final reflection; a shift in thinking

This course has been interesting, even a journey, albeit an unexpected one. I expected to review much of what I already know: blogs and wikis, and to get some tips and pointers and little tricks. I didn’t expect to be thinking about schools in libraries rather than libraries in schools, or libraries as being more than the physical space they occupy as in our chat on Tuesday.

I didn’t expect to be thinking about how we can use Web 2.0 tools, not just to enhance our regular ways of teaching, like what my group did for assignment 3, but as a new way to approach teaching & learning, a way that synthesizes all this information, access to information, ways of managing and amalgamating that information and creating new ideas, products and content. My group incorporated blogging and vlogging into lit circles, and by doing this, we became more aware of multi-literacies and how technology can meet different learning styles.

But I hadn’t made the leap of understanding that I did when I watched the Stephen Heppell video the other day. Listening to him discuss metacognition and how we can work with the twenty first century learner or we can choose to ignore that Google exists and continue to teach as we have for years.

Putting Heppell’s ideas together with Lana saying how she teaches a few kids in each class to be organizers of the wiki (leaders and teachers), and Lisa saying how she wants to do cross curricular collab in secondary, and Lisa also wondering what would happen if she collaboratively planned a unit with her students using a wiki, created a big shift for me. I have know since my career began at a little alternative school in Vancouver, that teachers are not all knowing beings who share their knowledge with students, but that teachers are facilitators of student learning. But for teachers to collaborate with students to create new learnings had not occurred to me until yesterday.

Digital natives do not just access information like we digital refugees or immigrants do, they take information and ways of using and accessing information, and recreate it into something new. They create content and share it. They create, share, and connect.

Digital refugees and immigrants are so concerned with privacy and may make statements like, ” I don’t want my photos on the web.” But digital natives don’t have this concern. Sure, this can be problematic, but could it be today’s equivalent of your fourteen year old leaving the house in a mini skirt and crop top? You can’t control who sees them out of the house, who whistles when they walk by, who may behave inappropriately. You can only teach them how to be more aware, what to do in different scenarios. The internet is the same. 

How can we be effective teachers if we don’t work with or even understand the students’ culture? If you can’t figure out how to use email, how can you effectively teach students to be information literate? How can essentially illiterate teachers help prepare their students for the future? That doesn’t mean that teachers need to photograph themselves every other nanosecond and post on Facebook, but it does mean we need to gain better awareness of our students and how their learning is different.

Last Thursday, one classmate asked, “How can some students in my morning class look at Facebook and their email while the instructor is talking? Can they multitask that easily or are they just rude?” Both, maybe. if the instructor isn’t engaging you, why wouldn’t you do something that is? Especially in university where we are paying hundred of dollars per course, aren’t students entitled to the education they want? And doesn’t this also apply to our elementary and secondary school students?

The past two years I have regularly complained about students who question me, who demand to be entertained, who tell me what they like and what they don’t. But what I am realizing as I write this, is that they aren’t asking to be entertained, they are asking to be engaged in learning about things they care about and in ways that make sense to them. That’s what I ask for as a student, so why wouldn’t my students? And as digital natives, aren’t they wanting, demanding even, to learn as digital natives and not like the obedient, cooperative, and submissive students of yesteryear? I have done some students a disservice in not understanding about their culture and the way they learn. This is probably the biggest thing I will take away from this course, so I am glad it is my last one for the certificate.

Create. Process. Collaborate. Question. Recreate. Reflect. Share.

I am most engaged when examining, creating, and reflecting with peers. I am most engaged when choosing what to learn about and how I will share that learning (I chose this blog for example). I automatically tune out in lectures. I am not an auditory learner and neither are most of my students. 

Create. Process. Collaborate. Question. Recreate. Reflect. Share.

That’s what I need as a learner. That’s what my students need. That’s what my fellow teachers need too.

If web 2.0 is user created/adapted content, sharing and connecting, then schools and libraries in the twenty-first century should also be user created/adapted content, sharing and connecting.

In our text, Ward’s article, “Learning from games and gamers,” it states that Harvard even offers classes in Second Life, a virtual world. Virtual libraries also exist in Second Life, and even the Vancouver Police Department recruits new officers there. These few examples point out that we need to start shifting the way we understand and approach teaching and libraries, in order to serve our clientele effectively.

wiki thoughts

Class Ideas:

• use to create a group or class novel/story, could have alternative endings or chapters
• staff committees for planning that event or Pro D Day
• staff discussion of topics/themes
• group projects instead of another poster project – Ban Those Bird Units  
• collaborative unit planning with colleagues
• feedback from students on unit planning or your own writing
• tutorials, students post questions and other students or teachers reply
• summer communication with students (summer reading wiki)
• movie critique page
• post handouts on wiki for easy downloading at home
• designate a few students to be organizers – other kids can go to them for help
• eportfolios 
• take a break sites – student posted so they can have a break
• wikispaces will create ids and passwords for many people if you email them, additional students can ask to become members by accessing the wiki

Considerations:

• can you tell who wrote what for assessment purposes?
• How do you get staff to participate on a wiki?
• assess specific things like collaboration, participation, content rather than correct use of language, etc
• How could wikis be used with parents? Could be used to share among parents from a particular class.
• ESL or lack of access to computers/internet – could somehow translate on the web?

Benefits:

• paperless, sustainable learning & sharing
• able to continuously polish
• focus on process rather than product
• encourages collaboration
• student input into their learning (i.e. planning units with teacher) gives them ownership over their learning and greatly increases their engagement

Lana is an IT teacher at Tupper and she showed us her wikis, all through Wikispaces for teachers. She uses them with her students and her colleagues. She had some fabulous ideas. My favourite was to appoint a couple students as organizers to help you maintain the wiki and assist other kids. The organizers get a wonderful leadership opportunity, and you don’t lose your mind because you have time to work with students without a huge line up. This is one idea I will definitely adopt to make my wiki more successful next year.

Lana also had the students respond to questions in the discussion area, including rules for the class. Each of her students had a page where they shared their learning (usually a link) and a reflection about it. Great ideas!

This is also relevant if I do get the TL position I am hoping for next year. I will try to use a wiki with interested staff, or help them set one up for their classes. Also, I will promote wikis in collaborative teaching units. If i do prep for classes, then I will use wikis for sure.

issues with Web 2.0

• Restricted access: district and school blocked sites such as Hotmail or Facebook
• Technology issues: lack of IT support in schools means all support done by volunteer teachers, lack of money in some schools for technology, technology quickly outdated, incompatible equipment   
• Privacy issues
• Age issues: online content may be inappropriate for students
• Professional support: often a lack of support for professional development, left to the discretion of individual teacher to learn new technologies
• many teachers are digital refugees 
• people may resist change
• lack of access at home
• huge discrepancies of available technology throughout the district, province, country
• does good access=money, are we perpetuating the digital divide?
• how do we close the digital divide?
• how do we keep our technology current? why don’t school rent like businesses do, thereby staying current, having IT support, having computers and networks that actually work?

How can we tackle these issues and enact positive change? I see many posts and hear comments that it is up to the district or the parents or the school or the ministry or the government to provide appropriate resources for what schools and students need, and for this I have to disagree. We are the district. We are the parents and the school. We elect the government (who supposedly represent us). We are the ones who need to be leaders of change by getting involved at school, district and higher levels. We need to be getting others involved also.

Here’s a fine example of Web 2.0 tools for professional use. And another. Here is a wiki about new literacies.