Picasa Slideshow

It's finally done! I had a few days of hair pulling, but the slideshow is finally here. Many thanks to my team member, Veronica. I have learned quite a few lessons from this assignment.

One lesson learned is the ability (finally) to use this tool, which would be a wonderful way to present student's work. Another lesson was that technology can be a slow and frustrating learning process at times, so I need to be prepared for that, for myself and my students. The final lesson is perhaps the most important one, and that is that learning with technology is a social process. Social networking is a key component of technical learning. It enables a tremendous amount of product resources and problem solving resources.

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"NETS"

Based on my personal observation in an elementary school, some parts of the "NETS", the National Educational Technology Standards for students, are implemented fairly well. Other portions are not.

The elementary school in which I work has approximately 700 students, grades 2-5. In the past few years, I have seen an strong increase in the number of distance learning and collaboration/sharing projects within the school. This includes performing a science project with a real life scientist as well as sharing New York State projects with students from another state. This demonstrates the teachers focus on developing the communication and collaboration performance indicators put forth in the NETS.

Another set of NET standards that are in evidence within the school are those that deal with research and information fluency. From 2nd grade on, research using technology is a required part of the curriculum. At every grade level, students are expected to do a research paper on a chosen topic, building skills that will allow them internalize the steps necessary to become self motivated learners.

Where I see implementation of the NETS as being more in need of attention are the standards that deal with developing creativity and innovation, developing critical thinking problem solving and decision making, as well as developing the actual knowledge of computer systems.

There are real constraints on the ability of teachers to address these areas. Though these important standards are part of the national and state language, they are not assessed at the level that more concrete skills are and therefore, in reality, given less credence. There are real world time restrictions, the overload of requirements and content, that teachers have to fit into their lessons, and a culture that does not tend to nurture or value the learner. There is also an obvious difference in the amount of technology available at home throughout the population. Real access to new technology at school can be a great equalizer. At present, technology budgets are being reduced.

In addition, in a society that embraces technology as a integral component of the business world, technology in our schools is being woefully under funded.

As teachers, we need to focus on developing our students' higher level thinking skills, with and without the use of technology, regardless of the emphasis of state testing. Critical thinking skills will be at least as important as the content itself. We also need to advocate for a serious dedication to technology by our districts.

Literacy becomes more diverse.

Literacy is a broad topic, that has become even more so with our exponential development of technology. Within these areas of literacy that have bloomed in the 21st century, there are three primary topics: computer literacy, information literacy, and integration literacy.

Computer literacy deals with a person's ability to use a computer to communicate with others, find information, and utilize the tools available on the computer. This ranges from basic keyboarding to designing a webpage with various widgets.

Information literacy relates to how well a person can collect, filter, evaluate, organize and represent all the data available to them. As was mentioned in the last blog, the ability to evaluate data is a skill that is much more widely necessary than it was two decades ago.

Integration literacy is what we will need to strive for in our classrooms. We will need to try to prepare our students for a world where information literacy and computer literacy will be an integral component of their workplace. In order to prepare them, we need to make these two literacies an integral part of their classroom learning.

Data Smog

Data smog-when there is so much in front of our eyes, it is difficult to see clearly.

This video clip about literacy in the 21st century is a natural next step in the discussion concerning the use of the internet in enabling our students to become independent and self-motivated learners.

This video answers the huge question, "How do we help our students collect and filter the "real" information out of the plethora of data available on the internet?" In the video, the creators outline eight steps that can be used to locate, evaluate, and organize information from the web. Locating and organizing information requires a little more extensive work than it did for the last generation, due to the high volume of data.

What is new for this generation is that they must become skilled evaluators of data. In past generations, students relied on the "experts' " interpretation of what they should learn. This generation has the ability to collect information from a much broader range of sources, which include varied degrees of bias. Determining that degree of bias and the validity of information is a skill we will need to teach early and concurrently with internet research skills.

My own kids, in high school and college, have been taught to look for bias and validity. We have had many discussions, especially concerning Wikipedia. This video highlights the need for teaching these skills early, hand in hand with the use of the technology itself. Just as we teach our students to become aware of an author's point of view in a story, or a painter's point of view in their work, we must teach them to be aware of a writer's point of view in any medium.

What is true about the new generation of "digital natives"?

It was fascinating to watch the video this week, "Digital Natives" by Tom McHale this week. It probed an important question concerning this generation of learners.

While working in the schools the last 10 years or so, the decline in the general ability of students to sustain attention and their resulting decline in learning, has frequently been a topic of conversion. Therefore the question that this video probes is an important one. Is this lack of focus the result of this generation's exposure to the simultaneous use of a multitude of new technology, or is it a result of other factors that need to be addressed?

The video looks at both sides of the question, with interviews and research to back up both sides. We may not know the answer for sure for quite some time. In the meantime, as educators, we see that the problem exists and so we need to address it immediately. We can assume both are true, and tailor our lessons accordingly. We can strive to include the technology that is a part of our students life outside the classroom, especially with the purpose of helping them become independent learners. Also, we can put more emphasis on teaching them behaviors that develop focus, where needed, such as seeing a task to its end, or developing deep and full understanding of a concept.