Flashback to 2002.
I sat in a high school "distance learning" classroom where I took an SAT Prep class that was offered at a school 35 miles from my physical location. At the front of the classroom was a Large projection screen. On it we saw the teacher as he lectured. On another smaller screen we saw anything he had prepared to present (overhead projection/powerpoint presentations etc.) And on 3 other small screens we could see students in other classrooms around the county who were participating in the same class. There were many times when once of the virtual classrooms would be experiencing technology problems and could not hear, or we could not hear them. There were days when we had trouble with assignments and could not ask questions in real time or had to call the host site classroom to speak on the phone to the teacher. All of our assignments were mailed/emailed to the teacher too.
I took an online graduate program in 2007 and I distinctly remember thinking that I would have loved to have been able to see my professors lecture in real time. But most of our assignments were reading, discussion posts, and group projects. For me, as a visual and kinesthetic learner, this type of distance learning was minimally helpful for me. I learned much more in my real life expereince than I did in that program, but the options I was hoping for (real time interaction with professors) were just not available to students online.
Fast forward to 2015 when I started this LMS program at SUNY Buffalo. Many of my classes now allow for me to participate in real time just like I had hoped for in my first graduate program experience. I can watch the lecture in real time via blackboards collaborate function. I can even raise my hand and ask a question. The professor can hear me and answer in real time too. I have even been able to skype chat with professors during their office hours.
We have come a long way since the days of correspondence classes. There have been many steps a long the way and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for distance learning. It gives students around the world the opportunity to attend programs that their geographical location might otherwise limit. Technology is changing so quickly and thankfully, it is being put to good use to improve distance learning!
Monday, March 30, 2015
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Content & Collaboration in the Library Classroom
What is content? How do you define that within your classroom?
To me content is what my students make it. Information is what I present, but it does not become content until the make connections with the information. It becomes content when they can use it in a meaningful way, connect it to everyday life, share it with others, and use it to inform their interactions and decisions.
Then what is collaboration?
To me, collaboration can be defined as any interaction where a student must work together with another person or with technology to create something. A collaboration can occur when a student interacts with a peer, with a teacher, with a parent, or with a computer program.
What happens when we use collaboration in our classroom?
In short, we help create useful content! Collaboration is essential for our students. They need to learn how to use technology to aid their collaborative efforts because their future will depend on it. They future academic and career paths with, in all likelihood, require some sort of technological collaboration, be it just email interactions, creating presentations, displaying documents, etc. Students need to learn the skills to collaborate effectively using technolgy and as teachers, we hold the key to facilitating this.
We need to allow students the time and freedom to explore technology platforms effectively and learn to use them to their highest collaborative potential. We can talk until we are blue int he face about how wikis and blogs can help our students interact, research, write, and share ideas, but unless we allow them to really experiment with the platform we are not allowing them to truly collaborate and in essence, to create content.
To me content is what my students make it. Information is what I present, but it does not become content until the make connections with the information. It becomes content when they can use it in a meaningful way, connect it to everyday life, share it with others, and use it to inform their interactions and decisions.
Then what is collaboration?
To me, collaboration can be defined as any interaction where a student must work together with another person or with technology to create something. A collaboration can occur when a student interacts with a peer, with a teacher, with a parent, or with a computer program.
What happens when we use collaboration in our classroom?
In short, we help create useful content! Collaboration is essential for our students. They need to learn how to use technology to aid their collaborative efforts because their future will depend on it. They future academic and career paths with, in all likelihood, require some sort of technological collaboration, be it just email interactions, creating presentations, displaying documents, etc. Students need to learn the skills to collaborate effectively using technolgy and as teachers, we hold the key to facilitating this.
We need to allow students the time and freedom to explore technology platforms effectively and learn to use them to their highest collaborative potential. We can talk until we are blue int he face about how wikis and blogs can help our students interact, research, write, and share ideas, but unless we allow them to really experiment with the platform we are not allowing them to truly collaborate and in essence, to create content.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Teaching Digital Citizenship to a generation online
Most student are of the mentality that they are safe online--that nothing is going to happen to them--that they are too smart to get taken advantage of online. But no one is as safe as they might think they are. Even as and adult with all the safeguards you can still get your identity stolen. Children and young adults are not nearly as careful with their personal information and can easily get themselves into trouble on the internet. Some schools across the country have begun integrating online safety into their computer, library, or classroom curriculum but it is not mandated and this is a big problem.
Students are unknowingly exposing themselves to potential predators through their internet habits. ABC News reports that even online gaming, which is extremely popular with students, has now become a virtual playground for predators. The gamers believe that they are talking to other people their age and are lured into a false sense of trust where they give away small details which eventually can lead a predator right to them. Safety needs to be our #1 priority when our students use the internet, just as it is when they enter our classrooms each day. We have locks on our schools, on our classroom doors, we practice lock down, lock out, and stay put drills every month so that our students know what to do if there is an intruder in our school; we practice fire drills and weather drills to train them in what to do if there is another emergency. We need to employ the same sense of the proactive with regards to digital citizenship and it needs to be mandated that every school provide this type of education for students before even one more student goes missing.
Internet safety is only one aspect of digital citizenship though. Another important aspect is preventing piracy in our download-happy society. There are dozens of file sharing programs available and students are more adept at getting around web filters to use them everyday. File sharing programs can download viruses and other malware and cause thousands of dollars worth of damage. Stealing music, movies, and artwork by downloading it has a very real effect on the artists and other people associated with the work. Students may lack the ability to see the effects that their online actions can have on others, but by mandating a comprehensive digital citizenship program we can ensure that students at least have all of the information to consider before making decisions about their online actions.
Students are unknowingly exposing themselves to potential predators through their internet habits. ABC News reports that even online gaming, which is extremely popular with students, has now become a virtual playground for predators. The gamers believe that they are talking to other people their age and are lured into a false sense of trust where they give away small details which eventually can lead a predator right to them. Safety needs to be our #1 priority when our students use the internet, just as it is when they enter our classrooms each day. We have locks on our schools, on our classroom doors, we practice lock down, lock out, and stay put drills every month so that our students know what to do if there is an intruder in our school; we practice fire drills and weather drills to train them in what to do if there is another emergency. We need to employ the same sense of the proactive with regards to digital citizenship and it needs to be mandated that every school provide this type of education for students before even one more student goes missing.
Internet safety is only one aspect of digital citizenship though. Another important aspect is preventing piracy in our download-happy society. There are dozens of file sharing programs available and students are more adept at getting around web filters to use them everyday. File sharing programs can download viruses and other malware and cause thousands of dollars worth of damage. Stealing music, movies, and artwork by downloading it has a very real effect on the artists and other people associated with the work. Students may lack the ability to see the effects that their online actions can have on others, but by mandating a comprehensive digital citizenship program we can ensure that students at least have all of the information to consider before making decisions about their online actions.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Evidence Based Practice: Finding the Educational Sweet Spot
I read a lot this week about evidence based practice with respect to the school library. Yes, evidence based practice is a hot buzzword lately with all of our state tests and student learning objectives, (SLOs) but it has remained oddly absent from the library curriculum. That made me wonder why? Is it because no one could conceive of a way to test students on the things they learn in the library? Or maybe because they didn't really understand the skills taught in the library to begin with? Or maybe it is just because anecdotal evidence is just better suited for this type of environment.
In any case, each of the articles I read this week (6 total on evidence based practice--I couldn't stop reading once I started) seemed to have their own idea of how "Evidence" should be used in our practice as librarians. One of the most comprehensive models of it's use comes from article written by Jennifer Richey and Maria Cahill. In their article they outline a cycle of evidence based practice that loops around in a circle, each step leading to the next, a circular flow chart. It starts by determining the needs of the students using evidence then proceeds to developing goals based on those needs. From there we are to develop a plan, implement the plan, communicate with parents, teachers, students, and administrators, then reflect on the lessons, and repeat with the intent to do even better next time.
I do like this model. It is simple and is a adequate representation of the process. However, I think it may be a bit oversimplified and too linear for real world use. In our real classrooms, things rarely go as planned and we need to make sure all teacher librarians understand that "not going as planned" is normal and okay! Any teacher will tell you that some of the best lessons they have ever done are the ones that they hadn't planned out fully, the ones where they let the students lead. We are constantly course correcting too, which this model does not show. If we get to the 'implement plan' step and the students do not respond well to the 'plan' or show they have already mastered a skill they seemed weak in during the evaluation on which the plan is based, then the process has to start again. The plan needs to be adjusted. So, in this model, instead of the arrows pointing us through one process and on to the next, they would go back and then forward again. The same might happen as we 'communicate.' Teachers might have suggestions, or anecdotal evidence that we did not take into account when making and implementing our plan, administrators might have input into the design of the plan, parents might have input that could be useful--all of which might contribute to a need to change the initial plan. Again we would course correct.
I am not saying that this model is not useful. It certainly is. What I am saying is that the process is not as clear-cut as this model might have us believe. It is important to lay out these steps so that we know the process and where we are going with it, but it is also important to remember that it is okay to course correct. Education doesn't usually fit into a neat little flow chart. It takes a little finesse to find the educational 'sweet spot' and that spot might be different for each class, even for each student. What is important, is not that we follow the steps of EBP, but that we continually adjust until we are doing what is right for our students, building the best possible curriculum to meet their needs.
In any case, each of the articles I read this week (6 total on evidence based practice--I couldn't stop reading once I started) seemed to have their own idea of how "Evidence" should be used in our practice as librarians. One of the most comprehensive models of it's use comes from article written by Jennifer Richey and Maria Cahill. In their article they outline a cycle of evidence based practice that loops around in a circle, each step leading to the next, a circular flow chart. It starts by determining the needs of the students using evidence then proceeds to developing goals based on those needs. From there we are to develop a plan, implement the plan, communicate with parents, teachers, students, and administrators, then reflect on the lessons, and repeat with the intent to do even better next time.
I do like this model. It is simple and is a adequate representation of the process. However, I think it may be a bit oversimplified and too linear for real world use. In our real classrooms, things rarely go as planned and we need to make sure all teacher librarians understand that "not going as planned" is normal and okay! Any teacher will tell you that some of the best lessons they have ever done are the ones that they hadn't planned out fully, the ones where they let the students lead. We are constantly course correcting too, which this model does not show. If we get to the 'implement plan' step and the students do not respond well to the 'plan' or show they have already mastered a skill they seemed weak in during the evaluation on which the plan is based, then the process has to start again. The plan needs to be adjusted. So, in this model, instead of the arrows pointing us through one process and on to the next, they would go back and then forward again. The same might happen as we 'communicate.' Teachers might have suggestions, or anecdotal evidence that we did not take into account when making and implementing our plan, administrators might have input into the design of the plan, parents might have input that could be useful--all of which might contribute to a need to change the initial plan. Again we would course correct.
I am not saying that this model is not useful. It certainly is. What I am saying is that the process is not as clear-cut as this model might have us believe. It is important to lay out these steps so that we know the process and where we are going with it, but it is also important to remember that it is okay to course correct. Education doesn't usually fit into a neat little flow chart. It takes a little finesse to find the educational 'sweet spot' and that spot might be different for each class, even for each student. What is important, is not that we follow the steps of EBP, but that we continually adjust until we are doing what is right for our students, building the best possible curriculum to meet their needs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)