I have the attention span of a gnat until a thing grabs me and pulls me along with the gravitational force of the sun. Things capture my attention and I follow them like Alice through the rabbit hole until I realize I am lost in time and must escape before I become a permanent part of the matrix. On one such excursion I was following the growth of online freely available courses. I attended a webinar on the subject, browsed and clicked my way though the MIT open courseware offerings and something struck me. No, I wasn’t hit up the backside of the head by my dear neglected husband! It occurred to me that lectures have a shelf life as do videos or moments captured in any venue. Food for the brain may grow stale over time and we may become ill if we imbibe that rancid milk and honey. So what is the solution? I propose expiration dates for lectures. Just as with food or aspirin we all know the expiration day is vigilantly in favor of the short term usage but may still be good for a length of time thereafter. So too, information.
My other fleeting thought was just the pie-in-the-sky hope for the future when science(or religion establishes that our very existence is just like a nonlinear graphic organizer and that time is ever-present and not on a linear continuum. Non-the-less, I would like to suggest that social networking span the afterlife. It’s silly, really, to keep out our friends and family members simply because they no longer reside in physical form on the planet. Now that would truly make technology ubiquitous, although contact lists might become a bit unwieldy. Writing prompt: What are the pros and cons of expanding social networking to people in other dimensions?
What do you think about on rainy days?
This is just a portion of the twists and turns in my thought process. (Let’s not call it procrastination) It all started with a search to establish the best possible was to introduce division to 3rd graders. Still looking!
We are geared to teaching what we can measure, and we can’t measure the joy of discovery. These words are paraphrased from an interview of K.C. Cole on her book entitled, Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up. Frank Oppenheimer helped develop the atomic bomb. He was a pacifist and felt betrayed when it was later dropped on civilians. He felt he had a responsibility to show how to make sense of the world through discovery and went on to develop the Exploratoriumin San Fransisco. He hoped to rekindle peoples’ childhood search for enlightenment, a quest for discovery and a confidence in problem-solving things (typically brushed off) too difficult to understand.
How can teachers provide students with the opportunities to make their own discoveries and follow their innate curiosity? Do we provide too much guidance in guided learning? Is it too contrived? Can we replicate an Exploratorium feel in the classroom making discovery an individual and not a group think kind of activity? Science is sight-seeing! That was Frank’s message as a teacher.
Teachers walk into a museum expecting a guided tour. It is an efficient way to cover a large area in a reasonable amount of time while absorbing research based information. Is that what we want for our students? It this the learning process? I wonder. When I consider adults seeking professional development there are several different approaches people take in pursuit of learning. Without reaching for any statistical documentation I think it’s safe to say that most teachers expect to have the learning delivered to them in the ‘guided-tour-style’ of learning as seen in museums. This is a relatively passive activity. They expect a modicum of exploration (a chance to practice and converse, socializing) and then they expect to produce a lesson based on the content.
What do children expect from a classroom? I think perhaps they expect exactly the same thing. They expect an organized, guided introduction to knowledge, a time to socialize and play with concepts and then to apply the knowledge to their seatwork in hopes of attaining good grades. Hmmm, I’m very interested in ways to give students more of a responsibility for their own learning. If I expect them to rely on me for what they know, or even on their parents then they will not have the skills to make new discoveries. What are the ways teachers turn on and turn over the learning to the students? How do teachers create the sense that anything is possible? How do we celebrate a students joy in even the smallest discoveries?
Can learning develop naturally in a contrived classroom setting? How can a classroom become an Exploratorium? Is there a way to blend more opportunities for authentic discoveries to develop among students? My favorite teacher was Miss Papora, my 7th grade science teacher. When I think about why I enjoyed her class so much, it was the excitement of making discoveries. I had the sense that every time I entered her classroom I would be given the task of making a discovery, with a lab partner and I couldn’t wait. We were on a journey of discovery.
This is exactly the feeling I get when I go onto the internet in search of new ideas, materials, and tools for teaching and learning. People ask me why am I so motivated to learn all these things on my own. Why when I don’t get any PLUs (credits) do I spend time discovering new ways of doing things? The answer is simple. I don’t want to be hindered by anyone else in my personal discovery process. I don’t want to wait for a certain date and time or for someone to tell me what to do. I do want to be given clues, encouragement and take the time to share what I’ve learned with others who are following their own paths on my own time. I love the process of discovery and it frustrates me that I still haven’t found a way to truly incorporate this process into my students’ learning. Discovery is messy, a bit chaotic and unpredictable. It can be time consuming. My mission is to add the element of discovery into each new day for my students. I am on an endless quest for new ideas. Fortunately, the world is full of them!
Increase the range of your Personal learning Network by finding diverse groups on the net. Chris Shambles has redesigned his site which is full of resources and ways to make new connections. He is also using Screenr to screen capture, how to sessions which will help you find what you’re looking for more efficiently. Watch and learn. Chris Shambles talks about global learning links
This is week 3 of school and I don’t think I can hold my breath any longer. I am bursting with enthusiasm for my new 3rd grade students. True the work load is something of a challenge but they make it all worthwhile.
I am valiantly trying to establish a basis for which to launch our penpal projects. Today was the perfect segue because a cooworker who taught as a volunteer in Kenya this summer visited our classroom sharing both photos and stories based on her first hand experiences. My students couldn’t wait to write.
I am still managing the school website in addition to my teaching duties and although it’s not what I would like it to be, considering my limited time, I like the direction our new admin is headed with the use of technology to communicate with parents. More about this topic and how we are saving paper, spending less and getting parent engagement.
What is a Wordle, you ask? It’s a word cloud generator developed by Jonatahn Feinberg capable of captivating the imagination of millions. Jonathan has provided a wonderful playground for people interested in exploring imagery using any available text either copied or original. Typed or pasted words become beautifully colored landscapes in a matter of moments.
Guess the Wordle
So what does this have to do with Guess the Wordle? The link between the two comes in the form of a creative individual who confounds the old axiom, “actions speak louder than words” by acting with words in the form of Guess the Wordle. Jen enlisted my help and together we have generated a boat load of curriculum linked content and turned them into problem solving sponges for the classroom! School is not in session at the moment, here in the USA but teachers have already started to get in on the fun of solving these Wordle riddles. There are three levels of difficulty and Jen posts then 3 times a week starting with Level 1 on Monday, Level 2 on Wednesday followed by the ultra challenging Level 3 on Friday. A Google Form is embedded below the image and you may enter your guess. Answers are posted the following day except in the case of Friday’s challenge for which you have a little more time to solve the problem. Answers are posted Monday mornings along with the new Monday Guess the Wordle.
How does this link to the classroom? As it turns out, the problem solving skills used to classify, group and align commonalities between the words in each image may help to develop or sharpen critical thinking skills in users. They also enjoy creating their own. Here’s a tip: I once used wordle to show students which words were most prominent in their persuasive essays. It was revealing.
I could go on and on but why not see for yourself. I will tell you this, Monday is easy (for adults), Tuesday is tricky but Friday, may ruin your weekend! LOL, Hopefully not, but prepare to be challenged!
It’s a contest, it’s promotional, but it’s also a great way to learn about Google Apps which I think everyone should be using. You may also win a year in the sky with Virgin! I just don’t see any down side. Participate, learn and have fun. Even if you don’t win a prize you have earned your space in the cloud and that’s worth holding onto.
This clipmark comes from a promotional piece encouraging the world to participate in The Day in the Cloud Challenge. It’s Google Apps meets Virgin Air, no purchase necessary!
When you check your email through an online program like Gmail, you’re using the cloud. When a company uses web-hosted software to track its customers and sales, that’s the cloud. And when you send friends a link to vacation photos stored in an online album, your pics are living, yep, in the cloud.
No more installing software and saving files on your computer. You can just log into your Google Account and access your info from anywhere. Every computer, in a sense, becomes your computer. And everyone has their own space in the cloud.
So maybe it’s a little like Jack in the Beanstalk after all.
What can I say? I have taken a bite out of the apple and I love the flavor. My recent acquisition through competition of a MacBook and iTouch have me riveted to the keyboard or touch screen. I found Tony’s uStream post a valuable starting point in my quest to find potential education-related apps. The Free apps I am most likely to show other people who have never seen an itouch are:
touch physics lite
ScreenClean
iLoveBirdsLE
Stars
Your Rights
WordFreak
ComicTouch Lite
Airport Lite
Google Earth
Flashlight
Whiteboard
Fring
I haven’t really purchased any apps except for Classics because I wanted to see how the iTouch would work as mini kindle. I was impressed! I did join an iTouch ning, Here is the NECC link to another iTouch ning for educators. It’s summer time and I have lots to do outside of the computer! What’s your favorite app and how do you think it could be used in the educational arena?
52 countries have registered to participate in this first-ever free university program. What’s the catch? I guess that depends on the number of tests students are required to take. Charges will be collected for registration but not exceeding $50 per student. test processing fees range from $10-$100. I wonder how they are overcoming language issues for both content and testing. Are there any live interactions? I think educators will be able to learn much from this ambitious project since it will clearly have to overcome many communication barriers to guarantee quality and expedite content delivery. Keep an eye on this one.
UN announces launch of world’s first tuition-free, online university
19 May 2009 – A leading arm of the United Nations working to spread the benefits of information technology today announced the launch of the first ever tuition-free online university.
We live in a world with rapidly eroding barriers. The barriers separating the adult knowledge base form a child’s knowledge base are surprisingly thin. When the internet first posed a threat to my own children in the form of obscene material, I was all for censorship and lock down systems to help them avoid being subjected to reprehensible material available in Pandora’s box, the world wide web.
Knowledge is power and the more kids have access to detailed information, the more likely they are to share their knowledge with peers. I don’t think sheltering is such a wise idea anymore. Perhaps opening up a little would lead to actively teaching web decorum, responsible digital citizenship and more importantly how to determine fact from fiction. We need to give the students coping skills and ways to handle objectionable material in the primary years. But we as teachers must be equally prepared to handle objectionable material. Consider this scenario.
Are you prepared for this? A parent or students brings in their own camera/phone to use in school to help photograph the class party. It seems like a good idea until you place the SD card into the computer, and along with pictures of the class party, you see previously photographed pictures that don’t belong in school. What would you do? Are teachers prepared to handle this all-to-realistic scenario? Don’t kid yourself. Not only can it happen accidentally, it may actually happen intentionally.
We can’t expect to completely sanitize the schools simulating an ICU-for-learning when the kids do not have the same kinds of life support systems available in their own homes. How in the world can we prepare them for the real world if we present an unrealistic version of reality in school? Students at home use youtube, google and many have digital cameras, phones and email accounts but they are completely restricted in school. I know we have to provide a safe environment but the real world is anything but safe when it comes to media. Exposure to adult content acts like strong UV rays penetrating a child’s skin and laying the groundwork for future melanomas or in this case, what? Future abnormalities? Do we offer some kind of media sunscreen to mitigate the potential long term damage or am I overreacting?
The internet is only one of the many potentially hazardous mediums and like Oleander, it is both captivating and to the uninformed, may also become deadly. Children listen intently when they are offered knowledge they consider to have street value. In other words, if it’s worth sharing with their friends then they will hang on every word. Consequently they hang onto some of the juicier bits of conversations in TV shows, youtube clips and they look for words of wisdom from kids a year or two ahead of themselves in school. This is all part of the school sub culture of kid exchange. It’s a big reason some parents insist on homeschooling. Parents cannot control what comes out of another child’s mouth, they can only control their home environments.
Adult programming is often aimed at young children. I wonder, don’t these people have children? What are they thinking? I don’t get it. Cartoons about families who have a babies and a dogs are kid magnets. Consequently, the quirky humor of complex pop culture parodies are becomming the background knowledge our students are bringing with them into the classrooms. Does it have any redeeming value? I just see kids using it as a model to get away with offending friends or hurting feelings in the guise of humor. Is it OK if you just mean to be funny? Sounds like blaming the victim if you ask me.
Yikes! What in the world can we do? How can we reconcile the benefits and responsibilities of protecting our children, as compared to the equally important role of preparing them to become well informed responsible citizens and future leaders? in my own mind. I know that allowing children to participate in online media creation is one way to get them to realize they have equal power to create, challenge and persuade others. Perhaps this approach will make students better consumers of media affording them with a modicum of protection from fictitious an faulty messages along the way.
Food for the brain may grow stale over time and we may become ill if we imbibe that rancid milk and honey. So what is the solution? I propose expiration dates for lectures. Just as with food or aspirin we all know the expiration day is vigilantly in favor of the short term usage but may still be good for a length of time thereafter. So too, information. 
It’s a contest, it’s promotional, but it’s also a great way to learn about Google Apps which I think everyone should be using. You may also win a year in the sky with Virgin! I just don’t see any down side. Participate, learn and have fun. Even if you don’t win a prize you have earned your space in the cloud and that’s worth holding onto.
ripplingpond
