Fall 2010 Reflections

In August I started two classes for my UNI Instructional Technology Masters Program: Instructional Development and Technology in Education. Both sounded like very interesting classes, but I had no idea what I was getting into. I have grown so much as a student and as a teacher from these classes and the experiences they gave me.

Instructional Development led us through an analysis of instructional strategies and then through a process of developing our own instructional course through the Dick and Carey instructional design model. This process was by far the toughest part of the quarter for me, but only because of all the intricate details involved. I have to admit that I have never thought about classroom instruction in this way, but definitely will from now on. I developed a training module for the staff at WCC to support the integration of a projector and document camera into their curriculum. I have developed and taught training sessions in technology for the staff at WCC before, but never to this level of quality. I am very excited to hold the training session and see the results of all my hard work and planning. I actually feel ready and able to complete the training module.

In our Technology in Education course, we analyzed the impact that technology has made on education throughout the past 100 years of innovations by reading two books, Failure to Connect (1986) by Jane Healy and Teachers and Machines (1986) by Larry Cuban. Being a history buff it was very interesting to read the words and predictions of authors from a specific time period and then to see if their predictions became true in our lives. Our final project for this class was to pick a new instructional technology that has yet to have widespread use in the United States and plan a proposal for integrating it into education. I chose social networking; this topic is one that I am personally passionate about and use in my classroom on a daily basis. In my research I found a report of a 2007 survey of 9-17 year olds that showed 50% of students used social networking sites to talk about school, homework, etc. (Gewertz, C. 2007, Education Week). Yet, schools are blocking these sites at school and ignoring the wonderful possibilities they offer both the student and the teacher.

With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, I like to remind my students that not all the information they learn in the history textbooks is factual. Americans, and especially historians that write American history textbooks, have taken the myths of their history and turned it around into facts that we force upon our children every year in an attempt to make them proud of their country. One of my favorite authors, James Loewen, has written a series of history books: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, and Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong, that I use in my classroom instead of the traditional textbook. Both books debunk those myths that are perpetually taught year after year in our classrooms.

One of these myths is the popular idea of Thanksgiving. Every November, elementary school kids make their black and white Pilgrim hats or their Indian headband with feathers, all out of construction paper and reenact the “first” Thanksgiving that happened many, many years ago at Plymouth Harbor. The settlers unfortunately arrived in the early winter months and were unequipped to survive the harsh New England winter. Luckily, friendly Native Americans recognized their hardships and sent aid to the colony supporting them through the winter months and teaching them how to grow their own food. Then when spring came those brave colonists worked their land, planting fields and fishing and hunting, storing for next winter. To celebrate their abundance they invited their Native American friends to a feast, thanking them for their support and teachings, thus celebrating the first Thanksgiving. Truly heartwarming and inspirational, isn’t it.

However, historical evidence shows us that by the time the Pilgrims arrived to stake their claim in the New England colony, most native people had already been killed by a well-known disease in Europe that most Europeans easily survived, but that Native Americans had never been exposed to; small pox. It is believed that this plague wiped out much of the native population in the northeastern United States. It could be possible that the Wampanoag leader allied with the Plymouth settlers because his villages were so weak and they needed protection from their enemies. Very quickly after this thanksgiving celebration, land disputes erupted in New England and the friendly relations between the settlers and native people was forgotten. It is also believed that the Pilgrims were not as unprepared for the “new world” as the story claims. The Spanish had been traveling back and forth for almost 150 years and England had already attempted a colony at Roanoke and established a colony in Virginia. It is doubtful that the Pilgrims had no idea what they were getting into. They established their town right in the middle of the Native American’s village, next to their cleared, planted fields. Historians have also found written accounts of the Pilgrims breaking into native lodges, stealing goods, even grave-robbing as early as three days from landing in the area.

The actual Thanksgiving holiday, as we know it, did not start until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. The Native Americans had been celebrating autumn harvest ceremonies for centuries. It was not until 1890 that Pilgrims were even included into the tradition. There are many other details in the story of Thanksgiving that have been completely lost with our idealized version; I could go on forever. I recommend picking up a copy of Loewen’s book and reading them for yourself. Please don't think that I am saying to not celebrate Thanksgiving, if anything, I believe Thanksgiving is one of our most important holidays, if we celebrate it as it was truly meant to be celebrated a time to give thanks to the Earth for a plentiful harvest and a time to be thankful for the prosperity of our family and friends.

Why do we do what we have always done?

After spending an hour and a half with Alfie Kohn at the Risky Business Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, I am questioning why do teachers continue to reinvent the wheel? Don't we all know that students learn differently today? Why do some teachers still try to teach like they taught in the 80's? Are we truly preparing students for the future if we are living in the past?

I love the radical ideas of Alfie Kohn! I met him during the first year of my career at another at-risk conference and bought every book he was offering. I have poured over the books: The School Our Children Deserve, Punished by Rewards, and Beyond Discipline; relishing the idea of no more grades, no more punitive consequences for my students, students guiding their own learning and making it relevant towards their life. I was not taught any of these ideas in any of my teacher preparation classes. They focused more on behaviorism, requiring homework, classroom management techniques, etc. never fully understanding why I needed all that "stuff" and especially with no plans to use much of it in my classroom.

It was refreshing to see Alfie Kohn again, now that I have some classroom experience under my belt and can speak more from experience than ideals. I still do not use behaviorism in my classroom, unless required to from district or building expectation. I still struggle with having to give my students a numeric grade that tells them how much or how well they learned. I continue to teach in a very constructive manner, letting my students guide their own learning and setting up my classroom so that students are in charge of almost all aspects of it. This works for me and the type of student that I am teaching. Having only taught in an alternative setting, I wonder if it would work in a traditional setting. I can easily accommodate 12 learning styles into a block schedule, but can a traditional teacher incorporate 30 learning styles into a 40 minute class time? I agree with Alfie Kohn's vision of where education needs to go, but wonder what has to change first, the teacher or the system? If the teachers want to change, but are not supported by the system, can they change? If the system, or the district, wants to change, but the teachers are unwilling to change from something they are comfortable doing and refuse to change, can anything change??

Still, I don't believe Alfie Kohn's advice is the only answer, I do believe he is radical enough to make us all think about what we are doing in the classroom and try to make some changes to help our students realize their full potential. The most important thing to remember is that they are a human being with emotions, dreams, heartaches, trials and tribulations. They deserve to be recognized, respected and loved for who they are and what they can offer.

Picture retrieved from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecastro/4547759314/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Where's the time?????

Dear Teachers,

Don't you wish there were more hours in the day or that you could go days without sleep? I know I do, especially at the beginning of the school year. I have social studies classes to plan, a room to get ready, clubs to form, committees to join, relationships to build, names to learn, etc. and that is just my teacher role. I am also the tech specialist in our building which adds trainings, work orders, quick-fixes, questions, technology classes to plan, etc. There just isn't enough time in the day to get this all done...I am only contracted for 8 hours a day!! I believe that I have learned something that is going to help me to make this a little easier.

I started a training wiki for Walnut Creek Campus that will hopefully be used by the teachers, considering all the work I have put into it. In my perfect world, all the teachers in my building will turn to this wiki to give them ideas of ways to integrate technology into their already existing lessons and to help each other with questions, rather than just come find me on an as needed basis, as well as eliminating me answering the same question 12 times to 12 different teachers. The next step, getting the staff to use it.

Finally, what have other tech specialist done to get teachers to integrate technology? Is there any advice out their for a newbie that is willing to try anything? Please check out the wiki and offer any suggestions for change.

Now the bargaining begins.

I just spent the most amazing week with a group of awesome teachers and professionals. It gives me hope for traditional schools when I meet teachers like this. I always hear the horror stories from my students about teachers calling them failures or even worse names. I could never imagine any of the people in our group giving up on a child. There was so much passion and concern for the students in each of our classrooms that I left feeling more inspired to become an even better teacher than ever before.

The Emerging Instructional Technologies class at UNI with Dr. Z has been by far the hardest class I have ever taken in my college career. It wasn't hard because I was learning all new material or had a lot of reading or writing to do; it was hard because it stretched me as a teacher and gave me a plethora of new and exciting ideas for may classroom that I want to implement right now. A part of me wishes that school was beginning so I could just start and the other part is relieved that I have summer to do all the preparing and planning for the next school year. This is where the bargaining begins. Now that I know all this cool stuff we can do in the classroom and am part of some exciting global organizations I want time to train all the WCC staff on the awesome things they can do in their classroom and I want them to leave this training confident that they can do it. That is going to take "TIME," something that I do not get a lot of when it comes to staff development.

I have decided to ask my principal for a full day of training during one of the teacher work days before the start of school. It is my goal to get a half day, but since I am bargaining, I am going to start with the dream. How cool would it be to get a full day for 12 teachers to sit in a room and learn all the technologies that I learned this week? I hope that with this training I can help them to feel comfortable with the new technology they will be using as well as leave with goals and ideas for the school year.

I also plan on buying at least a class set of web cams so students can make 1:1 Skype calls. We are already very fortunate to have Lumens document cameras in our classroom that also work as web cameras so we can Skype as a class, but this is connected to my teacher computer and not accessible to students on an individual basis.

My Life's Purpose

I feel very fortunate to have found my life's calling at a very young age. My preschool teacher pulled my mother aside at my preschool graduation and told her that she knew I was going to be a teacher. How preschool teachers can see those things, I will never know. They have a true gift when it comes to working with a group of young children. When all I hear is whiny voices and see snotty noses, they see teachers, firemen, presidents, and doctors. As I grew up, I practiced teaching without realizing I even wanted to teach. I was a Sunday School and Vacation Bible School teacher in my church. My high school even voted me most likely to become a teacher out of our whole senior class. At Central College, I played around with becoming an anthropologist, but always came back to teaching. I had some amazing experiences in college that I believe deeply affected the kind of teacher I am today. One of those happened my sophomore year; I was offered a job at a youth shelter as a youth worker. I supervised a 15 bed residential facility for an 8 hour shift 4-5 days a week. I worked with some of the most difficult children in my life, but loved every minute of it. I was making a difference in their lives. When I graduated from Central, I made the difficult decision to leave the facility and pursue my teaching career.

I started my teaching career determined to work in an alternative school setting. I did not have the most successful experience in my student teaching position. The teacher negatively judged my "unorthodox" teaching styles, like project-based learning, constructivism, and choice theory. He wanted me to teach the class his way, using all his curriculum. When I refused to lecture and test he told me I was not accepting of his guidance. I also hated going into the teacher's lounge. The whole lunch time the teacher would sit there and complain about their students. I quit going to the teacher's lounge for lunch and was docked points for not being welcoming and open with my co-workers. Needless to say, this did not put a good taste in my mouth for traditional schools.

Of course, there were no postings in the paper for an opening in an alternative school the summer I graduated. So, I sent my resume to all 99 alternative schools in the state begging for a job, any job. I called all the local alternative schools and that is where I found Walnut Creek. To make a long story short, I was hired on the spot for their one opening: a special education associate, not teaching, but I was thrilled to be in the door!! This led to a night school teaching position and a home bound teaching assignment. I was hired the next year as a full-time BD Self-Contained Teacher. Two years later, I transferred to the General Education Social Studies position and three years after that transferred to the position I currently hold, half-time social studies and half time tech. Every job I have been in, I believed at the time was my dream job and it just kept getting better.

This leads to my life's purpose.....I grew up in south central Iowa, on a farm outside of Lacona; a small town full of farmers and commuters and a couple small businesses. Needless to say, I was not exposed to many different cultures in this little town, but I loved every minute of it and still live outside of Lacona today. However, I had amazing parents that took me all over the United States as well as to Canada and Mexico each summer. I saw and experienced things my class mates only saw on TV or in books.

As a social studies teacher I knew I wanted to give my students the same experiences that my parents gave me and more, I wanted to make them become international students of the world. I started small, attending a few conferences, making connections and gathering materials. Along the way, I met my heroes: Jane Elliott, Michele Soria, and Sherry Gupta. These women guided me along the way and helped me to create the educational experiences I wanted for my children, including field trips, summer camps and new classes. Through the UNI cohort, I have met two more people that have joined my list of heroes: Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay, co-founders of the Flat Classroom. I had already been following Vicki's blog for a couple weeks, but had not idea the impact she and Julie would make on my life. They have given me my new path, another fork in my road along my journey of preparing my students for the global world they are going to be living in when they graduate from high school. I have already joined the Flat Classroom wiki and am so excited for my future and the future of my students. It is so amazing to be living my life's dream and meeting such inspiring people!

image acquired from : http://www.northernsun.com/n/s/Tolerance-T-Shirt-%288178%29.html

When did I become a geek??!!

Walk into a low lighted bar and there is a group of four sitting at a bar with the music blaring, eating pizza, drinking beer and talking about music, life, family, and college memories. A typical night at the bar with friends.......except for one thing, there are four laptops on the table among the beer bottles, pizza and dirty plates and all of us are blogging, discussing class and technology. When did my life become this?!?!?

I swear I am not a geek, however when I look at my life right now I would completely call myself a geek. I am so enthralled with all the technology that I am using and the ideas that are running around in my head for next year. I have already created a wiki for next year for the WCC staff to use in our technology training and two of my co-workers have already joined!!!!! I am also LOVING the group of teachers that I am working with!! Each of them offer so much to class and I am learning just as much from them as I am from Dr. Z.

So, I guess I am a geek and I am actually loving it!!

Dog-tired.......but so inspired!!

I can honestly say that I have never had a class, training or staff development go as fast as today did. Never once, did I find myself looking at the clock wondering when it was going to end. It ended before I was ready and was honestly still wanting more.

The highlight of the day hands over was meeting the Cool Cat Teacher, Vicki Davis. What an amazing teacher!! I loved her support for the grassroots movements that so many teachers are doing all over this country to inspire their students in incorporate technology into their classrooms.

Luckily, the rest of the day was learning more details about some programs that I have already been using, just not to their full potential: iGoogle and Diigo. It was a little self-gratifying to already have my accounts and pages set up, maybe I am not as far behind as I thought I was. I got a taste of GoogleDocs by starting a project and will be using my "free" time this week to play with that more. My second favorite part was a small conversation I had with Dr. Z about staff development at my school. He gave me the idea of a wiki and I ran with it. I created a wiki on wikispaces and invited all my co-workers to it (sorry Dr. Z, yes, during class) and am hoping that we can get some great things going for next year. For the most part, my co-workers are ready, willing and eager to learn so we could be doing some great things next year.

All in all, a great day.....well, besides some hang ups with my living quarters and no Internet, however I found some friends to help me through that and remembered to bring my handy dandy US Cellular internet stick (lacking the actual name for this device that makes the 3G network accessible from anywhere......LOVE it!!) so the night still ended on a great note.

Waiting for Superman

Just watched this trailer for an upcoming movie, Waiting for 'Superman' about our education system. http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/trailer I have mixed feelings from this trailer....are they going to trash the education system in America? Thus, trashing me and my co-workers who are working their butts off daily to do everything they can to help our students learn. But, I also see that they are highlighting the school in Harlem that Geoffrey Canada help to create. I love this school and what they are able to accomplish and wish that it could be more. I will definitely see this film and hope that it is not just a finger pointing session, but inspiring of what we can do and how there are people out there that are working hard for education.

Reflecting the year...

Every year, on the day after the last day of school, I have sat down with my journal and reflected on my teaching efforts. It helps me to take a third eye look at my interactions with my students, my techniques and make plans for next year. I have decided to go technical with part of my reflection and post it here.

The past two years our school has focused on the book "Whatever It Takes". This was an initiative by our principal and superintendent that I had some reservations about at first. We spent the first year reading the book and learning about PLCs, Professional Learning Communities. What frustrated me about this initiative was that I felt we were already doing it in our school. PLCs stress the importance of making sure the students learn what you are trying to teach them. I had already been using the Understanding by Design from Wiggins and McTighe. I started my lesson planning with the end in mind, I formulated my essential questions, and stressed individualization in my lessons, allowing choices and autonomy. I took the time to get to know all my students on a individual level as well as their parents, sending weekly letters home about their child's progress, and emailed the good and the bad to keep the communication lines open. Being a small staff of only 12 teachers, I know that the other teachers were doing this as well. As a group, we also meet weekly to discuss our student concerns as well as celebrate our student's successes. This is one of my favorite parts about teaching at WCC. We all give up our Friday morning planning time to spend 1 1/2 hours with each other. We start with our concerns about our students. Important information is shared so we are all on the same page and plans are made to support that student in whatever is going on in their life. I do have to admit that at times during my 9 year tenure, I would at times get frustrated with this process as some staff would take this time to vent rather then share true concerns, making it seem more like gossip. All in all, this is a truly valuable process and I appreciate the time to support our students. We end every meeting announcing the successes of the week. This is usually accompanied by applause and tears of joy.

This past year, we assigned four groups of PLCs that met during our Friday meeting time in an attempt to be more action oriented. This all looked good on paper, but it ended up just chopping up what little time we did get and everyone felt disconnected and we actually got less work done with our students. In our setting this was not a good thing, we unfortunately had to rely on email to communicate concerns across the whole staff and this lead to miscommunication. We met as a large group at the end of this year and discussed these issues. We all agreed to go back to our large group share out as a whole staff again, but agreed that we did learn something about being more precise and focusing on the problem, rather getting caught up in the emotions. It will be interesting to see if we revert back to our old ways or continue to grow from this year.

OMG!!

After spending hours reading, pondering, analyzing and personally relating to dozens of posts, I feel I can only say "Oh my God!" There is just so much information out there. I have believed myself to be an almost "techie." I can usually figure programs out without the help feature or a manual, just by playing around with it. My students spend most of their class time online in webquests that I have created sending them to various resources trying out all different programs that I have found.

Until now, I did not realize how much of a passive learner I had become in technology. I am telling myself due to survival in teaching and being a mother, I have stepped down from actively seeking out information from all the experts out there. In my undergraduate work I was on the cutting edge of the new social networking programs and teaching resources that were out there. But, in the last five years, I have let technology find me either through my students or in the various professional developments that happened to focus on technology. I no longer was on the cutting edge, seeking out information. If I program caught my eye, it would consume my life till I figured it out and molded it into my classroom or home. I guess that it happens to the best of us. I still need to be a mom, fixing dinner, helping with homework, potty training and making sure baths get done and teeth get brushed.

This past month I have been forced to become active again and that has opened up my eyes to how far behind I am. I am reading blogs in between teaching and after the kids go to bed, trying to respond in an intelligent manner. I am following others professional blogs and enjoying the information that I am getting out of them, but I am just running out of time. And, after I do read them, I remember the jist of what I read, but cannot remember the details given. I feel like I need to be like the gentlemen in the picture, but even then at home my two year old does not let me use the restroom for more than a second or sometimes even give me any privacy!

That is why the post from Dangerously Irrelevant called Scaling Back felt very relevant to me. The author, Scott McLeod, discusses his past year and all that he has accomplished and attempted to accomplish. In this fast paced world that we have created we are being called to so many places at one time. I could do as he did and list all my obligations, but I won't, fearing comparison. He looked back on all that he had done and began to see he had chosen to relax in areas that were important to him, such as in his teaching and chose to scale back other obligations so he could refocus his efforts on tasks that were important to him.

Three years ago, I would have never dreamed of needing instant access to my emails, but a year later I bought a blackberry and haven't looked back. I love being able to give answers to my co-workers and students questions immediately and now find myself annoyed when they do not respond back immediately. But, with this comes more and more of a pull to constantly be on task, when is the down time to just relax? There has to be a medium ground that allows me to stay on top of all the new it things and still be able to sit back with a margarita. Someday I hope to find it and still be on top of the technology that surrounds me.

picture found at www.orkut-scrapping.com

Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from kids | Video on TED.com

Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from kids Video on TED.com

Just watched this amazing video on TED......all I can say is WOW, what a wonderful kid!!! Childhood is such an inspiring time in human life, we as adults can learn so much if we would just take the time to watch rather than try to control. I pray every day that I never become an adult, even if my age says I should be. I never want to give up thinking I can change the world or that there is a greater possibility out there.

Graduation

2010 Graduation is over and done with. Walnut Creek Campus graduated 77 students that would have otherwise been labeled a drop out in our state's statistics. These kids have survived living conditions that "normal" families only watch on tv. We had a very large percentage of teenage parents, students working full time to support parents that had lost their job, some are recovering from addiction and attending daily AA and NA meetings, as well as abused, neglected, abandoned and self-harmers. These kids amaze me every day with their resiliency. I don't know if I would have the same tenacity to show up at school every day and continue working as they do on a daily basis. They teach me the true meaning of dedication and the power of a dream. Most of the students are first generation high school graduates and many are planning on attending college now that they have succeeded in their high school goals and know that there is more out there.

I don't know if I could ever teach at a traditional high school. I need to know my students on a personal level, I could never see them as just a number. I am not judging traditional school systems, teachers that have 30 kids a class could never get to know their kids on a personal level. It is survival to just give them a number and teach them all the same way. I am just so lucky to be where I am. I get to know every one of my students. I get to be on a first name basis with all their parents, celebrating the successes and working past the mistakes. I get to completely individualize everything I am teaching for each student and make it meaningful to their life. I have the best job a teacher could ever have and in my opinion the best students any teacher could ever ask for.

No, I do not believe all schools need to be this way. There are a very large majority of students that have a supportive family, food, shelter and love outside of school that just need the school for education. But, we do need some kind of alternative out there for that minority of students that need school to be a safe, supportive and loving family. I am so happy that I am where I am and doing what I am doing. I am my students' "school mama" and loving every minute of it.

Experiencing AdobeConnect

In May, I started a new master's program focusing on integrating technology in my classroom. I am so excited to be in this program and am just looking forward to all that I am going to learn and experience.

The most recent experience was AdobeConnect. I was very excited to see it, as I have a personal goal to make my classroom as accessible to my students as possible; all students, even the ones that need to be at home and cannot be in the traditional classroom. If it worked, it could open up an online classroom where all my students could meet at once and discuss issues.

Unfortunately I was not able to purchase the web camera needed to fully experience the hour that our class spent on the program, however, that gave me an ability to focus on being a mouse in the corner and watch my peers experience it. It seemed easy to get everyone in the class logged in and going. There seemed to be a lengthy discussion that some of the members were able to follow and participate in. However, I struggled to follow the conversation. On my end, the conversation stopped and started randomly, it also seemed to multiple conversations going on at once. There were many times that participants would be answering questions before I ever heard Dr. Z ask a question. This was frustrating for me, being afraid that I would miss important information and was missing out on a chance to get to know my peers and professor.

I am still very excited about the possibilities for the program and in this day and age, version 2, 3 and 10 could come out in the next 6 months to make this frustration a thing of the past. All in all, a GREAT experience and definitely a program that I think I could use in my classroom working with my alternative learners.