Well folks...I have produced an eclectic version of my digital footprint. I'm pretty freaked out by all the ways that I use technology, both personally and professionally. While I'd love to take credit, the reason this exists is because of a Teacher Academy workshop sometime in 2010 (yes, before the NC General Jerks took away this amazing program!!). In that session, participants were given a TON of resources that we could use with our students; my problem, though, was I used them all personally!! I created videos, had my daughter make Voki animations and VoiceThreads, and blogged about being the parent of kids who were 14 years apart (#Proms&PottiesForTheWin). I started using a few apps with my students, then, I attended an NCCAT workshop about technology (NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching -- when a teacher could actually learn about interesting topics rather than merely regurgitating the Common Core).
I'd been using computers since high school and college (late 80s & early 90s), and the Internet from its humble beginnings in the mid-90s while I was in graduate school (the first time! haha). All for personal reasons. Those two workshops brought everything together for me, as Web 2.0 was in its beginning stages and teachers found our chance to make real differences for our students.
So, here's my digital footprint -- not from where I first started, but all the ways I use technology to share my life and teach my students.
Sunday, November 26, 2017
653: Class Website
It's amazing to me that keeping a webpage current is so flipping difficult to do...alas...it is so!! I tried forever to maintain a Google webpage for my classes (and I still have it and use it); however, it never seemed to be as useful to my students as it was to me or to the teachers with whom I shared it.For this assignment, I spent some time brushing the cobwebs off a webpage I tried to start in the late summer. I envisioned it being interactive and a place where students would START their journey with me, rather than merely a repository of assignments. But, here again, I've not curated it enough to be useful. Neither, I noticed, did the previous teachers whose websites we were given as mentor-texts.
Here is the link, then...https://stephteachesela.weebly.com/
I'd love some feedback --it's not finished, and I want to work on it more, but I think it's enough to have an idea of what being in my class is like.Friday, November 3, 2017
The Future of Online Learning
I think I have stated before that I'm a horrible online student. To me, there's something about physically being in a classroom with an instructor and other peers that make me think I'm really learning. When I'm in a digital environment, though, it feels more like lazy and less like learning. That's a horrible notion for someone who'd like to actually teach online at some point, but I doubt that I'm alone. The research on the future of online learning, though, has several issues to point out.
Legitimacy
When I first started working in my current school district, I learned that the superintendent got his doctoral degree from Phoenix University -- an online school. Way back in 2001, that was scandalous!! The person who told me actually sneered and said, "Pay enough money and anyone can call himself Doctor." There's no way for me to know how rigorous the superintendent's program was, but because it was based online, people didn't see it as a credible degree.
Not much has changed, as evidenced from Lorenzo (2010) who reported on a survey of thousands of community college instructors where online learning demand far exceeds programming. Part of the lack of programming comes from instructors' views that online classes aren't "real" learning -- that students don't get as much out of being behind a computer screen than they do coming into a physical classroom. Besides that, there is a feeling of being replaced by a computer -- forgetting the fact that someone needs to be the facilitator for students (Lorenzo, 2010).
Interestingly, community colleges and other universities that do purposefully create online courses do so to reach learners who may not be able to attend face-to-face classes. Queens University (2017), for example, comes to my high school each semester to speak with juniors and seniors, and one of their selling points is their online offerings.
Instructor Preparation
In order to bring more legitimacy to online learning, educational institutions need to not only think about the students they will serve, but also the training of their instructors. Prensky's (2001) now famous designations of "digital natives" vs "digital immigrants" float in the background of teachers wary of changing the system they believe works. According to Condie and Livingston (2007), teachers have to shift their views of pedagogy in two important ways: learn how to use the technology and change their teaching methods. Easier said than done.
In my district, there is less than nothing when it comes to professional development for technology integration. Sure, we learn how to use our grading program, and maybe the cool VR goggles that fascinates the students. But real integration? Real online learning? Nothing. I work hard to learn as much as I can about best practices in the online environment, but it would be nice to have some back up. When I read Zheng, R., Perez, J., Williamson, J., & Flygare, J. (2008), I was so excited about webquests! I mean, I've used them, but I've never understood the research behind them or how best to utilize a webquest. My students could construct their own based on a book they've read, or a topic they want to learn more about. My point is, educational institutions do not do their teachers any favors by not investing in ongoing training for online learning. All they do is hide behind the cliche of teachers not wanting to change.
Learning Shifts
When Prensky (2001) divided us into people who grew up with technology and those who had to learn it, he inadvertently set up an adults vs kids situation, in my opinion. While I understand the reasoning behind his writing, I think that my getting to learn to use technology has made me a much better teacher -- I have more tools. My students can't even write an email in the form of a friendly letter. They may know technology, but they don't know how to harness it; they haven't really had to. This infographic perfectly describes my daily dilemma:
Therefore, when researchers discuss the need for teachers to change (Condie & Livingston, 2007; Lorenzo, 2010; Zheng, et al, 2008), I think what they mean is that we need to evolve. We need to stop being rigid in thinking that there are correct answers all the time and since we are educated and studied that subject, we should impart that knowledge. It's when I think of online learning as an evolution of my teaching career that I can stop being mad that my students would rather be playing on their cell phones and try to figure out why my lesson is bombing. Kids still have to learn.
Condie, R., & Livingston, K. (2007). Blending online learning with traditional approaches: changing
practices. British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(2), 337-348. doi:10.1111/j.1467-
8535.2006.00630.
Lorenzo, A. L. (2010). Teaching the world to sing: Planning for the future of online learning. New
Directions for Community Colleges, 2010(150), 95-102. doi:10.1002/cc.409
Nguyen, S. (2015, March). Computing in the Classroom. Retrieved from
https://harvardmagazine.com/2015/03/computing-in-the-classroom
Prensky, M. (2001, October). Digital natives, digital immigrants. Retrieved from
https://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-
%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Queens University. (2017). Online learning is versatile [graph]. Retrieved from
http://www.queensu.ca/academics/onlinelearning
Schwebber, A. (2015, July 8). [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://blogs.absolute.com/digital-
natives-not-necessarily-tech-savvy/
Zheng, R., Perez, J., Williamson, J., & Flygare, J. (2008). WebQuests as perceived by teachers:
implications for online teaching and learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 24(4), 295-
304. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2007.00261
Legitimacy
When I first started working in my current school district, I learned that the superintendent got his doctoral degree from Phoenix University -- an online school. Way back in 2001, that was scandalous!! The person who told me actually sneered and said, "Pay enough money and anyone can call himself Doctor." There's no way for me to know how rigorous the superintendent's program was, but because it was based online, people didn't see it as a credible degree.
Not much has changed, as evidenced from Lorenzo (2010) who reported on a survey of thousands of community college instructors where online learning demand far exceeds programming. Part of the lack of programming comes from instructors' views that online classes aren't "real" learning -- that students don't get as much out of being behind a computer screen than they do coming into a physical classroom. Besides that, there is a feeling of being replaced by a computer -- forgetting the fact that someone needs to be the facilitator for students (Lorenzo, 2010).
Interestingly, community colleges and other universities that do purposefully create online courses do so to reach learners who may not be able to attend face-to-face classes. Queens University (2017), for example, comes to my high school each semester to speak with juniors and seniors, and one of their selling points is their online offerings.
Instructor Preparation
In order to bring more legitimacy to online learning, educational institutions need to not only think about the students they will serve, but also the training of their instructors. Prensky's (2001) now famous designations of "digital natives" vs "digital immigrants" float in the background of teachers wary of changing the system they believe works. According to Condie and Livingston (2007), teachers have to shift their views of pedagogy in two important ways: learn how to use the technology and change their teaching methods. Easier said than done.
In my district, there is less than nothing when it comes to professional development for technology integration. Sure, we learn how to use our grading program, and maybe the cool VR goggles that fascinates the students. But real integration? Real online learning? Nothing. I work hard to learn as much as I can about best practices in the online environment, but it would be nice to have some back up. When I read Zheng, R., Perez, J., Williamson, J., & Flygare, J. (2008), I was so excited about webquests! I mean, I've used them, but I've never understood the research behind them or how best to utilize a webquest. My students could construct their own based on a book they've read, or a topic they want to learn more about. My point is, educational institutions do not do their teachers any favors by not investing in ongoing training for online learning. All they do is hide behind the cliche of teachers not wanting to change.
Learning Shifts
When Prensky (2001) divided us into people who grew up with technology and those who had to learn it, he inadvertently set up an adults vs kids situation, in my opinion. While I understand the reasoning behind his writing, I think that my getting to learn to use technology has made me a much better teacher -- I have more tools. My students can't even write an email in the form of a friendly letter. They may know technology, but they don't know how to harness it; they haven't really had to. This infographic perfectly describes my daily dilemma:
Therefore, when researchers discuss the need for teachers to change (Condie & Livingston, 2007; Lorenzo, 2010; Zheng, et al, 2008), I think what they mean is that we need to evolve. We need to stop being rigid in thinking that there are correct answers all the time and since we are educated and studied that subject, we should impart that knowledge. It's when I think of online learning as an evolution of my teaching career that I can stop being mad that my students would rather be playing on their cell phones and try to figure out why my lesson is bombing. Kids still have to learn.
References
Abernathy, D. (1999). What's ahead for online learning? Training & Development, 53(5), 24.Condie, R., & Livingston, K. (2007). Blending online learning with traditional approaches: changing
practices. British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(2), 337-348. doi:10.1111/j.1467-
8535.2006.00630.
Lorenzo, A. L. (2010). Teaching the world to sing: Planning for the future of online learning. New
Directions for Community Colleges, 2010(150), 95-102. doi:10.1002/cc.409
Nguyen, S. (2015, March). Computing in the Classroom. Retrieved from
https://harvardmagazine.com/2015/03/computing-in-the-classroom
Prensky, M. (2001, October). Digital natives, digital immigrants. Retrieved from
https://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-
%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Queens University. (2017). Online learning is versatile [graph]. Retrieved from
http://www.queensu.ca/academics/onlinelearning
Schwebber, A. (2015, July 8). [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://blogs.absolute.com/digital-
natives-not-necessarily-tech-savvy/
Zheng, R., Perez, J., Williamson, J., & Flygare, J. (2008). WebQuests as perceived by teachers:
implications for online teaching and learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 24(4), 295-
304. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2007.00261
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