Of Bugs and Bloggers

Let me just get something off my chest - I miss this place so much it hurts.

62Garden - the community garden we built with our neighbors

Now that I've taken care of that, we can get on with the business of blogging. When I think of "Edubloggers" I think first of Ms Q and her daily account of what her school was serving on a given day, how it tasted, and how it made her feel. I was following her before going back to school was on my radar (well, it was always kind of on my radar). I found her through a rabbit hole I fell into while searching for urban farming/gardening sites when we were first building the 62nd & Dorchester Community Garden (do you see how I dragged the garden back into the conversation? Clever.). Beyond hers, I hadn't paid much attention to blogs dealing with classroom education (educating me on how to eat, cook, and style my hair were more my thing). 

Today I discovered a very cool site that I believe was developed by a graduate from the program I am currently in here at the U of M. It's called Making Curriculum Pop and I just spent an undisclosed amount of time goofing around joining discussion groups, reading about some new young adult lit coming out, and how to talk about Identity using pop culture (the group name is Identity: Gender, Race, Sexuality & Other Tricky Stuff). The folks contributing to this site are really interesting an seem to represent a wide range of teacher experience and content area. 

Some of the posts on MCP are snippets of lesson plans, some are questions about how to incorporate ideas presented on this site. For example, there is a teacher using a graphic adaptation of the US Constitution to help teach his Civics class. He give a review of the book and links other, related, resources in his post that include a synopsis, teacher guide, and links to the authors.  Also found in the Civics section, a new teacher posted a request for ideas from more experienced teachers. One response included a lot of information about using the movie version of V for Vendetta in their class and how to set up the framework for using the movie (vs the tex, which he could not afford to get for his class). 

I find this site really exciting because it is not just one teacher's opinion or experience but hundreds of teachers being represented in one place, framing their thoughts, questions, and ideas in the realm of pop culture. I'm afraid to go back on to the site because I fear I will fall into another rabbit hole - it's just that interesting.

Unrelated - this happened last week:

Ms. B and Ms. S (of Captain of My Ship blog fame) hanging out on someone's lawn.

MEdia!

I think Monday's class solidified my idea of relying on the media specialist to help me find technology to engage my students. Our visitor, Ms. Fribley, reminded me that school librarians themselves are resources and don't just help you find resources. Since I was pretty uninterested in the gaming aspect of the day's assignment, I focused on her presentation and really enjoyed hearing about all of the resources available to teachers. I was impressed that there are so many lesson plans available online, I really had no idea that there was so much content-sharing among educators. 

I love her idea of using something like the Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus site to teach our students about credible sources on the internet. Not only is the site hilarious, the way she described how some of her students were skeptical but believed in the animal's existence at the same time. I think this sort of instruction needs to be the baseline for students with access to technology - they need to be able to tell quickly if their citation is credible and they need to tell quickly if they are being duped. It seems logical to introduce this information to students starting in middle school, before they develop bad internet/research habits.

All in all I think it was a good class and I am glad that some of my colleagues were able to geek out over their video games. Maybe we can talk about knitting or community gardens so I can geek out next in class. Oh wait, does that really fit with technology in the classroom? Here I go again, wondering how to define technology...

More weeding

My most positive video game memories live at Laura F's house in the late 80s/early 90s and revolve primarily around her family's Nintendo. California Games' hacky sack was my jam.

I would lose to her little brothers all day long and not care because it was so much more fun than the computer games we grew up with on our Atari (400 or 800, I can't recall). I tried for years to get my parents to get me a Nintendo for Christmas but it never really worked out for me and eventually I lost interest. I also eventually acquired a hacky sack and realized that I was terrible and lost interest in that as well.

I went back to books and hanging out with my friends sans video games and never really looked back until my husband bought a Wii for our first anniversary. We tend to play it more in the winter when we start to feel cabin fever-ish and I never really think of it unless I am feeling really lazy about finding "something to do." So, in Ms. B's world, video games are the go-to when there is nothing else to do. Mr. B doesn't feel quite the same and would prefer we had a wii tourney going indefinitely.

 The idea of incorporating video games into my classroom feels like foreign ground and I really don't know yet how I might approach it. I pulled up few online games from the BBC website and was excited to see and play "Church Interiors" match up game. Having devoured Ken Follet's Pillar of the Earth annually for at least 5 years in a row, I consider myself an expert (not a fact) on medieval cathedral design and construction. T

his game was going to be my new jam. It was not. It was over in a minute and was really boring. 

So I moved on to another game about archaeology and was also bored by that. Sigh.

Knowing that "kids these days" have instant access to games on their devices, I feel like I should get familiar with these but I just don't have the desire. Will this hold me back from connecting? I ask that question knowing the answer for myself. It might keep me from connecting but I'm okay with that; I think it's most important to acknowledge their deep interest in a game and move on. If I came across a computer/video game that I really, truly thought could enhance the classroom experience I would check it out, but I'm not holding my breath for that one. 

My plan? Bake cookies for the media specialist. Regularly.

[insert clever garden-related title here]

As I mentioned in my previous post, I did some research and pulled together a presentation/one-sheet on Dropbox; my classmates also presented on web-based software (Pinterest and XMarks). We talked about the practical implications of creating Pinterest boards for lesson plans, games, etc that could enhance the classroom experience - mostly the elementary classroom since there isn't much secondary content on the site. At the end of the discussion I think we came to an agreement (consensus?) that, as much as we love Pinterest for storing recipes, haircuts and styling tips, and knitting projects, it is not a product we would use with our students. Prior to starting grad school I was a pretty active "pinner" and early adopter of Pinterest and, in spite of this, I was a pretty vocal opponent of using it collaboratively with students.  First of all, I think there is a lot of Pinterest content that can be quite damaging to a young woman's body image (photos of normal looking women with the caption “how to lose weight in 90 days,” for one). Secondly, I don't think anyone came up with ideas for “collections” that you would actually want to curate with your pre/teen students. I certainly can't think of one.

We also discussed Xmarks, an online tool used to organize and save your bookmarked pages, regardless of your browser. It seemed interesting but since it had to be downloaded to try out, we just looked it over and read a few reviews. It seemed interesting until I learned later that day that it is only free for a trial period. Free is key!

The BEST presentation was the unplanned presentation of Prezi, a really cool (free) presentation tool. Think Power Point and then make it cool. You only design one sheet but then you map it out so the screen zooms in on different areas, back and forth and up and down. It's really cool and I recommend giving it a look. The funny thing is that the only reason we talked about Prezi is because my classmate used it for her Pinterest presentation and I couldn't stop asking questions. Sorry, Sarah!

I'm looking forward to reading the blog posts from my classmates who were not in my group, I'm sure we missed some useful online tools that were presented by other folks in the room. 

I think you can look forward to reading about BYOD next week (even the White House is talking about it!)

Rainy Season

I was tasked with explaining Dropbox.com and creating a corresponding flier to share with a 25 minute presentation (I'm not sure I can talk about myself for 25 minutes let alone Dropbox.com). I have had a Dropbox account for a number of years and feel comfortable saying that it is the "civilian" version of M+Box (the U of MI version of Dropbox, how's that for clarity) - for this reason the assignment became difficult because I had to explain how to use it without sounding trite. I found myself creating a flier that gives reasons WHY to use it and a few tips on HOW to use it and what you will see. {{Spoiler Alert}} My small-group presentation will focus on creating a free account and sharing files/folders with others once you have your account set up. 

One of the things I really love about Dropbox's online presence is their artwork. Once I figured out how to do a screenshot on a Mac (it saves to your desktop, BTW) I was saving just about every cute and clever image I could find. Since I couldn't fit them all on to my flier I thought I would post a couple favorites here.

"Hey, Pal!"

It's worth nothing that Open Office isn't the best platform for creating fliers, even when you're in a bind. I hate to say this, but Microsoft Word would have saved me some extreme frustration (maybe even some tears) because I know how to make text boxes in Word and it is NOT INTUITIVE in Open Office. This project made me really miss working with design software like Quark because of the control you have over the project. All that being said, I think I will find myself at the campus computer store purchasing MS Office sometime this week. 

And with that, I leave you with another favorite image from the Dropbox site.

Watering

An open-letter to one Mr. John Dewey.

We talked about you in class yesterday and I’d like to get to know you better. Perhaps we can gchat? Friend eachother on Facebook? Do you Tweet? If so, I will dig out my Twitter password. Oh, you’d rather meet in person? I might have time on Sunday morning to grab a coffee, is that what you were thinking?

Can you even imagine what that experience would be like? I have SO. MANY. QUESTIONS. He would sneak out the bathroom window.

Post-class reflections:

Scribbles from class 7/8/2013

I couldn't stop thinking about this idea that the overuse of technology could be deadening students’ sense of discovery by making information SO ACCESSIBLE. My friends started this joke where they asked, “if only there were a WAY we could find out the answer” as they lit up their smartphones and found the answer. I have since made it part of my quip collection and even used it in class last week (looking back, how obnoxious of me!). In class we shared stories of being annoyed by smartphones surfacing to answer questions at dinner and the idea that quick access to information can sometimes be a buzzkill. How many conversations have ended abruptly when the internet answers the question for you? Think back to the pre-smartphone era or perhaps a little earlier. Do you remember saying, “I’m going to look that up when I get home,” and fall down some rabbit hole of discovery? I do. I also remember conversations meandering down a leisurely path that sometimes even included the discovery of a new opinion (or the affirmation of an old opinion), the discovery of a friend’s passion, or nothing more than a nice, simple conversation.

In the context of my future classroom I am curious about the effect that overuse of technology (or screen time) could have on the experiential component of discovery. 

That feeling you get when you are able to see the connection between two ideas that seem worlds apart - I want my students to know that and I want it to be through their own discovery, not via the press of a button. What about the experiential aspect of learning that were important to Dewey (and Steiner and Montessori to name a few). Learning by DOING. This is perhaps the antithesis of Googling something, no? High schoolers at the Chicago Waldorf School rebuilt a motorcycle as part of a physics block. They learned the practical application of specific knowledge by DOING, not by reading and regurgitating but by watching, thinking, touching, and DOING.

How will I promote the freedom of discovery and the liberation of experience while guiding these kids to LEARN how to LEARN both with and without technology in my classroom? Where is that balance and will I ever find it?

Weeding

TIL that John Dewey is still an inspiration to educators and educational technologists. Rich & Reeves (2006) paint a picture of Dewey's contribution to the field in a (academic) love letter published in Educational Technology magazine. In this article they cite a number of his pedagogical creeds (written in 1897) and give him praise for setting the foundation for education technology that is still strong over 115 years later. When Dewey wrote his Pedagogical Creed he stated, "With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions." Dewey was right to say that he had no idea what the learning environment would look like twenty years down the road, and certainly not a hundred years later. No one during that era could imagine a definition of technology that includes smartphones and tablet computers.

More importantly, Rich & Reeves showcase Dewey's complete commitment to the teacher's role in the classroom, as opposed to some who believed that the teacher could be replaced by radio and, later, televisions (Cuban 1886). Rich & Reeves are able to go even further and explain that Dewey "extols the idea that it is necessary for the more knowledgeable members of society to interact with students in order to most effectively prepare them." For me, this statement goes beyond the classroom and the teacher. It acknowledges all people who can influence and teach students because of their expertise and knowledge on a certain subject. I find this liberating because I know that my curiosity leads me to "teachers" that I find in my wider community, not people who have gone through a teacher training program. I hope to share this idea of teacher with my students so they may see themselves as a teacher someday, regardless of the profession they choose. 

"I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform." John Dewey

p.s. Did anyone else reading John Dewey's Pedagogical Creed think of the This I Believe series on NPR? I couldn't stop thinking about it!

p.p.s. I have a lot of questions for Mr. Dewey about this document but the most intriguing right now is, how many statements did he weed out and when did he come to this final version?

Seedling

Each day of orientation has started with the buzz of an alarm clock, a peek at the time, and a decision. The results may have been wet hair for the better part of a day or time for coffee and a bagel from the corner coffee shop. Regardless, I made the decision to come back. 

Our 'Teaching with Technology' course began yesterday and I will admit, I was a little nervous that I wouldn't have all of the technology necessary to meet the class requirements. Ironically, the technology first used was a pencil and paper. In yesterday's post you see a picture of a faint drawing of my "ideal" classroom. But is it? The more I reflect upon the assignment to create my ideal classroom, the more I wonder what happened to my sense of imagination and creativity. One of my classmates drew a room with barn doors and a glass ceiling, another's included huge garage doors, both with the intention to bring the outdoors into the classroom. I barely gave my room windows, they were an afterthought. When I think about my ideal classroom and the kind of space that would benefit my students, is this the best I can do? 

Certainly not. 

Is it possible to make this my ideal classroom?

What is my ideal?

My ideal classroom?