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.
