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Course 1 Ends... soon.

Course 1 ends soon. I just finished my project page!

I have five more blog posts that are still in the drafting stages, so look out for those in the near future. I have tons of interesting things to say!

I've had some time to reflect on my thinking throughout this first course and my final project. I've definitely learned a ton of new tools (Netvibes, Blogger, the list goes on....) and I've started to incorporate some of them into my life. I'm not efficient at using any of them yet, and I still have to remind myself to use my RSS reader. Old habits are hard to break. I used to refer to my New York Times homepage for a lot of things. I still enjoy browsing through it during my spare time. But I've found some blogs I really enjoy (like Michael Smith's Principal Page) and I think that finding more blogs I enjoy will help me refer to my RSS reader more often.

Blogging still doesn't come easy to me, and I usually write, read, rewrite and reread many times before I force myself to publish my post. Reading about other people who blog, and talking to people who blog has made me think that maybe blogging shouldn't be such a painful process. But I can't help it! Putting something out there for the entire world to read and access makes me want to publish something meaningful, something that reflects my thought process. I don't want to sound stupid. This blog can be interpreted as a virtual representation of who I am and that's something that matters to me. Maybe I just need to get over it.

Speaking of blogging, another thing I hope to do more often is to read the blogs of other people in my course. I've read some, but not many recently. You'll notice that my past three blogs have zero comments, as of April 18. If noone comments, I don't know if anyone is reading my posts! And that makes me a little sad. Even though I'm writing this blog for my course, I take time to write and hope that someone other than Jeff is reading them. So if you're reading this, please leave a comment!! I will try my best to do my part and read other people's blogs, and comment on theirs too.

In terms of my final project, I still struggle with ways to incorporate technology into my Kindergarten classroom. Our Storybird was risk-taking on my part. I had to sit with kids individually, and it took too much time. I feel that my students were not using the technology to their maximum capabilities. I know that this is not something that I'll magically find the answer to overnight. But it is something that is always on my mind and I hope to continue my learning so that I can be a better teacher.

That's all folks! End of Course 1! Woohoo :D

Kindergarten + Tech - Reading = ???

Huzzah! I am using my RSS reader!!

Michael Smith's Principals Page intrigues me because:
1) the caricature amuses me
2) his posts aren't intense; they're easy to read
3) he has a live feed on his dog Buddy's recliner.



I caught Buddy sleeping on his recliner today! YEI :D


In March he wrote a simple blog post about reading. Watching kids learn how to read is one of the most magical things in the world. I was stunned watching kids bloom as readers in my first year of teaching. It's still one of the coolest things I get to witness as a kindergarten teacher.

My question is: How do I incorporate technology into my classroom when most of my kids are still learning how to read?!

They may be able to spell something correctly and Google it ("cat" for example), but they wouldn't be able to read the results... I am tired of pretending like I effectively incorporate technology into my classroom because we use the Smartboard every day, and they play computer games during choice time.

Time for me to step up my thinking.

Hanging Out: Social Learning via Facebook.

I've had a Facebook account since I was 18. That's pretty old considering how young the kids on Facebook are nowadays...

I was reading the section on "Hanging Out" in the Living and Learning with New Media report by the MacArthur Foundation and found their report pretty amazing. They capture the youth's perspective on how they use new media. As teachers and adults, we forget how much students just learn by "hanging out", whether online or in person. It may not support the kind of learning we hope to see in our classrooms on a day to day basis, but think about all the social norms and conventions you learned from interacting with your peers as an adolescent. Those are probably life skills that you still use today. These norms and conventions are changing for our kids, due to their access to new media. How they define "friends" and the implications of their actions take on a whole new meaning when you consider the active role of social networking sites like Facebook in their daily lives.

For example: A close friend of mine and I went through a big fight about a year ago. During this incident, she proceeded to "defriend" me on Facebook. She had her reasons, but I was very offended. It felt like she was totally cutting herself off from my life. It didn't matter that we weren't on speaking terms, but as long as we were "friends" on Facebook, I could see what was going on in her life and she could see into mine, without the other knowing. When she defriended me, it suddenly denied me access to her current life, and sent an implied message that she was no longer interested in mine. I haven't refriended her since, and she hasn't requested to be mine. We have not exchanged words in a long time.

This is a different kind of stress than what you might feel when fighting with a friend in person. The most you can do to shut them off from your life is to ignore them. But chances are, you will still run into them at school, at a party, or a social gathering. If you're in the same social circle, its very difficult to cut them off from your life entirely. But defriending on Facebook allows you to do so- in cyberspace, and it still hurts.

Facebook has changed how we navigate and maintain relationships with other people. Kids use it to learn and experiment with the social rules that govern our society. Once they figure that out, Facebook becomes a tool to stay connected. And who isn't connected nowadays?

What are your thoughts on Facebook? Are you on it?

Up In The Air

A couple of weeks ago I watched Up In the Air. It resonated with me because its about a person, Ryan (George Clooney) who is totally disconnected and ungrounded. Always on the road, he feels more comfortable flying in an airplane than at "home" in Omaha, Nebraska. He makes a living by flying out to companies around the US and firing people. Ryan does the dirty work for cowardly bosses. He glamorizes a lifestyle that is free of relationships and material objects. I don't fire people for a living, but I couldn't help but draw some parallels.

In this movie, a young woman, Natalie (Anna Kendrick) joins his company and totally turns it around- using technology. She suggests that laying people off by video conferencing would be much more cost effective than flying out their employees. Ryan and his lifestyle is threatened by this change and he fights it. Things happen and Ryan ends up on the road with Natalie and she starts to realize that firing people is an art. She pilots her program by attempting to fire someone by video conference and realizes that it just doesn't work.

Why am I writing a movie review for my tech blog?

Ryan, a character who is disconnected from people, relationships, and places should thrive from firing people by video conference. No need to create a meaningful connection with people you're delivering bad news to, right? You'll probably never see them again. Why fly out to see a person face to face, when you can just fire them from your desk?

The convenience of video conferencing is undeniable. The fact that I can Skype my mom and teach her how to use her new iPod is great. International school principals can conduct interviews from the comfort of their own homes. Having a Skype guest from another part of the globe is a norm in our tech class.

But are we missing something?? Isn't there something to be said for meeting and talking to people face to face?

Sharing

Speaking of Digital Natives, a great video I found on Chris Bletcher's blog:



And even though you should be reading Jeff's Thinking Stick, I took his word and downloaded ScribeFire and used it to write my previous blog. I haven't figured it out completely, but its pretty nifty!

Now, I contemplate... to Chrome or not to Chrome, that is the question. Thoughts?

Digital Native?

We had a Skype conference with Chris Betcher on Saturday, and he introduced us to a bunch of new tech tools. I jumped on the Google Wonder Wheel. I did a quick search for "digital natives" (because that's what Jeff calls me) and I found a spider leg that said "born digital". I clicked on it because its something I've been thinking about for awhile. The first link that came up after all this was Born Digital- Understanding the first generation of digital natives. Hm... interesting.

I am a digital native; I remember having a computer in my first grade classroom, and had my first hotmail account in middle school. I can't imagine a time when people went through college without a laptop.

My search also turned up an article by Marc Pensky, "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants". He claims that "today's students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors" because of the multitude of technology they've grown up with. Doesn't it seem incredibly daunting that teachers much older than their students are expected to teach these kids how to think and process information?? Pensky puts it best when he refers to our knowledge and experience with technology as a language:

"our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an out-dated language (that of a pre-digital age) are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language". 

So what can we do about it?

I listened to a podcast interview of John Palfrey, the author of Born Digital, and when asked of what he hopes his five year-old son will learn about the internet at school, he starts off by saying that, "I hope that his teachers are sensitive to the fact that he comes at the world and thinks about information and relationships quite differently than they do."

I believe this is the first step to reaching out to our student population. Teachers need to accept and be comfortable with the fact that our students don't think like they do. We need to open up and let kids teach us how they use technology, and integrate their skills with our knowledge. Without this change in mentality, I imagine Digital Immigrants will be stuck in a continuous cycle of frustration!

What is my role in this picture? As a Digital Native and teacher, it is my goal to bridge the gap between Natives and Immigrants.

Keep an open mind.