Several years ago, after having attended many wonderful EARCOS Conferences and at each one learning so many fantastic ideas, taking pages of notes, and then returning to the classroom to implement them, I often found that I couldn’t remember many of the fabulous ideas that I was so excited about only days before. I realized that I was experiencing “great ideas overload” and resolved to change the way I choose what sessions to attend.

For me, I realized that the best way to carry away meaningful information that I could then implement in the classroom was to follow one workshop presenter through all of his/her sessions the duration of the conference. In this way I could more easily learn and remember as each session connected with and often built upon the previous session.

This year I chose to follow Maggie Moon, and what a fantastic choice that turned out to be! Our Elementary School at International School Bangkok has been extremely fortunate for these past two years to have Maggie working with us as our Literacy Coach/Counselor/Advisor.  Maggie’s workshop sessions focused on Balanced Literacy through the Reading and Writing Workshop format. Below are descriptions of her workshops, and if you follow the link from her name it will take you to where you can download the extremely useful handouts appropriate for both Elementary and Middle School language arts classes.

MAGGIE MOON
Maggie Moon
Workshop 1 – Title: Read Aloud with Accountable Talk-Thinking and Talking Deeply About Books   
Description:This workshop will show teachers how to successfully launch and sustain an important component of their daily literacy instruction, called The Interactive Read Aloud with Accountable Talk. Using the techniques of Think Aloud, Turn and Talk, and Stop and Jot, teachers will learn how to plan their Read Aloud texts, as well as ways to assess students.

Workshop 2 – Title: Book Clubs for Independent Readers  
Description:This workshop will walk teachers through the ways to form and launch student Book Clubs, from Grades 3-8, as part of a Reader’s Workshop. Teachers will also learn of the helpful Minilessons and conferences that play a large part in student success, as well as receive suggestions for great children’s literature.

Workshop 3 – Title: Writing Workshop 101   
Description:For teachers who have dabbled in launching a Writing Workshop, this session will explain the basics of setting up a daily Writing Workshop in grades K-5. The topic of Units of Study will be looked at closely, as well as what Minilessons, conferences, and small group instruction tend to make workshops and young writers soar!

Workshop 4 – Title: Assessing Students’ Narrative Writing Skills   
Description:This workshop will provide teachers with an in depth look at Narrative Writing, and the particular Units of Study that might be executed in a Writing Workshop. Then teachers will take a close look at a tool that aids in assessing student writing along a continuum.

Essential Question:   When and where should we be teaching students about their digital footprint?

Protect Your Digital Footprint

Fields Mosely

Fields Moseley has several interesting points in his blog titled Protect You Digital Footprint, one of them being,

“Unlike footprints in the snow or sand, your digital footprint out there in cyberspace, can last forever.”

The thought of this can be a bit disconcerting as I begin thinking that everything I do, write, comment on, and create is out there permanently for anyone’s perusal, not just those that I wrote or posted to, but anyone. Revisiting  Kim Komando’s Cyberspeak blog on Your online reputation can hurt your job search, is a bit scary as well, as it seems that “they” whoever they may be, future employers, government agencies, whoever, can easily gain access to my personal life by searching my social networking sites, photo albums, and even albums others have posted with pictures or information about me in them. Pretty freaky!

I appreciated listening to Silvia Tolisano as she advocated for not being fearful of sharing on line, but to separate your professional from your private life by choosing a special name for your professional blog and moving away from hiding information to making your blog space special and inviting your readers to “Please google me,” instead of being afraid to go public. It seems like her suggestion is to, yes, get out there and go public, take your professional development online and grow and change there, inviting others to join you as you learn. What a very cool suggestion!

Silvia’s presentation on Chatrooms in the Classroom was inspiring. The enthusiasm, questions, comments, reflections, ideas, suggestions, doubts, fears and learning that was flying as our class experienced the group chatroom, many of us for the first time, led me to believe that chatrooms can be a powerful tool in the classroom.  Just as we collaboratively made a footprint of our learning at that moment in time I feel that students, too, should be able to join in the excitement of learning as we did. And, we always have Silvia to turn to for answers to questions and to give us advice on how to implement the chatrooms and subchatrooms into our classrooms to foster student learning.

In regards to the essential question of the week, “When and where should we be teaching students about their digital footprint?” I think the answer is here and now. Both parents and students need to be made aware at the beginning of each school year and reminded of our AUP throughout the year. Contracts should be signed by both parents and students accepting the AUP so that there is accountability and consequences may be administered if needed. As more and more learning is done digitally this issue becomes more and more important and most certainly needs to be addressed here and now.

This last video clip caught my interest. It includes tips for marketing yourself online.

Wow, was this report ever an eye opener!

Quite surprising to get a glimpse of what is coming in the future. I find it mind blowing. I’m not frightened by it, but at times when reflecting on what’s to come I feel as though I’m entering a Twilight Zone-like Science Fiction world, where anything is possible.

Below is the video we made at our Wednesday f2f session. Amazing to work with my knowledgeable colleagues and to watch how quickly Mary made, assembled and posted our video to YouTube! Replicating in my classroom what she did  is one of my many Tech goals to be reached this semester.

Our Fifth Grade Literacy Project has all four of us excited about our upcoming Readers Workshop unit of study on Social Issues. We spent just about all of our f2f Saturday session reviewing the UbD format, forming the Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions, GRASPS, and the Facets of Understanding. It was great to work as a team. We plan to continue this teamwork by carving out extra meeting time weekly, both because we are developing our tech skills and knowledge together and we need each other to bounce ideas off and plan exactly how we can best go forward on our project.  We are equally as excited about presenting our ideas to our teammates. In conjunction with our project we discussed and will go forward in creating a 5th grade team wiki for discussing our curriculum developments and as a place for some of the reflection we continue to have difficulty fitting into our team meeting time.

As I move forward in becoming more digitally literate I have made several goals for myself.

• Have a Skype conference (I always Skype, but want to set up and follow through with a conference.)
• Google Docs (I want to create and work together with others on one to know and understand it.)
• Make a movie from video clips (Our f2f session video has inspired me!)
• Follow Twitter (I’ve been signed up for over a year but am not really sure how it works..also Tweet.)
• Learn/Do Ning (I have a vague idea, but need to participate to fully understand it.)
• Flicker (I want to learn and use it and connect it with other tools/applications.)
• Collaborate on a Wiki – 5th grade team & literacy

So, I have my goals laid out and now will prioritize, begin tackling them and move on along this very different path of Digital Literacy.

The term “digital immigrant” is perfect for describing those of us who did not have computers in the classroom in elementary school, middle school, high school, or college. My first glimpse of a computer was in 1979, and it was a huge piece of “equipment” or “machinery” in the hallway of the college. Our Mammalogy teacher let each of us sit in front of it and rambled on about DOSS, the computer language of that time period. No one really got it and we went on with our non-digital lives.

Flash forward to 1994, where new laptop under my arm I went off for my Masters of Education where we learned about word processing and emailing and finding information online. Very exciting stuff! And then forward again to when public schools began to have computer labs with weekly rotations of students taught by the computer teacher, allowing the classroom teacher to return to the classroom and continue planning, instead of tapping in to the knowledge/tools the computer resource teacher was sharing.

Flash forward again to the incredibly rapid changing face of technology in this 21st century, and I find that I am scrambling to understand what is happening. Knowing that seemingly everything is increasing exponentially is unsettling and thinking ahead feels like I’m entering the world of science fiction where anything imaginable could possibly happen.

And I find myself asking, “Can I ever keep up?” I know that some, as old or even older than me, are on the cusp, actually leading the digital revolution. And that is heartening! But, the fact remains that this digital, online, web based learning with the constantly multiplying tools is hard for me to wrap my mind around. I have realized that it will take me more time than it might take others to learn the tools and applications. But instead of beating myself up for not being able to grasp it more quickly, I am celebrating the fact that I am learning, albeit slowly, and that I have others on this path who are excited to help me.  I must say that I’m very thankful to have this cohort group, colleagues who are so open and enthusiastic about reaching out and lending a big helping hand, sharing their expertise and helping me to keep up.

So, to bring these ramblings to an end, I know I will always be a digital immigrant. But, I also know that I will continue striving towards fluency so that I will be able to be somewhat literate, hopefully at least an intermediate learner, in this digital age.

Literacy has been a major focus for the Elementary School this year.  Keeping that in mind, it’s no wonder that our Project Sketch for the end of Course 1 of the ISB Cert. of Educational Technology & Informational Literacy (COETAIL.Asia as it’s affectionately known) is based around Reader’s Workshop.  Coming up this Semester is the Unit Study Social Issues and it’s through this curriculum area that we will build our Project.

Our Grade 5 team for this project has four fabulous members:  Chrissy, Robin, Dan and myself.  The following is our sketch for our Project Based Learning in the classroom.  We’ve got a bit of planning still to do during our  Saturday f2f meeting time – but that’s ok.  Here’s the gist of our thinking at this stage:

In our Project for  we hope to successfully address the following ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS•S) and Performance Indicators for Students

1. Creativity and Innovation
Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes
using technology. Students:
a. apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes.
b. create original works as a means of personal or group expression.
c. use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues.
d. identify trends and forecast possibilities.

5. Digital Citizenship
Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students:
a. advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.
b. exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity.
c. demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning.
d. exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.

Using Glogster we hope to met the requirements for both standards above.  Glogster is an online tool that allows you to mix graphics, photos, videos, music and text into slick glogs.

A glog (Interactive Poster) will not only provide the vehicle to help students creative original works to express their ideas about Social Issues but it will provide us with the perfect opportunity to help students gain an understanding of Digital Citizenship – with a major focus on copyright, creative commons, appropriate graphics, and collaboration.

Adopt and Adapt: Shaping Tech for the Classroom

by Marc Prensky

I found this reading by Marc Prensky very interesting, especially his four-step process. And I am making my way along the process now. The following are his steps in the process.

It’s typically a four-step process:

1. Dabbling.
2. Doing old things in old ways.
3. Doing old things in new ways.
4. Doing new things in new ways.

I feel I am up to step three, with my classroom blog, and the blogs I am doing for this class. I hope to move on to step four with my project  for this class on using the tool Glogster in our Reading Unit on Social Issues. But more on that later.

Marc Prensky asks the question, “How many of these new ways will ever be integrated into our instruction — or even understood by educators? If we want to move the useful adoption of technology forward, it is crucial for educators to learn to listen, to observe, to ask, and to try all the new methods their students have already figured out, and do so regularly.”

This involves reaching out and asking others who have more experience and are more knowledgeable, whether they be fellow colleagues or students. It also involves finding the time to do it, and to “mess around” as is discussed in The MacAuther Foundation Report. Finding the time can be challenging, but must be a priority for learning.

Marc Prensky reports tone of the big factors that stand in the way of our making more and faster progress in technology adoption in our schools is technological.

He states, “The missing technological element is true one-to-one computing, in which each student has a device he or she can work on, keep, customize, and take home. For true technological advance to occur, the computers must be personal to each learner. When used properly and well for education, these computers become extensions of the students’ personal self and brain. Any ratio that involves sharing computers — even two kids to a computer — will delay the technology revolution from happening.”

I think this is so true! If kids had their own computers acessible anytime during the school day, so much could be done. Even with four laptop carts in the a 5th grade, sharing them between seven classrooms doesn’t really work very well. Many schools are one to one schools. I feel the ISB should become one of these. It would allow kids and teachers to leap forward with both feet into the digital age.

Why oh why does change have to be so difficult? Why oh why, even when best practices point the way, and research again and again confirms the ways students learn best, does it take so long to make the changes that foster learning, and learning for all?

So many thoughts involving change have been turning and tumbling in my head lately, especially as we learn more about the digital landscape and the tools that can be accessed for learning. The biggest change, at least for me, is the acceptance of the need followed by the will to become literate digitally.  And I feel that this is the change, as teachers, we all must undertake. I so often find myself thinking back to the first Web 2.0 conference in Shanghai where Alan November was speaking. In response to the question “What about the teachers who refuse to make the change?” His response was, “Well, we must wait for them to die off.” There was nervous laughter, some head nodding and some astonished expressions at this reply. And I remember thinking…could this be true? And then thinking…yes, because change cannot be forced and some decidedly make up their minds not to change, or think they can’t, or have no desire to change, or quite possibly still cannot see the immediacy of the need for change in methods of teaching. That immediacy being that they are bringing about, supporting, and scaffolding the learning of our future generations.

With the digital landscape stretching ahead and behind, it seems as though accepting the need for change and becoming digital students ourselves is a must, a prerequisite to being able to teach. Arriving at this realization is a major step towards change. Then, being humble enough to reach out and access the knowledge of peers and to ask for help is another big step along the path of digital learning. Acknowledging that small steps are steps as well, and that learners, learn in different ways and in different time frames is also important. Setting goals and following through, reflecting and noting changes for the next time around, just as is done with non-digital teaching is important. And for me, it is necessary to use the tools, repeat the processes/projects again and then again, for that is how learning takes place.

I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to take these courses to prepare me for teaching kids of the digital age. To have Kim and Jeff available to help us and knowledgeable colleagues across the hall and easily accessible is another blessing. Sharing what we know whether it be a lot or a little depending on where we are on the digital learning continuum is an important responsibility we have as teachers. Reaching out to our colleagues who are in the process of realizing the digital age is not going to fade away, strengthens our knowledge base, creates collaboration and actively embarks on creating equal opportunities for our students as we all embrace the digital age that is certainly here to stay.

Yes, The Time Factor. This is what I seem to be struggling with the most. And I’m wondering, how much time should I be spending on the computer daily? How can I organize myself so the time I do spend on the computer is worthwhile and that I am accomplishing what I need to accomplish in my time spent?

So often it seems I am on the computer for hours and when I finally shut down, weary and worn out, I wonder, just what I accomplished. Usually I have a goal, perhaps to search out the perfect vacation spot. But hours later, I’ve looked at many places and still don’t feel I’m much farther along the way to finding the perfect spot. (But, I do have the places of interest tagged on Delicious, so I can go back and resume the searching with some sites of interest to revisit. So that is a big plus.)

Another time consuming computer task for me is keeping up with my weekly blog assignments for this class. Being able to write a blog post quickly just hasn’t happened yet. First I must read the materials, then I must  check the blogs of others. This seems to take me hours. And then writing my own post so that it makes sense and follows the assignment usually takes another hour or more. I’m wondering if others also spend a good chunk of time posting to their blogs. Perhaps it’s just that I’m new at posting on my blog twice a week. (My ELL blog isn’t nearly as time consuming, but that’s because the kids are  doing most of the posting and not me.)

My hope is that I will become more organized in a timely way when I’m on the computer, and that I will become a more rapid reader and writer of blog posts. I hope to make The Computer Time Factor a more managable part of my day.

Reading #1  Connectivism:  A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Siemens

This quote from the introduction of George Siemens article, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age touched home as I am constantly reminded of the fact that knowledge is growing exponentially.

“Learners as little as forty years ago would complete the required schooling and enter a career that would often last a lifetime. Information development was slow. The life of knowledge was measured in decades. Today, these foundational principles have been altered. Knowledge is growing exponentially. In many fields the life of knowledge is now measured in months and years. Gonzalez (2004) describes the challenges of rapidly diminishing knowledge life:

‘One of the most persuasive factors is the shrinking half-life of knowledge. The “half-life of knowledge” is the time span from when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 years and is doubling every 18 months according to the American Society of Training and Documentation (ASTD). To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.’”

Nothing could be more true than this. I discovered this when I was tutoring a student in Biology. I went into the first session quite confident, as Biology was my major in college and I received a BS in Biology upon graduation. I soon realized that the High School course I had volunteered to tutor had much, much more information than I had ever learned, and that I was not prepared to tutor the student. So, my thinking is very quickly changing, and I realize what George Siemens states is so true,

“Know-how and know-what is being supplemented with know-where (the understanding of where to find knowledge needed).

And if we can teach our students know-where, then we will indeed be preparing them for the future.

Reading #2:  [New] Bloom’s Taxonomy Digitally by Andrew Churches

Bloom’s digital taxonomy map

In his article Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloom Digitally Andrew Churches writes that the old Bloom’s Taxonomy “…does not address the new objectives presented by the emergence and integration of Information and Communication Technologies into the classroom and the lives of our students.”

I feel the Bloom’s Taxonomy that Churches presents is extremely helpful, both in explicitly showing the increase of skills, from Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) to Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) and in highlighting the many new skills that kids are either already using or learning to use in their daily lives.

For me this chart is valuable as I can see what I personally know and can do with technology, and the many things that I am learning both in this course and from my students. And I realize that as I move up the pyramid, then I will also be able to move my students along with me.

Reading #3  Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project (MacArthur Foundation Report)

The section of the MacArthur report, “Messing Around” is a wonderful glimpse into how kids  begin exploring and gradually, often through trial and error become very Technology Literate. Personally, I realize that this is  what I need to do, just begin spending some time trying out tech tools and seeing how they work. I like to do this in a group though, so that there are others around who can help. The MacArthur Report, in the section “Social Contexts for Messing Around” mentions how kids so easily help one another and support each others learning.

I feel fortunate because I think this course is providing a venue for “messing around,” but with the scaffolding that some of us need. And it is providing a social context for learning as well that makes it more enjoyable and supportive.

The search for and management of information on the web can be overwhelming! The tools and slideshows shared by Chris Betcher will help me personally to search for information that I can use in my classroom.

The time spent looking at websites with false information, such as the Spaghetti Growing on Trees, and Hell in the center of the earth was a great opportunity to see how we must teach critical thinking to our students so that they do not naively believe everything that they “happen upon” when searching the web. Clarence’s downloadable handout on evaluating websites is a good one for kids to use.

Wait, I’m not sure if it’s Chris’ or Clarence’s handout. I viewed it earlier and now have just spent 15 minutes trying to relocate it. I must admit to feeling frustrated at times when I’m searching for information on the web. So, I’m wondering if I need to get in the habit of bookmarking every single thing I find interesting so that I know I can go back and find it again. Which in turn makes me wonder if in doing this I will spend an inordinate amount of time bookmarking and tagging on Delicious, instead of continuing to read  and learn and whether the time spent bookmarking on Delicious will be worth the effort and time exerted at the moment.