Assignment 4/28 Free Blog

So I just looked up my 5 GLE's and found first Tool for that GLE. Interesting assignment...didn't know exactly what GLE's were, that they existed for each grade. I'm trying to focus on 3rd grade since it's the grade I would like to teach, but I also love Algebra, so found a few in higher grades too. GLE's are very specific and targeted, interesting to read through. I found GLE for NH/New England states, and am just wondering how they compare to other areas of country. I wonder if Dave can answer that! As I was searching for Math games, my 7th grade daughter jumped right and and showed me her favorite math games sites. The enthusiasm she showed in this h.w. assigment that I was doing really illustrated to me how much the kids like these websites. She couldn't wait to show me 3 different educational game sites, and remembered her favorite one from 3rd grade, and remembered her login name. I'll use these for sure when I'm a teacher. Thanks for this assignment, an eye opener in many ways!

Digital Nation

I just finished watching Digital Nation. Everything Frontline does is such high quality. I thought this was such an interesting program, I did not mind the length of it. Though it hooked me more as a parent then a future teacher I must confess. I am maddened by parents who watch their kids playing video games all day....like examples shown in Japan and Korea. We have to take responsibility for our kids, we are not here to be their best friends. We are here to guide them, get them outdoors and engaged in other things, and to say no sometimes. I do think video games are addictions. We just came home from vacation at a beautiful resort in the Dominician Republic. I saw teens playing video games all the time in the teen hangout room....and could not believe it. This resort had every outdoor activity you could think of. It's very sad. One parent I met said her son is addicted to Warcraft...shown in this video. I had no idea what is was, was interested to see it after just hearing about it. It's seductive for sure. 2nd Life Creator Rosedale is drinking his own KoolAid if you ask me. My prefered name for 2nd life is "get a life". But maybe because I'm 45 years old. Finally the Army Experience Centers I find very objectionable and if one opened up here, I'd be a protestor! I liked the final conclusion that we should use and learn from technology, but always ask "what is it doing to us" and find a balance. An analogy came to me....I just watched the video "Food Inc." a few weeks ago. When large scale farming evolved, it did so without malice intent. We are just seeing negative effects from using pesticides, corn subsidies, large scale meat production etc. It took decades to see negative effects. I believe we are at the beginnings of the same thing with information expolsion. There can be positives, but let's not wait decades to realize negative effects. Stop each day and make careful balanced decisions, and pass those values down to your children and students in your classroom.

What do I think?

I have learned alot so far, and becoming more comfortable blogging and tweeting. Though I wish I understood better the mechanics of it all...where is all this info going? How is it being transferred? How is there unlimited space for all of this...it baffles me! I'm not positive my blogs and tweets are being read by anyone, and I hope I'm doing it all correctly. I like the teacher resources alot, it's a great comfort to see how much support there is out there for ideas, feedback, concerns. I do still think some of it can be a waste of time, and don't want to fall into trap....I think real face to face interaction, getting outside and doing real activities, and trial and error are just as important. I'm finding the text extremely difficult to read. Some chapters are just not applicable to my needs and filled with tech info websites etc. that I'm not sure I'll ever use. I'm looking forward to final weeks of collaborating and interacting more with other students in the class.

2 Educ Tech Tools

I searched and found 2 education tools on my own. First since I used to be a private music teacher (violin out of my home) I wanted to see what I could find for public school or private music teachers. I found an interesting page www.teachers.net that included a page for music teachers. It's mostly a chat room, but teachers post their thoughts, ideas and actual lesson plans for different grades and skills. It was fun to read through, read similar emotions I felt as a music teacher, and get ideas for teaching in group settings, which I did occasionally. But there was no resources for students or parents, so I looked for another site. Discovery Channel has the most amazing site I've ever seen. www.discoveryeducation.com. This site has everything for teachers, students and parents. I will definetly be using this when I become a teacher. There are fun math problem solving programs with great animation, that a complete description of grade level and skill practicing including citation info (MLA/APA/and Chicago)? Need to look up what these mean?

Anyway...there are professional development links for teachers, lesson plans, classroom resources, contests and grant info. And for parents an information page on special parent concerns like H1N1, motivating kids at home, summer activities etc. Literally, something for everyone. You must check it out!

Can teachers provide equal access to the digital world to all students.

I have to say, Yes! Anything we put our mind to is possible. I don't think 20 years ago we could have even imagine the explosion of information and technology that has occurred. I may be an optimist, but if teachers and communities made it a priority, it can be done. I've been involved in alot of fundraising for my children's school community.....this year the play I co-produced raised $8,000. The KidsArt fundraiser a friend of mine and myself raised $3,600. If everyone is willing to put themselves out there and donate time and elbow grease, this can be done if we can agree it is a priority. Chapter 4 showed me how much free info and software there is available...I had no idea. Of course it is possible if computers are purchased for schools....or donated.....companies like PC Connection donate old computers all the time for use in schools. What if students were allowed to bring laptops home...so it was made available to them at home too? We can tap into these corporate donations as well as our own fundraising efforts. I was quite interested to learn that hackers lead the way to this availability of free info and software. And even more excited to read the contributions by the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. My children's First Lego League just got a tour of this lab this year, and we met some of these amazing dedicated grad students. Think positive everyone.....it can be done!

2nd K-12 Conference....Jen Wagner from Dec 2009 - If You Host It, They Will Come....starting online projects

This conference was very interesting and I highly recommend it to any students in this class who are actual teachers now with their own classroom. Jen Wagner gives great advice on project planning, where ideas come from...and laying out a project starting from topic, to reason/goals, objectives, timeline, collaboration, collecting results, review and thanks. She lists many online locations to start the project....ones I've never heard of, and will hopefully explore someday when I become a teacher! Places like Flicker, Skype Voice Thread. And online ways to promote, like Twitter, Nings, etc. She recommends a site called Global Schoolhouse to register your project so others can find it. And also shows you how to use Google Forms to set up questions and later collect the data. Wow, very useful from start to finish. She ends with example projects currently being done by other teachers. Check it out!

K-12 Conference - E. Helfant Dec 2009 Leading the Change

Tonight I listened to 2 k-12 Conferences. The first was Leading the Change...Self Driven and Classroom based:Professional Development. It talked mostly about focusing on classroom...mainly just common sense advice when bombarded with so much technology out there to choose from. It was actually good to hear and be reminded of, though it seemed like a long conversation with same points being repeated. But again, good to be reminded. Teachers must know themselves first, their style...solid understanding of context, where technology fits in. In order to make the most of network/technology we still must be rooted in classroom, as she says. Collaboration with other teachers, 2 or 3 would be beneficial at this point.