Computer Teacher, Teach Thy Self!

I have often wondered what would happen if my school stopped using filters. What would happened if edublogs, del.icio.us, and various other web 2.o standards were not blocked? What would happen if we taught students the educational value of cell phones and MySpace?

More often than not talk of MySpace, chatting/IMing and blogging are synonymous with social subversion.  I was one of the proponents who openly believed that that blocking all this content was the proper way a school should deal with these concerns.

Reading Chris Lehman and Christopher Sessums today challenged me to think on how educational belief systems (mine included),  need to change in regards to the use of technology.  Since I began blogging I realize the misuse of technology is unavoidable, kids are kids.  As Chris Lehman discusses when kids are empowered they, they use that power.  Sometimes, especially in the instance that Chris was discussing; they will challenge authority and press buttons.

    We had some students use the laptops and instant messaging in really inappropriate ways. It was upsetting teachers and students alike, and we saw a creeping loss of a sense of safety. So what did we do? We talked about it as a community on our moodle site. The student forums were suddenly filled with conversations about what was going on, what screen names to beware of, how to block someone in iChat, and (I’m not kidding) discussion by students about how poorly this reflected on our community.

Reading the above was truly inspiring and gives a beautiful mental image of the Science Leadership Academy and how the building runs.  In this instance Chris was faced with the possibility of ceasing IMing completely, he chose however to continue the empowerment of his students and to elicit student response.  In the end, the students were upset and did not support or encourage this behavior either.  Chris could have thrown out the baby (a use of technology) with the bath water (poor behavior), but instead he chose to yet empower his students more.

The tactic of open discussion and using students to address the technology concerns of the school community is provides intrinsic motivation for appropriate behavior rather than just the traditional response of yanking the technology away.  In all honesty I think we all know that when we yank it away, the kids show their ingenuity by circumventing nearly all those efforts and regaining access themselves .

    “There is no panacea in education and every great idea has a dark side, so what are the worst consequences of your best ideas?” It’s important to do for two reasons — one because I think that many educational institutions become reactionary too often, throwing the baby out with the bathwater when an unforeseen consequence of a really good idea comes along.

Remember the saying “Fear is the path to dark side”?  If we allow our fears of what could happen stop us from seizing the opportunities before us then we will never really grow.

The “baby” is the opportunity that comes from access to technology in schools. The bathwater is all the nasty little by-products of good ideas that always occur, because where there are humans learning there are mistakes.  People (especially teens) push limitations and challenge authority. If we expect it, and deal with it as a part of the learning process (like Chris Lehman) we stand the chance of learning in the most profound lessons, the ones we learn through adversity.

In order to make this world a more humane and safer place, we need to realize how interdependent we are and be responsible for one another. We do not need to be religious or spiritual to appreciate this reality and act accordingly.

What would happen if we allow these bumps to be learning experiences?  What would happen if teachers asked their students for help, or trusted them to have an active part in thei educational community? There is much talk of the shifts in education; one shift that I believe is happening is that students are becoming efficient inter-learners (and inter-educators). I learn from my Computer Applications students every week.  They have gone so far as to say “Ms. Cronk, if you want to understand what we are talking about; check this site out.”  Every time they bring me a resource I use it, just as I hope they do with the information I give them.   Granted, some of the resources my students share with me are funny, but they still help me understand them on another level.

I was excited and a little bummed about David Warlick’s post about the interview with his son while playing World of Warcraft. The reason is Monday I had idea about interviewing my students about web 2.0 and gaming.

You see one of my student has used WOW to make about $5,000. He is in 9th grade! The way he has done it was to spend several weeks developing certain characters and getting them desirable items to use (weapons, spells, armor). Once he has taken the character to a certain point he sells it on ebay. Some how I can see how my class that deals with primarily Word, Excel, and PowerPoint may not be that exciting to him.

Another set of students that I interviewed yesterday participate in gaming tournaments on MLG, as I understand it there are many tournaments that have large purses. For example There is one team called Final Boss ( I think) who won all the tournaments and was offered $1,000,000 contract to stay gaming with MLG for 3 years. Yes, that was $1,000,000, a group of 20 somethings.

Lead by human-highlight reel and tactician Walshy, Final Boss are favored to reach the Championship Match in every event they enter. Strongside’s youthful determination complements the awe-inspiring Ogres, who strike fear into even the toughest opponents through their versatile slaying capabilities. The overall dominance and persistent hard work and sportsmanship of the squad has earned Final Boss a three year, one million dollar contract with Major League Gaming.

I now understand why it has become so important to them. I also found it interesting that the boys were very articulate when describing their gaming experiences. They are all great students, but when a teacher is trying to have a conversation with students it always seems strained. Conversely, ask them to teach you about something they are interested in and the conversation flows.

I used my iSight camera on one of the iMacs my lab to record the sessions and ran it by principal first. I will send home a release form with the boys and if all parties agree, I will post the video on my blog.

A thought comes to mind when talking with these teens, “bravo!” They created an opportunity out doing something they are passionate about. It takes adults so many years to find a joy and turn it into an opportunity.

Yeah! Okay I know I am next in line to a speck of dust on the blogosphere but I was tagged!! So 5 things some of my readers (ha!) do not know about me…

1. I am an amazing Sci Fi and comic geek. People often do not believe just how “bad” I am. I was in the single digits when “Stars Wars a New Hope” was released and my mother and I saw it 3 times in the theatre. I was one of those crazy people who went to the first (12:00 AM) showing of all Star Wars prequels, and Matrix episodes. Some of my “older” favorite Sci Fi Writers include Heinlen, and Herbert.

2. I study Chinese martial arts. On the whole I have or currently study -Shao lin Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Bagua (my fav), Xingyi, and Chinese Kempo. I was very fortunate to find an amazing teacher who is very traditional and runs a non-profit school. The American Center for Chinese Studies now has several branches run by my older brothers (My teacher’s senior students) I have been studying for 5 years now and blogging and practice often conflict with in my time available. So now I try to blog while at work during my preps, lunch, or late at night when I should be sleeping. Oh, along with Sci Fi movies I am a total Saturday morning Kung Fu Theatre buff too.

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3. People say I look like Uma Thurman…. I don’t know about that but I’ll take it. (I would love her height!) Actually the fabulous ladies in our cafeteria here call me Uma. I think because I wanted to be the “Bride” for Halloween. I love the Kill Bill series and the amazing Kirosawa moments that Q.T. referenced flipped me out in the movies! Akira Kirosawa is amazing, two of my favorite movies are Yojimbo and The Seven Samurai.

4. I speak Mandarin Chinese, the dialect I understand the best is Beijing. I started almost 5 years ago, my instructor Frank DeMaria is also my Kung Fu teacher, he began the class because he spoke to us often in Chinese and wanted to offer it to those of us who were interested in learning more. Now I have become very interested in Chinese culture and try my best speaking to native speakers when I get the chance. They are very kind not to laugh at me.

5. I owned and rode a Harley Sportster.

yojimbo, originally uploaded by thecreatrus.

One of the movies I mentioned in my 5 things. I thought Toshiro Mifune was amazing.

okladki-divx.neostrada.pl/covers/y/yojimbo.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecreatrus/399084/

Teachers need to become facilitators.- Okay I have 4 more saturdays of this.  The class is through the College of Saint Rose and it’s C.I.T.E. program.  I have already obtained my SBL (school building leader) certification a year ago through this program. Now I am going for 2 more classes to complete the requirements for the SDL (school district leader).

The class was primarily debate today. The instructor brought up what he felt were the largest mistakes of the American Educational System. I created a Keynote presentation of the subjects discussed and will post it for any that are interested.

The coolest part of the whole day was the very brief mention from the instructor about constructivism and  how technology is changing the face of learning.  My instructor is a Superintentdent who is a techno-phobe but is wise enough to know that students are learning on their own. So then the real issue is how do we keep them safe?  Then I checked my Netvibes and saw that Will Richardson put in this post about how another school is no longer going to filter out content.  Ironic, the first time I heard about teachers as facilitators was on his blog
Well in a remote hope I also forwarded the link to my administrators.  Personally I think that filters allows us to become lazy with our students.  With filters on, teachers do not have to always circulate around the lab and make sure students are not accessing innapropriate material.  Of course some of the students still are but then the buck can be passed onto the overwhelmed and far over-worked tech support people. Of course the teachers should still circulate, but we all know that does not always happen. This is all my opinion after workeing in 5 different schools in various capacities.

Let’s blame the bandaid, but not cure the problem.

Anyway the suggested reading for the course is:

The 8th Habit- From Effectiveness to greatness

Practicing the Art of leadership

Schools for the 21st Century 

And of course during the course of having the class debate various issues the notorius The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman was brought up.  I admit I had a smug grin because of all the bloggers that I read I am aware of the impact this book is having.  Now I just have to read it.

 You ever have one of those nights where you stay up late to discuss some great blogs? I was all over Jeff Utecht’s and David Warlick’s tonight really getting back in the blogging groove, then it happened. After about an hour of reading/blogging I lost it all!

Any suggestions on how to prevent this? Anyone? Bueller?

I will write a more formal post later…..

A while ago I began moving my blog from Typepad to here at Edublogs getting caught up in this process and the holidays I have not done any blogging of my own.  I have still been reading my favorite blogs, but not spending any time on my own thoughts. 

Getting to the point… When I started blogging and using delicious, flickr, furl, tabblo, etc… I became so excited I couldn’t wait to teach my colleagues. So I decided to offer a course through the local teacher center.  I actually designed two courses, the Web 2.0 Educator I and II. 

Today while trying to get in the door with all my groceries I picked up the Teacher center course offerings book and there I was..(in the book that is). So after picking the groceries up off the floor I ran to the computer to blog quickly. I am so very excited and I love all that I have been learning, so now have even more motivation to blog! (the fire under the _ _ _ so to speak)