Week 9, Final Reflection

K: What did I know? Next to nothing. Seriously. I was so lost during our Skype call (Diigo? Delicious? RSS? Um...pardon me?) and was pretty worried for the first few weeks of class. 

W: As much as possible! I live in constant fear of turning into a technologically incapable dinosaur before my time. My mother knows how to do things on computers that I haven't even heard of. This is unacceptable.

L: I honestly think that I've learned more in this class than in any of my other graduate courses. That is not to say that my other classes have been useless (although some have certainly been less than amazing), it's more that the learning we've been doing in CE5160 is so easily measurable. What do I know now? For starters, I'm not scared of leaving a digital footprint because I understand the value of educational web tools and personal learning networks in a way that I didn't recognize before taking this class. I can use social bookmarking sites like Diigo to make online research faster and more convenient for myself and for students. I can use Audacity and Audioboo to make and upload podcasts, and I feel comfortable transferring this knowledge to my students. Also importantly, I know where to go to find webinars that are relevant to my interests and professional goals. In short, I'm at least passably familiar with a handful of web tools that will help my in both personal situations as a student and professional situations as a teacher. I'm excited to experiment more with these resources and eventually integrate them into my classroom in a way that revives old, dry learning activities in a modern and interactive way.

Week 8, Ch. 5: Allow Me This (Long-winded) Metaphor

I’m an exercise fanatic. It started once I realized, mid-teenagehood, that my metabolism wouldn’t last forever and that I would eventually have to counter my ice cream-eating habits with some sort of physical activity. And it’s lasted for years. The key, I think, has been fitness classes and groups. You name it, I’ve taken it: yoga, pilates, aerobics (regular & step), boot camp, kickboxing, spinning. Most recently, I’ve narrowed my fitness repertoire down to my two favorites: spinning and running.

My instructor and fellow runners and riders make me feel like a capable, contributing member of a community and constantly motivate me to endure and improve. They have helped me to recognize my own power, as well as the control I have over my body. We share fitness-related advice (our recommendations for shoes & gear, tools to help record & track runs or rides, tips about form and new ways to improve speed), talk about articles we’ve read or techniques we’ve tried, discuss our goals and realistic ways of achieving them. I learn from their mistakes and improvements and they from mine. Although I believe that I am capable of attaining the same fitness goals on a personal level without these relationships, my success rate has always been higher and my progress more consistent when I am an active member of a group.

I couldn’t help but compare my personal fitness network (PFN?) to the personal learning networks that we’ve been exploring in our latest chapter; to me, the metaphor is obvious. Interaction, collaboration and improved practice? These characteristics are as essential to PFNs as they are to PLNs. Learning while doing instead of learning as preparation for doing? That element is there, too. We share the same objectives of advancing our collective knowledge and skills, learning more and improving. Although this metaphor may not be helpful for people who aren’t as involved in fitness communities as I am, I found that comparing PLNs and PFNs has helped me to better visualize the role that I might play in a personal or professional learning network, as well as the significant impact it could have on my life.

Week 8, PLNs: Under Construction

Is it terrible that I haven’t created a personal or professional learning network throughout this course yet? I mean, I’ve certainly started to. I use Diigo on a daily basis now--but I don’t share my notes with anyone. I blog about educational videos and articles and read others’ blogs--but that’s mostly within the confines of this class. I find some of my friends’ links posted on Facebook interesting and useful (how I found out extra details and opinions about the riots in London and the Fukushima earthquake & tsunami), but I ignore most of them (couldn’t care less about the score from the latest Jets game or another anti-Obama news article).

As I get more and more comfortable with the different web tools, I think the next step, then, is to start including the right kinds of people in my PLN. Up until now, I’ve limited myself to social networking (Facebook, for example) for purely personal purposes. I see pictures of my friends’ babies, get invitations to parties, share comments about the quirks of day-to-day life via status updates. If I were to broaden my network to include people also interested in using web tools as learning forums, then its potential as a PLN would expand indefinitely.

There are a few reasons, I think, why I haven’t yet done this. First of all, I have always appreciated a compartmentalized lifestyle, meaning that I like to keep the different groups of people in my life (social circle vs. work colleagues, family vs. friends) unofficially segregated from each other. I feel like it keeps my life organized and uncomplicated, with clearly defined boundaries of what belongs where. This makes me think of one of Dan’s past blog entries about Google+. If I’m going to build a professional learning network, I like the idea that I can keep it separately from my personal networking. Secondly, I’ve been automatically involved in a PLN in some way for the past year through my PSU classes. Moodle discussion forums might be more limited than global bookmarking or microblogging sites; however, ideas and resources are still being shared and questions are still being asked and answered. I think once I complete my degree and exit the academic community, I will be more likely to use more conventional sites and web tools in order to maintain my PLN and keep myself informed.

Week 7: Project-Based Learning: Imitation + Adaptation = Innovation

“That’s nice for them, but I couldn’t possibly do that given the constraints at my school.” How many times have I had this exact thought?! It's a pretty classic I-give-up excuse for educators in less than ideal teaching situations who can’t imagine themselves as capable of the same accomplishments and creativity of their more privileged peers. And it’s not as if they (I’m including myself in here) are totally off base. We’re not magicians! We can’t make something out of nothing, and grant writing, which so many people tout as the solution to all of our funding and resource problems, can only get us so much and, even then, only under certain circumstances.

I don’t mean to argue against a learning network. We each have our own strengths and weaknesses, our own creative abilities, which we can augment by observing others putting theirs into action. If we consider ourselves to be only as good as our best ideas, then we are limiting our potential, both personally and professionally. If we allow ourselves to be influenced by the work and ideas of others, learning from their mistakes as well as their successes, then the possibilities multiply.

The key, then, is to be realistic. Work with what we have instead of wallowing in professional jealousy by wishing for things that just aren’t possible for us. We might not be on level playing fields as far as resources, finances and peer support are concerned, but this doesn’t mean we’re imaginatively segregated or limited to a pre-determined set of creative ideas. We can adapt lesson plans and activity ideas, redesigning them to fit our specific teaching situations instead of attempting to imitate directly. The question should be how can I do that here? not why can't I do that here?

Week 7, Brian Crosby: I Schema, You Schema, We All Schema

Anyone with a language arts background out there? If you’ve ever taken a course or attended a professional development seminar on literacy, you know plenty about schema. It’s all about background knowledge. We have to activate the background knowledge that students already have by helping them make connections between that which they already know and that which they’re learning. Boom: schema. For students lacking background knowledge or for those coming from environments where their experiences differ greatly from each other (ESOL students, for example, or those from nonmainstream cultural or ethnic backgrounds), it is our job to help them build it within a motivational, meaningful context. Say it with me: schema.

This is what I love so much about project-based learning--the instant schema. Everyone is starting from nothing, working towards a common end point either as individuals or as a group. The students share in the background knowledge-building experience as the parameters for the project are introduced and the terms and concepts for carrying it out are examined. They all have access to the same information and resources, which means that they’re starting out on an even playing field. Where they go from there, then, is up to them.

And look at the kinds of things they can accomplish! Access to schema not only provides students with a deeper understanding of the material covered in class, but it also prepares them to make connections and apply what they’ve learned within other contexts or experiences. This is project-based learning, as Brian Crosby would like us to understand it.

Podcast, Podcast, Podcast! (And Webinar Reflection)

Week 6 Webinar Reflection: Two Birds, One Stone

So I've done my webinar reflection in the form of a podcast (see above)...pretty dry stuff, but I figured it might be more pleasant to listen to as opposed to read. It's an entirely "um"-free podcast (in 5 minutes, I said um 23 times!), thanks to Audacity's handy editing tools...although I didn't experiment with the features much beyond that. Baby steps.

Also, a ridiculous (and totally hilarious) oversight: the creator of Faces of America, which is the documentary series upon which this webinar was based, is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. NOT Henry Rollins. OOPS! I'm not even sure that I know anything about Rollins except for his name...but apparently that was enough. Sorry about that.

Finally, here are some useful links from the webinar:

PBS Webinar Archives
Faces of America
Episode 1
Episode 2
Teacher Resources
Faces of America Blog

Week 5, Technology & Projects: Well...duh

I really didn’t enjoy Capelle’s article. I was expecting it to provide insight into standards-based implementation of blogs and wikis in the classroom, but I found the content lacking and his tone almost condescending. If there’s anything I’ve had hammered into me after a year of taking M.Ed. classes and working in a public school, it’s teach to the standards! The main point of Capelle’s article seemed so obvious that it makes me wonder if writing it was even necessary. I mean…if lessons are usually structured with the learning goals in mind, then why would a tech-based lesson be planned any differently? We think about the content, the competencies we want our students to achieve and the process and tools that we can employ to help them do so. We take into account the needs of our class as a whole and each student as an individual. Then we plan, modify, and plan again. It’s almost as if Capelle was suggesting that educators might get so mesmerized by new tech tools that they would forget to consider the most 

effective ways of learning for their students.

So, going back to Kim’s original question, is it the technology that drives the project or the project that drives the technology? I think it can be interpreted as going in either direction, depending on the situation. It’s entirely possible to design a lesson plan based on a certain tech tool. An educator might be inspired by the technology they encounter in their personal life and decide to create a completely new project or activity that allows them to integrate it into their classroom. Or, alternatively, a seasoned teacher could be looking for a way to update old lesson plans by modifying them to include the use of some modern tech tools with which his or her digital native students are already familiar. In either case, the project itself might be dependent upon the tech tools, but the idea behind it and the overall content of the lesson is not.

Does this answer the question? Maybe it’s the slightest bit verging on chicken or egg territory, because I think either one can create--or in this case inspire--the other. For the time being, I guess, we can take Capelle's article as a reminder to keep lessons meaningful and teach content in contextualized ways that make it relevant to our students.

Week 5, Chapter 3: Ding!

I feel like I have a light bulb hovering over my head this week. Things are just really starting to click. I had to make a podcast for my linguistics class (a first for me!), so I downloaded Audacity, recorded a ridiculous conversation about turning an old chicken coop into a sauna (not my idea), and figured out how to convert it from an .aup file to an mp3 (per my instructor’s request). I was sort of worried about the entire process, but it turned out that it wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t impossible. It was actually fun! I felt proud to have successfully created something that I could share with other people, especially in such a short period of time. And now here I am, totally curious about all the features of Audacity that I haven’t even started to explore yet.

This got me thinking more realistically about integrating tools like podcasts, blogs and wikis into my own lessons, specifically within an ESL/EFL context. I mean, if I can do it… First: blog journals. Every foreign language classroom I’ve ever been a part of has involved some sort of journal writing component. You probably know what I’m talking about--the notebook that each student has, where they write a certain number of entries per week, which are subsequently read and commented on by their teacher. Light bulb! Blogs are a modern, interactive version of old fashioned language journals. Students get writing and reading practice from generating their own posts and commenting on their classmates’. While they would gain agency through the process, creating and personalizing their blogs and choosing their own topics, they would still be held responsible for the learning materials covered in class through their incorporation of grammar, vocabulary and language goals into their posts. And what a different relationship they would have with the material! Their journal experience is no longer secretive or private, just them and the teacher’s red pen. They can share their anecdotes or expertise and learn from others doing the same.

And what about a class wiki? This, I’ll admit, is still very much over my head. But I’m curious and would like to explore this tool more with my final project. I like the idea of a class site that any member can edit or update, and where assignments might be accessible to everyone. I also love the idea of portfolios as an assessment tool, both for students and teachers to use. A class wiki seems like an amazing resource for this, making it easy to see each student’s contributions and chart their progress. DING! Now I just have to learn how to do all this…

Week 4, PBS Video: Don’t Mind if I Dewey

“If we teach today’s students the way we taught them yesterday, then we rob them of tomorrow.” This was the quote that got me. It’s interesting because when I think of Dewey, I immediately think of experiential education that involves more of the outdoors and less of technology. I think Walden, I think simplify…I don’t think digital media. More than anything, this is because of the specific context of my Dewey-based enlightenment. Although I had been introduced to his theories before, I became a real Dewey convert in Allan DiBiase’s Philosophy, Ethics & Education class at PSU. Every Saturday, our group of ten wandered off into the woods of Sandwich, NH on our snowshoes, returning in the afternoon for lunch and discussion in Allan’s living room. Hands down, my favorite class yet, because it gave me the opportunity to discuss and digest information, share ideas and apply new skills in a unique learning community. And did I mention the snowshoeing adventures?!

For me, learning through action is the most motivational--especially when that action takes place outside of a traditional classroom. That is not to say that I can’t effectively learn indoors through more conventional, stationary methods; I just prefer it the other way around. This is where I can recognize a connection between myself and the kids in the video. The “stealth learning” that they’re participating in within their digital media education programs keeps them motivated, engaged and wanting more, while still providing them with useful technical skills and nurturing their ability to think critically. Preparing students to be able to innovate and solve problems, to try, fail, try again and succeed--this is a common goal that we might be able to see at both an alternative outdoor education school or a digital media education program.

The difference, I think (and as the distinguished-looking, bearded man in our video pointed out), is our educational value system that favors certain learning environments over others. Cue the traditional all-or-nothing idea, which tells us that technology is melting kids’ brains and can’t be an appropriate basis for learning. But why can’t we embrace digital media as just one learning tool among many others? It’s not as if the entire curriculum has to be tech-based, but integrating digital literacy into an otherwise traditional classroom gives students new ways to investigate information, express themselves and gain competence. Basically, it’s a digital realization of experiential education theory…and it really doesn’t seem like there’s much of a downside.

Week 4, Social Bookmarking: Learning to Share

Is there a halfway point between the digital immigrant and digital native categories? I feel like I should be considered a digital native…maybe because of my age, because I’ve been using some sort of a computer since I was 8, because I was competent enough in Word and Excel to get through university and also work part time in a handful of offices on campus. I feel like this “technology thing,” as Kim put it, is not totally foreign to me. But my family’s first computer was the kind that had an all black screen with a blinking green cursor and you had to type in some sort of weird code or insert a flimsy disk whenever you wanted to play a game. We never used the computer to actually type anything, and internet certainly wasn’t available yet. I eventually became relatively competent with both computers and the internet, but then between finishing undergrad in 2005 and starting grad school in 2011, I never once opened Microsoft Word or used the internet for academic research. Six years, and I honestly feel like I’m starting over! Maybe I’m like a first generation digital native coming from a digital immigrant family who never fully embraced or adapted to the new culture?

I had never heard of Diigo, Delicious or the idea of social bookmarking until our very first Skype call in this class. Even though I haven’t had much chance to experiment with it yet, it’s hard not to recognize the potential of these sorts of tools. Working alone, I could save hours of research and prep time (literally hours, as I am possibly the most meticulously inefficient note taker in the world…) by highlighting and commenting directly on websites instead of trying to organize and keep track of everything in notebooks. Group projects would no longer have to involve coordinating schedules for face to face meetings or long and confusing phone calls where you try to make sure that you’re both actually looking at and talking about the same thing on your screen. Social bookmarking is one of those things that I wish I had invented (right up there with ebooks, Nike+, car seat warmers and waterproof mascara), because it’s a quietly brilliant idea that makes you think how and why did I ever live without this?!

This is kind of how I felt when I found out about Google docs for the first time last fall. My lifestyle is annoyingly nomadic, and I always end up doing homework in random places at random times with an unpredictable amount of resources. Opening up a friend’s computer to put finishing touches on a paper that was due the following day, only to find that they didn’t have Microsoft Office installed was always a treat. Google docs has really changed my life as a student for the better. Being able to access my work from any computer with internet is a huge convenience, and I like the universality of it. If I can send and receive an email from anywhere in the world, why can’t I use the same technology to work on homework, complete group projects or just do some simple independent research with a little continuity?

Week 3, BoC: Incorporation Frustration

Once or twice in the past year, I’ve found myself getting overwhelmed in one of my classes. Usually, it’s not the workload but the subject matter that gets to me. More specifically, it’s the prospect of seamlessly incorporating all of the theories, methods and content we discuss into each of my lessons that feels overwhelming. I think it’s a combination of the broadness of course materials (in some cases quite unrelated from one class to another), my relative inexperience and my perfectionist tendencies. Also, the fact that I’m not currently working with an ELL population complicates things, as class discussions seem more abstract and less applicable. This familiar feeling popped up just last week when I started wondering how the heck am I going to teach students about web tools and their many uses without letting the focus drift completely away from language content? This time, though, I was feeling more overwhelmed than ever.

Reading Scott McLeod’s If we were really serious… list got me thinking more about integration. In terms of digital learning and teaching tools, he suggests that we integrate them into “subject-specific pre-service methods courses rather than marginalizing instructional technology as a separate course.” This makes sense and seems totally appropriate, but I certainly haven’t experienced this in my PSU courses. Yes, we talk about useful TESOL websites where we can find or create handy teaching resources, or where students can play interactive language-based games. And, sure, one professor even introduced a website specifically geared towards language learners, which allows students to write their own personal comic strips…so there’s some of that creation of new and interesting things that we’ve been discussing. For the most part, though, it seems as if there’s an underlying assumption that everything we need to know related to technology and web tools will come from the Computer Ed requirement. As a result, there’s no need to incorporate any digital learning/teaching content into TESOL-specific courses…apparently.

Is it a case of nonchalant chuckling, as McLeod puts it? I’m at the end of my Master’s, but this is the first time I’m really being introduced to web 2.0 technology and tools. In TESOL, we talk constantly about the importance of incorporating specific content areas into our language classes, to give students the kinds of linguistic tools that they need in order to understand certain subject matter while they’re studying that material instead of pre-teaching lists of meaningless vocabulary and context-less grammar. So what’s going on here? If web 2.0 has changed how we define authority and how information and knowledge is distributed, then why is technology instruction (for TESOL students, at least) still being left exclusively to the experts in the Computer Education department?

Week 3, Connections: VLC? idk…

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. As I read the first chapters of Schwier’s Connections, I felt as if he was responding to my previous post, validating my feelings while gently explaining the facts. His main point? Mediated communication is fundamentally different from other types of interpersonal communication--not necessarily better, simply different. Online connections can help support existing relationships, while also encouraging new relationships to gestate and grow. This much seems obvious. For me, it’s the virtual learning communities, specifically the style of learning that they encourage, that is taking some getting used to.

I’m one of the people that Schwier refers to, a learner who has been trained to expect lesson content to be prescribed and coherent, and who still sometimes sees social learning as an intimidating prospect. I’ll admit, though, that after a year of mostly online classes at PSU, I’m beginning to get my bearings. I enjoy the freedom of making decisions about what I’m going to learn and where my personal academic focus is going to be. I think this kind of learner responsibility is assumed in graduate level courses, but I recognize that VLCs encourage it in a unique way. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if we arrange our desks in a circle, our instructor sitting beside us as an equal; the physical presence of authority is often still there. In well-run VLCs, on the other hand, it is as if the instructor has stepped out of the room. Student-student communication can happen in a direct and unobstructed way, where content is navigated together as connections are built.

Thinking about the role of the instructor in a VLC presents us with a while different viewpoint. Schwier points out that a community of learners is not always appropriate; instructors must take into account the learners’ starting point and move from there, even if they had originally expected something different. This is nothing new, simply standard procedure for a teacher who has ever put together an elaborate lesson plan masterpiece, only to realize in the first five minutes of the class that it will never work. Once the VLC is established, however, the teacher takes on a very different role than he or she would within a traditional classroom, depending on the boundaries of that particular learning community. For instructors of non-digital natives, it seems as if half the battle is helping students understand that they are in control of their learning and encouraging the community to grow and learn from there.

Week 3, Portal to Media Literacy: Nerd Alert!

It’s funny, because, as a student, I really liked the institution of school, just as much as I liked the traditional hierarchy through which it was administered…at least at the university level. I could sit in a lecture hall of 114 students and walk away feeling the same kind of informed satisfaction that I did after leaving a 15 person conference session. It depended on the personality of the professor, of course, and there were plenty who I just could not stand. But, for the most part, I took comfort in their knowledge of a subject area and trusted that by the end of the course, I, too, would share that knowledge. In this sense, I guess I was guilty of some rather blatant professor worship. Maybe so much of what I liked about school came from being good at it--I didn’t mind following directions, I strove to accomplish what was expected of me and I didn’t often argue with authority.

At the same time, I really DO appreciate that the idea of ‘just follow along’ has been subverted, and Wesch’s network model of the classroom, which provides an easily accessible platform for student participation, seems appropriate in many teaching situations. I recognize the truth in Wesch’s statement that a student’s ability to excel at school is not representative of his or her learning capabilities. I was raised by a Montessori teacher mother and have worked with average and special needs students in non-traditional school settings for several years; transforming the lesson to meet the student’s needs is much more practical and effective (not to mention fair!)  than forcing individuals to conform to an institution or a particular teaching style.

Despite the examples Wesch provides from his own lessons, I have difficulty visualizing his approach in a university level classroom. I think this is because of my own university experience which, for the first two years, was anything but personal and interactive; I’ve never actually seen it done, and this makes me curious. I can, however, see his network model working smoothly in a high school classroom or below. Students collaborating on projects using tools like Skype and Diigo, conducting web-based research, checking facts and information, posting questions on class wikis where their classmates can provide answers or feedback. If these kinds of meaningful learning connections can be made at the high school or middle school level, then I imagine they must be possible on a grander scale within a university classroom.

Week 2, Chapter 1: Question Authority

Listening to Miller's presentation to the Rutgers Board of Governors about the ways in which web 2.0 tools have redefined "authority" and "expertise" brought to mind all kinds of theories relating to ESOL and literacy education. The idea of all students as bearers of knowledge in their own right, as individuals capable of creating rather than simply mimicking, is a huge part of modern educational practice. The Language Experience Approach (LEA)  is a terrific example of this sort of thinking put into action. LEA allows students to engage with language in the form of reading, writing and discussion without being overwhelmed by the process. Even young students are given authority and allowed to create a text upon which the group lesson is then based; each student gets the chance to create, and everyone learns from each individual text. This is perfectly in line with Solomon and Schrum's (2007) suggestions that Web 2.0 has allowed a shift from a vertical "command and control" universe to a more horizontal "connect and collaborate" one (p. 110).

I can see blogs being used in language classrooms to serve a similar purpose to the LEA. I love that agency is given to the students and allows them to not just look at information, but really interact with and get excited about it. One of the articles that Kim posted had a link to Mr. Allen's class blog...and it is amazing! Not to mention hilarious. The first graders get to write simple messages to their classmates and teacher and post short journal entries on what appear to be topics of their choice. The blog serves multiple functions--it's a great way to get the kids involved in literacy, but also to teach them about blogging as an educational tool.

For teachers trying to incorporate blogs and other online resources into their classrooms, I think the main focus is on stressing the importance of filtering information and using web tools in academically appropriate ways. The fact that anyone can post anything at anytime doesn't necessarily mean that they have something worthwhile to say. Or, to put it more diplomatically, it doesn't mean that the information they are posting is relevant to you or to the subject matter you are trying to research. At worst, I think blogs can turn into an online textual equivalent to reality shows. Used smartly by an informed and focused audience, however, blogs are a tremendous resource.

Week 2 Initial Thoughts: It's as Easy as Learning Japanese

When I filled out Kim's survey, I ended up selecting almost the entire list under the question, "What are you least familiar with?" This made me start to think about how foreign even some of the simplest of web tools are to me, and I could feel my confidence dropping.

I'm not used to being hopelessly bad at things. That is, of course, not to say that I'm good at everything (far from it!)...but I find that, as an adult, it is relatively easy to focus your energy on your strengths rather than weaknesses. I was good at analyzing texts and critical writing, so I majored in English Literature; I avoided anything related to math. After graduation, I took a job teaching English in Japan with more of an interest in travel than working, but after a few months I realized that I was good at (and liked!) teaching. Learning Japanese was painful at first, but every bit of progress I made was clearly and encouragingly apparent, as communication became easier and I grew more confident, capable and independent. I think that's how this class will be for me--sort of like learning a foreign language. You feel completely helpless at first, but once you accept that inevitability and just begin attempting...THAT'S when you find success.

This past year, I watched first graders click away at computer screens with the ease and efficiency appropriate of digital natives. I, on the other hand, didn't even learn how to type properly until 10th grade, when I took my first (and, until now, only) computer class. Even after that, the extent of my computer knowledge was Word 98 and AIM. I've certainly become more proficient since then, but as Kim said in our Skype conversation, things are changing constantly! Fossilization is a real risk for me here, just as it would have been when I was learning Japanese if I hadn't constantly challenged myself with new information, input and learning materials. I'm still lacking confidence a bit, but I'm open and enthusiastic about building up my knowledge base and skills so that I will feel better equipped and more Web 2.0 capable at the end of this class. Then, of course, the next step will be to start integrating these skills into the classroom...