Hopes And Dreams

I am to report back to school next week to start another year. I love the beginning. I love the prospect of a fresh crop of students. I love the start up...the preparation. For me it is a little like the holiday season. I make lists and run errands. I work on this and that to make everything just right. I put a lot of thought and planning into creating a learning environment where students can be successful and reach their full potential.

I work in a low income school in a fairly small town. My students come to me with a variety of needs. I know that I will have students with many challenges both in and out of the classroom. I want so much to help them know that they are precious to me and that resiliency is a blessing. I want them to know that they have the power to control their own destinies. I want them to know that the choices they make are the key to success. I want my kids to know that their hopes and dreams have no bounds, that they are limitless and full of possibility.

As educators, we have the opportunity to change our world. We are given raw materials every year that can be shaped, molded and refined by our encouragement, guidance, and challenge. We have more waking hours with our students than any other influence. We can use that time to build them up and strengthen them with the tools necessary to survive in an ever changing world. We can reach their souls and impact that piece of them that still desires fairness, kindness, and respect. We have the ability to position our students for success in not only their own lives individually, but as a culture and a community.

Maybe I am idealistic. Maybe I am self important. Maybe I see possibilities that do not really exist. But, maybe I am right. Maybe I can make a difference. Maybe my students will grow to be adults with empathy, responsibility, and the discipline to create a life that will be a blessing for many, a treasure for some, and a dream for themselves. That is my hope & dream. I hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and dream of success for each and every one.

Workshop Reflections

This has been a great workshop with so much information that I reached a point of saturation at about 1:00 this afternoon. Anything that Dave showed us after that went right past me. I have more than I can use right now. I will revisit his wiki later and try to see what I missed, but the tools that I feel pretty comfortable using will keep me busy for awhile.

I am so interested in digital storytelling though. I am mulling over how I can use that in my classroom. I know that 5th graders can do it, I am just thinking about what will be the best fit with the most added value.

I would like to use blogs in a rotating schedule so that students can each have an opportunity to use the classroom computers to blog at least once a week. I would also like to use a wiki or maybe even a pageflakes page to communicate with the parents of my students.

I perused some of the other blogs from our class and found that many others are feeling the same way that I am feeling. This has blown a new door wide open and the tools that we learned to use are too valuable to allow this information to sit in a folder on my shelf and collect dust. I know i will be using it. I just need to get a handle no when & how.

Portage Web 2.0 Reflections

I have really enjoyed this class. I have had some limited access to blogs, wikis, and del.icio.us, but this has been a great opportunity to actually use them. I was very surprised to have had responses to my blog. I am very glad to have had the opportunity to look at pbwiki again because the last time I used it, it was not as user friendly as it is now.

I started a delicious account some months ago, but I have learned many more tools to use on it.

Pageflakes is great. It brings it all together.

I would still like to learn to about podcasts. I have downloaded lots of mp3's, but I have not sent anything out.

We still have two more days, but I am not sure that I have two more days worth of storage space in my brain!

Pageflakes Addiction

So I can see where Pageflakes (or any aggregator) can become an addiction. I sat down at my computer last night to try it out and I was still there three hours later. I was browsing through hundreds of flakes. I have flakes from my hometown in FL, sports, a calendar, my to do list, CNN, ESPN, movie times, Netflix, and the list continues. I have 5 pages of information. It is very exciting.

The premise is that this will save me time. I can check out all of that information in just a few minutes. The question becomes, do I really need to know all of that? It is a little like the consumer who spends $50 to save $3. Is that really a savings?

Now, if I can get RSS feeds for information that I really need to know, that would be a savings. I need to find an RSS feed that will send me a detailed list of what to wear including accessories based on the items hanging in my closet. I need an RSS feed that will tell me when those cute red pumps are on clearance with an extra %50 off at Kohl's. I need an RSS feed that will continually send me the GPS location of my 13 year old in real time. Now THAT would save me some time.

I can see potential in this technology, but it has to be useful. I will use it. I will like it. I will be informed on topics that interest me. But I am not seeing significant time savings yet.

Where I am at right now

I came into this yesterday thinking that blogging was pretty pretentious. Are there really people who care what I have to say? Today I see this as an exceptional learning tool. I am excited to use this with my fifth graders. My mind is whirling with ideas for how I can use this. I loved the suggestion to start small. I think that might be the way to begin. I can have my students-maybe not even my whole class-just respond to my posts on my blog. From there, I would love to have a blogging community for my class and to find safe ways for my students to get feedback from others. Our globe is becoming smaller every day. I think our students really need to know how closely they are connected to other parts of the world.

I am excited to find ways to use this resource with my kids!

Questions I have:

1. Do I have the hardware to facilitate this activity? I teach at a low income school. Not all of my students have access to a computer at home. This would have to be done within the school day.
2. How can I ensure safety while offering networking?
3. Do I have the time to respond to the writing in a timely fashion?
4. How will I handle the reluctant writer?
5. How will I differentiate for learners who struggle to write?
6. Can I make this rigorous enough for my advanced students while ensuring success for others?
7. Should I worry about the 6th grade or other 5th grade teachers' lack of technology in their classrooms? (This experience will doubtfully continue.)

I am hoping that I can work out these issues and still maintain my level of excitement for this activity.

learning 2.0 response

The article by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach brings up the topic of Learning 2.0. I feel that learning is learning. The methods and tools that we use will always continue to change. I was thinking today about a letter I read once that was written by a politician complaining that students couldn't properly sharpen a quill. ( I regret that I cannot attribute that to its author.) the point I try to make is that just like we do not need to know how to sharpen a quill or fill an fountain pen, there are many skills that seem important to us that will be irrelevant in the lives of our students.

I agree whole heartedly with this comment from Jane Nicholls:

My thoughts on learning is that we are not up to learning 2, we are up to about learning 200 and losing count. Learning changes as society and needs change. We can revamp schools and call that school 2, we can improve on the web as technology changes and call that Web 2, but learning has always been evolving and has been around a lot longer than either school or the web.

We will always need to evolve. As teachers, it will be necessary to be life long learners and to swallow our pride a bit as we learn from our students. My own children at home laugh when they think about the fact that I am the tech specialist at my school. They know my abilities and they know how far removed I am from there techno savy world. And yet, I am truly one of the most computer literate educators in our building.

We will need to evolve, keep up, and keep on!

Travel

My trip to Paris in 2004 was a defining point in my life....