I entered this song in “Quickpress” a few days ago and thought it would show up here. I don’t know where it went, but will try again. This is an original song. Kevin Honeycutt ( KevinH ) on Plurk , has given me permission to post it. It is sung from a student’s perspective. They are frustrated that their teachers do not support their learning using technology. If the upload doesn’t work, I’ll share it at a meeting. It’s on my phone. I Need My Teachers To Learn
Ok, I just completed my Learning/Technology Fair Project. I chose to begin a classroom blog as another way to share information about what we are doing in first grade with the rest of the world. I decided to record my students reading their constellation stories with my Flip video recorder. It is very easy to use. I then uploaded the videos with the Flip software. In order to load the videos to teachertube, I had to first save them to a file on my desktop. If I uploaded to youtube, I could have done it directly. So, teachertube had one extra step which was fine once I figured it out. Then I loaded the videos from teachertube to my blog by the html. It was a little time consuming, but now that I know how to do it it should be much faster next time. It was definitely a great learning experience and feel that I am just touching the surface of how a blog can become an integral part of classroom communication and learning tool. If you would like to see my blog it is wcmlyons.edublogs.org
Quite a few of the tech integration specialists in my personal learning network are being told their positions are either being eliminated or reduced due to budget cuts. I’m wondering why – does this mean technology integration is considered a luxury if it is one of the first things put on the chopping block? I think not.
We have been told that our job is to prepare students for the 21st century. Technology is and will continue to be in their personal and professional lives. As educators, it is our responsibility to be sure students are prepared to effectively use that technology and it is the integration specialists who are helping us accomplish this goal. They are staying current with the latest technology, providing necessary training and supporting the classroom teacher with the implementation of technology to enhance the students’ learning. The learning curve for teachers is greatly reduced with this support – I recently read an article that said without professional development, it takes about seven years to implement a new technology and with support, about two and a half years. Without the integration specialists, technology integration will surely slow or take a few steps backwards.
It is my hope that administrators throughout the country will rethink their decisions to reduce or eliminate tech integration specialists. Our students need their expertise if they are going to be “tech literate” upon graduation.
We met on Friday to record our podcast and decided to just share our feelings about our topic rather than have a planned script. We discussed how students have changed related to the technology they use in their social and educational life. The podcast probably isn’t our best work as far as content, but we now have an understanding how to produce a podcast. We didn’t do any editing of the recording in Audacity – that will be another task to be learned at a later date. On the recommendation of a friend on Plurk, Gcast was used for our podcast. (One feature of Gcast is that you can record your podcast using your phone!) Keeping our fingers crossed that this works.
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This is my first “true” blog entry! I thought that I had begun weeks ago, but was merely commenting about other’ posts. I now understand how frustrated students become when everyone else “gets it” and they are missing a critical element. I have always been very independent. Plurk has changed the way that I approach learning, in a way that other experiences have not.
I have only been “Plurking’ for four weeks. I have learned more about teaching , learning , and myself,from this activity than I thought possible. It’s about connectivity, the core of Williamson Connects! My interest in photography has been stimulated and encouraged. I joined Flickr and am doing the 365 photo-a-day challenge. Sharing the links from educators, photographers and scientists added to and supported the exciting additions to my expertise made possible with WilliamsonConnects! Plurk offers an opportunity to have international associations with people I never could have met, and: Surprise!, interactions with highly gifted colleagues with whom there is never time for anything other than a passing comment. Another benefit is the social interaction which adds levity and support to each day.
Plurk seemed not only foreign, but somewhat offensive to me a few weeks ago. Now, I realize that stubborn independence does not produce effective results! I wanted to blog so much today, that I finally reached out to colleagues. Response was immediate! Plurk led the way. Now I want to further explore diigo. I’ve been bookmarking for weeks, but never go there.
After reading an article from SMARTtech, our group discussed the ideas of social networking and using the Internet in the classroom. This is crucially important for preparing our students for the future. The following questions came about.
HOW CAN WE ACCOMPLISH THE FOLLOWING IN THE CLASSROOM?
It’s been almost a month since our first WC! meeting of the 2008-2009 school year. I’m excited, energized, and ready to learn with all of the new participants. At our first meeting, we discussed the article, “What a Difference a Century Makes!”, WC! expectations, staff guidelines for district-owned laptops, and Google Docs. We learned how to use Google Docs and how easily it can be used with students. It was interesting to note how many student excuses (regarding homework) we can extinguish with the use of Google Docs; no more lost disks, broken printers, stolen papers, etc.
I just returned from Skyping with Carol Fox’s 3rd grade class and another class in Tennesse (thanks to Cindy Brock!). It was such an awesome experience to see the students connect with one another over sports, days off, playground, math, spelling tests, etc.
Thanks to Cindy and Carol for help coordinating! I think we have all the kinks worked out with our Asus eeePC — it should be smooth sailing from here!
I have been spending time with Carol Fox in the Elementary School “playing” with Skype. We have successfully used two to connect with a video conference. Once we realized the potential, we posted a request on both of our twitter networks (http://www.twitter.com/jamielpeters & http://www.twitter.com/carolfox) looking for other schools to Skype with. We have had three replies! Carol will start skyping with another school in Tennessee this week!
PhotoStory 3 | WCS Technology Integration
Well, its taken me a while to get back here, but after many forgotten passwords I’ve decided to give it another go round. First, its been quite the few months of exploring, playing, and learning about web 2.0, et al, through WC!. I truly appreciate this sometimes frustrating but mostly enjoyable opportunity for not only professional developement, but also personal developement. Where I am now with web 2.0 tools is light years beyond where I might have been through casual osmosis of interesting and perhaps relevant technology. I have made a personal investment to learn through play and experimentation. Perhaps not as much as I would have liked, but certainly more than others have been able to do. My tech learning is still in its infancy.
One of the rewarding experiences has been Twitter, a micro-bloging social network site. As a Twitteratus, one of the few Twitterati in the WCSD, I follow regular updates by Will Richardson, and occasionally read his blog. I first met Will at one of our Superintendent’s days. I, like many others, enjoy his insight and provocative, relevant thinking. It was through a link on Twitter that I read his entry “21st Century Skills for Educators”, posted on March 9. Evidently, it was a pretty impassioned rant having generated over 100 comments and almost 40 other blogs about it. Here is Will’s blog: http://weblogg-ed.com/
I think we’ve heard it before, but Will articulates it so perfectly: faculty and administrators should use and model the use of Web 2.0 tools if they expect students to use them too. Fair enough. How much of a learning curve ought there be before one starts to model? Do I know enough now? Why am I fearful, or at least not confident, to engage my students? Web 2.0 could really be a transformative pedagogy. Instead of subscribing to the banking theory of education, I should just jump in and become a co-learner, and co-teacher, with my students (Freire, 1970).
How about co-learning and co-teaching with my peers while on the learning curve? Instead of just the WC! group, why not open up this blog site to the rest of the district? The last post here was three months ago. Not much use; not much to model. What if everyone in the district had a browser that opened to GoogleReader?
One of the subsequent blog entries generated from Will’s post was Britt Watwoods “Learning in a Flat World”. http://bwatwood.edublogs.org/2008/03/12/wills-hot-button/
He talks about the tension, I might call it stress, between the technology side and the people side of a journey into Web 2.0. It does take some internalization and loads of personal investment to begin using these tools when the average teacher is being pulled in multiple directions by muliple commitments and responsibilities. He suggests the need for those of us in the first Web 2.0 wave to assist our peers in visualizing the possibilities of the power embodied in these 21st century tools- co-teachers and co-learners in transformative pedagogy.
If you’re on a site, and want to subscribe to its associated RSS feed, just look for something that looks like one of the icons below!
Still confused about blogs, Google Reader, and RSS? This video should help clear up a few things!
http://youtube.com/v/0klgLsSxGsU
The blog has now been active for a couple of weeks and we have 19 posts and 28 comments! Nice work WC! people! I love to see your comments and posts!!
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