Final Project- Reflecting on Our Learning

During the course of our last seven class days, we have engaged in a deep study of a piece of literature. Our format for study was quite different than our usual approach, in which we read a selection together, discuss it, and gather our understanding of it using some written discussion questions or study guides. Instead, we integrated technology into our class and used it to create and enhance our understanding of the reading.

So, I need you to think about this question: What was it like to learn this way? Did it work for you? Did you prefer the old way of doing things?

For homework tonight, compose a response to this post and post it as a comment.
Include the following:

• About eight well-written sentences
• Your overall opinion about what it was like to learn in this way
• And, since every approach to learning has its pros and cons, include 2-3 positives about the way we approached “Self-Reliance” and 2-3 negatives.
• Include your name at the end of the comment.

Reflecting on our learning in this way provides me with very useful feedback as we continue forward in the course. Thank you for your hard work!

Emerson Pre-Reading Statement #3

It does not and should not matter what others think of you. As long as you are doing what you believe in, that’s all that matters.

Emerson Pre-Reading Statement #2

No matter what other people say, it is always best to trust yourself. Following your own instincts will result in better things than if you go along with what other people recommend for you.

Emerson Pre-Reading Statement #1

In today’s society, most people try to be like everyone else. There is very little evidence of people embracing their individuality.

Final Project: Introduction to Blogging Assignment

Welcome back to our class blog! As we dive into our in-depth study of “Self-Reliance,” we will begin exploring what we already believe about some of the important issues in the reading by using this blog.

Today during class, you will begin by looking over by three blog posts, each containing a potentially controversial statement to which you may agree or disagree. The issues contained in the statements are all dealt with by Emerson in the essay you will soon be reading. After reading the three statements carefully, you will choose one and respond to it using the comment feature of the blog.

Your comment should be substantial and should have real thought behind it! Include the following:

• Approximately eight sentences or more
• A statement of whether you agree or disagree with the statement and why
• A personal connection or specific example related to the statement
• Your first name at the end of your comment

Please see the example comment that is already on the blog post if you need an idea of what a quality response looks like.

This first comment should be done by the end of today’s class.

Then, tonight for homework, you must post another comment, but this time in response to what one of your classmates posted.

• This post should be about six to eight sentences.
• It should begin with something like, “In response to _______’s comment,” or something similar so we know who you are replying to.
• Explain whether you agree or disagree with your classmate’s standpoint and why.
• Make another personal connection or share a specific example to support your point of view.
• Include your first name at the end of the post.

Finally, tonight, please read through the rest of the posts by your classmates and make a list of three interesting points, examples, connections, etc. that stand out to you on the blog. You may want to jot down questions that come to mind as you are reading the posts, or perhaps specific excerpts from the blog that struck you. We will use our lists from the blogs to begin class discussion tomorrow.

Remember to do your best work!

Shifting Mindsets

When I entered into this course, most of my teaching approaches fit solidly into the first mindset category, at least with regard to the use of technology. I certainly could be considered a digital native, as I’ve been using computers comfortably both at home and in school since first grade, and I’ve been using many of the Web 2.0 tools, like blogging, for my personal use for the last couple years. However, I hadn’t really stretched my imagination about how technology could deepen the learning in my classroom. For me, integrating technology into the classroom meant doing the same types of activities that I already do, just doing them on the computers. As I discussed before, blogging could mean putting my regular journal prompts online, giving the students practice with typing and formatting if nothing else. To put it simply, for me, technology in the classroom could mean students doing things more quickly and efficiently or in a more fun and engaging way, but it wouldn’t change the very essence of the learning. Furthermore, last year was my first year of teaching, so I was really just trying to make it through the day and didn’t think as much as I would have liked about taking my courses into the twenty-first century.

Fortunately, this year I have some more teaching experience under my belt, so I can afford to start examining the way I do things. This course put a whole array of tools at my fingertips as well as some good reading (particularly the Lankshear), giving me tons to think about. So, my mindset has done some major shifting…specifically regarding the following:

1. We don’t know what the 21st century is going to bring for society, and the best we can do for our kids is to give them some big skills (critical thinking, synthesizing information, innovation and creativity, collaboration) that they can use to tackle unforeseen situations.

2. The new face of technology means collaboration and collective knowledge. As things change, no longer will just a select few have the authority to make their voice heard. The internet is a great equalizer. To keep up, classrooms have to mimic this environment.

3. Having our kids use computers isn’t enough. The tools need to deepen, enhance, or change the way kids are learning for the better, or we’re not fully utilizing them.

4. Even with all of this change and emphasis on constructivism and student autonomy through technology, we can’t underestimate the importance of direct instruction, modeling, and clear expectations when kids are using the tools.

Of course, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Just look at that list of Web 2.0 tools. I keep reminding myself that this is not an all or nothing deal. Change has to come gradually. It’s my goal to come away from this course with one realistic, well-thought out project ready for implementation this coming year that effectively combines the English language arts and 21st century skills, and fully utilizes a web tool. So far, blogging seems to hold the most potential for me (especially because of the rich discussions that it can encourage), but we still have half of the class to go!

Wikis-Real Potential for This School Year

I was pleased that today we really nailed down the distinction between blogs and wikis.

1. In blogs, the emphasis is on the conversation. Writing consists mainly of personal reflection and the creation of personal connections, and readers’ comments either affirm or dissent from the bloggers’ particular points of view.
2. On a wiki, groups of users collaborate in an effort to combine their shared knowledge into a coherent, useful resource. In this form, writing is more informational in nature and possibly strives to remain free of bias.

As I discussed in previous posts, I see myself using blogs mainly to generate a discussion about the big ideas that occur in the literature we read (themes/issues like nonconformity, relationships, racism, freedom, etc.). On the contrary, wikis seem to lend themselves more to material of a more concrete nature. One possibility I’ve been thinking over is a student-generated wiki that covers all of the grammar units we work on in class. Small groups could be responsible for creating single pages devoted to a single grammatical concept, such as one part of speech. Each small group would then also be responsible for double-checking and editing another group’s wiki page. Rubrics laying out some general guidelines for the pages could guide their work, and I could track groups’ contributions using the wiki archives. To encourage work above and beyond the call of duty, I could provide a few bonus points to individual students making accurate corrections on their own time to another group’s page. The end result would be a great study resource for at home, and a grammar site would be particularly useful since my students often struggle with the concepts. Furthermore, students would be more likely to use the resource, because of their personal stake in the project.

One potential constraint of wikis I found in my reading today relates to students building up resentment for not receiving credit for their individual contributions. This is an issue that tends to arise in many cooperative learning projects, and could be especially prevalent given the nature of a wiki. Such a problem could be prevented by giving out individual grades, but sometimes this conflicts with the ‘learning to work together’ skills that can be gained by collaborating with other students.

On a side note, I found the social bookmarking most useful for myself–both professionally and personally. I could see tools like delicious very useful when searching for particular lesson ideas or interesting new class activities. Also, I have been known to waste away hours surfing the internet for random things that interest me personally, and I think using these sites might bring a lot of new, exciting things on the web to my attention.

Thoughts about Blogging

As a result of all of our reading and the exploring we did today, I have found that my ideas about blogging in the classroom have really progressed. In one of my first posts for the course, I discussed my desire to use blogging with my students as an online journal. This idea was using the tools do to the same old, traditional sorts of assignments.

Now I’ve realized that blogging is way more about social interaction and responding to others’ points of views than it is about the entries themselves. In other words, the comments are just as important as the original posts. Putting a regular journal assignment online would mean computer use for the students but little other additional or enhanced learning. I wanted to use the tools merely for the sake of using them. But by requiring my students to respond to their classmates’ writing in the form of a comment, students learn many of those crucial 21st century skills. They practice the skills of thinking critically about other peoples’ perspectives and clearly stating their own points of view. (Though they do practice these same sorts of skills in a traditional class discussion, blogging and commenting force students to articulate their responses to their classmates’ thinking much more clearly and precisely.)

I also think blogging is advantageous for the authentic audience it provides. Writing becomes much more engaging and personally significant when one knows he or she could be writing for the whole world to see. Suddenly, a typical prompt that students might take a few minutes to respond to becomes much more of a priority when students know they are writing for their peers. However, a potential disadvantage is that students may censor themselves more than when they know they are only ‘confiding’ in me in their writing; they may be afraid to be as open when they know a larger audience is reading. This is why moderation is key; blogging becomes another great option in a whole repertoire of teaching strategies.

Finally, from looking through the sample classroom blogs today, I found a way that blogging could help me meet one of our school-wide goals: increased communication with parents. I would love to set up a personal teacher blog in which my daily posts could consist of brief summaries of the class activities, reminders for upcoming due dates, links to other resources, etc. This could serve as a valuable resource for parents and students, and both could post feedback or questions in the form of a comment. Staying on track with such an initiative would also force me to stay organized.

What is the 21st Century Classroom?

From everything I’ve been learning and thinking about, the twenty first century classroom blends teaching and learning styles that emphasize student autonomy, collaboration, and participation. Lessons emphasize transferable skills as opposed to rote memorization, and assessment is based upon authentic situations that mirror the problems of the real world. Through all of this, technology is key to facilitating the learning in a way that goes beyond merely using the tools to do the same old types of assignments.

Though learning about the theory is interesting, it’s most important for me to figure out how I can apply some of this new information to my own teaching practice. So far, two ideas for utilizing technology in new ways have really appealed to me:

1. Using blogging to do creative fiction: I always like to do some creative writing with my students as enrichment though it’s not formally in the curriculum. For this sort of assignment, I could assign a very rough prompt (possibly related to issues in the literature we are dealing with) and have students write a fictional piece on their personal blog. I could then try to incorporate a participatory aspect by utilizing the comment function. Specifically, students could be placed in groups of four or so and would be responsible for reading over each other’s stories and writing substantial comments. Comments would include a critique of the writing as well as questions about the story. The blogger would then be responsible for answering the questions in character. It could almost be thought of as a writing workshop online.

2. Digital storytelling: Instead of assigning a more traditional project, it would be great to incorporate a digital storytelling project (combination of student-written text with accompanying image, audio, and video files, possibly enhanced by the student’s own voice). This would be a great alternative to the traditional group presentation and would allow for student groups to become experts on a particular period in American literary history or a similar topic. The project would give students practice in the important skill of making sense of all the information on the internet and turning it into a personalized, coherent final product aimed at a specific audience (other students doing research),

Those are just some ideas…they obviously need a lot of fine tuning.

Finally, in thinking about the 21st century classroom I have also been giving some thought to the idea of internet safety in schools, specifically with regard to firewalls. In the Lankshear book, the authors gently criticize trying to impose the same sort of barriers upon the internet that we do in physical space. But what is a school’s alternative to this?

Chapter 2 Reflections

After reading Chapter 2 of the Lankshear book, I am starting to see how many of the ideas we have been working with and thinking about are connected.

The concept of the Web 2.0 emphasizes the good of the group over the authority of the individual. This is why sites like Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, and Flickr are the future of the Internet; the more users share, participate, and collaborate, the better the site becomes. This is in sharp contrast to the old world of published expertise, in which the general population looked to a single authority for the best information.

As we try to integrate the changing world into our classrooms, we must integrate these new ideas of sharing and distributed learning into the way we do things at school. This is especially true since our goal is to prepare students for new roles in the 21st century; the most effective and forward-thinking classrooms need to mirror the approach of Web 2.0. This is why strategies like cooperative learning continue to be at the forefront of the education world. For example, our class wikipage is most significant not because of our individual contribution, but for how those individual contributions combine to become a really useful resource.

This really indicates a potential revolution for American education. As it said in the book, in our capitalist society, scarcity equals value. The same is true in the classroom. The whole system of testing and assessment is designed for an elite few to shine. Look at class ranking systems and SAT scores: we highlight the achievements of the expert students and pretty much ignore the collective intelligence of the group. Only a scarce few can succeed.

However, as this whole change comes around and as schools gradually adopt the new ways and perceive collective intelligence as something of value, things could really change in our society. After all, it is typically the mission of our schools to prepare our kids for responsible citizenship, and given the state of the world, the definition of responsible citizenship has to change. Perhaps by transforming the classroom into an environment that mirrors the climate of Web 2.0, we can gradually prepare our students to change the world into a place that also operates based on sharing and the free exchange of ideas. It sounds a bit idealistic, but by seriously thinking about these ideas, we as educators can help to bring about social justice.