Holding a Mirror to Our Professional Practice

Keynote #5 “Holding a Mirror to Our Professional Practice” by Derek Wenmoth

Derek very cleverly used the analogy of a mirror reflection as to how we as educators need to reflect upon our practices used in the classroom and the value of reflecting being so important. All too often we are too busy with lesson plans, grades, testing, etc. to take time to look at our own teaching practice. Getting feedback from others, forum sharing, diarying the learning journey through blogging, collaborating, subscribing and reading professional journals are all means to gain new insight.

Time seems to be the biggest factor as to why so many professionals let this go by the wayside. As shown at the end of this podcast, through a grant, selected teachers were awarded a one year sabbatical to share ideas with colleges and coworkers. Their comments on the benefits of this endeavor stated that this opportunity gave them time to think about their practices and share with others, collaborate with others, personal growth in relating with others and see what other schools are doing. All of these things seem to revolve around taking time (which is so precious) to do this for yourself and your teaching practices.

The presenter also posed the question, “ What have you been doing to reflect on your current practices in the classroom?” Some of the suggestions given were opportunities that are readily available and doable without seeming to be overwhelming time consumers. These included: soliciting mentors that provide you with feedback, subscribe to professional reading journals (online or print), join a community of practice either online or face to face, subscribe to RSS feed, present at workshops. If a person would start with a few of these ideas and be diligent in staying with it the benefits would be great and the time factor less of an issue.

Almost all teachers realize the importance of self reflection and self study. The challenge is taking the time and finding the right tools that best suit the individual.Holding a Mirror

Step by Step Building a Web 2.0 Classroom

Step by Step Building a Web 2.0 Classroom by Drew Murphy

This was an excellent presentation and very informative. Mr. Murphy’s information was fun and informational. The combination of video, pictures, word processing and web shots instructed and demonstrated the 2.0 tools for the classroom.

By dividing the presentation in to the 10 basic and essential skills needed, I can picture how this information could be broken down and used in staff development mini sessions. Mr. Murphy began the presentation with explaining why or what benefits Web 2.0 can offer teachers. All of his reasons would pique most teacher’s interest. However, saving teachers time would be at the top of this list. This in itself would interest most although I do think a lot would still be skeptical of some of the technology. Several other points made were: these tools enhance class interaction, provide effective and relevant lesson options and can make teaching more rewarding. Another point that he did make was that it would take additional teacher time to initially learn how to incorporate these so they are implemented in meaningful ways.

One of the points and suggestions made in this podcast was not assume your learners know how to do some basic steps when using the web tools. Show learners how to use shortcuts when using simple commands like cut and pasting. Another point made is how abstract these functions and skills may appear to concrete learners. Tabbing and windowing were examples used for this.

Many great ideas for professional development were discussed and ideas to use in my own lessons will be shared with colleges and student learners alike. Web 2.0 in the classroom definitely brings teaching and learning to a new level.

Sustained Blogging in the Classroom

The podcast “Sustained Blogging in the Classroom” by Jeff Utecht gives one much food for thought. Being only in the infant stage of creating a classroom and professional blog for myself, it is beneficial to hear suggestions from others that have been blogging for a period of time.

The point in this podcast that I felt will be the most important for me is to prioritize blogging with the students and make it part of the daily schedule. If I am serious about having the students learn to blog and use this as part of their learning, I will need to make blogging not an add-on but part of the curriculum.

As suggested in the podcast, part of my time with classes with each class is spent with readalouds, checking out books and silent reading. I could make a change in the schedule and rather than time for silent reading each period, have students read and comment on the blogs. I also liked the suggestion of the students making their own personal learning network and each student could elect what they will be reading during this time. This network could be selected including suggestions by students.

Step to prepare the students for blogging was also suggested. The sequence suggested starting out by only having the students read other students blogs and comments first. The next step would be to have the students give comments to other student blogs. And then if comfortable, create their own. Many great tips were shared for sustaining blogging with students. Taking blogs from journals to conversations and sharing will be one big step forward.

The Collaborative ABC Movie Project

“The Collaborative ABC Movie Project: Using Technology to tell Stories” by Bonnie and Kevin Hodgson

Kevin and Bonnie have quite a story to tell. Their collective project brought together people from all over the world with the same interests. In putting together an ABC movie with each person producing a “page” for their part of the book they have brought together people and stories within stories. In addition to this they have created for this conference a web page with a multitude of information on how this was created and reflections from many of the participants.

Now, how do I take from this and apply it to my own student lessons? The idea of an ABC book is not new, but a digital book is. An idea for me that has developed because of this podcast is to have the students create an ABC book using this same concept only scaled down considerably. As they did with this project, letters would be assigned randomly to students and they would then be responsible to think of a word or words that are associated with their letter. At first rather than giving them choices I would start with short (15 sec) video about their letters. Suggestions would be to video themselves, pictures, claymations or anything that would highlight their particular letter. I might have the 5^th grade students make a video of how that letter applies to 1^th grade and then share this with 1^st grade.

With each of the webcasts viewed there is an overriding theme of collaboration, community, and interaction with others. You don’t need to know the people to collaborate with them as pointed out in this workshop. Getting involved in a networked community that shares the same interests and desires as you do is also an overriding theme for Web 2.0. I appreciate the willingness of others to share their ideas and knowledge.

Cell Phones as a Learning Tool

Wow! I didn’t realize a cell phone could do so many things until listening to Liz Kolb’s web cast about Cell Phones being used as learning tools. Not only did I not think of the many uses described here for the classroom but did not realize the vast amount of connections with the internet.

I will continue to learn more about cell phones and their resources. But I am not sold just yet on the idea of using them in an elementary classroom. First of all I don’t think many of our students have access to their own cell phone or even their parents for any length o time. In just the past few years we have been noticing that more of our population has internet access from their home. This has been changing. However, I still don’t believe the number of students at our school that have this available would warrant integration of this into the curriculum.

I think Liz is a very forward thinking person and eventually the cell phone will become a knowledge gathering tool in addition to a means of communication. Use of cell phones will create very enthusiastic learners. But until the cost of the phone, service and internet connection drop it is still a resource that many (especially elementary age students) do not have.

Personally I would like to try several of the resources on the web discussed. I found the audio recording and podcasting very interesting. This appears to be a very seamless way to create podcasts using software such as Gabcast, Gcast, Hipcast and Evoca. Once again, many of these tool are free on the web. Two other software programs that looked intriguing were PrivatePhone and Jangl for teachers who don’t want to give parents their private phone numbers. This is a convenience because it can be accessed by cell or land line and responded to by phone or email.

Some of the uses for in the classroom I feel are a little “out of the box” for most just yet. Rather than using cell phone to complete classroom projects, I would agree they will be used in the near future for things such as research and reference tools. Yahoo, Wikiipeida and Flickr are a few of the engines that are promoting this.

Nice work by Liz Kolb. She is very educated of cell phone and their capabilities. She is a forward thinker and an accomplished teacher of her topic.

Building a Yardstick for PD Success

Building a Yardstick for PD Success: Establishing Key Performance Indicators for Web 2.0 Personal Optimized Learning Environments by Sharon Peters and Vince Janson

Personal Development a lot of times gets pushed to the wayside with all of our busy schedules. Students, classes, lesson plans, classroom management along with keeping up with the curriculum all seem to take precedence over our own professional development. A common excuse used is that we don’t have time. In the long run as pointed out in this webcast, PD is getting more easily accessible, it’s free and can be worked on when it is convenient to an individual’s timetable.

Being the only media specialist in our building, I have often felt that staff development material has been less relevant for my situation and geared more toward classroom teaching. This webcast was very straight forward indicating that today’s environment for professional development is slowly changing for the better. Three points that they bring forth really make a lot of sense for me.

First they talked about the emphasis for the online professional development focuses on the task and the individual teacher. It gets to the heart of what that particular teacher needs. Second, friends are the facilitators for the learning. Skills are being taught by friends or people one already knows and trusts with similar topic interests. And lastly the feeling of the environment is changing by allowing the teachers to experiment with these new skills in a comfortable environment. With Web 2.0 PD is not designed for educators, innovative educators are harnessing these tools for themselves. It will be challenging to make the change in the “looks” of the PD environment from the present to one that is in the hands of the learners and gives empowerment to the learners. This gives the listeners much to think about for their own future professional development.

Acceptable Use and the Web 2.0

Joseph Bires presented a great podcast on the challenges and problems with using Web 2.0 in education and acceptable use. This podcast was encouraging yet straightforward about obstacles that need to be considered when using Web 2.0 with student learners. Several points made that stand out in this presentation are the acceptable use policy revision and keeping parents informed.

By this time all schools have acceptable use policies in place. Most were blanket documents put together years ago. The idea of creating acceptable use policies for different grade levels is something that should be considered by school officials. Refining this policy and giving different levels of limitation appropriate for age groups for use with blogs, wikis, podcasts seems to be a logical result of Web 2.0. A statement that stands out for me regarding the suggested change in the AUP was that teachers drive innovation and the policies evolve to govern innovations. Great thought!

The other point made here was that blogging, wikis and podcasts are public and for everyone to see. Some parents might be concerned with their students name or picture on the internet or the student’s connection with a certain school being on the internet. Some might not like the idea of student work posted on the web. Learning is messy and messy is hard to deal with when it becomes public. The presenter talked about spelling and grammar in particular. Keeping parents aware of what is going on and assuring them of the safe environment and expectations created can be opportunities for good quality communication.

Creating PLEs with TLC

Creating PLEs with TLC by Brandi Caldwell

This is podcast in simple terms discusses Professional Learning Environments and their importance to educators. Professional Learning Environments are time conscience, long lasting and collaborative. Regardless of where you live, your learning environment has no boundaries. Obstacles that are usually talked about are: time away from classroom, lack of substitute teachers, unwilling collogues and to be cut off from others in your grade level/or department. These obstacles disappear when talking online communities.

I liked the way the presentation was organized from simple to more difficult. Even those most afraid of technology will feel better about networking if given the example of email. A basic online community that most teachers are already using that is provided by the schools is email. Most are comfortable using email and have set up user groups, use attachments with communication, subscribe to listserves. Two other fundamental tools to use that start that base for online community are social bookmarking and online office suite. An introduction to Del.iou.us and GoogleDocs with transferable concepts and skills from other programs already used by most would be nonthreatening. Most educators already have a base for their PLE and don’t realize it.

This summer my goal is to go back to school with a blog that I will visit almost as often as my email. I would like to take a step up from email and book marking and develop something that would help me to be a better leader in technology within my school. I would like to be comfortable enough using this blog and take back what I know and have used to promote this within my professional learning team and more.

Brandi’s presentation was great for beginning audiences and also a great refresher for those still dragging their feet.

Online Professional Development

The webcast, Online Professional Development by Jeff Utecht, was very informative regarding professional learning networks. Jeff is very knowledgeable in professional networking and gave us a glimpse of the wiki he has developed for himself for his own online professional network.

The thought that stays with me after viewing this is to no longer use the internet as a source of reference information but to also use it for personal development. The look of professional development for teachers is changing from classroom course work to individuals creating online communities from all over the world to discuss, share ideas and also learn about issues or subject matter. Other factors that are influencing the evolution for online education are that most of the tools are free, there are more and more of them and past information is archived.

The explanation about the difference between a community and network was helpful for me. I was thinking of these terms to be interchangeable. However, looking at the network as being something that is created specifically by and for an individual and a community the whole is a good way to look at how these terms can be defined regarding online professional development. It can also be correlated similar to the community around you and the network of friend you choose to communicate with. You can learn from both but your trust factor and interests might be greater with your network.

Another thought that is also staying with me after this webcast is the fact that students are already creating their own online networks with tools such as Facebook. Using the background information they already have and helping them to see the advantages of also developing learning networks will help them in using this valuable tool for their own life long learning.

Classroom 2.0 or You Live Where?

Classroom 2.0 or You Live Where?
Strand – Classroom 2.0
Geography is becoming irrelevant. It is becoming more and more important that classrooms change or keep up with how and what students are learning outside the four walls of the school building. But, are there resources/curriculum for teachers to use to accomplish this? If so, where are they? The time to write or create lessons or curriculum becomes a factor. The time it takes to create lessons to incorporate new technologies into classroom that technology has become old and new tools are out there.

Teachers have a duel role of always learning new tools and then teaching /sharing these with their students.

Networking via the internet has become a major source of communication in our present and future society especially with our students. Our roles as teachers is to communicate what tools are available and the productive ways to use them in our education. Students also need guidance on how to evaluate, collaborate and to be critical thinkers with the information they have access to.

By taking this class I’m exploring and practicing different ways of networking. This in turn will lend itself to ways which can be experimented with and practiced with students. I will try to educate myself on resources available, how to use them personally and how to incorporate them into the classroom and building that I work at as the building technology coordinator. I also expect to learn ways that others are incorporating these tools in their classrooms. Sharing with others via these tools will be a step forward for me.