The End is Just The Beginning...

This is the last blog entry for Teaching With Digital Tools, but it is not the end of blogging.  By using this blog, I have discovered a few things: 1) I need a topic to write about; though I am an English teacher, I am not a journaler. 2) It is no fun to write when you  don't have readers.  I will keep this in mind as I have students blog.  Being sure that different students commented on different blogs kept blogging interesting in this class.  I looked at blogs I may not have been originally drawn to just to follow directions, and I was happily surprised that it was more the style of writing that I enjoyed (the personality behind the info?) rather than the specific topic. 3) You need to do it to teach it.  I couldn't really have my student blog effectively if I hadn't tried this on my own.  Seeing other people’s blogs gave me a good idea of how different people use this medium.

Teaching With Digital Tools was an added class, one I didn't need to take and only at the last minute decided to take (even with the idea of dropping it if it got to be too  much!).  Interestingly, it is the first class that I was able to actually implement what I learned, even before finding a job!  This course has made me aware of what kids these days are doing to communicate.  I don't see the fact that they spend so much  time texting and on Facebook as necessarily bad, they are communicating.  In my family we share YouTube videos we enjoy, share photos uploaded from mobile devices, and I am following my daughter on Twitter.  My youth group 7th and 8th graders have their own wiki page (complete with each members own page) to use to communicate and share.  We post videos, discussions, and they all seem to love to write what is going on in their lives.

I am still  looking for a job; not knowing what district I will end up  in makes it difficult to know where my new found knowledge and experience with digital tools will go.  I do know that I have great ideas that I am excited to use, great knowledge to help me at interviews, and most of all, I am a digital immigrant that can now say I am, at least partly, assimilated into the world of digital natives...

Lastly,  this course has also taught me that there are so many tools out there to use, that you need to keep it organized and under control.  As much as I  have LOVED this course, I have also been frustrated.  Many  times  I felt that the content was chaotic and hard to follow.  I wasn't sure where to find assignments; do I look on the wiki, thinkfinity, school web?  Where do I submit the assignment, or do I just post it?  I will use this to help me as I go forward and use these tools in my  own class environment.  I think this is one of the growing pains felt as we use and learn about so many tools.  I know that a main issue we are always discussing as Youth Leaders in church is how to get information to students and parents-there are just too many ways available!

LEARNING FROM LACKING

Wow, not having power for about a week, and then my computer totally not working, has really made me think about the role technology has in our lives.  On the one hand, having my whole family spend days trying to stay warm in one room was very nice.  We did have a generator to run the fridge and a couple lights, and of course the TV (which didn't have a signal half the time because of the down trees), so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  Again, having older children, we don't spend that much time all cozy together in front of the fireplace.  On the other hand, keeping my  house warm with wood, and constantly having to feed the fire was not easy, especially as I am trying to recover from back surgery.  So, the lack of technology did bring our family together, that is for sure, but I am not ready to sell everything and move to Lancaster just yet!!!

Interstingly, technology was also a way to know what was going on during the storm a few weeks ago.  My husband spend time on Bridgewater Patch looking at and posting to sites such as these.  http://bridgewater.patch.com/articles/trees-down-power-out-tell-us-and-your-neighbors-in-this-live-blog#photo-8290306

How does all this work together with  professional development? Well, I used to think I would love to live on a farm with not electricity, have a family who worked together to survive, and that would eliminate a lot of problems.  I have changed my mind.  Actually doing it, or at least a little bit like that, showed me what it was really going to be like.  So, I feel that the only way professional development for technology will work is the same idea, the teachers must "do" the technology.  In order for that to happen, the people in charge of professional development must also use technology.  Which brings me to this class.  When I first started reading Leading 21st Century Schools, I was confused.  Was this a class for administration?  I have no experience with that, but then it started to sink in.  Someone has to begin things.  In the district I was in, the person in charge of professional development hadn't been in a teaching position in many years, and they also were not tech savvy, so not much development happened. Shrum & Levin suggest having Technology-Planning Committees and Teacher Leaders (p 111).  We had a few teachers who were interested in technology, used it in their classroom to enhance instruction, and with a little encouragement would have probably worked their way up the Loti scale.  (see http://loticonnection.com/index.php/resources/publications/20-loti-framework for explanation).  But these teachers kept what they knew to themselves, resulting in no expansion of the mind or technology for  anyone.   Shrum and Levin suggest having teachers, administrators, parents, community, and even students for a Technology-Planning committee.  Wow, what an awesome idea!  Students!  "Begin with determining what students need to learn" is their suggestion.  Well, what better place than to start with the students.  Since they spend most of their lives outside of school engrossed in the world of technology, they really could be the innovators.  When students are included in developing instruction, they are always more active participants, which is what we want technology to do: Create learners who use technology to find information, and learn!

I have seen incredible work by students, who share ideas and communicate effortlessly through web 2.0 tools.  I have seen this not as a teacher, but as a mom and youth leaders.  We need to get the students doing life, in school.  This can't begin with administrators who don't use technology themselves.  Until taking Intro to Teaching with Digital Tools, I had no idea what was available.  We need to send our administrators to take classes such as this, and then somehow open the minds of teachers that sharing information is a good thing.  Our kids, get it, why can't we?