Thing #10: Creative Commons

As a journalist/j-school student, I spent many years both using and bemoaning Creative Commons. Creative Commons and the people who could (and often do) contribute to the whole "movement," if you will, have a Catch-22 relationship.

In teaching, I certainly took plenty advantage of free web content for things such as graphic organizers, pictures, and sometimes even educational programming. I think it's a great tool to have at our disposal, especially as an ESL teacher who needs graphic support on a daily basis. I'm a fan of hand-drawing things, and the kids usually like it, but there are some things I can't draw. A horse, for example. I just don't have that skill.

For my students' Outsiders portfolios, I had them spend a day in the lab on Flickr and sorting for only "CC" items. At the end of the week, their journal activity was about the difference between using CC products and a breach of copyright or plagiarism. I was truly impressed with the answers I got! It encouraged me to do this MUCH earlier in the year for the upcoming school year, because they can certainly understand the concept, and I think they had a lot of fun. One kid even described it "like a scavenger hunt."

One of the dangers that I could see happening with teachers is that it may tempt us to get a little lazy. Often we can use "too much of a good thing" instead of creating our own content. Whenever I would use a Creative Commons site to get an idea for an example or a unit, I always tried to alter it at least a little to keep myself on my toes. However, I feel like for the most part we're turning to these sites for graphics and songs to enhance our already made lesson plans, which is the right thing to do. It also gets tricky when teachers post plans on the web that are inspired by or directly drawn from a curriculum adoption that doesn't belong to them, which is why I steer clear of looking at examples that aren't about specific novels. It's just safer that way.

Thing #9: Sandboxing it Up

Playing on the Wiki was fun, I enjoyed creating EV by Numbers. Once I managed to get the TOC to happen (yes, I have issues with READING directions instead of just skimming them, I'm that kid), it was a piece of cake. My school has been using a wiki for the past semester as a way of getting out announcements. However, this was my first experience with doing anything other than simply adding newsletters to the page.

I enjoyed learning the ins and outs of the wiki page, and I'll be excited to explore it more over the summer. As I was working, I realized that it would be as simple as Ms. Davis suggested to get my kids to create their own pages - as long as they can follow directions better than I can! I predict that my students will enjoy adding photos and other media the most - just as I did. I think there's something exciting about being able to decorate your own little piece of cyberspace, and hopefully they'll agree with me!

Thing 8 - Streeeeeetch

This activity actually wasn't a whole lot of a stretch for me. One of my guilty pleasures is wiki-surfing, normally as a procrastination tool. Today, I picked a topic I knew would have plenty of controversy and (hopefully) discussion on it: Marilyn Monroe.

Surprisingly, there wasn't any discussion of the "conspiracy theories" surrounding her death, but there was some conversation about whether or not certain facts, opinions should be included. When comparing the discussion to the text, it was easy to discover that many of the comments were answered with revisions, very quickly after they came up on the discussion forum (according to the history page).

The entry itself was, of course, complete and seemed valid. I would expect nothing less from an entry on a well-known and beloved actress.

Thing #8: Wiki Wiki Wonderland

It takes a lot to inspire me. Generally, I'm unimpressed with heart-warming stories and tales of fabulous technological success. However, reading Vicki Davis's blog left me feeling oddly excited to get started on a Wiki for my kiddos this year. I really appreciated how she explained her step-by-step process to get the students up to speed, and I bookmarked it to use it later when lesson planning for the upcoming year. I think that I'll definitely try this out on my Yearbook staff. It seems like a good idea for them, though I'm not sure on the specifics quite yet.

For the three wikis that I chose to investigate, I tried to pick 3 different ones to focus on, kind of to give myself an overview of the different situations and possibilities. First, I took a glance at what I thought was a pretty comprehensive one. David Lindsay's classroom wiki seemed kind of a "catch-all" site at first. However, the longer I spent looking through it, the more I understood how it was organized. I loved the top menu for the most part, and I really enjoyed seeing how the students were able to post about news articles - I think that will be one of my "done early" activities this year if I start one for my ESL class, and maybe one of my weekly expectations for my Yearbook kids, to reflect on designs they've found/made. I would change the curriculum on the bottom of the page. I think that should just be a completely different tab.

Second, I looked into a much more focused site, the Discovery Utopia Project. I found this site endlessly interesting, mainly because of the content rather than the concept. But when I wasn't getting wrapped up in the students' imaginations, I noticed that this is a fabulous way to organize a project. I found this to be the most realistic way that I might use a wiki in my ESL class, because I already have a Google website for them. As useful as a Google site is, a wiki would be easier to monitor and allow students to post on, I think. Of course, when I use this for one of my projects, I'll make a couple of alterations - like moving the student work page up to a higher level to enhance their feeling of both responsibility when they're not doing their part and accomplishment when they are.

Finally, I looked at the 1001 Tales website. This one, for me, was the most frustrating to navigate because I didn't 100% understand what was happening with the "front page." I couldn't figure out if I should go to another site or what! But once I got my web-feet under me once more, I found one important advantage this website had: safety advice. Again, I bookmarked this website to help me in the future. And, to be honest, I signed up to be notified about next year's 1001 Tales.

Thing #7: Commentary on Commenting

Ah, comments.

For me, commenting has been an evolution of sorts. I grew up with a Xanga in high school, purely for expressive and social purposes, of course. At that time, commenting was all about how many people commented on YOUR blog, and who-said-what-about-whose-sister's-cousin's-stepbrother's-goat. Eventually, I got to college, matured, and commenting became a way for me to say, "HEY! HEY! HERE ARE MY POLITICAL BELIEFS!" Classy, no? Finally, I realized toward the end of my college career that both of those types of comments are, in fact, not constructive and I switched to making encouraging or thought-provoking comments on blogs, trying to stay away from being too judgmental.

Overall, I think that commenting can be very useful as a tool to see all sides of an issue, to add resources, and to show support. In most of the blogs I commented on, there weren't many changes to add resources, so I mainly focused on showing support or giving a little bit of a "devil's advocate" statement in some of the wider-read blogs. For example, this afternoon on the Reading Room Blog at the NYTimes, I wrote a short comment on The Literal Power of Words. Of course, it has yet to be approved, but I doubt that it will have any problem getting through based on what's already there. I tried to point out the merits of the argument rather than get wrapped up in the comments of others that were going nowhere.

Thing #6: Feed Your Reader

First of all, I have to admit that this title reminds me of a children's book called The Hungry Thing, which I promptly googled and found this delightful read-aloud on YouTube.

The Hungry Thing: A Reading

Anyhow, I made the executive decision that as I've been using a reader for quite sometime, I could go ahead and only wait about 3 days before completing the reader reflection blog. There's always at least one article each day that I want to write about, but I rarely have the time that I do today.

My all-time favorite, good for any occasion blog is a blog called Flashlight Worthy Books. In fact, I love it so much that I support it by having Amazon's FLW credit bookmarked so that they get a tiny portion every time I buy something. FLW has been a great resource for me in the classroom this year. When I realized that all my kids loved ghost stories and sports novels (never two of my favorite genres), I turned to FLW and found great-quality books to suggest to my students! This week, I'm going to suggest that all my fellow secondary teachers check out the most recent young adult post, Oh Mom!, featuring YA books with mother and daughter relationships.

In addition, I also read the article Zero Tolerance on David Warlick's blog. I have to say, I started following this blog because it was so opinionated. I love a good argument, whether I agree with it or not. In this article, he was very blunt about saying that "They’ve had enough time to decide if they want to teach today or yesterday — enough time to decide if they want to prepare their learners for the future, or for the 1950s." In truth, I kind of agree with it. I've got my 80 year-old professor following me on Twitter, and if he can adapt to the new educational standard, so can we. But I also feel that we, MISD, need to provide a little more forced support for teachers who have yet to get with the program before we take them around to look at storefronts for laundromats.

All in all, I'm excited that I actually have an excuse to use my Google Reader more often. Wooo! 6 down!

Thing #5: Starting RSS

As honesty is the best policy, or at least the most widely accepted of the policies, and thus I'll be honest and say that I'm already an RSS addict. However, this was actually my first foray into reading about education. Traditionally, I read about starving children in other countries, civil rights protests, international issues, and the arts. Oh yeah, and books. (Such a nerd, I know.)

After reading through a few of the suggested blogs, I came across what I knew would be my favorite of all the ones to read: The Choice. This blog is actually mainly focused on getting into college and all of the steps leading to it. Last year, I spent most of the year trying to convince my ESL students that they COULD actually go to college if they wanted to. I don't think I've ever had to work so hard at anything in my life. TAKS prep was nothing compared to changing their stubborn little minds.

The great thing I discovered about this blog is that it uses a mix of professional journalism and "civilians," if you will, to write the articles. In a stand-out entry, Cue the Choir, I read about a student's last few days of high school. I'm planning to use this as an example of a wonderful personal narrative in a unique style for my students this year. Not only will it inspire them (hopefully), but it will start the college conversation.

As a side note, I'm enjoying visiting everyone's unique blogs. Teachers are entertaining... sometimes I forget that.

Thing #4: Blogging Begins with Reading

As an avid blogger and blog-follower for the past 8 years of my life, some of the reflection questions I can rattle off a generic response to in about 2 minutes. I'll share some of my thoughts on blogging below in response to the questions.

• The genre of blog writing is different in that there does not have to be a prescribed structure to it. Also, when people consider it a "genre," they do it a great disservice, in my opinion. At the very least, blogging has just as many sub-genres as all of literature, because the beauty of blogging is that it can be anything that you make it.
• Reading a blog can be much more personal than other types of reading, or it can be more removed. It depends on the type of blog. A news blog may create the traditional journalism distance, while an opinionated editorial blog may actually incite ire more readily than a full text that disagrees with your personal opinion.
• It's accessible. That's where the difference in blog writing stems from, in most cases. We teach students a formulaic, academic writing style for most of their lives, which may enhance or suppress their natural talent. On a blog, the person has complete ownership and control. They can write anyway they like, disobey any grammar conventions that they hate, and generally just use it to express themselves. In the end, we come out with a much more casual, yet more personal style of writing.
• Ah, comments. I'll be honest, comments don't actually hold any more power or influence than the author of a blog post gives them. Comments have the potential to allow readers (and the author) to consider another side or to explore a small facet of the post that others may not have caught on to. The best comments, of course, are the ones that add to the ongoing discussion by inserting new information into the mix. However, comments can also take over a blog and dishearten the author, when it starts to sound like the halls of a public school, you know it's time to shut it down.

As this "thing" is mostly about finding educational ways to use blogging, I suppose that final reflection question will get its own section.

Educators can use blogging to enhance their classes in many ways. One way is to simply use it as a sounding board for their ideas. That's what Mr. Meyer did in his post Why I Don't Assign Homework. Mind you, this is a very controversial subject, even for a person who may agree with the policy, but not agree with the overall rationale for said policy.

However, the most useful way to utilize blogging is to bring it into the classroom. Most of my kiddos don't completely understand what blogging is because of how quickly technology trends change. Facebook and MySpace pretty much dominate their tech-related brain cells (at least in my class) because of the social networking aspect. However, I remember a time when having a Xanga was hot - in fact, I still have the login from my high school Xanga memorized.

I was pleasantly surprised to see such deep thought on teaching from a 14-year-old when reading the Brevity entry. This is, in fact, a challenge that many teachers face, and the piece was so well-written, that I found myself composing an answer to it as I read. I was even more encouraged as I read the post on Education Blogging. The rationale in its defense had very few weak spots, and I discovered more new arguments for its use. I still believe that the accessibility and the ownership it inspires are its two greatest strengths as an educational tool, but I see the merit in all the arguments they provided. Finally, I also loved the idea of students reading blogs for SSR time. It's a technique that I'm excited to experiment with in my class, though I don't anticipate using it THAT often. Still, it will be an excellent way to get my students most lacking in computer skills to start becoming comfortable with that technology.

I will admit that I'm not so sold on the idea of 2nd graders using a blog. I'm sure that it would be wonderful to have their first understanding of a blog be for academic use, certainly. However, when you're introducing children that young to a service that can connect them to anyone and open up their minds to anything, there's a concern about their safety, simply because 7 year olds can be so trusting and innocent.

Thing #2: Musings on Web 2.0

TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING EDUCATION.

There. I said it. And out of most of the teachers in my school, I may be the person who knows it best. After all, I went through my degree in journalism being told every day: no one under the age of 30 reads a newspaper anymore. Then I went through my degree in English with professors stoically ignoring the newfangled e-Readers, until I arrived at my final Capstone course and discovered that I needed to create a multi-media non-fiction narrative piece for the digital age, because "in 12 years, book publishers will be publishing 50% of their content online exclusively."

Of course these changes in print publishing and media are going to change the way that we approach education, and I can see the shifts already happening. For example, at least 12 teachers at my school went to Google Apps training and now have websites that they use for their classes. Already we use the GoogleApps programming to keep track of office detentions, OEYP hours, and ISS assignments. The internet has allowed me to network with other teachers, find helpful study guides and additional training materials, as well as find pertinent news articles to share with the kiddos.

These examples are similar to the ones discussed in the article, and I would love to be able to utilize these ideas more. I think that in most of my classes, I'm going to have to work hard to turn my students into "digital learners."

One obstacle that I face as an ESL teacher in Mesquite is the complete lack of funding from any real source or entity to actually bring technology into my classroom. Next year, I'll be getting newer computers because of my latest assignment (Yearbook), but this year was a real struggle to integrate any sort of technology into my lesson plans. Also, at least 80% of my students qualify as economically disadvantaged and about 50% of the students in my ESL classes do not have regular access to a computer after school hours. These students need additional help to understand how to use programs. I see part of my duty as helping them to adapt to the US culture, and the digital culture is certainly a large portion of that now.

The future of my technology use, you ask?

• have all of my students on a GoogleApps account so that they can collaborate on projects in slides, or, as in the article, on a study guide for an upcoming test
• activity websites to keep the students and parents involved with Student Council and Yearbook updated on the important upcoming events
• advertising and incentives for Yearbook marketing
• podcasts and online content for my true Newcomer ESL students who would be lost in normal lessons

Thing #1: Lifelong Learning

Let's be honest. I'm already a lifelong learner. In fact, I feel that if there is ever a time in my life when I stop learning, I'll more than likely shrivel up into an empty husk of myself. Horribly tragic.

This particular model of "Lifelong Learning" was intriguing to consider. Despite my resistance to consider a prescribed formula for lifelong learning, I nevertheless found myself admitting that many of the points this presentation made were valid.

The habits that I found agreeable included accepting responsibility for your own learning, having confidence as a learner, and mentoring others. As a person who constantly needs a challenge, I revel in being able to mentor people, no matter the circumstance. It's one of the main reasons I choose to teach, right behind keeping up with all the fly slang, fo' rizzle. Being able to not only provide support for another person, but also open their mind to a new concept teaches you more than any college course ever could.

The only two that I truly struggled with accepting were:

- Begin with an end in mind (a goal, basically)

I think that sometimes having an "end game" for learning can contain your experience, whereas keeping your options open can lead to paths you never expected. Sometimes these paths are much more beneficial than the original goal may have been, and sometimes they're fairly frivolous. It's a gamble I'm always willing to take.

- View problems as challenges.

Yes, some "problems" are truly challenges in disguise. A sheep in wolves' clothing, if you will. However, there are some problems that are there for a reason, that are not meant to be faced and overcome. For example, I have horrible balance. For years I saw this as a "challenge" that I needed to overcome in order to ride a bicycle, roller blade, and ice skate. However, at the age of 16, I finally conceded that perhaps the 6 scars and 3 shattered helmets meant that it was more of a problem than a challenge. :) Discovering and knowing your limits is important, otherwise you may be discouraged from continuing learning in other areas.

Of course, as I noted earlier, I try to approach most subjects with an open mind, so I am glad to consider outside perspectives on those two points.

Obligatory Introductory Post

Wilkommen, bienvenue, come on in...

Despite my affinity for Wordpress, I'll be spending the next few weeks working on Blogger to complete the requirements for the 23 Things course I am taking with Mesquite ISD.

Hopefully, this blog will help me reflect as well as process the technological lessons. Also, I plan on being just a touch more serious (and a lot less irreverent) in this blog than in my previous explorations. Of course, a blog without humor isn't really a blog at all, so I'll try to keep it from being dry.

Off on the adventure we go!