Final Thoughts – A long list of firsts

Posted on July 18, 2013 by tesskidd

Before starting this course I thought I had registered in a course that was directly related to working in a library. “Special Topics” could mean many things, and that was the only information that I had been given. After Jenny’s quick introduction to the course I learned that this was going to be a class about technology. Besides my phone, I did not have any other technology with me. I thought I had come prepared by having my three ringed binder and pen ready to take notes. Three weeks later I am proud to say that I have no paper trail. Not using paper is just one item in my long list of my many firsts that Jenny has generously allowed me to have.

I was open to learning new technology but negative questions kept popping in my head. It was a struggle to block out the negative thoughts. One re occurring thought was about balancing screen time. Students need to connect face to face and have social interactions. If technology was used more in the classroom then I was concerned about students going home to be in front of the screen more. I think most teachers know many children who go home and are in front of the t.v. or computer. I shook this thought around in my head and realized that we need to teach these students how to use technology purposefully. I asked myself, are kids learning or discussing why they are using technology, or are they just bombarded with cool websites and google! As Jenny reminded me, often kids who go home from school and live on the computer are lonely or don’t have the parental support. Lets give them a reason to go home and use technology productively.

I was also overwhelmed by the amount of literature there is to read online. I wanted to learn it all…yesterday! I thought I should give up reading my novel for pleasure. There simply is no time for that. Now I have chosen some really good blogs to follow and know about some great authors who are barging ahead in this field. Some websites are pure treasures! I can strive to remain current at a manageable level and not feel guilty for reading for pleasure.

When it came to internet usage, I was a taker! I take lesson plans, ideas, or free online programs. I was always on the hunt for the next treasure. It felt like I was dumpster diving through online garbage. I can proudly say that I am and will be a contributor…to the treasures, not the garbage of course!

Inquiry, inquiry, inquiry. Yes I was well aware of inquiry, but I didn’t truly understand how enriching the process is until I was directly involved with my own inquiry project. I was reminded again that we learn by doing! I loved the process of doing an inquiry project. I had so many questions and so many directions I wanted to take. I finally decided to focus on environmental education because of my passion for it. I wanted to look at ways technology could be taken outside to assist students with learning about the environment. My other interest area is supporting reading. As you know I work with kids who need support reading. Many of these kids are lacking support from home, and don’t have access to many books at home. After researching everything I could find about ebooks, I discovered there are not many low level high interest ebooks available for free.

World libraries really captured my attention. After thinking about world libraries I thought students could create their own ebooks. The ebooks could be related to an environmental theme and capture what they are learning outside about the environment. Their ebooks are then made accessible on the website. To begin, the books would all be from the same school, then gradually other teachers from other schools would be connected. My vision is that students from different provinces or countries would be contributing to the collection. All leveled books made for students, created by students. They would also have access to read ebooks about anything to do with the environment from a different region in the world.

I kept getting more ideas but had to stop to ask myself, how am I going do it? I am starting a little smaller. Right now I am just focused on making a website that will have a collection of student made ebooks. These ebooks will be accessible for any student to read. I will also have a blog to connect with other teachers. This is a big project but it will be done in smaller stages because I am inspired to make it happen. It certainly will not be up and running by this weekend but it won’t be left as a half finished idea…adding to the enormous heap of online garbage.

There are resources in the school, I am not focusing on the technology that I don’t have. I can make use of what I do have available. We have computers. They are older but they function like computers! I am not thinking of technology as an additive. It is not just the drizzled chocolate on top anymore.

I have a vision for the future. Changes in education will never be easy. When challenged, I have to remember ask myself why? Why am I doing this? For my students of course.

I have remained open minded and positive which has gotten me through to today! Three weeks ago I wouldn’t have thought I would be starting my own website.

Visit http://eco-ebooks.weebly.com/

It is a work in progress, but the basics are set up. I plan to make connections with other teachers from my school district. In September it will be ready to start posting collections of ebooks! I will start local and than hope to move to other school districts, other provinces, and other countries. The possibilities are endless now!

Project Challenges

Posted on July 18, 2013 by tesskidd

I am taking bigger steps into the ICT world, with that there are and will be many challenges. Thanks to Jenny for expanding upon some of the resistances I have witnessed in schools. I am more prepared for the educators who are “blindspotted” and “blindsighted”. As always Jenny concludes with a hopeful message, that is individually we do want good for all. Educators just have many varying ways of achieving it. Experienced teachers do not bulk at the idea of supplementing their lessons with technology because they don’t want to help their students. They are resistant because they are worried that ICT will come to a dead end. The leading ICT teachers will not let this happen, as long as more teachers become ICT advocates as well. There are many experienced teachers who are phenomenal! They have a passion for teaching, and they do it well. Of course they are going to be resistant to someone saying that a little piece of technology will do a better job than they could.

Some of the challenges that I can for see with my project is that I am trying to mix two things that a lot of teachers wouldn’t normally associate with each other, the environment and technology. Teachers who are interested in environmental education will be orientated or directed to my website by connections in my school or tweets. They may realize that it also involves using technology and turn the other directions. The divide between the “subjects” of environmental education and technology has to be shattered. Who said these subjects have to separated into their own tidy little box, and only taught for one hour at a time?

Positive conversations online or face to face will begin the process of fostering resilience in any school. The lines of communication with like minded people have to remain open. On my website these conversations will happen online through blogs. Teachers who are environment education advocates and ICT supporters will have a place to stand guard over what they are passionate about. Problems or annoyances may be brought to the blog, but alternate solutions can be suggested by a group of people. Two heads are better than one!

For Who and Why to They Care?

Posted on July 17, 2013 by tesskidd

The theme of balancing screen time is a reoccurring theme for me. Today is was mentioned in class. This is a very important issue. I feel that this conversation has to be had in every school because I have had relationships with teachers and parents who are worried about the child’s amount of screen time. I think they have to be reminded and reassured that first, computers are not replacing teachers, but enabling more learning to happen in a variety of different ways that can suit the unique needs of many children. Using digital technologies allows for more relationships and communication to happen as long as the students know how to use it are given clear guidelines. Yes after school students should doing something physically active, but the reality is, this is not happening with out more support and guidance from the parents. It is better for everyone if the child who goes home to an empty house with nothing to do, does something meaningful on the computer rather than sitting mindlessly at a game.

That leads me to my future vision project. The questions about my project continue to burst out of my head! I have been looking at more ways to include a place for student made ebooks to be stored and viewed. I really want to draw students to the website. I have worked closely with students in grade two and three who don’t have access to any books in their home!!! Their family doesn’t go to the public library leaving them limited to the few books they take home from the library or a few books that I give them to take. From my research I have discovered there are not free ebooks available online which are low level and high interest for my struggling readers. I want ebooks to be available for these students when they are at home alone with nothing else to do but be at the computer. The students will be drawn to their books because the reading level will be at a lower level since the books are made by students in different grade levels.

The participants going to the website are teachers and students. The learners are the teachers and learners. Kate has been working diligently at creating a useful website for teachers. I have been concentrating on ways to attract the student audience. The design has to be basic and very visual with only a few words leading students to the ebooks. These kids are not going to spend patience are desire to read the website. They have one reason to be there and that is to read a book that their friend made or a student they connected with from another school. This of course will lead them to opening up other books.

To create awareness for teachers I have to begin face to face. I have to connect with the teachers I know. These are teachers I work with, or have a relationship with from other schools. I also need to use twitter to connect and spread the word. I guess I can’t put off using twitter any longer!!

10 Minutes of Fame – Digital Storytelling

Posted on July 16, 2013 by tesskidd

I first learned about digital storytelling from a teacher who teaches at the middle school level. I saw examples of his student’s projects and thought wow! I can easily take this to the elementary level.

Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the art of storytelling. Digital stories weave images, music, narrative and voice together.

Digital Storytelling can happen in any subject area and can be done using multiple technology resources. It is a great way to have students use all 4C’s for 21st century learning because the students are:

Communicating

Critically thinking

Collaborating

Creating

The most important piece about teaching Digital Storytelling is making sure the students are focused on the content, not just the technology.

Let your students explore the program that you are going to use first.

Storybird

http://storybird.com/

Storybird lets you create web-based and printed books using a gallery of high-quality artwork. Directed towards younger students. Books can be embedded on a website, downloaded as PDF files or ordered as hard-cover books from the company. Creating a web-based book is free, and teachers can use a built-in classroom management tool to create anonymous usernames and passwords on behalf of their students.

You can organize students into different classes. The teacher creates the name and username. Students can change their password.

Students can collaborate on one story.

First you select a theme from a selection of tags. Then you choose the style of art and move images onto the page. Now you are ready for words to pour onto the page.

Photo Story 3

Photo Story 3 includes features that enable you to create a slide show with digital pictures, edit pictures, create your story with original music, add narration, and share. Photo Story is a very user friendly program and is available to download for free.

Step 1: Import and arrange your pictures

Step 2: Add a titles to your pictures

Step 3: Narrate your pictures and customize motion

Step 4: Add background music

Step 5: Save your story

Animoto

http://animoto.com/

Animoto is an extremely simple slideshow tool that lets you make professional looking videos out of your own digital photographs. Their free version lets you make 30 second videos, but you can upgrade to their premium package to construct longer projects.

The emphasis in Animoto is visual effects

An example of Animoto is here: http://animoto.com/play/iQOvwUfX2C1K05WhSSNbPg

Reminders: There are lots of other programs for creating stories on line but the focus needs to be on developing a story along with carefully chosen images, voice and soundtracks. We don’t want students to just create a dazzling visual spectacle.

Taking up valuable space in the digital world

Posted on July 16, 2013 by tesskidd

Today’s class left me thinking. If there was a limit to storage space on the world wide web, what would the criteria be?

There is a lot of useless junk on the internet. We all have to learn techniques to sort through the trash. It could be considered critical dumpster diving! With this being said there are also lots of sparkling treasures waiting to be found and lots that we do find and share.

We, meaning everyone in LIBE 477, have valuable information to share with the world, so we are moving on in with our online presence! It is empowering to know that I can take up space on the web with ideas and projects that I am passionate about and find other teachers who are not in my school, or maybe not even living in my country to share them with. The idea of giving back to the vast online community excites me. We know its better to give than receive, but usually online I am a taker. I take information, take ideas, and take free web 2.0 resources! By creating a website I am able to give back.

I really had to step back while working on my project and ask myself, who are my participants? I was trying to meet everyone’s needs at once. My website was going to be directed towards teachers, and students. Is it too much to expect to make it useful for both groups? I have a vision and want to strive to meet the needs of teachers and students involved in environmental education. I wanted to have resources available for teachers who want to use technology to help students learn about the environment. I also want teachers to be able to connect with other teachers to share ideas about different projects. I also want it to provide a place where students can share their ebooks relating to an environmental theme, and a place where they can read other students ebooks to gain knowledge and awareness about different regions in Canada or other countries.

I explored a website called buddypress because it would make collaboration a little easier. I am not fond of the design, and would prefer to use weebly, which I have spent a fair bit of time over the last couple of days exploring. Somehow the site also needs to be private and well managed so only invited students are able to share their work, and their ebooks meet a basic criteria. I also want the URL site to have blog where anyone can post a comment or share an idea, which is then approved before being visible.

My summary of the past 11 days

Posted on July 13, 2013 by tesskidd

Before starting this course I was open to learning new technology but negative questions kept popping in my head. It was a struggle to block out the negative thoughts. One re occurring thought was about balancing screen time. Students need to connect face to face and have social interactions. If technology was used more in the classroom then I was concerned about students going home to be in front of the screen more. I think most teachers know many children who go home and are in front of the t.v. or computer. I shook this thought around in my head and realized that we need to teach these students how to use technology purposefully. As Jenny reminded me, often kids who go home from school and live on the computer are lonely or don’t have the parental support. Lets give them a reason to go home and use technology productively.

At the beginning of the course I wasn’t sure how I could really apply using technology in September. I thought twitter is the rage right now, but laughed it off thinking how is that going to be useful for my grade 2’s? The school that I worked in last year (who knows about next year) doesn’t have ipads or laptops or many of classroom computers. I have never been hesitant about learning how to use new technology, I just didn’t now how I should use it in the classroom.

I was also overwhelmed by the amount of literature there is to read online. I wanted to learn it all…yesterday! I thought I should give up reading my novel for pleasure. There simply is no time for that. Now I have chosen some really good blogs to follow such as mindshift, and know about some great authors who are barging ahead in this field. Some websites are pure treasures! I can have a balanced life and be proactive. I know how to organize websites with Diigo. I did use Diigo before starting the course but didn’t know about all that it is capable of.

Personally I use email, and facebook. I had never blogged, tweeted, or wanted to make a website. Now I am comfortable blogging. I know blogging will be very helpful in communicating with the whole school community, or teaching profession. I explored weebly and learned the basics of how to make a website. I have a twitter account, but have not used it very much since I signed up. It will only be useful if I use it, so I better get on that!

I have learned some lingo. No, I wont be dropping any of the BIG words like Institutional Isomorphism on teachers. They will certainly high tale it. I do know the theory behind some of the resistance. From my experiences I can have conversations with the teachers in my school to start small. I can start with one teacher. I don’t expect to get all teachers on board. If I work with one other teacher and make it a positive experience attitudes can change. I will be adamant on pro-d. I can work together with teachers from other schools or other districts. We can develop our own pro-d, and then bring what we learn back to our own school.

I was open to the idea of change but had no plan of action. Making a change now, will make it far better for students and teachers in the future. This will not be easy, put I am prepared. When challenged, I have to remember ask myself why? Why am I doing this? For my students of course.

I have remained open minded and positive which has gotten me through to today!

Global School Libraries Could be Coming to a School Near You

Posted on July 12, 2013 by tesskidd

I was surprised to learn that the topic of world libraries was hard to search for. I assume that there have not been many successful attempts at starting a world library. I can envision global school libraries in the near future. If school libraries could connect, a true global understanding could be achieved.

Jenny sparked an idea for our Inquiry project. For our inquiry project we are looking into using technology outside to assist in learning about the environment. We are looking at the many ways to use technology outside. We would also like to turn this into a community service learning project. Students would connect and share what they are learning about the environment or spread announcements to the community. This of course being done with social media!

Now lets take this a step further…

Lets turn what the kids are learning about their environment into books. The books would be focused on environmental theme or as simple as taking digital pictures of native plants in their school yard. The students do research about the pictures they took and turn their findings into a class ebook. The ebook goes into a global digital library for schools from other countries to access. Using technology?…yes! Meaningful?..yes! Authentic?…absolutely!

Oh wait. Back up. Lets start a little smaller. Before we connect with schools from other countries, we should begin by trading our ebooks with other schools in Canada. Lets connect Canadians to Canadians first then reach out to other countries. These books would be added to the other schools library and our own library. Global school libraries are possible!

As I found out from the CBC podcast about ebooks and libraries, publishers really interfere with permitting libraries to make ebooks widely accessible. If students are creating the ebooks, than there are no publishers involved, which means no cost, and no restrictive licensing agreements.

Pen pals 21st Century style with a twist!

ebooks and Libraries

Link

After today’s discussion about world libraries I thought it would be good idea to take a careful listen to a CBC Spark podcast by Carolyn Wood.

ebooks and libraries on CBC Spark 636.mp3

Here are a few points that I thought were interesting, but I recommend that you have a listen!

Carolyn Wood and her guests agree that It is time for publishers to change. The publishing world has over 100 years of history and has not changed since it was created. It has gone through very few format changes. This is very similar to the school library. Have they gone through many format changes in history? The demands of ebooks have increased but publishers are still trying to cope with the changes. Libraries are trying to cope with the change as well!

Ebooks are growing fast. Faster than any other type of books. They used the Toronto public library as an example and stated that they circulated 1 million ebook titles.

The library experience has certainly changed for some people because they can go online from home and “check a book out” without ever having to step foot in the library. As discussed in our discussion groups, this is a real benefit for some people, but people still need to be given the option of having the community connection with their library. The physical building of the library draws the community together.

The podcast continues to explain that Harper Collins books are capped at being circulated 26 times. After 26 times the book self destructs and the library has to buy a new copy. For some ebooks it costs more money for libraries to buy them than it does for consumers. It is easy to understand why publishers are concerned and resistant because checking out an ebook from home is similar to going online to amazon.com and buying the book, except from the library it is free. People are going to go with the free option!

Publishers need to make sure there still is incentive to purchase ebooks for retail prices. This would be obviously different for school libraries because the ebooks that are being bought for the school would not be normally be getting purchased to the same extent by students or parents.

Libraries provide access to information and knowledge and this will never go away. I never thought that libraries would disappear, but I think they will certainly be enhanced by ebooks, digital technologies, and merging libraries becoming global or world libraries.

Now with all of this being said, our in class group discussion concluded that we will never get rid of the “real book” in our schools, but it would certainly be nice to provide students with as many different options as possible. I have never read an ebook before. I am going try “checking out” an ebook from the public library. I have used A-Z books in my class which are similar to ebooks. There are advantages because they can be displayed on the overhead projector and you pay a subscription to use the books. My students have never been that interested in them them.

Thanks to Janet for bringing in an example of a media enhanced book. I had never seen these before! They are a form of the ebook. “AV2” is a integrated digital learning environment that pairs printed books with online content. A code is entered online that brings up videos or information websites. The books are expensive so I wont be expecting to see the library full of them yet!

Day 7

Posted on July 11, 2013 by tesskidd

Today was another informative session where we learned about more important words that can be used to describe the resistance to change, and how change can happen

Autopoesis- Self Creating. As a living entity we are no different than any other living thing.We are ecological beings. We are connected as long as we are alive.We can’t live outside the environment.

Structural Coupling – The ways we connect to the environment.The ways we connect to the environment which go on continuously. Human existence depend on culture. We feel connected to each other through cultural expressions like dance or music.

Linguistic Cognitive Domain – How the connections happen. Bring those connections to life through language.

Linguistic cognitive domain goes beyond verbal language and also includes body language and tone of voice.

I think this is a very good point to discuss with teachers who we work with who are resistant to including technology into their class and fear that technology is going to take over real teachers, and learning in a social setting. I have had questions about this myself, even though I do support integrating useful technology into my teaching. We simply cannot remove teachers from the school. Humans need these personal, face to face interactions to connect to life. Schools are responsible for cultural exploration. If students are not connected to each other than their is no culture. Resistant teachers can rest assured that complete on-line learning, would be a disaster. There may be experimental situations where this is done but they will not be successful because of the nature of humans and the linguistic cognitive domain.

This was my third day working on my inquiry project. I am still loving the freedom! Each day I feel like I am narrowing my searches and finding extremely valuable information. I am being completely open to allowing the research take me in new directions. I have been reading more articles about community service learning projects. This has caused me to ask more questions about how to effectively use service learning in schools. I still would like to find some examples where they have used technology to deliver these projects. I am now wondering if maybe I shouldn’t just focus on environment service projects, but just service learning projects in general. I guess I will wait and see where my research takes me tomorrow!

Connecting reasons for resistance to change

Posted on July 10, 2013 by tesskidd

NOTE: hAVING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. tHE BLOG WILL only type in capital letter!!

Jenny’s lecture about Conservative Dynamicism, iINSTITUTIONAL ISOMORPHISM and sociocultural homeostasis hit close to home for me today. Schools aren’t really set up for change. If teachers are happy teaching the way they taught 10 or even 5 years ago, then they aren’t going to be initializing or supporting change. It is a strange feeling when I walk into a school and can feel that they are really set in their ways. In these particular schools that have a negative outlook on integrating technology, there are some teachers that I know of who would be completely onboard if they were given a chance to make changes in their classroom by using technology. It only needs to start slowly. I think if one teacher in the school was adamant to use whatever technology they had in the classroom than news would spread. With this being said, that particular teacher would have to talk about it a lot, and have constant dialogue with about the good experiences. If one teacher can break through the resistant barriers of the schools, and has enough ambition to barge ahead, I think their next step is get students parents to be ICT advocates. Parents will reflect the need for this kind of change back to the administration.

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