Category: Assignment 3

I’m going to say this, at the risk of sounding like a total nerd, but I almost don’t want to write this last post, because it will mean this course is over.  Although it has been an intense amount of reading, thinking, grappling, and writing, all packed into three weeks, I have truly enjoyed the process.

Where I Was

When I started this course I had finished 6 classes towards my diploma, now that this one and LLED 446 are finished I have 8 under my belt, and next week it will be 9.  The end is in sight!  I plan to be done my diploma at Christmas, which is very exciting.  Because I had taken many of the foundation courses for teacher-librarianship I already had a good understanding of resource management, organizing and maintaining the collection, and planning collaboratively with teachers.  In the process I have started and kept up a blog for my class, created a website, and started my personal learning network.  I am very glad I took this course towards the end of my diploma, I know I wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much out of it if I had taken it first.  I needed to get over my bibliophilia to recognize I could be technophilic too.  I still love books, but technology needs to play a vital role in our schools and libraries.

Where I Am

Although my inquiry project is not really a polished product, I am proud of my work.  I built the site using BuddyPress, which was a challenge, but I created a shell.  I’m not going to invest more time in learning how to create a social network site, because the structure already exists within my district.  On the resource section of my site I have uploaded my conglomeration of information from my research, a graphic organizer, and a powerpoint presentation I can use to give a workshop.  (Don’t worry Kristine, the photos are from Morguefile and they don’t need attribution!)  My powerpoint is more polished than my site, and I’m hoping it will be enough to convince primary teachers that they can and should integrate ICT in their classrooms.  I found this great video on Edutopia that captured some of the feelings of inspiration and excitement from this course that I wanted to convey to other teachers, I will show it as part of my workshop.

Where I’m Going

I am excited about using my project to encourage primary teachers in my district.  Initially I was thinking of just doing a workshop, but then Neelu spoke yesterday about the importance of ongoing professional development, so rather than a single workshop I think want to create a collaborative group.  I have learned that I am much happier learning alongside my colleagues, rather than teaching them from the front of the room.  I didn’t want to lose my momentum (or my nerve about giving a workshop!) so yesterday I emailed our district technology teacher, Janet Chow, asking for her help to implement my ideas in the fall.  She already wrote me an email back and was very encouraging, so I know I already have one ally in my district, and another person who can support my PLN.

By nature, I am a duck– I just let things roll of my back, I go with the flow, and don’t usually get in a flap about anything.  But now I see that if I always go with the flow, things will stay the same.  Someone has to speak up for how we want education to be, and that needs to be teachers, otherwise it will be corporations trying to sell solutions that we don’t really need.  So I think it’s time for me to be a terrier: “Hey! Look at me!  We need better wifi in schools!  We need small classes for personalized learning!  Hey!  Don’t ignore us!  We need a learning commons with more space for collaborative teaching!  Hey!  Pay attention!”

This course hasn’t taught me a topic, it has taught me a mindset.  I have learned to go out and research what is relevant to my own situation, to connect with others, to question what I hear and read, to not stop pushing and changing just because things have always been done a certain way.  The attitudes I have now will carry me forward into this school year, and into the rest of the 21st century.

Today we talked about the issue of blind-spots, blindsight and implicit association bias.  It’s a difficult topic, how can we compensate for beliefs and attitudes we hold, but aren’t aware of?

I was thinking about it in the context of my project.  Primary teachers attending a workshop about technology integration will have a variety of perceptions about technology.  At the end of last week I wondered about how to get teachers on board in my post.  I think part of the solution is making visible the invisible.  We need to talk about those implicit beliefs and make them explicit.  If we are aware of our own biases, we can try to adjust for them, but if we never talk about our own struggles and stumbling blocks how can we get over them?  I started working on my workshop plan, and I added a section for teachers to talk about their SCOD: strengths, challenges, opportunities, and difficulties (thanks, Jenny for the definition).  I created a chart for them to fill out and reflect on:

I was going to put “positives” and “negatives” at the top of the columns, but I’m considering the linguistic cognitive domain and don’t want to call challenges and difficulties “negative”.  I’ll try to come up with a better word.  I think by talking about the things teachers struggle with and acknowledging them as something to have to consider, teachers will be more open to the suggestions I am offering in the workshop.  By knowing the limitations specific to their situation I will also be better able to help them in their planning.

I have been thinking about self-efficacy too, and how to keep my momentum after this course.  Following technology and and book review blogs on RSS this spring has kept these at the top of my mind, and I feel connected to what other educators are talking about.  I think the next step for me is sharing what I know.  I am starting to realize that I have ideas worth sharing, and that I need to find a platform for them.  Twitter is kind of like listening to multiple conversations happening at a cocktail party, you can hear what everyone is saying, and jump in when you have a relevant comment.  Although the ideas discussed can be deep, I feel the interactions are superficial, I struggle with the 140 character limit.

I’ve been thinking about what Jenny said about teachers having a voice and a vision for the future of education, and also to enable the public to see more about our job than just the negative headlines about bargaining.  My classroom blog is a window into my classroom, a platform for me to show parents what we are doing, and share resources that can help their child’s learning.  I don’t think it is the place to share my struggles and triumphs within the education system , or my vision for the future.  I’m thinking I should start another blog, one where I could show the public what a complex profession teaching really is.  I would have to consider privacy, because if I am talking about events with real students, I would not want parents to be upset reading it.  But I’m not sure how I would talk about my experiences without talking about my students, since they make up such an integral part of my job.  And I can’t talk about vision without talking about specific experiences, because those shape a vision.  I don’t quite know how to tackle that, but I’m going to ponder it.

I feel like I have a fairly good grasp of my audience, and what I want to accomplish.  I know I want to promote the use of ICT in primary classes and encourage those teachers who might be hesitant, to consider using ICT in an innovative way.  I would like to create a space where teachers can collaborate and share ideas, and I have chosen a BuddyPress site to do this.

I chose BuddyPress because I discovered my district uses it.  I know that teachers who set up blogs through the district are given WordPress sites, so I assume it is a similar set up to UBC: users can have their own blog, but also use their login to connect with groups.  I decided to work within the existing infrastructure because it would be familiar to some teachers, and provide me with a structure.  After going through the design process today, I am hopeful that our district technology support team will help with some of the more technological set up of users and forums.

Setting up BuddyPress has given me some challenges.  I don’t really understand the network portion of it, although the theme I chose allowed me to install some things automatically like the member page.  I am also seeing the limitations of WordPress themes.  I finally found one that had lots of customizable options, but it still didn’t give me everything: I wanted static pages, combined with a blog on one page.  This proved to be a challenge, but I learned how to create page templates with the help of a forum and some coaching from my husband.  Now I can say I have created a php file!  I am glad I have gotten to know the ins and outs of WordPress better, but if I were to make a website from scratch again I would use Weebly, it allows for a much more visual page designing experience.

I got quite caught up in the design aspect of my site today.  I wanted it to look good, to be laid out well, to have pages ordered a certain way, with links that worked.  I’m a bit worried that I haven’t put up any real content yet, but I know that design is an important aspect to consider.  Primary teachers care about aesthetics, we like our classrooms to be warm, inviting spaces for our students.  I wanted to create a friendly space online.  I hope I have done that with the colourful straw painting header, soft gray menus, clean fonts and uncluttered layout.

My information conglomerate is complete, or at least as complete as it is going to be now.  I have a list of articles that I still want to read, which I’m sure will give me more information to add, but I must cut off research now so I can focus on the project.

Today in class we discussed considering our audience.  In my mind, my target audience is primary teachers in my district, who have used, or would like to use ICT in their class.  I envision them as teachers who are open to using technology, but might be hesitant about where to start and are looking for ideas.  I am also hoping they are willing (or can be persuaded by workshop) to integrate technology in innovative ways, not just using technology to do the same thing a different way.  I know that not all teachers will fit this criteria, some will be the ones at schools who just got iPads and they want to know good apps.  I am hopeful that I can convince them to think about the learning objectives before thinking about the apps.  Some of the participants may be teachers who already have blogs in the district, in which case the BuddyPress platform, which looks very similar to WordPress, will be familiar to them.  Also, because the collaboration space will be hosted by the district, I assume the login will be the same as the one for blogs, making it even easier for them.

I started looking at BuddyPress today, trying out a theme and some widgets.  Wordpress has lots of options, but I haven’t spent much time customizing my class blog. The theme I have for it is quite limited, and once it was set up, I only thought about my posts.  BuddyPress has even more options, since it is a social network platform.  I started looking at changing options and making pages, but feel like I don’t really know what I am doing.  I am feeling frustrated by my own limitations, instead of by the technology, which is a change for me.  At least I got a few people to join my network (thanks Kristine, Michelle, and Charlotte!) so I have multiple contributors.  Tomorrow I need to break this big project down into tasks, figure out what is most important and start there.

I was feeling a little overwhelmed at the beginning of class today, because I hadn’t done any of the things on my list from Friday, other than look for past district workshops and discover they were no longer on the calendar, so I have no way of knowing what was offered last year.  Today’s work period, however, was very productive.  I wanted to try to work within the framework of an existing organization (province or district) so that it gives some legitimacy to my project, and uses a system teachers may already be familiar with.  On our district technology teacher’s blog I discovered a link to apply for an online collaboration group using BuddyPress.  Although the link is inactive, I did some research about BuddyPress, and discovered it is a WordPress plugin that lets you create your own social network.  My thinking is, that if I set up this final project with BuddyPress on my own site, I can transfer it to a district site in the fall.

When I came home this afternoon I spent some time finishing up reading all the articles I found last week.  I have also started a conglomeration of information, taking the main points and organizing them into the basic headings of my MindMeister map: screen time digital citizenship, ways to use technology, social development and cognitive development (to correspond to the areas of development in the primary program), and tips and tricks.  I think these headers will become talking points for my workshop.  I am concurrently working on a plan for my workshop.  I’m not sure how final that will be by the end of this week, but it is feeling good to organize my thoughts.  I already have a quote from Hertzog and Klein (2005) which I think would make a great opener,

“[T]echnology is playing an important role in the lives of our children.  How can we channel their curiosity and use technology to help them grow intellectually, socially, and emotionally?  How do we integrate technology into our instruction to go beyond consumers and gaming to using technology as tools for creative production?”

I also turned to a strong member of my PLN (aka my husband) to help me get a new site set up for BuddyPress.  My current class blog is hosted on his server, so he helped me set up primarycollaboration.mscollinslovesbooks.com. There’s nothing there yet, but I’m hoping to spend some time tomorrow exploring BuddyPress.  I had to laugh when I saw the tagline, normally you see “Just another WordPress site”, but I like mine better!