I love my reader and wished I had more time to spend exploring more bloggers' work. However, today I was able to spend some time exploring and felt (yet again) that wow! sensation of knowing that I can, that I need to, make a shift in my teaching as I have with my learning. From Cool Cat Teacher's Blog my Aha! moment began.
What a motivational video produced by kids for us, their teachers. Makes me ready to shift it up a whole lot. What a great job they did touching on something many educators seem to forget--their capabilities.
As if that wasn't enough, Mrs. Patterson, a first grade teacher that has her students blogging, replied with a link to the following video:
It is just amazing what students are capable of doing. They don't get there when we don't believe in them. They don't get there when we limit their creativity. They don't get there when we limit ourselves to the "test" or to past practice or even best practice. They get there when we start teaching them how to learn, how to reach their potential, how to be the best they can be.
All of this brought me back to the first blog that I found in my reader today. Clarence Fischer's blog Remote Access blog entry called Tinkering is both enjoyable and motivational. He displayed the following video as he reflected on the various posts that encouraged the notion of tinkering as vital to fostering lifelong learners.
Imagine becoming that one teacher that allows students to learn on their own because they want to learn. Imagine their future in education. How do you learn best? I certainly have found that with the technology that I have become exposed to through Jeff Utecht's course I have found that by doing, experimenting, and taking a chance I learn best. When I can tinker, I will learn.
As most of you may be aware, I have been participating in one of the best courses that Plymouth State University, or any other university, could offer on networked learning. The course, taught by Jeff Utecht and Kim Tufts, was Teaching and Learning in the Networked Classroom. What a great opportunity it was to push you to the next level of comfort in the digital age! Just imagine a course that actually encourages (OK, requires) the use of the tools rather than preaching the implications the tools have upon your teaching. My learning will never be the same.
What an invaluable, yes-invaluable, tool the Google Reader is! I am capable of designing my own learning opportunities and they are delivered daily to my Reader. Can you imagine to potentials this offers our students? As connectors, we become the portal to learning opportunities that permit our students to extend beyond the offered studies of our courses.
I am looking forward to the use of Skype in my class as a tool to connect my students to other students around the world. Now I have the tools and connections to make this happen. First hand knowledge and group work on real-life issues is just what our students need.
Although this has been my first experience with blogging, it certainly will not be my last. I just hope that others keep in touch, and I actually get feed back. That feedback, that audience component is vital to me. It is certainly something that I want to work more with.
This course work was accessed through a wiki page. I learned about Wikis over the summer and was excited about using it with my students; however, I ran into age issues. Nonetheless, with parental permission, I was able to establish a wiki page for the Winter Wellness activity that I offered. I had mixed success with the work here, as it was a creative writing focus and many of my students were simply unwilling to engage their efforts in writing. I hope to begin a wiki for my students in the spring as part of their English course work.
Podcasts. Another first for me. I made one. I would have to say it wasn't "me" or perhaps a better way to say that is it wasn't my voice, my personality. This takes time and confidence--two things I need to work on. However, my weakness didn't stop me from requiring my students to try it as well. We have just begun the recordings on the limited number of computers and mics we have. Next comes the editing and possible posting. (I really need to work on encouraging our tech guy to establish teacher maintained websites from our weak, weak school page.) I have a long way to go, but I have found some schools around the world that do a great job posting their students' podcasts. (I have even dabbled in digital video projects in reading class. Some of my students have posted theirs on YouTube. Pretty impressive work.)
Although I have learned a great deal through my work during this semester, I think that my recommendation for other teachers that may or may not be taking this course is to jump in feet first and make technology happen within your classroom. With all the free Web2.0 tools, you have all that you need. The other teachers will see the value of technology in the classroom; the students will enjoy it and many will flourish. Some of your hardest to reach students may become your student connectors to technology. It has happened in my classroom, and it will happen in yours.
We talk about change; we confirm the need for change in our politics, our church, our schools. But what do we each, each, do to initiate that change, to work on solutions, to foster a better culture? What do we do? George Siemens writes about the need for change in his work Knowing Knowledge. He states:
"We are in the early stages of dramatic change—change that will shake the spaces and structures of our society. Knowledge, the building block of tomorrow, is riding a tumultuous sea of change."
"Left in the wake of cataclysmic change are the knowledge creation and holding structures of the past. The ideologies and philosophies of reality and knowing—battle spaces of thought and theory for the last several millennia—have fallen as guides. Libraries, schools, businesses—engines of productivity and society—are stretching under the heavy burden of change."
"I don’t know about you…but I see the pieces slowly moving together. It’s like looking at a map for the first time after learning about the Continental Drift Theory…and for the first time you step back and you look…..and you see it….you see how all of the pieces could fit together…and you have a moment…a moment where you go WHOA!"
"I think it is becoming increasingly clear that our current system of education is going to go away. There are simply too many societal pressures and alternative paradigms for it to continue to exist in its current form. The only question, then, is: How long are we going to thrash around before we die?"
"I have been exploring the possibility of starting a new charter school in Minnesota that is partially virtual but will exist as digitally connected classrooms within the walls of our existing public schools."
But where do we go from there. We can't sit around and wait for something. We need to be advocates; we need to foster an environment to make that SHIFT happen. Individuals can't do it alone... it takes a communities effort. Carl Anderson sees that, and he is drawing upon his local community's involvement. (There is a video in his entry worth viewing.) I hope he continues to realize that support is available in this vast space I'm using now.
George Siemens believes that to "'Know where' and 'know who' are more important today than knowing what and how. An information rich world requires the ability to first determine what is important, and then how to stay connected and informed as information changes." What valuable insight. This insight is no different than that of Bill Strickland's as he progressively made one connection after another to foster his dream of providing an educational outlet for the poor of his Pittsburgh community. The Manchester Craftsmen's Guild was his dream, and through his ability to make personal connections with people his dream was made a success. He knows, as spoken by Siemens, that " knowledge is not intended to fill minds. It is intended to open them." And that is just what Strickland has done for the poor neglected by our traditional systems of education. "You've got to look like the solution; not the problem," Strickland argues in the following video.
Strickland is right "There is nothing wrong with the kids." It's the system.
"We need to step outside of the destination view of learning and embrace the journey view" (Siemens), just as Strickland has done, before we are able to help foster that successful Shift in our educational institutions. We need to think big and act big and then, maybe then, we'll see what this change in education looks like.
"We advance humanity’s potential through knowledge. We advance humanity through emotion." -George Siemens
“You must be prepared to act on your dreams just in case they do come true.” -Bill Strickland
Do we have to be a George Siemens or a Bill Strickland to make things happen? No, but we do need to work together, support one another, and foster change when we know that it is the right road to take.
"We advance humanity’s potential through knowledge. We advance humanity through emotion." -George Siemens