To Blog or Not to Blog...That is the Question

     I've been on a personal learning journey the last several months that's led to understanding the world outside my four classroom walls a little bit better.  I've been doing much behind the "screen" type of things besides blogging.  I'm not very good at putting my blog on the top of the very busy end of the school year priority list.
     For my technology leadership class we were asked to look at a blog of a fellow Hoosier educator, Amy Heavin, to look for the audience, purpose, and realistic frequency of blogging. She has a narrative style that combines her family life with her job as an elementary principal so I think the target audience is mostly fellow educators with the purpose of taking time to look at everyday occurrences you see in kids, your students and/or your own, and reflect to enjoy the learning and growth that goes on in even the simplest of tasks.  I liked the positive tone to the posts when many are negative about education in general these days, especially things you see reported on the news.  Amy typically blogs about once a month, but has had 3 posts in May.
    For me I really enjoy reading other elementary teachers' blogs that I usually link up through Pinterest for classroom lesson ideas and activities.  I often wonder how in the world they have time to create such cuteness because I hardly have enough time to get things ready for the next day at school, run here, there, and everywhere for my daughter's after school activities, and then somehow get enough rest to do it all again the next day!  And one big thing I question is...why in the world would anyone want to read my thoughts???
     I see myself more realistically doing writing practice with my students through something like Kidblog than doing a blog myself.  I like the idea of sharing little snippets with fellow educators in weekly educational leadership Twitter chats, but see the possibly of sharing a classroom blog with other 2nd grade classes and my students' parents with my class as the authors probably once a month.

Connected Learning & Teaching...Where to Start?

I've been dabbling in several areas since my last blog post...but not in the blogging realm...LOL.  I've been exploring Twitter Chats in Education for expanding my own connected learning experience and Skype in the Classroom to involve my 2nd graders in this new journey.  Wow...what a couple of months this has been!

I have found education related Twitter chats to be personally and professionally uplifting and encouraging.  I look forward to connecting with other educators from around the globe to discuss current best practices and knowing that in the midst of government put downs of teachers there is a place where we can "meet" to help each other.  Here is a calendar of the education chats I found to be very helpful.  A big shout out to my favorites...#Nt2t, #teacherfriends, #satchat, #mnlead, and #christianeducators!  In one of the #teacherfriends chats, we were discussing science based inquiry lessons and I ended up learning of a free professional development opportunity through Shedd Aquarium.  It's helping to refresh best practices in science inquiry and showing me how learners (old and young) can use a self-paced module for earning badges upon completion of a lesson.  I would love to learn how to develop a student-centered primary lesson module like the one I'm completing for my students!  

Skype in the Classroom helped connect my students to learning I never imagined.  I started exploring the possibilities during one of my snow days and you could say the rest is history.  A big promotion for World Read Aloud Day through Skype allowed me to set up connections with 3 authors and 1 illustrator during March and April.  Through the authors' and illustrator's personal websites my students explored their books, blogs, and everything in between.  They formulated questions to ask during the actual Skype and the sharing of ideas was A-MAZ-ING!  My students now ask me everyday if we are going to Skype and consider themselves local celebrities due to the media coverage of one of the sessions in our local newspaper.  Reflecting on these activities through the SAMR model, poses some questions as to the where to put this...substitution, augmentation, modification, and/or redefinition???  At the very least it's substitution because students can listen to a live guest speaker during a school convocation, it just happens that Skype allows this virtually from anywhere in the world.  Since the students were applying what they learned from the websites and analyzing it to formulate questions to ask during the Skype and then the discussion that happened during it moves it into augmentation and modification.  Some of the guests asked for suggestions for ideas for their next books so that qualifies as modification due to the collaborative nature of the discussion.  Each of the guests said to keep in contact with them and if the students had anymore questions or ideas for us to e-mail.  There is usually not a day goes by without some connection to the Skypes. so to say that the students were thoroughly engaged is an understatement.    

Now on to the next adventure....sharing these tools (and others) with elementary teachers in my district at our 1st ever EdCamp...Spice It Up Diner here I come!

February Reflection - TLC Cohort 5

Sir Ken Robinson's Changing Education Paradigms 

I have been questioning the way the current education system is set up for a long time.  The constant pressures of a teacher's best efforts never being up to par, the students not performing on the state's high-stakes testing measures, and the government trying to meddle in it all...the term education reform has been the "buzz" since I started teaching but each year it comes to the forefront a little more.  Why do we teach students the way it's always been done?  It can't be that all teachers can't meet the standards and are ineffective?  Why do we have to conform to this mentality that schools are only as great as the students who can perform well on standardized testing?

As the video starts,  Sir Ken Robinson explains how the current system is based on the 19th century principles of how education's ideas were conceived during the enlightenment and the the industrial age and trying to teach kids in ways of the past won't work.  I completely agree with the point made we are alienating millions of kids from school because the way schools are set up haven't really changed.  How in the world are we supposed to be preparing students for the 21st century if our educational setup is handcuffed in the past?

The video progresses and Sir Ken questions the validity of the modern epidemic of ADD, which I hadn't thought about until he makes mentions of the correlation of the increase of ADHD with the rise of standardardized testing.  Our education model is, "Let's take same aged children, put them into groups/classes, and make them learn the same thing at the same time."  It sounds as if we are making education robotic.  Taking into consideration that students are learning in the "most intensely simulating" environment in recent history and education is still setup with a "factory mentality" it's of little surprise kids can't stay focused!  We have to be able to meet the individual where they are at and that doesn't come in a neat package of same age, same time, we all learn the same thing.  

Opening up the dialogue between all stakeholders-students, parents, teachers, administration, community members, elected government officials-is a must! The learning environment is changing and in order for our children to have a chance to fit into the future the discussions of the following topics are a good place to start: rethinking of an old education system, making sure creativity and collaboration are priorities, having the technology students need with the teachers who know how to use it, and having student standards introduced at appropriate times.