Our Ed Tech class drilled in the importance of teaching students with methods that are meaningful to them. In this Web 2.0 world in which today’s students live, that means with digital media and information sharing. The Movie Assignment was a really good time to produce. From the storyboard planning to the final production, I felt like I was doing something fun, not laborious. I had a few questions about affective transitions as well and sound issues that my 14 year old son, Jonas, helped me with. This is my bridge to education in this entry.

Jonas is a movie producer. It’s what he is. He and his band of friends are continuously planning, shooting, editing, and sharing videos. This is something from which I have never dissuaded him. I know the skills that he is learning while jacking around with his buddies are the exact skills he will need in his future workplace. If he’s lucky, and determined, he might be able to make a living doing what he loves. As he helped me sew up my video project he said something that made me sad and a little afraid for the students of today…right now – not the students I’ll be teaching when I finish up…the kids in school this very minute…”I wish they would give us this assignment in school."

What about him? Why isn’t he being given this assignment in school? I feel like we are running behind the tide. We, as educators, can’t get 2.0 educational opportunities to students fast enough. I feel like we are too late already!

Here is one of the many videos my son has made and is posted on YouTube. What these kids are capable of astounds me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4qKV3sSAtw&feature=channel_page

Here's the video I made for our Ed. Tech. class. It's not nearly as fun as what the kids can cook up.

April 22, 2009

So, today I am sitting at my desk in study hall, feverishly working on assignments for my Exceptional Learners class. Between questions from middle school students I am able to get quite a bit of my schoolwork done at work – the upside of working in study hall, I suppose. I had a student working on my desktop computer that is situated just adjacent to my desk. And what to my wandering eyes should I see? An eighth grade student working on an Inspiration diagram. I leaned over to him. By the look in his eyes I was pretty sure this was the worst thing that had happened to him today. I didn’t take that too personally. After all, it was only first period. I asked him, “Hey Jake, is that an Inspiration Diagram?”

“Yeah.” He said not taking his eyes off the screen.

“What-cha doing with it?” I queried.

“Literature.” He answered.

“You like those things?” I knew I was losing him and should wrap this up fast.

“They’re all right.” Still no eye-contact.

From as much as I could gather from my sideway view of his work, he was filling out characteristics of the book he was reading into a ready-made worksheet the teacher had put together.

There was something strangely exciting about seeing an Inspiration diagram being used by a real live student, other than me. It made the projects that we have been working on in our Ed. Tech class seem more “applicable” somehow. I knew we were going to use the things we were being taught in our future classrooms, but it seemed very “real” to see a tool that I have used, that I could utilize in the hands of a student. I’m a nerd…I know. Maybe going into education wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

http://www.mywebspiration.com/

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

As I near the end of my semester's classes I am in a constant state of panic; bowel-wrenching panic that makes me wish I could fast-forward two weeks in time to a point where this is all over with. I check my grades incessantly. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have that option of mulling over my percentages and potential points. Waiting for the segue to education? Here it comes.

The district in which I work recently made available a new computer resource to the students and staff. It is called Infinite Campus, and through this portal students can check their grades, missing assignment, or even if they have been tarty all from the comfort of their own homes. I am the study hall monitor, so much grade checking happens under my watch. I have seen an amazing transformation in how concerned kids are with their grades. Never have I had so many grade celebrations and high-fives as I have experienced since this option was made available to the kids. https://campus.jefferson-scranton.k12.ia.us/campus/jefferson_scranton.jsp?status=logoff

This technology makes the fruits of the students' labors instantly available. If they hand in a late assignment or make some corrections to a worksheet, they can literally see their grade improve that very day. Gone are the days of only hearing about your grades at mid-term or semester time. Gone of the days of only caring about your grades during those same times.

Monday 4/20/09

I am here, under the covers, laptop perched where it always is this time of evening, blogging. Who would have thought? As technology makes its way into the very fiber of my day, I can see how it is creeping into the fiber of my work at the middle school. This truely is how the kids are learning and how they want to interact.

My facebook page has become a favorite of mine as of late. I had sworn that I wouldn't EVER get into social networking. That's for loonies and attention seekers, I thought. Well I really have been able to interact with family and friends more efficiently...and here is where this crosses over into teaching. Today I had two friend-requests from students at the middle school at which I work. I ignored them, of course. Don't want to end up on TV 8 Live at 5! But my point is, this is how the students want to interact. This is what's natural to them. If we as teachers do not embrace this as "the way it is" we will be doing an unmentionable disservice to our students.

You should join Facebook and then we could be friends... http://www.facebook.com/