The App Generation

     We are teaching students now who are immersed in technology and using apps to get instant information/gratification. This has some positive and negative results. On the positive side, those who are more introverted have the means to express themselves and to find "friends" with similar interests. Using apps for them may be a way to interact with others when they might not otherwise. The downside of this is that these friendships may only continue to be superficial. With shopping apps, those who are introverted can live almost exclusively at home without ever having to have contact with the outside world. Depending on your point of view, this could be a good or bad thing.       Online personal profiles also allow experimentation with how students wish others to see them, which may be helpful at an age when kids are finding their own identities. Since the app generation seems to be a lot more tolerant and open with their sexuality, reaching out to similarly minded people could help in the case of someone who might have difficulty coming out of the closet with their family. In my opinion, if social apps are used to initiate friendships which are followed by face to face interaction, I would see this as a positive thing. In addition, one could find friends and be pen pals of sorts and have virtual friends from all over the world and thus learning about other cultures and perhaps being exposed to other points of views. With instant messaging and apps like "What's App" this is all possible.
     Teaching the app generation student means we have to be prepared for shorter attention spans and less imagination. We also need to probably be better at providing instant feedback. Blended learning is a must. What I have personally noticed about the students I teach now is that many of them do not know how to read a clock and they cannot quickly alphabetize. Spelling and grammar are extremely difficult without the help of a word processor. Planning and organizing skills are not as strong since it is all too easy to make arrangements with friends on the fly.  I think this is because they are so used to just getting this information from apps on their phones. Another thing I have noticed is that they will immediately look to their phone for entertainment if they are not being directly spoken to.
    While I enjoy using many apps myself, I know I also have social skills, executive functioning skills, and I could pretty much survive without my phone for a few days. I am not sure this is true for the app generation.
   

Get "Net" Smart

     Getting "Net" smart really can be whittled down to five basic categories: Attention, Crap Detection, Participation, Collaboration, and Network Smarts according to Howard Rheingold.
Within these categories, people can read about and learn ways to become better online users. As I was reading "Net Smart", it all just seemed to describe everything we have read about or done in class.  In our courses this semester, we have really worked hard on being good participators and collaborators. I mean, here we are with our own blogs!  And, our group projects have taught us how to collaborate online as well as in the classroom. The previous book we read "Information Diet" helped us learn about the dangers of spending too much of our attention on useless information thrown our way. The activities we did regarding crap detection were also valuable for us. Our searching activities and Pecha Kucha project highlighted how important it is to have network smarts.
     I feel I have some tools now to design lessons that will help my students be "net smart".
Signed- Agent 86
   

Synthesizing -with a Capital S

     Putting some thoughts together and Synthesizing from the comments on this blog was easy. Most people know that a lot of time is wasted on social media and as adults, it is up to us to teach our students and perhaps ourselves to monitor our use. We all get that rush of dopamine when we check our social media and we are "tagged" or mentioned. I am sure this is an addictive feeling for many. I don't think I will ever close my Facebook page because it connects me to so many of my overseas friends and far-away family. The consequence of this is that I must self-monitor my time and be careful not to get distracted with click-bait and useless ads. 

     Someone asked if standards could be added to content area to include searching and evaluating skills. I believe it would be time well-spent to help students learn the importance of being productive online users.  In fact, I think it will become one of those semester courses that all students will be required to take their Freshman year in high school or perhaps in college in the same way I had to take a Library Skills course my Freshman year in college.

Copyright Clarity- what is allowed?

The big takeaway for me from the book Copyright Clarity by Renee Hobbs was that I should not be afraid to use images, quotes, and video clips as long as it is for educational purposes and I do not share or sell it to make money. While it is highly unlikely that copyrighted material that is used for a my school assignments will ever get much attention, we still need to be wary of the rules and make sure that when the students do use the copyrighted material, that it is for creating something new and that it meets the transformativeness standard.
Students in my Health classes are asked to explore a health profession and design a poster, pamphlet, skit, or slide show to share their information with their peers. Many times the students will find copyrighted photos on the internet that they wish to use. Since we will not be posting any of the projects online or selling any of the projects, I would say it is a safe bet we are following the rules of fair use.

Information Overload - Going on an Information Diet

     I know many adults who have recently made the decision to stop watching the news on television or stop reading political articles. Some people have made the decision to not have social media accounts. I am not one of them but I can see why these decisions were made. At some point about 3 years ago I also noticed how consuming too much information online or on the television was changing my lifestyle for the worse. Even while catching up with friends on Facebook, I am still bombarded with news articles someone thinks I should read. I began to socialize face-to-face less and read actual books less. Eventually, I made some changes regarding my screen time and now I feel happier with myself. I was able to self-monitor. However, I think this is more difficult to do for students or young people who's brains have not fully developed and who seek constant approval from peers. It is also dangerous for anyone to not have a sense of what is legitimate news or what is contrived, biased, or simply false.
     As we begin to design lessons for our students using technology, it will be important to help our learners become aware of not only how much they use the internet to gain information, but how to find accurate information. The Information Diet  not only gives good examples of how the public is fooled but it also gives the reader tools to use to not only decrease screen time but also tools to help decipher which websites are legitimate sources of accurate information.
     Going into the next grading quarter I will be teaching our Health and FLE unit. One of the PBLs I assign is letting the students research fad diets, sexually transmitted infections, and health foods. I will definitely share a checklist with them of how to decide if a website is reliable or not.

Being Creative in our Designs

One of my favorite PBL assignments that I give is allowing the students to create their own game. This opens up a world of opportunities for some fun and allows them to be the designers. While there are some time and equipment limits, this assignment is an example of how I interpreted the article "The Creative Spirit of Design" by Jason K. McDonald.
    Every year, I invite the students to wander in to the PE equipment room and look at the various items and pieces of equipment. Students are allowed time to experiment with their games and see what works and what doesn't. This is the "Imagination" step. Students are also allowed to work in groups if they wish. They have an outline on paper to work with but only to help them stay focused- a bit like a story board. Of course with any game, there need to be rules and directions on how to play. The students present their games and then the class actually plays them. It is in this process of playing when students discover if their game is actually playable. More times than not, the game lacks something.  As a group, we make suggestions on how to improve and try the game again. This is an example of the continual cycle of change and looking at all the possibilities we can create from one basic concept. The students really enjoy this project and I believe they learn many POG skills from it.
    My challenge to myself is how I can incorporate technology into this lesson. Any suggestions out there? :-)

Matching Learning Goals with Tools

A few years ago, our teaching staff was instructed to use our Smartboards at least once a month for the whole school year to teach a lesson. We were to incorporate technology into our lessons!!  I never had any training on how to use a Smartboard. Panic stricken I went to our SBIT for help. Thankfully, he was brilliant at designing games and had lots of great ideas. He asked me a few questions about the focus of the lesson and what exactly was I hoping for the students to learn. Hmmmm. Good questions. After spending time deciding, we came up with some ideas. However, this seems backwards to me. I think the best teaching practice is to first decide what you want/need your students to learn and THEN decide on the best way to match the tool to teach it.
     This year our students in FCPS were given laptops. It'll be great, they said. Kids love learning on the laptops, they said. Kids are great at technology, they said. No. No No. It is not an automatic thing that all will be great just because our students have laptops. Teachers need training and exposure to the hundreds of technological tools that are available to bring curriculum content to our learners. However,  that is only the first step. Once teachers are aware of the tools, it is imperative that they choose the right ones in order to reach the intended learning outcome.
     So many decisions go in to deciding on how we want to bring content alive to our students. We can talk all day about the various e-learning technology affordances, but until teachers become more tech savvy themselves, the potential for amazing learning experiences is lost.
     

The Victorian Internet

     As someone who is interested in history, I really enjoyed reading this book. I think it is human nature to want and need to communicate. We know that from the beginning of time, humans kept documents of news- either on walls or scrolls- but how they could deliver news from one place to another changed incredibly within a 50 year time frame. Their were two basic themes I got from viewing the documentary and reading the book. The first was the human need to communicate. The second theme was that technology develops at such a fast rate that it changes human nature and the way society behaves. In our society today, these two concepts are combined in the way that we use social media, find information, and keep in touch with what is going on in the world.
   As a teacher, it will be a large task to help my students be respectful users of technology and to help them discover positive and reliable ways to gain information. Having background on how influential technology can be on a society has been helpful to me in recognizing the importance of guiding learners in the appropriate use of technology when introducing it as a tool in learning.
   
   
   

Vygotsky

     "Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many specialized abilities for thinking about a variety of things." Mind in Society by Vygotsky.
What we learn and how we learn and how we learned it affects us continually for our whole lives. As humans we are continually adapting to our environment and learning through so many means and ways. We learn things every single day even though we many not be cognizant of it.
     As educators I believe it is important to provide as many opportunities for learning content as possible. Our students come from so many different cultures , backgrounds and experiences and what has meaning for one, does not have meaning for another. Designing our lessons in a way that allows students freedom in the way they find answers is key. Students can then use these skills/tools as they adapt to other learning environments throughout their life.
     Vygotsky believes that we learn through play and that our environment has everything to do with our development. This is right up my alley as a PE teacher since so much of what and how I teach revolves around 'play', especially at the elementary school level.

The Culture of Learning

    " Learning methods that are embedded in authentic situations are not merely useful; they are essential." This quote from the article Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning by Brown, Collins and Duguid sums up the entire article for me. It is so very important that educators start thinking about how they present their topics to their learners in order for it to be authentic and meaningful to the student. Introducing topics that are required and then asking students how it is relevant to them is one way to spark interest and get a "buy-in" from them. This article gives many examples of how learners use previously learned knowledge relating to their environment to solve problems. Hands on experience is how most people learn the best. I like the term of "apprentice" when thinking about how to view my students. In addition, experiences in real-life situations help learners relate one problem to another. And in this day and age of shortened attention spans, it is important to not only make learning fast paced and interesting, but to give the students meaningful opportunities to discover the process of learning and how best they can achieve a variety of solutions to a problem.
   In my teaching experience teaching Physical Education, it is not about learning skills- although that is a bonus- it is about the process of learning the skills. ( how can I do this better, what works for me, how might I use these skills later, etc.) Students use previously learned knowledge to play a game, sport, or demonstrate some other fitness skill, and I simply add to that and try to help them see how it will benefit them later in life. What I find most beneficial to my students is relating teamwork and positive attitudes to the life skills that will benefit them in the workforce and social and family situations.
   When teaching Health and Family Life Education, I am very much limited in how I disperse this sensitive information. We are actually given manuscripts on what exactly to say. I find this extremely limiting and so outdated. It does not take in to consideration any individuality of the students.
   Overall, it is clear that educators must see the relevance in designing their lessons and simply not putting information out there for the students to regurgitate. Unfortunately, until the SATs and ACTs stop becoming such an important university acceptance issue, and SOLs continue to be a graduation requirement, teachers will need continue to teach to the test.

Sabertooth Curriculum thoughts

I am not going to recap this book. We have all read it. Rather, I will post how it made me feel to read it and how I think it relates to education in this day and time.
First of all, I did enjoy the satire with which it was written. I found it an easy read and I was amused by the digs the author took at the educational system. I also was able to identify some of the social and political issues he addressed. I was fortunate to buy one of the used books that had some information at the end about the author and this is what really tied things together for me because it gave me more perspective on what the author was living at the time.
As I was reading, I could definitely relate to how our education system today is somewhat outdated. In my experience as a college student and that of a parent of a college student , I know that in the first two years of studying, our universities and colleges focus too much on re-learning what is already taught in high school. I do assume that if a student has achieved enough credentials to enter college, then they should not have to repeat the basic courses of math, history, science, English, etc, unless this courses are relevant to what they are trying to major in. In addition, technology has moved forward so fast, that there is so much information that would be far more useful to learn in these first years. I do also feel that many students should think about doing an apprenticeship after high school which would teach them a trade that would be useful to society. College is not for everyone and so many young people today are finding it difficult to fit in to this mold of 'high school-college-job' thing. Our society still needs good plumbers, air-conditioning techs, auto techs, etc. 
I did find it interesting that the author wrote this book under a different name and found it necessary to write it as a satire rather than being direct in his message. I also found it interesting that the same problems he felt were prevalent back in 1939 are still problems ( in my opinion ) today.

Teachers as Designers

The way students learn is constantly changing. New technology affords so many new ways to access curriculum and allow students to be more in control of gaining and retaining information. The process in which students learn can also be identified as a life-time skill. As designers, we can create ways and provide options for students to learn new material. We can provide lesson outlines with options in the way students discover new information so the students can choose their personal best path of learning. Our designs should be fluid in order to adapt to the needs of our learners.