Thinking About Learning

I was first introduced to the concept of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) last October on Jeff Utecht’s Thinking Stick blog (one of my faves). It seems that this idea is finally taking hold in our corner of the world. There’s a lot of research to support this practice as a strategy for improving student achievement. Here’s a link to some supporting online documentation that I located regarding PLCs. My understanding is that generally a PLC is a group of teachers at the same school who are involved in an inquiry-based study of a specific educational topic or practice. Collaboration among teachers has been proven to improve teacher quality. As I have continued to ponder the need to change the way we provide education and how we might go about doing that, I would be very interested in being part of an online PLC that focuses on using web2.0 tools in the classroom. A cool tool that I learned of from Jane’s E-learning Pick of the Day is Xpanity. This application evidently provides a way for users who are reading the same web site to have conversation about it. I’m still trying to work with it, but this potentially seems like a fantastic way to facilitate an online PLC. (I discovered Jane’s E-Learning Pick of the Day in Widgetbox and have added it to my Pageflakes online learning page.)

Some other cool tools:

Seterra: This is a free download geography game. You can study or take quizzes to learn countries, capitols, and flags of the world. It seems to me that we should be placing a greater emphasis on teaching geography as our world gets flatter and flatter. A great use of time when you have a few minutes left at the end of class!
Slideshare: This application allows you to upload your PowerPoint slides and podcast to create a “slidecast.” This tool be used by teachers to make a lesson available online. It would also be a great way to share professional development presentations.

Technorati:plc thinkingstick elearning edtech cooltools

Last night my family, including my 22 year old daughter and 16 year old son, gathered around the TV for a little family fun and watched the Democratic debate that was taking place right here in SC. (Are we geeky, or what?) As we listened to the candidates and provided our own running commentary, I kept trying to explain to my children what a ground-breaking event this was. For the first time ever, questions in a political debate were being asked by the “common man/woman” via YouTube. I kept saying, “This is so cool!” My children are used to their mother’s fascination with the joys of technology and its power in the world, and as usual, they sort of blew me off. The best I got from them was a comment from my son that there should be some kind of application of You Tube for education, and I told him that it already existed, and it’s called Teacher Tube. With the predictable eye-rolling, that was the end of that line of conversation. But I still find myself amazed at what an awesome thing it was that this debate featured questions from citizens around the nation instead of carefully framed questions from reporters. The Internet is reshaping the political scene of our country, as evidenced by the Obama Girl video which had been viewed 2,663,738 times before I saw it!

I felt the same type of amazement over the Live Earth concert. No other event in history has ever had that level of global participation. Every continent on the planet, even Antarctica, was represented. (As a sidebar, that concert was another example of techno-geek mom having to pull her supposedly “digital native” children into the digital world.)

It’s less than a month before the new school year begins. As I ponder my job transition from a classroom teacher to a technology integration specialist, I’m keenly aware of how far the education establishment has to go to even begin to adequately prepare our students for this flat earth. The way we go about choosing the best candidate for president is being reformatted because of technology. A world-wide audience can now be made aware of important global issues. Communication is no longer “business as usual.” How can we continue to teach in the same old ways, business as usual? Daily it seems, I’m reminded that there is an immediate need for a paradigm shift in American education, or our children will all be left behind. How can we initiate change from the grass-roots level? How can we transform instruction to be more relevant to the needs of our students in the real world of today?

Technorati:
teachertube liveearth edtech

It seems like I’m getting off to a slow beginning with my fresh start! I spent some time today updating my page. Edublogs added some new customizable headers, and I was able to add my own picture to the header. I took this picture at Seabrook Island a year ago.

Edublogs isn’t the only site with new features. Pageflakes just posted some great upgrades. I’m going to spend some time reorganizing my pageflakes and play around with using the reader. I took some time off during the past month just to relax and read for personal enjoyment. Now it’s time to get caught up with my online ed tech reading and immerse myself back into the world of Web 2.0. Only a month until school begins! I have a lot to learn.

Some cool tools:
TrackStar: This site allows you to save links into tracks that can be shared with others. It’s like a digital filing cabinet for teachers.
Widgetbox: Hundreds of free widgets that can be added to many aggregators including Pageflakes, Netvibes, and Google Reader.

Technorati Tags: cooltools , pageflakes, Web 2.0

I have decided to try to resurrect this blog. My original purpose was to provide commentary and think aloud about my own personal learning related to educational technology and how that meshes with the realities of our antiquated standards-based educational system. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not opposed to standards and accountability. I just think that our standards need to be updated to reflect the needs of students in our global 21^st Century culture.

The daily demands of teaching seemed to squeeze out any time to do this kind of personal growth learning/writing. Maintaining a blog for my students and parents about daily classroom activities was challenging enough time-wise, and this blog just fell by the wayside.

My professional life is taking a new turn for the coming school year, however. After 20 years of teaching (four of those in a Global Horizons classroom, a technology-centered environment), I am leaving the classroom to become a technology integration specialist. This was a very hard decision for me, because I love teaching. I had been at Red Bank for 14 years, and leaving there is like walking away from part of my family. But sometimes you just know that it’s time for a change, and there were lots of indicators that I had reached that point.

I am very excited about this career change! After spending four years living out technology integration in the classroom, I am looking forward to helping other teachers learn new ways to enhance the curriculum through the use of technology. My new work will push me to more actively pursue my own personal learning. I hope to use this blog as a forum to express what I learn on this new turn in my journey.