Why do You Teach?

I believe this quote sums up how I feel.

As I get ready to rejoin the public education system.  It has not been without some fears or hesitations.  I am a strong believer in student relationships and connections.  I have found the more I foster these relationships and connections no matter how small, I and my subject matter come to life for my students.  Am I alone?  In my time in public education, I have found it is the small things that matter.  Small conversations, welcoming your class, a hand shake and a proper saluation.  Having solid procedures and a good management philosphy are the coor of a great class, to me, but always remember, Respect goes both ways.  We should respect our students as we would like them to respect us.  So why do I bring this up, because, 

1.  I'm nervous, interviews and such.
2.  What if I lost my touch?
3.  I feel I am connected and qualified enough to be able to say I do not feel I am so much the intervewed as the interviewer.  I have worked in three, yes three school districts and I know what I am looking for and what it takes to help make a teacher successful, a well supported open community of eductors and administators.  A great school philosophy and mentality and a love of authentic, 21st century learning... AND

4. I recently came across a great post, Young People Don't Be Afraid To Become a Teacher, and it was very potent.  I love that the author stands by her convictions that are the reasons why I know I am a teacher and need to teach:

We need great teachers in public schools.  Don't be shy until you try.

Teaching can bring incomparable joy, Nothing I have done has brought me as much joy.
I can honestly say that when teaching public school there was never a time when I didn't want to go to work, I enjoy spending hours online to jazz up a lesson and provide visual resources and paths other than me, and that the spark of a students interest is immeasurable to me.  My five years, like the author has made me grow and has brought me great joy.

It truly took my year off to pursue Higher Ed that has shown me, I am happiest in the classroom and yes, ages are important.  I love and miss middle and high school but I would have never found out how rewarding everyday was until teaching higher ed.  This was the year I found me, and I am a teacher.  I believe in relationships, cooperation, collaboration, connectivism and I love the varied challenges that stem from teaching teenager's.  I love being a guide and a mentor.  I am blessed I have had this change to reflect and figure out what type of teacher I am.  Sometimes we as teachers need to find our place and I am solid in knowing my place is with the confused and hormonal, call me crazy.  Many have.

Sadly enough, so yes, while many of the pitfalls noted in Randy Turner's post, Young People, dont become a teacher, are very very true.  Sometimes, you just don't fit.  Admistration and lack of discipline can be difficult at times, horrifying at others, I swear it is still worth it.  Administration can be appeased, look to the student and not the test and the test will improve. Difficult students are just that difficult, but why are they difficult, are you williing to take on the challenge of trying to crack this student, spark an interest, show them that someone cares?  

I won't lie, it doesn't always work and if you do not feel supported to remove a student or administer consequences then you are probably going to have a really bad quarter or year, BUT, you might make a connection and make the difficult student your "peer tutor" allowing them to get up and help (ok talk), it's possible.  

While teaching is not always cherry's and can be difficult and darn right exhausting, for those of us who thrive to make a difference, it is those one or two or fifty sparks and joys received from being an educator, the look on a a students face when they finally get it, sharing knowledge and preparing, contributing to a student's growth that is worth every underpaid or unappreciated moment.  So, I'll ask again, Why do you teach?  Love comments!!

Got a Minute? Connected Learning

In a follow up comment to my blog post, Open Movement, didn't know it", I replied to Christina Hendricks comment. "Thank you Christina, "Thanks for your comments. You keep me writing. It's wierd, it only takes one comment and I'm inspired."

Is that true for you too?? Yes, I blog to reflect, and learn but one comment put me down a path and as Alan Levine at CogDogBlog.com has reminded me it's connected learning at it's best!

I couldn't find Christina in a crowd, but I see her blogs and enjoy her comments. I always find myself thinking down a new road when I read her comments or twitter feeds. So I pulled apart my comment back to her as i went down so many roads. Gotta minute? (rhizomatic learning for ya).

" I was so tempted not to post this one as I feared I would be speaking french to some, but I hope I left enough links for it to make sense. Yes, I still doubt my posts!". Ok, again, do you do this too?

I still have to post part II of my reflection and I'm in edit mode. I wonder if some just write and let it fly?? Do you just blog and hit submit? I could never, but I bet my family wishes I would.

Christina also commented she had "No idea I had been an engineer" Ok, Yes, I was a unix engineer for 11 years. Fell into Linux and always found databases such as mysql fun. It did not mix with family and I really got to the point that the next time my phone rang, I was going to say "call someone who cares".

I started substitute teaching in 2004 and never looked back. Went and got my M.ed (Computer Technology) in 2009 and am CURRENTLY working on securing another public teaching position as Higher ed is fun but is not the connections I need. I miss the classroom, the goofiness, the relationships. Ok, I admit it, I miss Middle School, I miss my dedicated classroom, call me crazy. So Yes, In the job market again. Are you hiring?

It' fun to make code work but trust me, stay on this side, we need you! It's more fun too, did I mention that server work with linux/unix at the time was a command prompt, a large black background and tiny white command line code. At 42, my eyes are shot.

I share this to say, that the more I blog and the more I give, the more others learn about me and that is so cool. I wasn't even thinking other's would find my old career interesting as it did not relate to technology or education but someone found that interesting and it added to my digital identity for that person. Now that is powerful.

Connected learning at it's best and people do learn more about you as you blog. :)

Modern Learning,Today's Students

Image from media.penlive.com

Modern Education is at the forefront of a lot of discussion's as backed up by Will Richardson's webcast for #etmooc.

He posted a board for collaboration where participants shared ideas on traditional versus modern education. Today we are a tech driven society. There are endless ways to get information, be taught, learn. It really is an exciting time in education. How do you think your grandchildren be taught?

Let's not forget, as online learning and self directed learning expands, as does the mind and your connections, but how do we ask student under 15 to "direct their own learning". The ability to self organize and use or connections must be taught. It's a shame that we cannot move forward faster as communities and educators but I don't think we knew technology was going to move so fast. Our students, children are very used to "micro-desicions", online interaction is a norm. Can a student sit in a lecture hall, watch a video, tweet and still learn? I think they can, as I write this I am viewing my twitter feeds go by as well as relistening to Will Richardson's webcast for #etmooc.

I don't think the tradition structure does work anymore for students, with one in college (ok, he dropped out due to bordom) and one in high school, one of the biggest complaints I hear is how bored they are. I believe that "common core" may hinder or help the problem.(Could common core turn teaching around that could basicall say these benchmarks are a guideline..."teach it great and in any way but use these as a guideline")? Just a thought.

Modern learning is not replacing traditional schools, we now have online academys and charter schools where our "non-traditional learners are being told they must attend in order to finish school" Let's be honest, these are the trouble makers. The one's we work like heck to crack but end of being our every challenge. Charter schools and online academy's are certainly a step in the right direction, but wouldnt it be great if we had a drop down approach in education, both public and private where the technology teachers and media specialists are not the "UA", the fun class, the elective. In this day in age where so much can be done for and with education via digital literacy and technology, I think the change can only occur when we make technology teacher's integrators at the top of the helm instead of at the bottom. In this world where 21 century curriculum has proved time and time again (see related article as of 1996)to engage our learners and provide them greater strengths. It is not at the top, it is at the bottom or in the middle. We need as a community to realize that we must help digitize our students.

Since our children already are, why don't we help them do it correctly?

Even students see it. Take a look at this blog post from a high school student, Nick Lehtsky insisting social media will help wih education.

Thanks you #etmooc and Will Richardson for a great discussion. Sorry I missed it.

When is it a digital story?

In a previous blog post, I wanted to know if storyboarding takes away from creativity. Feel free to read here if you missed it. I got varying responses but it has been on my mind. I have moved forward as does my digital story for #etmooc. I'm using goanimate.com and it's fun. I think I picked a topic that is well quite revealing and quite personal so I'm never sure how much to add and where it ends. I've changed my storyboard several times so I'm starting to wonder if I should just do something made up? I guess we will all find out. Moving on, I have been reflecting a lot on the concept and definition of digital storytelling.

Alec Couros was kind enough to send me a link for Ira Glass on Storytelling. It was the first movie in a series and of 4 which I highly recommend. It discusses having an antedote ( a sequence that keeps people interested) and a moment of reflection, the point of the story. My question lies in do all digital stories have to true point? Is it OK, as I have been teaching it for a while, to just have a perspective or a sequence that is well predictable? As the technology educator, do I stick to the literary steps I know make up a good story or as a digital technology teacher, am I exempt??

I participated in the great session on digital storytelling by Alan Levine, find here it the #etmooc archives. He also discusses having a hook, "entice me" into your story, yet he also introduced us to "how to tell a story through flickr" where pictures appeared and the participants made up a few sentences on the pictures surrounding the topic "connections". When we did this were we participating in true digital storytelling or were we just having fun?? I again have taught the same but I feel like I'm being hypocritical to the literacy aspect of a true story.

I'll explain, I teach Scratch Programming by MIT, and each story must indeed have a full storyboard, a hook, an antedote and a good conclusion. These stories vary but feel free to take a look at one of the stories HERE.

I also teach digital photography sometimes and I have my students do what we call "stories" from a series of pictures. I have embedded one here. Yes it is mine.

See it is cute, but it really is sentences that seemed appropriate for the picture. Does it tell a story?

Last year, I worked on some integration projects with voicethread and students decided to do their essay's on planets in voicethread. Again emebedded below, and begs the question as they are truly giving us facts, are they not telling a story?? It took a lot of storyboarding and collaboration for the students to bring it all together in a logical manner.

So do we stick to the steps of digital stories via literacy practices everytime? Do we hold to the storyboards, the hook , the antedont and the climax and ending or do we in the 21st century decide that we need a better definition for digital stories?

When do we create, produce and share more?

Today, I came upon a great post by Jeff Utecht. The post HERE is titled "What doesit mean to Disconnect". Jeff hit some great points, the definition of being connected to technology is very broad and does depend on your perspective. Please read as he is a great writer and educator.

Ok, What resignated with me? Jeff's discussion on consuming versus producing as we as in "all of us" consume a lot when it comes to technology, but what do we produce/share?

To quote Jeff "Let’s take a step back and look at what we ask students to do in our classrooms. How much time in a given day do students create/innovate/problem-solve vs how much time do they consume?

What if we changed this?

What if we created….creators?

What if we allowed students to create things……anything really?

I love these questions and I think that they should not only be applied to our students but ourselves. What if we just sat back, created, produced and shared. At best your lesson or educational ideas may improve and in some cases take off. You never know. I know that is certainly happening in #etmooc but I will be honest (for me, etmooc, has made me feel more comfortable to share, I have so much to reflect on and I know you do too).

See the following graph taking from the thinkingstick.com, do you think it is true??

Photo Credit: photosteve101 via Compfight cc

One of my goals with #etmooc was to be a producer, plain and simple and to try to spend the time giving back and learning. I try to take the time for good etiquette and link back to other's work. I also try to share and respond to anyone who was kind enough to take a moment to be a producer and left a comment on a blog post or a tweet. It is very worth while. This is how I am learning and building my network. It takes time, but it is so worth it.

I find, I spend more time in a day “commenting” and will only allow one blog post for myself. Wierd, I hope not, I’m trying to learn and I’m sick of being a lurker. So if I read your whole post, I will comment, even if I place your tweet, google + post or your blog post in diigo. I will comment and take time to decide what to say.

Today I learned that the definition of being “disconnected” really is too broad. Escpecially in today’s society where even in my own home, my husband is on his smart phone, my daughter on her kindle and me on my laptop, we find this actually “connected” for us as well are all in the same room, this is family time so we are connected both technically and physically! I guess it’s all prespective.

I really appreciated the visual from Jeff's post and it makes me sad that I spent years in the lurker category. I can honestly say, that to “create” to express and then to share” is what I am coming to find to be the essence of education not only for my students, but myself as well. Thanks as I think/ I know this post will keep me reflecting and working on producing and sharing more.

Does Storyboarding Take Creativity Away?

As I pondered the new assignments from #etmooc on Digital Storytelling, I found myself reflecting on the many ways and forms I myself have learned and taught digital storytelling. From Scratch to Animoto, Voicethread, Photostory, GoAnimate and anything really within the web 2.0 realm. I started to ponder a question I would like to throw out to the many.

How important is storyboarding? While I teach Scratch from MIT, you work with character’s called sprites and bits of code that can change your background, move each character, add have them think or talk. This I know I need a storyboard for and have always loved watching students think they have it and start programming then back to rewrite, as they change their minds. Scratch story embedded here took a great deal of storyboarding but it was again, worth the effort and I am not sure with the complexity of the visual components they could have done it without good storyboarding:

I have also taught what I consider to be “collaborative stories” on wikis. In this process, each person, begins a story and then each student in a class from 11-20 middle school students are told to add 5 – 10 sentences to the story. Within a few days you can really see which stories are taking off. So soon we are usually down to 3 to 5 stories which get added to by all members of the same class. They write their comments and then we moved them around to create pages(the full story). Feel free to view my old wiki here, story Mars done by 6th graders. Now look at the history of Mars, it took group effort. I have also left their story Dewey the Alien and the history here, you can actually see how 15-18 different wiki threads turned into some cool stories.

The stories come out really cool or silly but if you think about it no one needed to sit down and think about how many characters, setting, backgrounds or conversations they were going to have. They wrote truly from their heads with no determined plan. Are these methods two different styles both with great results or is it the complexity of move advanced software that will be seen by the eye that lends for storyboarding?

I believe and I may be wrong, that we might be taking away creativity when we ask our students for thought out well planned storyboards before they begin, for some are we losing the creative component that is the strength of digital storytelling? Curious..

Animated Gif's are Fun!

Well, I guess I need to increase my twitter followers. In asking a question about animated gif maker’s, not much response, but no worries, I found myself on a great journey. Don’t get me wrong, I love gimp and photoshop but I knew some application must have already been created to help me with this goal. I have spent the past two days looking at possibilities for creating my own animated gifs, oh besides my day job.

1st find: http://makeagif.com/ Where I didn’t have to even loggin, put in four pictures and got the following: Pretty cool.. My animated rose.

make animated gifs like this at MakeAGif

2nd find: http://picasion.com/get-photo/, again, no login required but limits to three pictures. See my animated daughter here:
create an animated gif

Now I want you all to know, that this was not what I planned on blogging about today, but after spending an hour and ½ having fun with no learning curve, I had to share. Ah, if I really wanted to place blame, or more so THANKS to Aaron Muller’s post last night. Check out his animated gif here. Ok, next post Is planned in #etmooc, I have what I think is a great post on storyboarding vs collobartion coming soon.

How Do you Learn from Twitter Chats and WallWisher

Ok, I will be honest, having done two twitter chat sessions for etmooc, or should I say following them while they flew by. I was not a fan! Tweetdeck did help a lot. I was able to follow #etmchat as well as see those messages directed at me. A very nice tool.I will be honest, I'm still not sure how to make an actual connection on these chats, they go so fast, yet I see many who appear to have already made connections and consistently tweet to one another on subjects I'm sure began way before I came in. Maybe they are already connected.. maybe they are new to each other but I see them, connected to two or three and I wonder how they did it so quickly, I will keep trying but to be honest, I don't mind lurking in twitter chats, I still learn. I just feel bad I am not sharing through that medium..

The many comments I received on google plus regarding twitter chats helped a lot. So this week, I did as was suggested, I watched for a while and though I fell like a lurker, I found a post fly by composed by Natasha Allen where she shared her "wallwisher for web 2.0 applications" . Well before I knew if I clicked on the link and was introduced to wallwisher.com. Now this application may seem odd to some, ok, I can put blocks on a wall but for me, it is very powerful. I am a visual person. While my wall is not nearly complete and I love google reader, my reader is a list, if the "post title" does not entice me, I may not read it.

This I can see! It adds a bit of visual perspective to something that is linear. My feeds, wiki's and blogs all on one pretty page is a great idea. What I am most impressed with is how very easy is was to learn, click and add, click and add. It's easy to say the least and I can see great implementation of this in education at all levels. If you use wallwisher.com, please tell me how, currently I am thinking of adding a new wall with resources for my graduate students though that would be redundant from the moodle page they currently have? Or it is possible they like the pretty pictures like I do? Hm...

Created with Wallwisher

The Growth of the Web

I recently read in a book that the country with the most internet users is China. Not surprised, I decided to read on, the article goes on to say that America is 2nd at 239,893,600. According to Internet World Stats, it states the following regarding to china: "For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically and the room for personal choice has expanded, yet political controls remain tight. Many elements that today are of comun use in modern life including paper, gunpowder, fireworks, credit banking, paper money and pasta originated many years ago in China. China is the most populous country in the world and has one of the fastest growing economies in the world today." What does that mean to use as technology educators in the year 2012. Where do we focus and how do we all bring about the change needed to all of our students to be able to compete in an increasingly competetive global and asynchronous world?