For this post, I chose to focus on two of the six questions that I found most intriguing, along with some personal reflection.
As the week began, I felt overwhelmed. I consider myself quite technologically literate, yet it felt like so much was coming at me from different angles. The communication prism shared in class today illustrated this – so much, everywhere around me, leaving me unsure of where to turn.
As we moved through the week, a level of awareness began to engage. I realized that while I was a happy consumer of many of these technologies, I didn’t necessarily use them in the classroom or teach my students how to use them. I did model the use of applications such as Twitter, show and discuss TED talks, access and share news stories from newspapers around the world, yet I didn’t fully engage my students in this process. Moving forward, I want to focus on ways to bring my students in, while keeping at the forefront why I am doing so.
How were your ideas about ICT in school settings influenced by Will Richardson’s book, “Why School”?
I found the book somewhat problematic. Many of the concerns we’ve addressed in class and on Twitter, namely increasing the number of students for whom a teacher is responsible, lacking a proper infrastructure to support increased technology centred learning, lack of teacher time and training, and concern over not losing many of what we find valuable in the current education system. I’m hoping perhaps that his book was meant more to shock and intrigue as opposed to form a basis for a new educational system. There were many ideas that could be brought in, such as student centred learning and teaching students more independence and focus on what they want to learn.
What issues, interest, or opportunity have you identified as a key topic for your inquiry work next week?
For next week, I believe I would like to start looking at connecting students with the world, and alternative ways of publishing work. I’d like to do so focusing on the use of Twitter. I need to learn more about potential pitfalls, merits, different ways of doing so, thinking about different ways to target audiences, how it can be used curricularly, and more. When looking at my personal Twitter account as a potential topic for 10 Minutes of Fame, I had never realized some of the amazing connections I’ve made. Twitter is part of the reality for our students, and could be an amazing way to bring more of the world in, send them out into the world, rather than just following their friends and a few celebrities.
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I love that you have embedded the communication prism into your blog. It really is astounding when you look at all that is out there. No wonder we sometimes feel overwhelmed! I am impressed that you have exposed your students to as much as you have. I am curious about your comment about not fully engaging your students in the process. In what ways is this true?
You raise some very good points about the Why School article. We don’t want to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” so to speak and change everything about our school system. I firmly believe that we are doing some things really well. However, it is always good to hear others viewpoints and as you point out, consider ideas such as more student centered learning and fostering independence is students to take charge of their learning.
I am curious to hear what you might come up with in regards to alternative ways to publish work. This is a very authentic question as our world move away from the traditional report to representing knowledge is a wide variety of ways. It is this type of rethinking that will lead to student success in the “real world”.
Hi Brianne,
Like you, I have felt somewhat overwhelmed during the past week and found that the communication prism shown to us and posted in your blog pretty accurately represented what my head was trying to absorb. To tell you the truth, I can barely look at that prism without getting a headache. I also came to the realization that I am quite happy to use some of these technological resources (i.e. social media platforms or Google docs) available to me on a regular basis but I still don’t know how I am going to incorporate the use of these platforms effectively in my teaching practice. I will look forward to hearing more about how you hope to use Twitter. I blogged about Twitter yesterday so I very much relate to how you want to explore it more.
You also raised some valid concerns regarding Will Richardson’s vision of what school should be. I loved that text and love so much of what he has to say but I think I also got caught up in a dream world. In order for us to even get close to that picture perfect technological collaborative environment he describes, there is so much that has to change. Equal access to technology, enough bandwidth for a school to use said technology and the proper infrastructure for example. Your experience in a self-directed high school is intriguing and does seem to have at least attempted to create this new school environment . I would love to hear more about it!
It would be great to do an in-depth inquiry into the use of twitter in education. At present there are many different educational perspectives and practices associated with twitter – social movements, professional affiliations, seminar and conference connections. The tweets are more than 140 character bursts of text – the are a connective filament that can link a reader, or group of readers, to new awareness and new understanding. I encourage you to be aware of either/or thinking about our uses of digital technologies. We must discern what is important and how we convey that importance from one generation to the next. Great work!