Reflection

Taking this technology course has been amazing. I always thought I was okay with technology and teaching it. It wasn't until now that I realized how much I'd been missing. Being forced to dive right in has helped develop my skills in ways simply reading a book would never have done. Also, the mere fact that I was forced to dive in showed me the best way in which to teach technology to my students. Although I realize I will need to model every new step, I also now realize that the teaching and learning process is best cemented by doing...not simply watching. I saw this first hand with the few lessons I was able to do with my students this year before summer break. They were so excited to learn new technology and could barely wait to dig right in. They had a hard time focusing on the entire modeling lesson because in their heads they had already jumped right into the "doing" part. Through blogging and creating wikis with my class this year I was clearly able to see how the shift is taking place from teacher centered to learner-centered. We all were learning from each other. I'm sure this is how technology will be. While I can introduce it to my students, I know that they will soon be teaching me new aspects of each tool as they are more fearless in their quest to "know it all" and "try it all." It's an exciting time to be sure!

I know my learning will not stop with just this class. There are many more classes to come. I think the best way to expand my knowledge and learning is to keep myself on this path of moving forward and bringing as many students along with me as possible. I will have to shift my thinking and my planning of many lessons in order to incorporate these tools. I am sure there will be a lot of learning what works and what does not work. Many things I will need to learn and finesse will be the management of it all and making sure that the technology is a means to improve the lesson, not just add technology for technology's sake.

The long term goals I set will be two fold. First, I will do what I can with what I have. I will not focus on what I don't have, but instead work with what is available to me now and find ways to make this work with my students. In two years I want my students to know what it is like to blog and to create wikis. I will replace written reports (some, not all) with wikis in which groups collaborate together. I feel it will probably take two years to get this process to run smoothly, with lots of trial and error, I'm sure. Another goal would be to deal with the institutional and systemic obstacles. Fortunately, there are four of us taking this program together and we are now all at the same school. I think that will truly increase our ability to overcome some institutional barriers simply because there is power in numbers. We four are spread out amongst grade levels and will be able to help bring others into the fold of technology. We are also blessed with a principal who seems willing and excited to make the shift along with us. In two years I would hope that we would have most grade levels on board with the use of technology to increase our lessons and bring our school and our students into the skills necessary for the 21st century.
Tonya

Podcast of Technology Through the Ages

I recently created a podcast using my own children. I have a child in elementary school, middle school and high school. It was interesting to see the differences in technology use. Interestingly enough, the high schooler was probably the one who uses technology the least actually at school, yet she is the one who uses it the most for school assignments at home. In fact, if the high school server is down it creates panic because assignments cannot be seen. In many ways they are oblivious as to how much their life is ruled by technology because it is simply what they've always known. Enjoy the podcast and try to ignore the middle part of my oldest laughing so hard she could not talk. Thank you dead air! Technology or not, teenage girls will never change.

http://tborns.podomatic.com/entry/2009-06-03T19_54_45-07_00

21st Century Skills and Today's Students

After spending time on the website The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org) my eyes were opened to many facts I hadn't considered before. The group's mission statement is to "Serve as a catalyst to position 21st century skills at the center of US K-12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders." It seems like such a simple goal, but the more I thought about it, the more amazing that mission would be if it came to fruition. The simple fact is that many times these entities are at odds with each other, not working cooperatively toward a single goal. It's true that no one would ever say they were against education, but the reality is that education is often fighting with the government or accusing businesses as seeing things as too black and white. The fact that these industries have all banded together for a common cause, our future leaders, is very encouraging, to say the least.

I was pleasantly surprised at the span of the companies. You had Microsoft and Apple, but also Sesame Street, Lego and the NEA all supporting the mission. The vision is to have students succeed in learning the core curriculum, but also learning life and career skills, information and media skills and innovation at the same time. It seems overwhelming at first, but when you look at the rainbow system they've created for student outcomes it not only seems feasible, but incredibly necessary.

Our students are growing up in a time very different than our own. They automatically pull up wikihow when they need to know how to do something. They have their own blogs, their own social networks and they can type with their thumbs faster than they can speak. The world is very literally at their fingertips. As a contemporary educator it is my job to embrace this new world of theirs and try to guide them into using their skills for good. I feel that is my biggest challenge. Not only will I have to keep up with technology in order to lead them, but I also need to harness their newfound skills and teach them to use them in a positive way. In many ways the new world of technolgy is scary as there is so much room for negative consequences; therefore, teaching students collaboration and social responsiblity will become just as important as the actual technology skills themselves.

This website encourages discussion, even has Cyber Summits linking business leaders with educators and the community. Discussion leads to understanding. It also leads to answers and new ideas. This can only be a good thing.
Tonya

Blogging Third Graders

The past couple weeks I have introduced blogging to my third graders. I thought maybe they would like it, but I never imagined the response I received. They absolutely love it and cannot get enough of it. I have a class website that I have used all year long. There is an application on there for blogging. I turned it off at the beginning of the year because, frankly, I knew nothing about it. After learning about blogging recently, it got the wheels spinning in my head. How could I do this with third graders? The first thing we did was have a lesson on internet safety. They were told they could not use full names under any circumstances and all comments had to be screened through me and any inappropriate comments would not be published. I don't know if you'd call what we've done so far "blogging" on their part. Basically, I blog and they post comments. For instance, the first blog was about a book we are reading in class. I asked for predictions, favorite parts or unanswered questions. They went to town. By the time I got home from school that day I already had 25 comments to approve. They make intelligent comments and have mini discussions. Since then I have posted two more blogs. One is about their favorite book and the other is a Social Studies blog, asking about their favorite part of our community. Because they are third graders I'm not sure exactly how far to take this. I involve them in the process of posting the blog, but as of yet have not had any of them actually post a blog. I did tell them they could submit blogs that I would post for them. I've also thought about trying to get an author of one of the books we're reading to blog with us, or having one of our city councilmen to participate also. Does anyone have any ideas on how to involve them more in the process? I want to keep it safe. Some of them have asked for a blog space where they could post anything they wanted but I'm not sure I want to go there. One thing I have learned though, is they are so open and excited about anything new in technology. Their excitement makes me want to search even harder for ways to use blogging and technology to reach them even more.