Tag Archives: connectivity

What’s at Stake: A Response to Being Put in an Either/Or Position

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Today’s exploration into what is at stake got the class’s passions bubbling, and it should. What is at stake is not only our future as educators, or the learning potential for our current and near-future students, but the future of education for all. In the article “Ipad versus Teachers” there is an implied either/or communicated. This is a misconception which can, and has, had devastating effects on the education system. When the implication is that all teachers do is “administer” curriculum and assign numbers to corresponding student responses it is clear that the vision of what it means to be an educator has been tainted from “old school” practices and deeply-seated conceptions of teachers. Although authentic changes are happening in numerous classrooms and schools around the world, it is going relatively unnoticed in the public’s mindset. The trouble is that these ideas are published again and again. If we don’t fill this space and become involved in the decision-making processes, no one else will. There are “triumphalists” as the article expounds, but where are the “educationalists,” where are the authentic learning or ideal classroom support lobbyists?

Through our small group discussions the absence of such voices became apparent. The diverse struggles experienced by Cherise, Merrin and Amy were completely unknown to me and Charlotte, and likewise, our structural and normative roadblocks were new to them. For example, in our school any Department Head release time that was saved, pre-booked and organized for significant professional development and collaboration was taken from us all year so we could cover classes when there was a TOC shortage. In contrast, for Cherise in Sooke, although classes were burgeoning, her school was able to utilize LIF funds for release time throughout the school year for professional collaboration and growth. We didn’t know what was occurring in schools or districts outside of our own, and if we don’t , how can we expect parents, politicians or the general public to? What was communicated in equal measure by all is the numerous roadblocks against learning opportunities for our students because of a lack of funding. The article “Ipads versus Teachers” also highlighted this issue as $500 + million is spent on tech tools for the school while an exorbitant amount of teachers are losing their jobs, and whole schools are being shut down.

Today there is more opportunity for connection and voice than ever before. This affords educators a power, and also a responsibility, to be the voices for their students. We need to be not combative, but conversational on our behalf. Teaching is an incredible complex and dynamic enterprise. As such, I find it is often reduced to the simplest terms by those outside of the profession. That is why we need to contextualize it through the expansive connective networks available to us. We need to show what it feels like to teach (like a hummingbird on caffeine, fluttering from unique student need to unique student need). We need to show what it sounds like to teach (a boisterous choir of sharing or as silent as Christmas Eve as students truly dive into themselves and their learning). We even need to show what it smells like to be a teacher (a young neglected boy wearing chronically unwashed, ill-fitting clothes who comes to school because it’s the only good thing in his world). We need to form connections and broaden perspectives so an iPad will never be in binary opposition to a highly trained, adaptable, masterful teacher.

All this being said, I tried to keep today’s issues at the forefront as I designed my future project. I have decided to include a forum for feedback on learning experiences/recommendations/opportunities, as well as student blogs and a peer feedback process similar to our own. I will also showcase student work throughout, and end the year with a portfolio gala (as I have done in the past), but this will be physical and virtual, and parents and friends will be invited to share in the experience. But this is just the shell, it’s how I execute that will allow for connectivity and communication of the learning occurring. Therefore, I’m creating a letter to parents and requesting an email, in which I will be able to periodically draw them to the virtual classroom to see, as fully as possible, what their child’s learning experience is. I have also researched a connective tool for students entitled Remind 101, in which a text messages may used to communicate with students or parents. All of this is not advocacy, it is promotion. I think that at least through this current endeavor I may provide more genuine connectivity and collaboration for my students’ learning, for their vital multiliteracy development. I am hoping that it will also help connect and communicate with parents, so even in the most senior years of their child’s education, they can “see” it, know it. Advocacy is a responsibility that I must take-up in other ways, such as through district study groups, in-school PLC and through engaging with Professional Learning Networks.

Designing for Change, for my Students

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Although I’ve been contemplating how to design for my students for a long time, well forever really, today our group was able to digest “the who” together. The culture of transmission, of teacher as having “it” and then filling the empty student receptacles with “it,” is incredibly pervasive. As my group and I discussed, we often find that teenagers are very familiar and comfortable with this culture of transmission. We have found that seniors in particular can be quite resistant to change, to new learning experiences that put them in the driver’s seat. They are often unfamiliar with this role, and would prefer the path of least resistance at times, especially when their lives are filled with work and social responsibilities, and the ever-present 90% admissions number looms over their heads. I find that this disposition is subtle but incredibly devastating, as it can shut students down from the active learning process. Nonetheless, higher learning always reminds us educators what is possible, when we’re removed from our own school’s institutional isomorphism.

I believe that teenagers, even at the most senior levels, are just like the primary students who genuinely want to learn, discover and be engaged. I think that as they work through the system there is an individuality, an imagination, and sometimes a passion that becomes more subdued. That does not mean that it is gone, just perhaps more dormant than when we received them into the education system. Therefore, I’m designing my class-site with these needs in mind. I believe that students flourish through connectivity, and that they have a drive for connectivity that can and should be filled through learning. At present I am working on employing various modes of connectivity into the design of my class sites. These include the use of Twitter, a forum for open feedback and sharing of ideas and interests, as well as the use of student blogs, websites and systematic peer review and student showcase. Furthermore, with the students’ various needs in mind, I would like to design elements for self-exploration. Currently, these will include such components as brain mapping tests, creativity portals and online communities, as well as plan out a “Genius Hour” for students to explore their passions, in hopes it will help their learning needs and their planning for the future.

Although the design I’m working on now is meant to offer connectivity, engagement and students at the centre of their own learning, I know that it is a process, one in which this is merely a class site. It is what we do with the students in the classroom, beyond the classroom, that will truly address their needs. This class site is only one piece of that process.

Word Power

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The innate human drive for connectivity is a cause for hope in education; we can turn interactions from confrontational to conversational.

Today in our inquiry groups, Charlotte, Brianne, Kristin and myself dove head-first into processing and sharing the mass of research we’ve discovered and linked through Mindmeister. Each one of us was interested in finding substantial research and pedagogy for the use of social media in the classroom, not just its uses. Through our discussion and research exploration it became apparent: social media in education is useful, so use it! The research outlined numerous fundamental reasons for its purposeful and innovative use in the classroom, such as:

  • social networking is ubiquitous and students need to learn to use it purposefully
  • increased student engagement
  • increased student self-confidence
  • authentic learning experiences
  • to facilitate multiliteracies, especially critical literacy
  • opportunities for problem-solving skills and judgement
  • to foster connections, with world experts, with divergent ideas, with peers and community

However, social media use is not without its hazards as numerous educational articles warned, such as “Pros and Cons of Social Media Use” from Syracuse University. We identified two major concerns:

  1. lack of face-to-face time, potential deterioration of social skills
  2. use of social media for complaint , rather than purposeful connection, communication and action

But these are problems with our current curriculum and pedagogy. There is an undervaluing of social skill development in the curriculum. Further, although there are over-arching mandates such as schools are required to foster social responsibility, there are no clear mandates that require and promote authentic, purposeful action in the world-at-large. These are significant skill-sets and values that need to be addressed, but in the current institutional isomorphic system, whether through physical or virtual classroom practices, the underlying necessity of meeting the needs of essential new competencies is not addressed. This is where linguistic cognitive holds power and hope.

Numerous proponents of using social media and digital environments/platforms in the classroom explain that it fosters numerous necessary competencies and opportunities. As a small inquiry group we also noted that numerous advocated skills, such as judgement, play as a form of learning, critical literacy, problem-solving, inquiry and collaboration are all possible through ICT, but not entirely required. If one explored and collaborated with colleagues they would see that there are numerous “old-school” methods that also promote these competencies and bring them into the classroom in other physical, flesh and bone ways. For example, in the following “Education Next” publication, it expresses the reality that social learning has been utilized for centuries. True, as a system we are not yet meeting the needs our students’ futures require, yet through the linguistic cognitive domain there is hope. Numerous “new literacies” already have a place within individual classrooms and individual teacher’s practices. Rather than confronting with phrases that evoke a sense of demand or inability, we need to use our language to show the present connection and empowerment. We need to ensure that through our language, we use it as a connective force, to other educators, to administration, to the community, to politicians, and beyond. According to the biologist Mark Pagel in the TED Talks video “How language transformed humanity,” we as a species evolved our complex system of language, our “piece of social technology” to access a powerful new tool: cooperation. I for one agree, and continue to respect and hope through this powerful “social technology” that is language.