you to study and participate in class more?

Please write your full name and class period to recieve credit.

I have not posted in a few days; I thought I had a deep moment with the last post, but no comments so I became discouraged. Earlier today I was going through the chapter on RSS in my current bible Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts.  While playing around with folders and organizing my feeds I checked a new feed on Adventures in Educational Blogging. 

In her Blog Susan Sedro, offered great advice to another relatively new blogger who was feeling overwhelmed.  At first I read and re-read Susan’s post in Adventures in Educational Blogging. (She offers great advice on how to manage the implementation of blog curriculum)  Then, I decided to take a look at the novice blogger she was referencing. After all, I am only a few days into this and feeling very unsure of myself in the blogosphere, another newbie would be great to commune with. 

Kim Cofino’s   Always Learning blog is moving along nicely, and she had already started to implement great blogging lesson plans into her curriculum.  One line of her current post summarized how I was feeling:

For a while there I was feeling so far behind that I didn’t want to demonstrate my “late-adopter-ness” by posting things that everyone knows already.

Boy did I identify with that! Then she mentions how she found this post that made her realize that there were so many other teachers out there that felt the same way. When I followed the link …It was MY BLOG she was referencing! I got goose bumps, and then I think I “got” blogging

I was headed to work this morning listening to CBS 880, and heard mention of Hunterdon High School in New Jersey .  This caught my ear because my current Educational Blogging guru, Will Richardson started educational blogging for that school district.

As it reports in the news the school will now be charging $100 for student who has too many absences to make up work online.  I think many of us know that it is a matter of time before “Online High Schools” become widely accepted. Doing a brief search I came across many programs that are already available.  World Wide Learn is one site that had many available programs for earning a High School diploma online.

It is topics such as these that bring me to a complete brain freeze.  In that I mean there is a duality in my thinking. The first side is the conservative (and I am shocked that there is a conservative side) educator who thinks that a child kept away from the school environment is missing out on a huge part of the educational experience.  My conservative reaction was the first one and it was much like my Grandfather saying… “There goes the neighborhood now!”  The other side of my thinking (which is being developed more every day) asks; “Why not?”  What is wrong with learning from online as opposed to the class?   What there any real dramatic lessons that took place in the classroom that would be irreplaceable online? For me I think not.  Actually I think learning online at this point would be much more personal and profound if done with guidance.

Truthfully my experience in high school was bad; I performed horribly, had poor social skills, and never felt like I could approach any teacher or Dean with these feelings because I was “not living up to my potential”.  I loved computers though, and I would write stories using this program called “Display Write Assistant”. (DOS Based word Processor)  Now looking at my experience I can truthfully say that I am not sure if I am the better for going to “school”.  It is common knowledge that middle school and High School years are the most chaotic times emotionally for kids. Moreover, students at this age can be vicious. Hardly anything parents teach their kids about behavior is practiced in high school.  College however is a very different story. 

I am genuinely surprised by my thoughts on this and would welcome any other points of view.

I have posted 3 days in a row now which is a new record for me. my habit would be to start a blog, post and then forget about it. I have continued to read Will Richardson’s book on blogging. Yesterday I started the section on Wikis and I was a little confused.

This morning I was talking to my student teacher who was demonstrating a new method of longterm planning.  Much of it reminds me of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, begin with the end in mind.  We downloaded a year by the month template from the “MS/Office”site. Next we filled in my vacation and conference days.  What was left over scared me.  I don’t know how I am going to cover Word, Excel, PowerPoint, introduce Mac OS Tiger, (We are a dual platform lab) and then finally fit in blogging, Furl, and aggregators. This is a semester long course, so I have basically have less than 5 months to cover all this material.

Calgon take me away! I want to be a great computer teacher. I want to walk out of that lab with my kids running to the Library lab because they want to do more on their own. I just don’t know how to get it all done.

Well once I finish my longterm planning I will post it so anyone else may be able to make use of it. Hopefully using this template will help me to find a way to get it all in.

Just looking at Weblogg-ed to see a new deveopment in YouTube that really got me thinking. (Okay, I didn’t even know about YouTube until today).  Apparently an on going video story called LonelyGirl15 was very popular and had many debating on it possiblly being a hoax. Personally I thought the videos were good! Defiinitly something my students would love to do!

What an amazing opportunity for our students to represent themselves to the world audience. Last year after attending a conference that featured Will Richarsdon I became very curious about the blogosphere and how I can use this to teach my Computer Applications students.

The idea of WikiTV is amazing. To just think of the implications it could have for
Junior and Sophmores who will be looking into colleges. Just imagine a student digital storytelling, but the story is about them!  In fifteen minutes of time a college admissions counselor could view a digital narrative that goes so far beyond a bland essay. 

A student could show volunteer work, student life, athletics, teacher interviews, slides of completed work, and share family stories with a slide show of music and pictures.  School concerts, athletic events, volunteer work would no longer be simply 2 dimensional on a piece of paper but alive and breathing with the texture of storytelling.

Did you ever have that sinking feeling in your gut that some how you were loosing your grip on current developments, or your field? You know the feeling, the one that invariably says, “your antiquated”.  That is how I have been feeling for the better part of a year. 

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a NYSCATE conference where Will Richardson  was presenting on using weblogs in the classroom.  I was once again inspired to try and get myself back on to the ‘current technology developmental wave’.

In the book Blogs, Wiki’s and Podcasts Will Richardson writes about the best way to learn how to “blog”, is to “blog”. So here I am posting for the first time and trying to make thoughtful links.

I must say that the whole “Blogosphere” is rather intimidating, especially when in my “Blog” class with Will Richardson having my attention drawn to blogs like Borderland and EduBlog Insights. Both blogs are well written, very insightful and so far beyond what I am capable of doing.