In the “7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners” Thing, I chose “Create your own learning toolbox”, and as I look back over the last twelve weeks, I feel that I have actually managed to do this. Resources such as Google Reader, RSS and delicious have solved real problems I was experiencing prior to the course and as a result, I waste much less time browsing through a whole host of different websites.
In terms of my teaching, I see a lot of mileage in using wikis and podcasts to help my students with their learning – allowing them to be more creative is to be encouraged, as well as hopefully letting them enjoy their learning experience – I am haunted by a quote from one of the blogs I read about hating school because we love learning. I want to be an effective teacher, and if helping my students learn well, and still enjoy it, involves using a whole range of different methods, including Web 2.0, then I want to be prepared and equipped to do this.
I still think there is a danger in using Web 2.0 as a gimmick – if the teaching behind the use of these resources is not solid and well thought-out, students will learn badly whether their teacher is using a blackboard or a wiki.
In addition to all the resources for my teaching, I have enjoyed feeling a part of a wider community of teachers – being able to listen to such an extensive range of views and opinions has been very stimulating and I have enjoyed the fact that I can also contribute in such a flexible manner, at any time and from anywhere. Continuing interaction with this community is something that I definitely want to pursue, in terms of my professional development, and I am hoping that things such as Classroom 2.0 will be a real asset in this.
One of the biggest challenges I see is trying to encourage other teachers to try out the same resources I have discovered. The slow pace of change in some teachers’ teaching style worries me a little, but I have enjoyed interacting with those who have experienced the same scenario and have provided useful tips and suggestions and made me think more about this issue.
There are many more things I could write about, but another worrying thing I have learned about myself while doing this course is that I can ramble on when writing a blog post, so I’m going to stop.
One idea I came up with for a collaborative use of Google Docs was to use it for editing, updating and correcting our Schemes of Work for teaching. These are documents that summarise the day-by-day learning objectives for each course, along with key vocabulary terms, links to useful resources or websites etc. Each year, the group of teachers who will be teaching the subject each take their own copy of the Scheme of Work and use it, hopefully adding to it and editing, correcting or updating it as they go along. The idea was that all these changes were then incorporated into a new, improved version for use during the next year. But, this final step has rarely happened. Even if it did, it meant trawling through the document and trying to find the changes.
It would be much better to have the Scheme of Work in a Google Doc form, where each teacher could just edit the same online version as they went along. Then all the changes would be incorporated into one document and the revisions would be easier to track.
The same idea goes for notes from meetings etc. We had a meeting after school today where we discussed topics in groups and then shared, briefly, our findings. The problem is, is that there was no way for everyone to go through all the discussions from all other groups, so we probably missed out on a lot of useful information. It might be more useful to have a Google Doc version of the meeting notes, where someone from each group could add their group’s contributions to the discussion and have all the information in one place, far all to see.
Also today, some of my students were doing presentations. A couple of niggles – getting all the presentations onto the one computer for using the projector seemed to take an inordinately long time and there was quite a degree of overlap between some of the topics, which led to repetition during the talks. It may be possible to get them to do all the talks in one Google Doc presentation. That way, they could have all the presentations back-to-back in one document, and also be able to see what others have written and so avoid overlaps.
A couple of the blogs from my reader have been talking about the use of resources such as Google Docs:
I initially was put off by the Classroom 2.0 site – found it too busy and cluttered and there was nowhere obvious for me to start exploring, so I decided to go through the Forums, Groups etc tabs. I found for some, there was not a lot of content and wondered if the site was possibly spread a bit thin over too many sections? Or maybe people need to devote themselves to fewer areas and make sure the discussions/contributions are more substantial or up-to-date? I wasn’t sure.
So I left, and looked at some of the other sites listed. After looking at a couple, again, I was a little disappointed with the amount of content. I did look at The Innovative Educator and although I felt I was gatecrashing a party (most people seemed to be from NY and a lot of the content seemed to be talking about local education issues and organisations), I found a useful discussion about Primary/Elementary teachers teaching Science and the problems that can arise.
I went back and looked at Classroom 2.0 again and spent quite a bit of time (!) giving it a much more thorough exploration – which Thing 22 did say it needed. Although I found a couple of interesting forums/groups with some discussion on issues I have been facing, I think I can only really see social networking sites as something I would use for my own professional development. At this stage I can’t see any function for use in my teaching that couldn’t be covered by using a wiki or a blog, for example. Maybe later. However, I did find an excellent video resource for providing my students with a more organised way of doing online research on a subject – I feel we often say, “Go and research xyz.”; give them no real guidance or training about how to do research online; and then moan when we get back a lot of plagiarised work. I may use this video with a couple of my classes and insist they try the method for a while, at least.
I appreciate this type of input from other teachers that social networking sites provide and I like being able to “talk” with others at my convenience and when I have had the time to mull things over and properly formulate what I want to say. Like finding blogs and podcasts, I suspect that finding the right social networking sites for me may be a matter of trial and error.
It was the title that hooked me, but then I had a look at this Discovering Biology blog entry and it reminded me of the ability some people have to frame their teaching in such strange, and yet appealing, ways. Obviously dinosaurs aren’t everyone’s thing (I have two small boys who are really into them) and so this sort of work will appeal to some students more than others. But it got me thinking about how we try and help students learn: today I had a bad day with one of my classes – most of them are what we would class as low ability and I feel that I want to do more to try and help them. I think that being more creative with my lessons is the way to go, but I struggle to do this on a regular basis. Hurricane Maine’s blog entry encouraged me and gave me some ideas to work with using projects – they are a “social” class and can work together well, if split into smaller groups (I believe it is also called “divide and conquer”?)
The post from Students 2.0 about creativity, I found to be provoking:
“The key to creativity is the ability and act of transcending tradition. Using this definition, I think creativity is exceptionally rare in schools. Students are almost never asked to transcend tradition and think outside the box. In fact, doing so is punished. This rarity arises from a confusion about what creativity really is.
If you were to ask most teachers or administrators, you would hear a distinctly different story. Most will says their schools/classrooms stimulate and “unlock” creativity. Unlocking creativity is a scary proposition in and of itself. Who locked it up in the first place?. Doing a word search on school mission statements will turn up an inordinate number of references to creativity. Someone should replace 99% of those occurrences with the word “art.” ”
How much of the education we provide is just expecting students to conform to a very uninspiring teaching method, just for the purpose of having them pass their exams so they can have some sort of options for the next stage of their lives? Just writing about this makes me depressed on their behalf. I would like for them to enjoy learning at school – just as in research (my previous life) there is nothing better than getting the results from an experiment and realising that you have discovered something completely novel, so it would be great if time spent in school could be like this for students – enjoying what they are studying. Part of this, I suspect, demands more creative input into my teaching, and not just plodding through pages and pages of facts that have to be learned.
Dangerously Irrelevant was discussing the merits, or otherwise, of Wikipedia and trying to overcome some teachers’ dislike of this resource. I used to hate it – I hated the fact that anyone could just stick anything on there, and students would think it was solid fact. But in the past few years, it seems to have gotten its act together and, as the article points out, the fact that anyone can add things, or correct them, or discuss them, is one of its great strengths. It is now usually one of my first port of calls when trying to get to grips with a new subject area.
One of my first thoughts when exploring Pageflakes was, “Very nice, but when am I going to need to use this?” I can see how it is much easier to use and more flexible than a webpage, but in my particular situation, a lot of its benefits overlap with our school’s Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE). Unfortunately, the VLE doesn’t allow guest access so I can’t illustrate what I mean. It allows me to do most of the things that Pageflakes does, but with a more personal focus on my individual students, who have to enrol in my course in the VLE. Now, were I to move to a school without a VLE, Pageflakes would be one of my first ports of call, if setting up the Moodle site was going to be beyond my capabilities.
I could imagine setting up a number of different pages, each geared toward a different year group, and each having links to relevant webpages and also the ability to download documents or files from class, or set as homework assignments. I really liked the look of the NKO Math Clusters pagecast – such a time-saving resource to have as a teacher, and a simple way to organise resources for students. The fact that Delicious pages can be linked in as a flake means that by carefully tagging bookmarks in Delicious with a year group tag, all the relevant bookmarks can be displayed in a single flake. This should save the page becoming too cluttered – I don’t like the idea of having to scroll down through a page to get to the section I am interested in – if it’s to be used as a type of homepage it should be uncluttered and obvious, in my opinion.
I liked the way the Elementary China webquest was laid out – this would be a great template for any sort of extension project work for my classes. All the relevant documents can be accessed from a flake on the Teacher Page and pre-selected websites grouped according to their area of relevance. This should lessen the common problem I find, of students just using/copying the first page they come across that looks relevant – if the page is understandable to them, hopefully, they will put more effort into reading it properly. The teacher resource documents were stored on box.net – maybe I’m being stupid, but are there other sites like this, that allow document storage for retrieval (and not for editing, like Google docs)? Liked the use of a voki for the introductory blurb as well.
The Noticeboard flake would also be useful for communicating with a class if you didn’t want to depend on them checking their email, or if you didn’t want to to collect all their email addresses.
I think the big danger with a Pageflake pagecast is information overload – because it is so easy to add flakes, and you think, “That would be good.” and “That would be useful.” and before you know it, the page is crowded out and nothing is obvious. However, careful planning and organisation should prevent this problem.
I’ve used YouTube videos before to introduce or illustrate different parts of my lessons, but quickly got frustrated by slow download speeds or videos that were “no longer available” (I have grown to hate that particular error message with a passion as I have trawled through YouTube’s content). So, finding out about Zamzar has been potentially sanity-preserving – spent most of this evening frantically downloading videos that actually were available.
The highlight of this Thing was a series of videos covering the basics of genetics, for which I happen to have been looking for new resources – just the background music in these clips is enough for me:
However, the note on the Thing 19 page about the fact that “copyright issues abound” does freak me out a little – how much of the good content on YouTube is user-generated and how much has just been taken from another source? One of the clips I used to use (Homer Simpson “evolving” set to Fatboy Slim’s “Right here, Right Now” music) is “no longer available” due to copyright issues. After posting the above clip, I looked around and found that it is from a company called 23andMe’s website (for $399 they offer to give you a custom genome scan if you spit into a tube for them). Will I now get their lawyers kicking down my door?
I have always been a little wary of using video programmes during lessons. While I like the images and visual perspective on a subject, I think students have a tendency to switch off and don’t get the full benefit of the content. I have the same reservations about using TeacherTube clips, but I suppose that if included in a carefully chosen format, they could play a useful role (as could videos). My tendency towards control-freakdom gets in the way here, and I usually end up thinking that I would do things differently and, unless I am desperate, that is usually what ends up happening. Need to let go of this trait.
I think I see most potential for actually creating video content in our class (although, again, mundane issues like timetables and exam schedules get in the way here). I have been really impressed by the style of the CommonCraft show videos and could see how this format need not require some animation design whiz to deliver useful video content (although I’m sure a lot more work goes into producing these videos than I can even begin to imagine). Videos like these would benefit students as they would have to be absolutely clear on the content in order to present it clearly and concisely, but it would also give free reign to the more creative types on how the content was delivered. Maybe it’s the sort of thing we could do as an after-school art&design/science crossover project, with the teacher taking the role of an executive producer?
I found exploring podcasts to be a similar experience to exploring blogs i.e. I think that it will take some time to get the flavour of a certain podcast and subscribing to them will be an ongoing process. One thing that concerns me about subscribing to a number of podcasts is that you can mentally cross off the time that it will actually take to listen to them or watch them. Unlike a reader, where you get a preview, you have to actually listen to the podcast to find out anything more than the brief preview that’s given with the downloaded file. So, I am reluctant to start madly subscribing to every podcast that sounds as though it may be interesting or relevant. One thing that I did find helpful was when the site gave the length of the podcast – I have discovered (to my concern) that I may actually be part of the “MTV generation” with their stereotypical goldfish attention span. The reason I say this is because the podcast I enjoyed the most was Scientific American’s 60 Second Science, where the podcast summarises a recent scientific finding in, literally, sixty seconds. I think I could find these useful as short discussion generators with some of my older students, and it would also be another way of encouraging them to keep in touch with current scientific trends and news. Another worrying feature I discovered, along the same “MTV generation” lines as before, was that I enjoyed video podcasts more than most of the audio ones. Watching National Geographic’s Wild Chronicles was engrossing and I can imagine that, given a few suitably chosen sample podcasts to watch, some of my younger students would subscribe to these out of interest. I think the flexibility in viewing time is a feature that would appeal to a lot of them. As their teacher it gives me another level of resource to use that doesn’t take up any of my, already too short, class time. Again, I hope that reviewing a recent video podcast would initiate a student-driven discussion of its subject material. I find that with audio podcasts, I can’t be at all tired when I listen to them, or I just blank out and miss what is being said.
Using the iTunes Store (because I am already familiar with it) I found some meatier (and audio!) podcasts e.g. recorded Biology lectures from UC Berkeley, may again be of some benefit to my older students – setting them an assignment to listen to a podcast on a subject, before we begin it in class could either provide them with a useful overview in which to place all the details from the coming lessons; act as a review of a topic, from a different perspective, which I always find useful (and again, not done during my class time); or function as an extension resource for students who found the topic interesting and wanted to explore it more.
Realistically, I’m not sure how much students will take up the idea of listening to the longer podcasts, no matter how interested they are in the subject – their time is probably as precious as mine (or so they would lead me to believe every time I give homework). On this point, it surprised me a bit how much waffle there was in some of the podcasts (no names mentioned) – this is possibly one of the downsides of this resource i.e.anyone can do it. I got bored waiting on a few presenters getting to the point of the cast after listening to them witter on like some aged DJ. Students might prefer shorter, to-the-point casts with no frills or padding (I know I would).
I am already subscribed to the Nature and Science Signalling podcasts through iTunes as a way of keeping up-to-date with current research in my previous field, and I think that this is an important part of maintaining some freshness and relevance in my teaching. I like the flexibility of having the podcasts downloaded and being able to listen to them when I want. It does freak me out a little when the downloads start to build up if I have been busy, but a preview of the contents enables me to simply delete the less interesting ones – a very therapeutic exercise.
Mmm. This held only a passing interest for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some Fahrenheit 451 book-burning book-hater – there was a time when I could happily while away the hours browsing through bookshop shelves. But the realities of life kick in and two small children now have first call on my time and leisurely book-reading has been replaced by snatches of reading crammed in while the kids are in the bath, or in bed – this is when I haven’t got lessons to prepare or work to mark (anyone hear that violin in the background playing a sad minor key?).
So, while I found the idea of LibraryThing interesting, I struggle to find any use for it in my lessons, or professionally. If only my students were all avid readers of Dawkins and we could debate the pros and cons of his preaching, or we had time during lessons to discuss whether Brave New World was close to becoming a reality. However, this scenario, I’m afraid, remains a work of fiction.
Once again I am slapping myself (figuratively) on the forehead for realising what I have been missing out on as I have noticed the strange group of icons (including Delicious) at the bottom of webpages, but never bothering to find out the reason for their presence. Now I know…and I wish I had known before now. My problem is that I will often bookmark a site if I have seen something that looks interesting or if I think, “I may come back and use that sometime.” As a result I now have, in two different browsers, long lists of bookmarks that include a title and not much else. I have tried to group them according to year group or subject etc in the bookmarks menu in the browser, but every so often I have to go through and have a purge. This involves me spending a reasonable amount of time checking each site in the list, trying to remember why I bookmarked it in the first place and then thinking whether I want to keep it or not. Then I have different bookmarks for different browsers and different ones on the computer at work. So, bookmarking on Delicious makes a lot more sense for me. All I have to do now is begin the slow, gradual process of transferring all my bookmarks over and adding tags to them.
Even in the process of thinking of tags to apply, I came across new sites sharing a common tag. Some people seem to have an issue with making their list of bookmarks public, but I have been glad to be able to get fresh ideas and resources already, thanks to picking up a site that someone else has tagged for me. I hope my tagging comes in useful for others in the same way.
I like the fact that now, in Delicious, each site has tags attached to it, so I save time by not having to remember what it was about the site that prompted me to bookmark it in the first place. I like the fact that I can add a whole range of tags for the same site – very often, with web searches, you can get vastly different results depending on the specific word, or combination of words, you use for the search. Tagging with multiple words should broaden the net.
As far as using Delicious to help students learn, I would like to see students collaborate by sharing their own useful links – it should cut down the amount of time they spend searching for useful sites and hopefully they will then use this time to actually read the information on the sites (rather than just copy/pasting!). It would be good to link Delicious with e.g. a wiki, where the Delicious page could act as a resource page for sites I want them all to be able to access in order to start off work on their wiki. This would enable me to ensure they were starting off with material at a suitable level for them and hopefully, again, prevent them just copy/pasting material they think looks and sounds relevant, but that they don’t fully understand.
Enjoyed this. Enjoyed being able to listen to the session over again; enjoyed being able to do it at my convenience. I chose the session called “Overcoming entropy” by Louise Maine, purely because the title intrigued me. I was pleasantly surprised to find that she covered a lot of the issues that had recently begun to creep into my mind: How can we, as teachers, change our environment? Why is change considered so difficult? She gave several good ideas on how to be an influence for change in your environment, such as leading by example; having enthusiasm; taking time to help and explain to others; and “tell a story” about what you have done and how it worked, even if you don’t consider yourself an expert.
On the Barriers page of the wiki from the session I found an excellent list of things that tend to block changes happening, and I could virtually count them all off as comments I have heard at some point about the idea of increasing the use of technology in helping our students learn.
While there was nothing in the session for me to use with my classes, it did feel like a “pat of the back” from a sympathetic friend and was an encouragement to keep on with things despite the opinions of others.
