MY VISION 2020

What is your vision of what the world could be like in 2020? How will changes in the world affect education, and how will changes in education affect the world? How will your choices and innovations in the classroom affect others? How will being a teacher be different in 2020 than it is today?

My vision of what the world will be like in 2020 is much different from what I would like the world to be like in 2020.  I believe that in 2020 the growth of new technology will continue to have people doing more online and less face-to-face.  I believe social networking will continue to grow and children will continue to participate in the networking sites at very young ages.  I believe privacy will no longer exist, as people continue to post personal information online.  I think teachers will continue to have to monitor students for safe Internet use, possibly even closer than they’ve ever monitored children.   I believe people without these skills will be less valuable in professional jobs and find it more challenging to obtain a professional title. 

On a positive note, I believe that technology will continue to grow, making life more convenient for people.  As noted in Module 1, businesses, journalism, media and education will reap the benefits of these new technologies as they make their professional lives easier.  Businesses can more easily connect with other businesses, allowing growth and learning opportunities to occur.  Rather than waiting for the Sunday newspaper, journalists can post news online and we can view it through RSS feeds, as discussed in Module 3.  Educators will continue to use blogs, as discussed in Module 2, to share ideas and to learn from each other.  Wikis, as discussed in Module 4 will be used to collaborate both within the school district and with educators outside of the district.  Wikis will be used to gather information while actual dictionaries and encyclopedias become extinct. In the world of education, I believe that as the older teachers begin to retire and the younger, more tech-savy teachers get older, technology will be an even bigger part of the classroom.  I think technology will begin to be even more prevalent as new inventions emerge.  Changes in education, such as the new teacher evaluation process will hold teachers accountable.  I think this will have a positive effect on the world because students will be more likely to get what they should be getting and therefore, will be successful as they continue into the world.  Our students will continue to teach us about technology.  They will continue to pick up a device and intuitively know how to use it.

My choices in the classroom will affect my students in that if I don’t choose to expose them to technology, they will be missing out on a year’s worth of tech skills that could give them the edge over another prospect in a future job.  By keeping up with innovations, my students will keep up with the growing changes in the world and therefore be informed and better able to utilize these resources and be prepared for conquering life in the real world.  Also, with a whole year with students, I have the responsibility to teach my students Internet safety.  Each year, I have the opportunity to teach Internet safety, which some children may not get at home so I think this is very important for me to teach.  My choices regarding technology in the classroom will effect families in that I need to communicate with them so that they know what their child is being exposed to.  Although my daughter has only been exposed to a few websites at school, it’s important to me to know what she’s doing so that I know what kind of sites she’s visiting.  I look into them to be sure they are private accounts and to see what type of communicate is happening or available in that site.  This gives me the chance to talk to her about the possibility of someone contacting her online and about what to do in certain online situations.  My choices regarding technology will affect my school district in that I need to keep my students on safe, reliable sites that reflect what we’re learning.  My choices could also effect myself.  I need to make sure that I’m choosing educational sites that will benefit my students.

Being a teacher in 2020 will be different than it is today, because technology is constantly changing.  We don’t know today what we will be exposed to in 2020.  Things grow and change so rapidly that it’s hard to keep up with it all.  By taking these courses, getting RSS feeds and visiting social networking sites, we are better able to see what’s new and emerging.  In 2020, I would imagine there would be even more sites that we will need to manage and teach our students about.  I would also imagine that new devices will come out for us to practice and learn about and be able to teach our students about.  I think that although there will always be new things to learn about, the gap will slowly begin to close as the tech-savy generation emerges.  The tech-savy generation will be more easily able to apply technology, applications and websites to teaching because they are growing up with these things.  Teachers that have been teaching for many years will be learning from the net-generation. 

In conclusion, I think that we need to embrace the new changes and new direction that the technology world is heading, while also keeping our core values.  We, as teachers and parents, need to stay abreast of new social networks so that we can stay in tune with our students and keep our children and our students safe.  We need to look at the positives of these new changes and teach our kids to utilize the new tools in a positive, productive way.

Check out Pixlr

I would recommend Pixlr for my students who are high achievers, enjoy being challenged and are visual learners.  These students could edit pictures in Pixlr to use as illustrations for their narrative or informational pieces of writing.  Pixlr can also be used for students who speak different languages because Pixlr can be switched to another language once inside the editing page. 

This is a great program that can teach students basic photography editing including cropping pictures and adding designs to pictures.  Students can even change colors in their photograph.  They can use the photographs to illustrate their stories.  Students can edit pictures before putting them into a slideshow.  They can draw on pictures and add text.  With those tools, they can create a whole story using Pixlr.

Paperless??

How would a paperless class change your role as a teacher?
A paperless class would eliminate the mess of papers being strewn here and there.  It would allow me to access all work on the computer, in one place.  As a teacher, I could have my students focus on articles and sites online all at the same time, rather than being responsible for remembering to purchase or bring a book to class.

How would paperless classes change learning?
Paperless classes would change learning because students would be able to access course materials online at their convenience.  Students can continue to discuss topics online even after the class is over.

How would you measure learning in a paperless class?
Learning can still be measured through tests, quizzes and assignments.  It would just be assessed using an online tool rather than pen and paper.

Would a paperless space make it easier or harder to build a learning network? Why?
A paperless space would make it much easier to build a learning network because students can collaborate in one place online.

Big Shift 7: The Web as a Notebook

How has this shift affected your teaching practice so far?
The web as a notebook has affected my teaching practice because I can better organize and plan and have it all in one place online.  I utilize Pinterest as planning boards, organize my documents on Google Docs and use Evernote to keep student records.

How do you expect it might affect you in the future?
In the future, I anticipate there being even more opportunities to make organizing things faster and easier.

Have your views changed since you started this course?
I've been engaged with a lot of tools prior to this course since it's my last course toward my master's so I will have to say that my views have not changed.  However, my view toward collaboration in wikis has changed.  I knew how to utilize them prior to this class but never actually collaborated through them.  I now see how useful wikis can be.

How can you use technology to facilitate this shift in your own classroom?
I'll definitely continue to use Evernote to keep records for my students.  This can include taking notes and recording student reading, photographing test results, etc.  I will continue to blog daily, keeping parents informed of what's happening in the classroom and documenting what goes on daily.  I'm hoping to facilitate grade level discussions through a wiki as well.

Queen Bee or Wannabee?

Just recently I joined a book club at my daughter’s elementary school.  It is made up of the school counselor, the school’s director of safe schools and 10 moms.  Seven of the moms are elementary school mothers, 2 are middle school mothers and one is a high school mother.  All are mothers of girls, except one. 

We’re reading the book “Queen Bees and Wannabees” and discussing the social dynamic at the elementary, middle and high school levels.  I joined the book club after my daughter began to have some social issues with other girls at school.  I was amazed at how young girls are starting to form cliques, leave girls out, embarrass each other and bully.  I use the word “bully” carefully.  According to StopBullying.gov, a bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance.  Bullying is repeated over time and includes acts spreading gossip, making threats, attacking someone and excluding someone on purpose. 

My daughter’s bullying issue went something like this.  Multiple times a week, the same little girl would tell my daughter what to do and if she didn’t, she would tell my daughter’s friends not to talk to her or play with her.  This went on for three months, while I attempted to give my daughter the best advice that I could come up with.  During this time, I searched and searched for answers on how to teach her to handle this on her own.

Over the last few years, I’ve gained many resources to help not only my daughter deal with situations such as that, but also to teach my students how to handle similar situations.  Currently, in my book club, we’re reading the book, “Queen Bees and Wannabees.”  I’ve found it to be very informative thus far.  It brings attention to the social issues that girls are dealing with today.  It offers suggestions on how to handle girls that give your daughter/students a hard time.  Another great book that I found is called “Little Girls Can Be Mean.”  This book focuses on the early years of elementary school and how to teach girls to handle social challenges.  These resources have benefited me, but sometimes, kids need their own resources (not just their mom) to give them suggestions.  For my daughter, the American Girl self-help books have been pivotal.  There are many different books, such as “Stand Up For Yourself and Your Friends,” and “Friendship Troubles.”

What kinds of social issues are you seeing at your teaching level?  What kinds of resources or lessons have you found to be helpful to your own children or your students, girls or boys, deal with social challenges, such as cliques and bullying?

Stop Bullying.  Information retrieved from: http://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/.

Pro Connectivism

In response to the wiki regarding pro connectivism, I agree that connectivism has strengths.  By having access to the Internet, students can gain information faster than they can order, receive and read through a textbook.  Students can learn from others online and can information with others online.  By using technology, students will be better prepared when they get out into the workforce.  By taking courses online and doing projects online, students can gain cooperative learning skills.

The learning theories visual was a great way to share information!  It really helped to see the difference between theories between traditional learning theories and learning theories in the digital age and how they all relate to each other.I agree with the chart in that I think that they all work together to get us to the point of connectivism.

How about Skype??

I love Skype!  It’s such a fun way to make connections with family, friends and other educators.  I connected with Linda on Skype and I feel that when you see someone, it’s easier to picture them as you are working with and communicating with them online.  It allows you to put a face to the name.   Besides getting to know one another, connecting with Linda allowed us the chance to talk about our coursework and with that, opened up some questions that we had that we going to look into.

In the future, I might use Skype to connect with teachers from other districts.  We could share ideas and even have our students connect.  It would be fun to connect with another teacher and have our students be pen pals.  We could Skype so that our students could meet each other and then they could picture who they are writing to.

With this technology, I hope to make connections with other people from other districts.  I think it would be neat to do virtual interviews for my students using Skype as well.

Hmmm..

Hmmm.. I noticed that the link didn't work.  Let's try again.

Click Here.

ELECTRIC COMPANY PODCAST ROCKS!

Check out this podcast teaching punctuation by The Electric Company.  I chose this podcast because it’s exciting and engaging and I think my students would be really engaged in the video.  It uses a fun way to teach students about punctuation, which could be a boring subject to learn.  It has songs that I can imagine students singing when the podcast is over.

I would use this podcast as an introduction to punctuation, to get students excited and interested in learning about punctuation.  

Here’s the link

Have you ever seen an Okapi?

Have you ever seen an Okapi?  An okapi is just one of a million animal images that you can find on Flickr.

Click here to see one!

Citation: Chester Zoo.  (2009, June 12.)  The Chester Zoo.  Retrieved from ChesterZoo.org.

Kiddos absolutely LOVE animals!  By using Flickr, my students can search for animals that they would like to learn more about.  They can use the image from Flickr in their narrative or  informational writing about that animal. 

Besides using Flickr as illustrations in stories, I can use Flickr with my students in many other ways too.  I can post pictures from Flickr and have my students write sentences about the picture.  (to practice writing sentences)  My students can describe the picture in their own words, to work on descriptive writing.  Pictures from Flickr can be use to teach compare and contrast and main idea and details.

Wikis: To Be or Not To Be?

For years, I've used a wiki to share information with parents.  I've never opened it up for parents to discuss and contribute though.  And oddly enough, only one parent has ever tried to contribute.

During this course and our wiki assignment, I found that wikis can be used for collaborating with others.  It's a nice, convenient place for everyone to meet and chat, rather than sending emails back and forth.  When group projects and communication are necessary, I do believe that wikis are the way to go.  Thinking about using a wiki and actually using a wiki to collaborate has proven to be a different experience.  Prior to using the wiki, I thought, this will be great. Everyone can pop on, contribute and voila!  the assignment will be complete.  I didn't think about the time it takes for everyone to log on, contribute, read each other's posts and then come to a consensus.

So...wiki: to be or not to be?  I think using it for a group project with a bunch of people that are far away from each other would be the best means of communicating.  However, I've found that the communication and work didn't get done as quickly as I thought it would. What did I learn from this project?  Start early and hope that everyone else does too.  Plan.  Don't decide what you're going to do without collaborating with your group members.  Your time might as well be wasted if someone else researched the same thing as you.

RSS Feeds

I plan to use RSS to follow other first grade teachers to get ideas for enhancing my teaching.  Thus far, I’ve found math, reading, spelling, and special holiday activities to use with my students.  I’ve also subscribed to RSS feeds to keep up with the latest technology for the classroom.  I hope that this will not only keep me informed on what’s new and trending, but also give me ideas on how to integrate technology into my classroom.

Social Bookmarking Plan

For my social bookmarking plan, I decided to use social bookmarking as a tool for myself.

There are a couple different social bookmarking sites that I prefer, but for this post, I'm going to discuss Pinterest and Diigo.

I created a Pinterest account a few years ago and just recently began organizing it.  Originally, I had main topics, such as math, reading, writing and science.  Currently, I am working on breaking down those topics into smaller topics so that I can find my resources faster.  Under math I am organizing my boards according to state standards, which in turn, are the skills that are assessed for the report card.  I am breaking math down into things that I'll use for lessons and things that I'll use for centers.  I am doing a similar type of organization for reading.  For writing,  I am breaking down writing into narrative, informational and opinion writing.  I have many specific topics under that, including picture books to use as I'm teaching.  I also have a social skills category where I am organizing picture books to use when I teach specific social skills.  I'm hoping this way of organization will help me to access resources in a faster way when I need them.

Regarding Diigo, I have started to bookmark topics that I would like to learn more about, such as educational technology trends and integrating technology into the elementary classroom.  I hope to better organize these articles so that when discussions come up with my grade level or when I have a question about how to use something, I can quickly access the articles that I've bookmarked.

I have opened up both my Pinterest account and my Diigo account for my colleagues to access as well. Together, we've shared many things on Pinterest but few have gotten on board with Diigo.  My hope is that, as they find each bookmarking site useful, they will join me in using them for educational development and growth.

My Netvibes Resource Page

Here's a link to my Netvibes Resource Page.  It includes feeds about educational technology and first grade resources.

Click Here!

Link to Amelie's Animal Site

Click Here!

Post to Amelie

Hi Amelie!
My name is Mrs. Smith and I'm a first grade teacher in Hershey, PA.  For one of my graduate classes, I had to find a student blog which I found neat and useful!  I just love your blog about animals!  I'm impressed with how organized your blog is, the great information that you shared and the links to get to other sites!  I might have my first graders blog about animals!  Thanks for the great ideas!
Mrs. Smith :)

More info about the kid blog!

The blog that I chose for this assignment can be found here: http://ameliesanimals.edublogs.org/
When searching for a student blogging project, I wanted to find one created by a lower elementary school student so that I could see how I can use student blogging in my classroom.  This blog was created by a seven year old girl.  Her blog is all about animals, which I thought was really fun and informative for kids her age.  She writes about all types of animals, including jungle animals, exotic animals and pets.  I was impressed with how organized and informative her blog is.  Her topic is perfect for the students that I teach. First graders LOVE learning about and writing about animals!

Awesome Kid Blogging

Hi everyone!
Are you looking for a way to engage your kiddo/student in the latest technology?  Check out this kid blog: http://ameliesanimals.edublogs.org/  It's an informative blog about animals!
Mindy :)

Read-Write-Web

Have you ever checked out Read-Write-Web?  This is a great site to keep up with current technology.  Although I wouldn't use Read-Write-Web with my students (because they're only first graders) I would use it as a resource for myself.  I would use this site just to stay informed.  Did you ever wonder what the point of a hashtag is??  My daughter is always saying "#cheer", "#school" and it makes me crazy!  So... I checked out on Read-Write-Think and found out that it originated from a Google employee, who suggested that Twitter use hash tags as well.  Twitter began using hashtags as a way of searching and the rest is history!  

Curious how to integrate Twitter into your classroom? Check out Read-Write-Think!  Lots of great ideas on how to integrate technology into your classroom!  Read-Write-Think is a site that will "keep you in the loop" with what's going on with technology!