The Last Word

Some random thoughts on the Future of Education:

I am only in my third year of teaching and I work in a pretty fantastic place. I have barely had the time to get used to working in a school, much less thinking about how I am going to reform education. A lot of what I think is based on my own experiences as a student.

BUT, I do have an opinion about some of our educational priorities. I am indifferent to standards-I have seen way too much focus on teaching to the (standards based) tests and I don’t like it. I don’t think that a lot of standards based teaching focuses on what is truly important for our students to learn. I would like to see a move towards a more inquiry based, self exploratory learning, with full support from teachers, tech staff, special ed, other educational support staff, and of course, librarians.

I would like to see Media Literacy as a huge component of learning. Not just a 20 minute lesson on the dangers of the Internet once a year, but the integration of media literacy into the general core curriculum. When I say “Media Literacy”, I also mean Information Literacy. It’s really the same thing: developing an awareness of your place in a society that is filled with information. How to navigate that space. How to develop your critical thinking skills to evaluate what you see. How to find quality information. How to integrate a variety of media into your school projects in a real, relevant way, and not just by using YouTube videos in PowerPoint presentations.

As a 9-12 educator, I would expect a media literate student to come in as a freshman well aware that Google is not the only way to find information. I would expect freshmen to understand that research is still a process and that it takes a lot of time to sift through the avalanche of information that is out there. As students progress through high school, my goal for them would be to leave as sophisticated seeks of information-aware of bias, of the problem with objectivity, familiarity with a variety of online resources and completely comfortable interacting both in person and on line. And, social networking can easily fit into this. Instead of filters and blocking website, we should have access-supervised access along with education on navigating the Internet. Anyway, these are my nebulous thoughts.

You should read this…

I would like to recommend a blog for those interested in technology,education, learning, and all those other good things. The blog was created by a fellow classmate of mine: Pam Olivito. Here is the link: Pam Ponderings.

Pam and I are in the same cohort at CTER, and I have had the pleasure of getting to know her and learn about her experiences as an educator. Like me, she is in a role that deals a lot with technology. She is a technology trainer, and deals a lot with librarians and teachers and the like.

I have always enjoyed hearing her thoughts in our class discussions. I am still a ‘newbie’ in the great scheme of things-I am only in my third year of teaching. Pam has many years of experience as a classroom teacher and in other roles in education, and it is heartening to know that she still loves what she does! Very often, teachers get disillusioned with teaching: the students don’t care, the schools aren’t supportive, the kids are not interested in learning,etc etc etc. I don’t get that sense from Pam. I get a sense that she is still excited about her role as an educator and the future of learning. She is willing to experiment and try new ideas. It is something that I look up to, in a way. I hope that when I become a veteran teacher, I will have the same amount of energy and enthusiasm and creativity to move forward.

I hope that she continues to update her blog, because I definitely plan on keeping up with it!

Digital Story

Here is my digital story:
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=135907

A few observations on the digital story: I used Windows Movie Maker to create the story. I used a collection of scanned photographs from my childhood and more recent digital camera photos. There was definitely a quality difference, but that may be because the old photos were scanned a while ago on a very old scanner. I think that scanner technology has greatly improved. Newer scanned photos don’t usually look so washed out. Getting the photos in the right order was fairly simple. I had fun using transitions and effects. Of course, one always wants to be sure that the effects are not overused-I did not use “Star wipe” for any transitions, although I did want to!

The main difficulty I had was getting my narration and music levels adjusted properly. I recorded my narration just fine-it even aligned properly with the photos. But, when I tried to put my soundtrack with the narration, I encountered a problem.

Although I adjusted the audio levels to keep the narration at top volume and adjusted the level of the music to be at a medium volume, the final result was that the music came in too softly at the beginning of my narration. (Note: the music was supposed to start about 8 seconds into my narration) And for some reason, my narration faded out at the end, and the volume of the music increased! I spent at least an hour trying to get it to work properly. It did not. I was annoyed and I am not sure why that happened. I thought that there was a way to adjust the audio levels manually, while looking at the “waves” on the timeline. But, all of my efforts were thwarted. It was also very confusing to try to manage the level of two different audio tracks stacked on top each other. It just looked like a mess of sound waves!

Oh well. At least my images looked nice. I will, of course, spend more time with Movie Maker, although my experience with this digital story has now led me to think that perhaps iMovie is worth trying.

Movies!

I am always trying to think of ways to reach students-currently, I maintain a blog that is linked from our library home page. I try to update it every week. I use Google Analytics to keep track of site hits, and I am pleased to say that, even though we don’t get too many comments, people do look at our pages.  Some of our recent keyword searches include: National Information Literacy Awareness Month, GBN Goes Bananas (a theme for the Homecoming football game this weekend) and Abraham Lincoln Book Awards. In the blog, I try to keep up with current trends-October is National Information Literacy Awareness month, and I also try to add a personal note about events going on throughout the school.

This is where the digital story comes in. Last spring, our library received a large flat screen TV that now hangs in the front entrance area. We were trying to think of things to display on the tv, and we came up with a few ideas:

1. promotional movies about library/school events

2. library information-hours, staff, etc.

3. information on library resources-where books are located, citing sources, chat etiquette

4. Book trailers-promotional materials for books-for example, Abe Lincoln Book Award (an award for a book voted on by students in Illinois in grades 9-12)

My challenge has been trying to figure out exactly what software I should use to create these movies. For the beginning of the year, I went with a library introduction video-I featured photos of the librarians and support staff, I displayed the library hours, and I had information on our circulation policies.

I used Window Movie Maker to create the movie, and I think it turned out well. However, I encountered a problem when trying to create a DVD that would be playable on the TV’s DVD player. I went through a lot of people and programs, and eventually had to burn the DVD in iMovie-an Apple product.

Note: Our work laptops run both Mac and Windows platforms. We can choose the one that we wish to use.

I am a Windows user. I wished to use Windows to create my movie, and I hope to use it in the future. I was annoyed that I had to switch to the Mac side of my computer to burn the DVD. I am now trying to figure out whether there is a program in Windows that will allow me to burn DVDs-for playback on a DVD player. Both Photostory and Movie Maker allow one to finalize movies in a variety of formats-but not for DVD!

Apparently, you need another DVD burning program to complete the final step.

I spoke to our technology administrator about programs that would allow me to burn DVDs. He mentioned CD Burner XP-which is on our laptops, on the Windows side. Now, I did try experimenting with that program when I made my movie, but it didn’t work properly. So now I am unsure as to what I should do.

Should I just give up and switch to iMovie to make DVDs?

Or should I try to push for better DVD burning software on the Windows side?

Oh, the trials of a dual platform computer!

Twitter Workshop

As I mentioned earlier, I attended a Twitter/Tumblr workshop on September 23rd at my local library system headquarters. The focus of the workshop was mainly on Twitter. The speaker, Linda Braun, is an avid Twitter user and she began the workshop by asking everyone their impressions of Twitter. The impressions ranged from “quick communication” (me) to “waste of time.” There was definitely a wide range of opinions, which made me feel better about my initial Twitter skepticism.

There are a few interesting points that were made during the workshop. First, Twitter is a form of Microblog. The idea behind a microblog is that it gets people comfortable with posting things online. Unlike a formal blog, which often takes a lot of time and planning to create, the Twitter 140 character limit forces a person to be concise in his or her thoughts. By its very nature, it is brief and to the point. Twitter is a great way to introduce people who may feel uncomfortable with doing things online-it is easy and pretty fun to use.

The basics of Twitter were covered in the workshop-the meaning of hashtags (#)-a simple way of ‘tagging’  a post. The @ reply-a response to someone else, and how the Twitter search engine works.

I was especially interested in the uses of Twitter for a library. Here are some of my favorite ideas:

1. A book discussion. Set up a common #tag-for example, you could tell everyone in your group reading the book My Sister’s Keeper to use the hashtag #MySistersKeeper when posting about the book. This way, you can start a dialog about the book with several Twitter users. Conducting a book discussion in this way is similar to how I would imagine a person would take notes on a book. For example, you might finish the first chapter and you might find yourself thinking “hmmm…I wonder…” You could then login to Twitter and post your immediate thoughts with the appropriate hashtag, and all of your group discussion participants could see your thoughts and respond to them immediately. It seems like it would be a lot faster than sending emails or writing in a discussion forum.

2. Answering basic reference questions. A library Twitter account could accept simple questions from users-everything from “Where are the bathrooms?” and “What are your hours?” to “What country produces the most bananas?” It would be an easy and interesting way to show off the skills of reference librarians!

3. Promotion-This is the most obvious one, but it can be applied to many workplace situations. A library can post Twitter updates on hours, on specific programs, on contests, etc.

And now for the school part:

1.I could see a teacher using Twitter to remind classes of homework. Just a quick 2-3 sentences: “Read Ch. 4 and 5 of text, find 1 source for project.” It takes almost no time, and students could easily login to Twitter from home, or their phones, or their local libraries to see the latest posts from their teachers.

2. Schools can post news updates on Twitter. This is especially helpful for parents who may use Twitter but who may not have access to home email during their workdays. For example, a school could make a quick post on a chicken pox case at school with a brief link to more information. The activities director could post on Homecoming events. Twitter is another way to reach people who may not have the time to read a whole blog post, but who still want to know what is going on.

3. Internal news-Twitter allows for private accounts as well. The principal of the school could have his/her own Twitter account and quick messages could be posted about goings-on in the school. Everyone knows how tedious it can be to sift through piles of email. With Twitter, the pile is greatly reduced, because there simply isn’t room for lengthy messages.

There are lots of possibilities for Twitter, both in the classroom and in the school environment. At this point, I am still using Twitter for personal reasons, but I have shared items that I have found particularly interesting with my colleagues.

As far as Tumblr goes, it is basically a scrapbook of ideas. It is a very easy and quick way to post information. The interface allows a person to choose whether they want to post a quote, an image, an audio file, text, a link, chat, or a video. You simply choose the format, upload what you want to post, and that’s it.  I could image using Tumblr to quickly document a class project-a teacher might take some pictures of the students working and post them to Tumblr. Then, if the students present their work, the teacher might take video and post that. (with permission, of course) I have a Tumblr for my personal use, but I am considering shifting our library blog to a Tumblr site, simply because it greatly reduces the hassle of dealing with HTML code and other blog issues. I am still exploring the different ways that Tumblr can be customized.

So, that’s what I have been exploring!

Twitter

A few weeks ago, I created an account for a web 2.0 tool that I swore I would never use. Well, circumstances have changed. While browsing a blog that I read regularly, I came across a Twitter post by Yoko Ono: “This is an invisible tree safe from somebody trying to cut down.” I was intrigued by it. I have always had a sort of fascination with Ms. Ono and the Beatles, and John Lennon in particular. I am too young to remember when the Beatles were around, but I watched the Beatles Anthology many, many times as a young teen in 1995-96, and I read every book in my library on the Beatles. And of course, I listened to my mom’s old records and bought their digitally remastered collection on CDs, which have since been added to my iTunes library.

Anyway, Yoko Ono has always been an interesting figure for me. I find her strange and intriguing and just different. I recall when John Lennon first met Yoko-at the Indica Gallery exhibition. Yoko had an exhibit that required a person to climb a ladder. At the top of the ladder, dangling from the ceiling, was a magnifying glass. The viewer had to take the magnifying glass and hold it up read the tiny word attached to the ceiling. The word was “Yes.” Since hearing that story, many years ago, I have found myself thinking “Yes” when I am feeling down. Sometimes, the world needs a little bit of positivity. So after reading Yoko’s tweet, I decided to explore her page further. A few days later, she (or her managers, I know the account is verified, but it could be any number of people on a publicity team)  posted a link to a Flickr group: “Smiling Face Film”

Smiling Face Film is a Flicker group comprised of smiling faces from all over the world. I was feeling rather down that day, after reading numerous depressing status updates on Facebook, and I felt that everyone could use a smiling face. So I posted the link to my Facebook status, and was pleased to see the responses.

At this point, I decided that I should just create a Twitter account of my own in order to keep up with the updates. Coincidentally, I was browsing through a packet of upcoming professional development events at the North Suburban Library System and I saw that a workshop on Twitter and Microblogging was available. The workshop takes place on September 23rd. I decided that this was karma, or whatever you want to call it….I signed up for the workshop and I also created a Twitter account for myself available here.

I used to hate Twitter. I thought that it was completely and utterly pointless. I don’t care to know whether a random person has brushed their teeth this morning. However, after discovering Yoko Ono’s Twitter, I felt that there could definitely be a use for Twitter, for both my own amusement and my own professional development.

After adding Yoko, I also found Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ) on Twitter. I am an avid NPR fan, and so far, I find WBEZ’s updates quite useful for local news. I also found the Chicago Diner, a vegetarian diner in Chicago on Twitter….they update their site regularly with information on new menu items and events.  Gmail crashed last week, and I quickly checked my Twitter to see the buzz. At first I assumed it was problems with our internet connection at school, as it was out for nearly half the day earlier in the week. However, after going to check Twitter, I saw that the problem was widespread.

I am definitely intrigued by the possibilities of Twitter for education. Our library content management program, LibGuides, has an option to post a Twitter update whenever a page is added or updated. I can also imagine using Twitter to post the latest, hottest books in our library. Or even to remind students of current events going on in the library and in the school. I can be impulsive sometimes, and I am starting to think that my initial hatred of Twitter was unwarranted.

Right now, my Twitter account is my personal account. I am playing with it and most of my posts are Simpsons or Seinfeld quotes. However, after I attend the workshop, I will probably create a Twitter account for our school library. I will report back later…

Back Again!

Welcome back. Today is the first day of school. I am entering into my third year at GBN. It seems like I was a wide eyed “newbie” just the other day!

The past 2 days have been “Glenbrook Days”, where we learn about new faculty members, new administrators, and of course, we familiarize ourselves with our newly re-imaged laptops! Last year was the first year of a 3 year plan to implement technology at our schools. This year, I hope things will be a bit smoother. At our district meeting (we only have 2 schools in our district, both of which are high schools), emphasis was placed on administrators modeling technology use. Now that’s a novel idea! Our new Curriculum Vice Principal even made a little video about her first impressions of our school, complete with the lyrics “movin’ on up, to a big deluxe school on the North Shore”. It was very amusing. And very cool that to see that she was willing to have fun!

Anyway, what do I think about the Future of Learning?

At our meeting this week, our principal brought up a list of things that schools should focus on to prepare students for life as 21st Century Learners. By the way, I am getting a little tired of buzzwords such as “Net Generation”, “Millenials” and “21st Century Learning.” We get it, it’s a whole new world…only, it isn’t, as you will soon see.

I am a skeptic and lover of all things technological. I freely embrace my iphone, my itunes, my laptop, my wireless 3G network, my gmail, my gchat, my Wii, my text messaging, my Xanga, my Blogger, my WordPress blog, my Photostories, my facebook (going on 6 years now), my Del.icio.us, my Digg, my tumblr, my Ning, my Moodle, my Mahara, my wikis (PB wiki, wikia, wikipedia), my Google Docs, my iGoogle page, my online subscription databases, my E reference books……etc etc etc.

However, I do not think that any of this makes me a better teacher and I don’t think any of this technology makes my students better learners. I firmly believe that technology is a tool. And like all tools, it can be used for good and for bad. I don’t really see the importance of focusing on a specific technology, because honestly, by the time our students are in the workplace, the technologies will be vastly different. Maybe not so much for my students, who are in high school, but most definitely for the younger students. The key is not to think that students need to be taught with SMARTBoards and Wikis. The key is that students should be taught how to adapt and be flexible-so that in 20 years, they will be comfortable learning and working with whatever technology may be available.

And what makes students comfortable learning and working and adapting and communicating? A good teacher, who knows WHEN and HOW to use the technology tools with his or her students.
I don’t think that learning, in its barest form, will change. We still need to focus on basic skills-reading, writing, math. Basic communication skills are still absolutely necessary for success in the future, regardless of what that future is. Unless of course, we are run by robots. Wait, I think that was a movie…

I think societal changes have created changes in the way that students learn and process information, but the basics are still there. We are fortunate now because we have a variety of tools available to reach students of all kinds. Our instruction doesn’t have to be from a textbook 20 years out of date (although I believe this is still happening in some cases) We can use differentiated instruction to help each student achieve his or her very best. We have a lot of power. We just need to realize the most effective way to use that power. And the first step is to be open to new ideas and tools, and to never stop seeking knowledge for ourselves.

Last Post!!

I would say that I have learned a lot this semester. My knowledge of evaluation has gone from nothing to….something in only 16 short weeks! Of course I do not consider myself an expert on evaluation, but I have learned so much and my comfort level regarding the topic of evaluation has increased exponentially.

I really like how the course started out-the definition of evaluation, which I believe is perhaps the most important concept of the course, and then going into the program standards. It really helped me realize that evaluation is an established practice that is continually evolving…which leads to Appreciative Inquiry. It was really neat to see how Appreciative Inquiry fit into the the history of evaluation and how it seems like such a natural process. After reading the Preskill text, I was left wondering why people would conduct evaluations any other way!

My head began spinning shortly after the first few weeks of class, but things calmed down once we were able to apply the concepts of evaluation/AI to case studies. Reading the case studies not only helped me understand AI better, but it helped me construct my evaluation project better as well.

While I was pondering my final project, all of these ideas were swirling in my head. I immediately decided that the school laptop program would be a good project to hypothetically evaluate. Since the beginning of the school year, I have heard buzzing about the laptops-their slowness, the lack of tech support, etc. and I thought that my evaluation could address those concerns perfectly. I am happy with how it turned out, and I think it would be interesting if it was actually conducted. In fact, just last week, our technology administrator sent out a survey (made on a Google spreadsheet) asking questions about the laptops! So obviously the tech department is aware of the concerns of the teachers….I think that our school laptop program would benefit from a more formal evaluation, because I think part of the problem with the perception of the tech department is that people feel that they rush through things and don’t take the time to explain. That is just my idea of course, but if we are going to continue to push new technologies, we should be able to support them properly.

Well, before I get too off topic, this course has really opened my eyes to the way we design surveys and the possible pitfalls involved in conducting them, and evaluations as a whole. I know that I will take more time when designing survey type of questions for both students and teachers so as not to create questions and/or answers that suggest a certain viewpoint.

I don’t know if I will ever get a chance to do a formal evaluation, but I do feel that if someone asked me to do one, I would at least know where to start!

Busy Busy Busy!

This past week has been the busiest week at school so far. I have had essentially 4 classes a day to work with and about 20 minutes or less for lunch due to student drop ins. I have worked with about 10-12 different classes on various stages of research, and I am exhausted.  I am excited that they will be done after Tuesday.

But, Monday and Tuesday need to happen first. I have had preliminary observations by my instructional supervisor, and I will have a formal observation this week.

So what do I need to get done? Just about everything. I will have it done on time, this I know. But right now, I am really focusing on the students and my observations.

I am so happy that it is nearly Thanksgiving!
I spent the weekend resting and preparing for this week. It’s short, but I have a lot to get done.

That is all!

Week 11/12

My project is coming together nicely. I tend to be a procrastinator, so while I don’t have my final project completed, I have it all in my head. I like to think about things for a long time and then I usually get inspired and I just do everything at once. Right now, I have been paying close attention to the laptop situation at school. As I mentioned earlier, I catch a lot of complaints and concerns from various teachers, so I’m going to try to include some of that in my project. We are finally going to get our “power user” status next week. I remember signing up to be a power user back in April. Being a power user essentially means that you get full administrative rights to your laptop. You don’t have to contact the service desk if you want to install a program. It also means that if something goes wrong, the tech support people will basically just provide you with a new image on your laptop. You are supposed to be responsible for basic troubleshooting. I am fine with that. The other option is basic user, which includes full tech support, but not as many admin. privileges.

It seems as though a lot of teachers have been signing up to be power users. I can tell this is going to be a problem, as most of them definitely should not be. I spoke with out tech trainer, and she is rather worried. There are so many teachers who constantly come in for help for the most basic of problems, and these people are also signing up to be power users…it does not bode well. I don’t feel that the tech folks have adequately explained what being a power user means, though. They explained the admin rights part, which I think everyone wants, but they did not explain that the power users need to be proactive in troubleshooting. I know that I will be happy to get my power user status though…It is rather annoying that it has been delayed for so long. We have gotten several emails over the past 3 months detailing when the power user status will be rolled out, and it seems like it just kept getting pushed back further and further…. It just  doesn’t seem like these things were planned very well. So we’ll see if these things will get resolved as time passes. I think that they will be, but people are getting increasingly frustrated about all of the delays.

I am wondering if we will even make it to next year with the laptops!
So that’s the story. It is nice to be writing my hypothetical evaluation, because I think some people in our school might be troubled by the results if I actually had to conduct it!