Week One Reaction

Since I am the computer teacher at my school, and one who has had no formal education in technology, I always find articles about teaching technology extremely interesting. The articles we read this week help to give organization to what I'm trying to do with in my class.I enjoyed the easy-to-understand, straight-forward information in Principles of Teaching and Learning. Reading the articles on learning and teaching principles, I found myself applying the information to my 6th grade son who was diagnosed with ADHD in 3rd grade. This past year he struggled in several classes, and as I read many of the principles, I wondered if his teachers had any concept of these principles. The principles I found most relevant are 3, 4, and 5. My son has an extremely difficult time processing and organizing ideas. He's very bright but when it comes to completing steps, for example in math, his anxious mind doesn't slow down enough to complete sequential problems; therefore, he messes up. It was my observation that little was done to try to work through this issue, but in all fairness, the teachers at my school aren't trained to address this issue, which is not limited to my son alone. Likewise, 4 and 5 principles are extremely significant to learning. Even as adults, most of us learn best by doing and redoing and processing our mistakes and successes.

The second article on the study was a bit over my head, I have to say. I am not practiced in reading research articles. I couldn't figure out what the numbers meant, nor did I understand all the terminology. I did, however, grasp the article's contention that more concrete studies need to be done. I did find it perplexing that the study only found a small success in student learning outcome when including technology. I would have believed that it provides a much better learning outcome and not just a small one. The study does seem to address my conerns, however; how to best improve my tech program. I am constantly struggling with how to make tangible the concepts that are taught.

Technology that Works

This week's readings have me thinking a lot about what I teach and why. On the one hand, being the computer teacher is perfect; my lessons are all hands-on, so my curriculum naturally provides alternative assessments and caters to all types of students. In other words, I don't have to go out of my way to try to teach to various learning styles. In addition, the kids love coming to computers and are always eager to find out what the next lesson has in store for them. In many ways, I've got it made. The purpose and goals of my curriculum, however, are quickly changing as our readings are pointing out. It's no longer good enough just to install a bunch of software and let the kids go to town. Clearly, I need to have more direction and consider carefully why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm not trying to imply that I just have the students play all day long; much of what I already do meets many of the standards. The problem is is that I've never really sat down and intentionally designed my curriculum around the standards. I've always referred to the standards and made sure mine were aligned, but with the new NETS standards, I need to really weigh my lessons and figure out how to teach more effectively. In addition, although I typically use a rubric for most lessons, I don't for all, and my feedback typically is a letter grade and a comment or two or a verbal comment in large group. I also rarely have students participate in what they want to learn. Instead, I tell THEM what we're going to do and don't necessarily make my goals and objectives real clear to them.

I think the most difficult challenge I feel has more to do with how to meet the objectives of my young students. All of this seems easier with the older students. Even much of our textbook is directed toward older students. I have 7 and 8 year olds up to 12 year olds. Designing my objectives for the older students doesn't seem quite as daunting; their written and verbal skills are obviously better developed. The younger ones, however, are barely reading. Figuring out how they can set their own objectives, for example, seems rather difficult. Perhaps I feel somewhat intimidated because my degree was for grades 7-12. I'm sure it would have helped to actually have had elementary ed classes. It has taken me these four years just to realize how literal little kids are. Thank goodness I have raised three of my own. That, alone, has provided more knowledge than any class I could have taken. So I can now see that one of my goals for this class is going to be figuring out how to make technology instruction work for me for the younger ages. I want to do more than just teach them the keyboard and how to boot up the computer.

Internet Safety Net

For our recent assignment on creating a presentation on Internet Safety for Children, I decided to take a look at what resources are available for this important topic. I am absolutely thrilled at what is out there on this topic. Even though I know many of the common sense recommendations, trying to present those ideas to a group of parents isn't as easy as it would seem. First of all, just in my experience at my small, catholic school, it's amazing how many parents don't understand all the technologies that their kids have access to. Many of them don't know what chat rooms are and even though they might email regularly, they've never heard of "sexting." In addition, some assume that sites geared toward children automatically have filters in place to protect them but don't know the extent of that protection. And though they all have heard of the dangers of My Space, they don't know of the many other social networking sites that are available to their kids.

One of the best sites I discovered was NetSmartz.com, a site created by the Center for Exploited and Missing Children. The site is amazing - full of downloadable presentaions for both children and parents. There are also terrific videos and interactive activities for various age groups, from the very young to the teens. What I like in particular were the animated videos on topics like privacy and gamers as well as many others.

I can't wait to use this site with my students. I've always known that the teaching of Internet Safety was important, but until I actually read the Children's Internet Protection Act, I didn't realize what expectations the government had placed on our school and libraries. It has made me think twice about how I teach this topic and what plan my school has in place. Even though I teach at a private school and so do not necessarily have to abide by the same rules as public schools, I still want to do everything I can as an educator to instill important skills in my students' minds. When I return in the fall, I will be taking a look at my "plan" and making significant changes to meet the criteria of the Children's Internet Protection Act.

Tools Part 2

When I traveled to Vegas for the first time many years ago, one of the most awesome sites for me wasn't the casinos, with their dinging machines and colorful lights, nor was it the mini-Eiffel Tower or New York rollercoaster. Nope, for me one of the truly grand sites was the M&M candy store. Walking into the M&M store, my eyes could not take enough in of the ginormous containers filled to the brim with exquisite colorful candies. I had never seen such a place that was so richly colorful and so tantalizing at the same time. I walked around that store for nearly a half hour, trying to decide where to even begin. Alas, in the end, I left the store with nothing, finding the decision of what to buy too overwhelming.

All the studying we've been doing on Internet tools has me feeling much like that first time in the M&M store. I can't get enough of all the variety of learning resources there are on the Web, but I'm finding the task of picking and choosing which to use a bit overwhelming. I've bookmarked just about every one of them, but now I'm a bit befuddled as to how to best use them in my classroom. I'm beginning to feel like I need to dump my current curriculum and move in an entirely different direction.

Part of my anxiousness also has to do with the fact that my school is trying to move toward a standard's-based report card this fall. I have already completed a list of objectives, based upon our Diocesan standards, but now I'm realizing that these standards are completely archaic and must have been created while the concept of cloud computing was in its infancy and the Internet was a place you visited for specific tasks. The current objectives focus on the student's ability to "do" things, such as cut and paste, create a document, boot and shut down the computer, etc. These are very easy tasks to complete and measure but clearly they don't begin to tap into the deeper levels and potential of the tools we've learned about in class.

In addition, I've started to take a closer look at the NETS and am realizing that they, too, have very little to do with what my are or the Diocesan standards are. I'm quickly realizing that my responsibility to my students is not so much teaching them how to cut, paste and insert images, but, more importantly, how to collaborate, problem-solve and be responsible, digital- and media-literate citizens. Yikes!!! Teaching them to cut and paste sounds soooo much easier.

So this is where my mind-set is, and I'm excited, yet struggling, with how to best approach the up-coming year. The Diocese hopes to create a standards team to help revise them, and I've asked to put on the list. But clearly revising the standards to coincide with NETS is a daunting task, and I'm sure there will be much debate. Should the standards be broken down by grade level? How specific do we want to be? How can the standards be created in such a way that schools with less access can still meet the criteria? Should we even take this into consideration or simply demand that schools meet the criteria for the sake of the students? And on a smaller scale, how can I convince my teachers to include the types of tools we've covered in class? As the tech teacher is it my sole responsibility to educate my students or should all the teachers be required to do so?

GRRRRRR... This has my head swimming, and I'm afraid that I may become too overwhelmed, thus leaving the candy store empty-handed.