How do I begin reflecting upon everything that I’ve absorbed in the past week? Well, in my brain that is a HUGE question. I feel like a continuous stream of thought might be the best way to go about it in this blog, however that goes against so much of my Language Arts mindset that I’ll try to organize it here.
For the last four days I was at a conference in Boston, MA on Sakai. Sakai is an open source internet program that many universities and some k-12 schools (mine included-yippee) have begun including in the curriculum. While there I learned so much about what other teachers (professors, excuse me) do within their classrooms with Sakai. What really hit home was that school is no longer an 8am-3pm experience. It’s a 24 hour learning experience. It’s collaborative, it’s unique, and it’s individualized. What I picked up while there was that many of the universities have the content area subjects immersed in the tools (forums, wikis, blogs, and assignments) while the humanities are lagging behind. I was floored by this. Within my small k-12 mind and school, it seemed like the humanities were the areas that were able to easily integrate these tools. Even the author of the blog “The Fischbowl” discusses how collaborative tools are integrated into Language Arts. However he also speaks to the idea that we need to change our thinking of writing and what it means to write. We need to teach composition, verbal expression, and the manipulation of images in order to “successfully compose in the 21st century.” This means that we need to look at how we are planning lessons. Evaluate how we see ourselves as teachers, how students look toward the future, and how parents think of school.
While reading some of the questions posed for this week, one struck me hard (some might think I have a bruise, but no I’m blemish free!). The question was, “How do we prepare our students for an “unknown” world? It got me thinking about this while I read all of our articles and an answer came when I read the School 2.0 data in the map.
For the last four days I was at a conference in Boston, MA on Sakai. Sakai is an open source internet program that many universities and some k-12 schools (mine included-yippee) have begun including in the curriculum. While there I learned so much about what other teachers (professors, excuse me) do within their classrooms with Sakai. What really hit home was that school is no longer an 8am-3pm experience. It’s a 24 hour learning experience. It’s collaborative, it’s unique, and it’s individualized. What I picked up while there was that many of the universities have the content area subjects immersed in the tools (forums, wikis, blogs, and assignments) while the humanities are lagging behind. I was floored by this. Within my small k-12 mind and school, it seemed like the humanities were the areas that were able to easily integrate these tools. Even the author of the blog “The Fischbowl” discusses how collaborative tools are integrated into Language Arts. However he also speaks to the idea that we need to change our thinking of writing and what it means to write. We need to teach composition, verbal expression, and the manipulation of images in order to “successfully compose in the 21st century.” This means that we need to look at how we are planning lessons. Evaluate how we see ourselves as teachers, how students look toward the future, and how parents think of school.
While reading some of the questions posed for this week, one struck me hard (some might think I have a bruise, but no I’m blemish free!). The question was, “How do we prepare our students for an “unknown” world? It got me thinking about this while I read all of our articles and an answer came when I read the School 2.0 data in the map.
Some of these quotes helped answer my questions. The quotes are explanations of the integration of web 2.0 tools and who is interacting with them.
Teachers: “The world is your classroom-know that you don’t have to have all the answers.”
Students: “How will you change the world? Your future job may not exist yet, so the key to success is being a continuous learner.”
Parents: “You are part of the teaching team- so get involved. Home is school too, and you set the learning example.”
These quotes made me realize that we may not be able to specifically prepare them for one defined job or path, but to expose them and keep them up-to-date with the ever changing technology, keeps them in the loop with the rest of the world. This flattens the playing field to provide equivalent opportunities for all of our students.
Teachers: “The world is your classroom-know that you don’t have to have all the answers.”
Students: “How will you change the world? Your future job may not exist yet, so the key to success is being a continuous learner.”
Parents: “You are part of the teaching team- so get involved. Home is school too, and you set the learning example.”
These quotes made me realize that we may not be able to specifically prepare them for one defined job or path, but to expose them and keep them up-to-date with the ever changing technology, keeps them in the loop with the rest of the world. This flattens the playing field to provide equivalent opportunities for all of our students.
I hope the Sakai conference helped to make some connections! I am excited to hear how you will use it and expand upon what you already know. Love the quotes.. especially the Parents:"You are part of the teaching team - so get involved. Home is school too, and you set the learning example." Now, if only.. I am sure you can finish my sentence. How do we get the community and parents more involved with our 21st century learning initiatives? Jeff Utecht and Kim Cofino had a morning tea/coffee with parents to come into school and educate them about the tools their kids were learning about. Web 2.0 tools! Who do we convince that all of this Web2.0 "stuff" is important?
ReplyDeleteKim,
ReplyDeleteGREAT IDEA! I really like the coffee/tea meeting; I might do that this year. Our parents come in the day before school to meet the teachers (our fifth grade is the first year of middle school, and the parents are a little nervous) and I planned on introducing Sakai there. But having another less formal get together would be a great idea.
I think it's HUGE to impress upon the "higher ups" like the superintendant and principal, but also other teachers and parents. In a book I'm reading for another class "The World is Flat" he talks about how training is going on all over the world. In order for our students to find a place in the upcoming world, they need to be tech savvy going into the work place.
We do a parent/student/teacher breakfast once a quarter. Each quarter the theme is different. Our first quarter is a "get-to-know you" theme. We go over Moodle, give parents & students there passwords, explain how our online gradebook works, etc. Less formal and more time than the actual open-house.
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ReplyDelete*I really like what both of your schools are doing. This meeting gives a purpose to the get together. I think the ultimate downfall to open house is that there’s no purpose to the meeting. I do understand that it’s for the parents to meet the teachers and create a line of communication. However, what I actually end up doing is standing there for two hours shaking the hands of people while a line forms. To me that’s not a good use of time. The parents forget us or we forget the parents because it’s such absolute overload.
ReplyDeleteI really like your ideas and I think I’m going to bring them to my school.