Last day reflection

It was very interesting to see former program participants speaking about how they use technology in their classrooms.

I really liked the skyping teacher's view on cell phones: use them as an incentive for other things and only call out their use when they are getting distracting. This reminds me of when I was observing a middle school class. The students were making clay streams to investigate the 'law of the v's.' One group was making a very fancy stream and was taking pictures of it with their cell phones. The teacher could have done something like the teacher in one of the first articles we read - put the pictures up for the whole class to see in order to encourage good work. But, alas, the students only seemed to be distracted by their phones and didn't learn much more by having them there.

The other idea I thought was really good was having facebook 'office hours.' What a clever way to use facebook! If the students are going to be on the internet anyway, and let's be honest - a lot of us teachers use facebook plenty as well - then specifying a time for students to ask questions seems like a great way to be available for students. This is definitely something I would consider trying in my own class.

In general it was also nice to see former program participants who had jobs! It was awesome to see that some of them were taking leading roles (such as an informal tech specialist) and it made me get excited about where all of us will be in a year. Cheers!

PS Trying to post this on a computer that only had Internet Explorer made me remember how frustrating technology can be, and how important keeping up with new tech is.

Is living wired weird?

When reading "The Wired Life: The Public and Private Spheres of the Gen M Community," I first wondered whether I counted as part of Generation M. (Wikipedia says no, I don't.) I agree with the general premise that for Gen M, the distinction between public and private is not so clear; they aren't distinct for today's youth. I think it is true that Gen M uses the internet as an extension of their selves. So many adults criticize youth for spending so much time online and not enough time in 'real life.' To some extent I agree with that criticism but after reading this article, I can see how youth conceptualize their time 'online' as part of real life, not separate from it.

I am the sort of person who does think it is rude to be texting a bunch of other people while spending time with a friend. To me this just indicates that the gap between my cultural upbringing and that of my students will only continue to widen as I get older.

However, I also see a bit of myself in what Klapperstuck and Kearns describe. I know that much information about myself is available online, but I have the same reaction of many younger people: Why would people want to access that? Sure, I monitor my online presence so that when future employers google me, I'm not ashamed of what they find. But it does not really bother me that, for example, any random person can read this blog. Out of all of the blogs online, why would someone go out of their way to read mine? It just isn't a concern for me.

Changing gears... I found myself nodding along when reading about how we are like Pavlov's dogs. I definitely get far too much of a little buzz when I get a new e-mail or, now, when someone mentions me on twitter. It's unhealthy. How does this affect Gen M? Are they living in a state of feeling satisfaction whenever they get a new message, but not really enjoying life? Are the 'back in my day, kids played outside!' comments that abound founded in a real problem? How will being so wired (or wireless...) continue to change how we function in society?

I made a podcast!

I was impressed with the mp3-making abilities of aviary, a photo and sound editor. One of our main tasks for today involved creating a podcast commercial for one of the edubloggers we are following. I discussed the Educational Technology Guy blog. I knew sources such as GarageBand allowed users to create mp3s that integrated music with their own voice, but I did not know there was a free resource online! I had a lot of fun selecting introduction and ending music for my short podcast (though I think K is absolutely right in suggesting that students should always record their content first and add fancy stuff later!). I was pretty proud of my result. I later checked out some of the PSAs of my fellow STEM teachers-in-training and learned about some neat resources that way.

I could potentially see myself using podcasting as a tool in classrooms. I do think it could be a handy way to get students audio notes of a lecture or activity. I also think it could be incorporated into a student project like this one.

The second half of the class, we talked about the relation of decoding this to school. The most important take-away for me personally was that it is important to remember that students can get frustrated. I was getting a little frustrated doing a decoding task and if it had been much longer probably would have gotten downright cranky. This is actually a really important reminder to me. As a physics teacher, I will be enthusiastic about the material and about the possibilities for students to engage with new material. But for some of them, physics will be a frustrating task of decoding and learning that will give them a headache. I have to remember that students are first of all people, and people can have emotional responses to learning environments.

Ocarina of SPACETIME!

This week's readings were absolutely fascinating. I first dove into the Gee article, "Good Video Games and Good Learning." As I read, I found myself agreeing with so much. Yes, people spend large amounts of time tackling difficult problems...in games. They are creative, motivated, and they persevere. The games are set up to challenge them the right amount, to present information at the right time, and to 'pleasantly frustrate.'

While I was reading, I recalled some of my own experiences playing games. I had a good deal of fun with Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros, and Legend of Zelda on my nintendo system as a kid. When we got an N64, I fell in love with Mario Kart, Super Mario 64, and Goldeneye, but no game could live up to my very, very favorite: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I was enthralled with the game. I had to go on exciting quests, talk to characters, run complicated errands, and work out puzzles to get through different levels. I worked for precious tools and weapons, including...


The Ocarina of Time! Needless to say, I was really nodding along when reading the article. Thinking about how much time I spent on that game, and how pleasant it was, really made me want to put my thinking cap on when the author asked: "How can we make learning in and out of school, with or without using games, more game-like in the sense of using the sorts of learning principles young people see in good games every day when and if they are playing these games reflectively and strategically?"

What a question. My first thought was that...games aren't graded. If we want to make school learning as effective as game learning, we have to take away the high stakes, the shame associated with failure - it's all got to go. We instead have to set tasks to our students that are hovering right above their current ability level, scaffolding them into more complicated tasks. And we have to be okay with failure while continuing to praise success. This way, students will be comfortable taking risks and 'playing the game.'

I think another key factor is that students need to believe in the epic win, as Jane McGonigal discussed in her TED talk. Players of a game know there is an end that has been designed to be achievable. In school, it sometimes might not feel that way - students might be missing key tools like the Ocarina and feel like the system is not set up such that they can 'win.' That needs to change if students are to buy into school learning the same way they buy into games.

Gee's final question continues to be fascinating to me, and I hope we discuss and explore it more in class. How fantastic would it be to harness that sort of educational potential!

The TED talk was interesting as well. Jane McGonigal discussed components of gaming that are useful in real life: cooperation and collaboration, believing you can be successful, being trusted with a mission. "What exactly are gamers good at? 1. urgent optimism. 2. social fabric. 3. blissful productivity. 4. epic meaning." She argues that gamers are "super empowered hopeful individuals." I was really wondering what she was getting at until she described her example games at the end. Making changes that aim toward an epic win in the oil shortage really did seem much more likely to take hold than changes motivated by "I should probably do this, it'll be better for the world."

I wonder what other games she has come up with since then. Could we really solve problems with games? I mean, at their heart games ARE the process of solving problems, but can we 'trick' people into playing for a cause?


Can we get people to buy in?

Spaces and people as resources

The Spiffy Center
What a nice change of pace to be in a colorful facility that encouraged group work by its very architecture! I have not seen a more usable and aesthetically pleasant space on campus. The outlets everywhere were perfect - the evidence for that is how many of us trip over cords or can't find outlets in our usual room! I really hope we get to work a lot in that center this year. It made me think about how to arrange desks in my classroom. I like arranging them in an arc, similar to how they are in our usual room, but it would also be valuable to arrange them in groups of four or so with students facing either other for group work. This is where the tennis ball suggestion (tennis balls on the bottom of desk and chair legs) could really come in handy!

Librarians as Resources
I feel a little ashamed to admit that I was a teeny bit skeptical of having so many librarians come in. I clearly overestimated the skills I have in finding resources and underestimated how helpful librarians are! Our librarian guest was able to show us resources I didn't even know existed. One particularly awesome one was todaysmeet.com. On that website, you can share links with friends easily in a chat-like way. It is far more convenient than e-mailing links all the time or having to type them in to a bunch of different computers. I can definitely see myself using that resource in the future.

Our guest also helped us find the Michigan content standards, which really shaped the way we formed the lesson. In addition, she was just a great help suggesting resources and teaching approaches, giving guidance about what teaching was like on the ground, and more. Suffice it to say that I hope to never underestimate a librarian's help again!

Planning a Lesson
I really enjoy practicing lesson planning because it seems like such a central thing we will be doing as teachers. There are so many things to consider when planning. My own group discussed the readability of materials (our librarian was able to show us some resources that read online text out loud - a tool that could help struggling readers or people who prefer auditory learning to visual learning), how much time each activity would take, some of the merits and drawbacks of direct instruction, what was important to emphasize in the lesson (which we made about radiation), and what we wanted students to take away from the lesson.

I had fun coming up with assessment ideas with my group. We thought of objectives first, then the activities, but when it came time to assessing, we realized we hadn't covered all of the objectives we wanted! We had to go back and tweak our activities. I thought it would be a neat idea to have students write a letter to someone of their choice (choose from a list) regarding nuclear power and radiation - be it a scientist, a local politician, or someone in California who may be at risk due to their location. This seemed like an authentic assessment that would really measure the students' mastery of the objectives we outlined.

There's no 'I' in 'team'*
*but there is a 'me,' sort of
It was really fun and useful to work in a team. Bouncing ideas off of each other was a huge help. It made me think that it will be really valuable to bounce ideas off of my colleagues when I am teaching. 'Hey I've got this idea, what do you think of it?' The saying that two heads are better than one is certainly true. I do think that it took a bit longer working in a group than it would have if we were working individually, but I bet the product we came up with was better than what we could have done alone.

NYTeaching?

Hi all. Call me clueless, but I did not know the NYTimes had lesson plans! I had thought of them as an educational resource in other ways, but who would have thought they came up with neat ideas for teaching about current events? Not me, folks. Not me. It seems like a handy resource for sure. Incorporating current events into classes (yes, even science and math!) is a great idea. However, I'm not sure how well it works in practice, more than the occasional lesson. For example, it is really interesting and useful to read and learn about reactors, but in a high school physics class, that's probably not part of the curriculum - it involves some tricky quantum mechanics to say the least. Although teaching students about the social responsibilities of scientists is important, this subject is not necessarily one I would use to get across that message. But perhaps I'm being too skeptical, and such an opportunity would help tap into students' curiosities about fission and fusion. What do y'all scientists think?

I've heard of backwards design before. I'm not sure if it was this summer or in previous coursework...or possibly both. It seems like a good rule of thumb that helps teachers plan lessons that truly address the learning objectives of a class.

I've found a couple of science/education blogs to peruse - I'll write brief reviews once I take a closer look. They are:
Built on Facts
Educational Technology Guy (this one perhaps looks a bit too focused on ed tech and not enough on physics, but I'll give it a try)
The Science Classroom (I'm really excited about this one!)

Happy Sunday, educators of the world!

info, info everywhere...

A few comments on today's class.

First, HootSuite is totally awesome. It makes a lot more sense organizationally than the basic twitter site. I've added a math and science education stream, and will maybe add a science news stream.

Also, google reader is neat. I've been meaning to get an RSS but didn't really know where to start or which one to pick. Google is always a solid bet; hopefully this will indeed save time and make checking blogs easier.

At the same time, I felt a bit overwhelmed by all of the technology today. It felt like a lot of information at once - not just information about the tech platforms and whatnot but also - suddenly I can check twitter for math and science updates all the time. It feels a bit overwhelming. To make the transition to HootSuite a bit easier, I expanded the columns so that only two appear on a screen at once, otherwise it gives me a bit of a headache (probably because of the information overload coupled with poor vision and some sort of motion sickness that gets activated when I read things that appear to be moving - even when the movement is just up/down as new tweets are displayed).

Perhaps contradicting myself now, I considered today getting a personal twitter account in addition to the professional one. How neat to be able to keep track of all of my favorite things in one location! I decided to hold off for now, because a) I feel a bit tech-overloaded as it is, and b) I'm not sure it would be healthy for my productivity (I know this was a 'mythconception' discussed in class, but I feel I would not effectively monitor and restrict my twitter usage).

Last, does anyone else think it's totally awesome that we get to review products and get published for it? Thanks for making that happen J&K!

Of Creeps and Tweets

Friends, colleagues - in the past few days, I have really ramped up my technological presence. I got a twitter account and this blog for class, and also satisfied my curiosity by joining Google +. I have to say, being so online makes me a little nervous. Will future employers be looking at everything I say? Will they disapprove of that picture because I look like I am smiling too much? Will random people start creeping on me? But then I remind myself that it will probably all be okay, that there are so many people in the world that I can't possibly be interesting enough to stalk out of the blue, and that I can always change my privacy settings if I need.

On this twitter business, I have to admit that I never intended to get an account. I never saw the point. Reading the articles for class and thinking about how it could be used in a classroom, I am still skeptical. Mainly, I am worried that involving twitter in homework privileges students who have computer access at home and / or on their phones, and I don't want to forget that not all students do. Using twitter in class instead of speaking seems like it would take time away from actually doing activities, and would mask students who were texting friends or otherwise distracting themselves with their phones or computers.

However, I do see that twitter could probably be a useful tool for collaborating with others in a PLN (personal learning network). I intend to find some neat educators and scientists to follow, and maybe even to share some of my own experiences. I wonder if tweeting can help educators sift through the massive amount of resources online to find (and re-tweet) the good stuff.

And really, I wish Ms. Frizzle had a twitter account. I would totally follow her.

Post-class reflection: a Tale of Two Technologies

After talking about our past experiences with technology in class, I wanted to share two of my memories of former teachers using technology in school. These examples embody both my fears about and hopes for using all those gadgets in my classroom.

Case #1: Powerpoint.
There were SO MANY teachers who misused and/or overused powerpoint. I was never given a lesson on how to take notes from a powerpoint presentation, so my notes were chronically unhelpful lists of words that I couldn't make sense of later (something like Congress: committees, bills, laws). Too often a teacher would simply read such lists out loud in class, not even explaining the content or context behind these empty phrases. The animations were over-the-top time-wasters. Frankly, I grew to loathe powerpoint. I do think powerpoint can be useful (especially when including pictures to add to the educational value) but it is not a technology I prefer. I fear that other technologies could be similar: time-wasting 'advances' that take away time from the content and leave students staring emptily at a screen.

Case #2: YouTube.
My physics teacher would show us THE COOLEST VIDEOS EVER in class. Years later, I STILL remember many of them. Who could forget watching that semi driving into the military-grade wall?! And there was this one video with a cat hanging on to a ceiling fan, and going around, around, around, and suddenly being flung off! I love cats but that was hilarious! The best part is that these videos were absolutely relevant to the content being taught and really did enhance our learning. Which direction did the cat go? Well, that tells us something about the instantaneous velocity of the cat and the moment of departure from the circling fan. Why did the truck basically bend and explode? Let's talk about it from the point of view of momentum and inertia. We watched videos of things we might not be able to see in real life. YouTube was an enhancer in the classroom, not a focus and certainly not a distraction from content. This example embodies my hopes for using technology in the classroom. I want to use technology to enhance my teaching, to add to my students' knowledge, and to widen the resources available to them.

I think this goal is possible in all content areas, but I am especially looking forward to investigating ways in which I can use technology in a physics classroom. In many ways, technology and physics go perfectly well together. Physics relies on a great deal of technology, and learning to use technology effectively helps students become better physicists. They are a natural pairing, akin to peanut butter and bananas. A delicious combination.

On a related note, I was pleased to read about John Dewey's progressive (literally and in multiple senses) take on science teaching. I wholeheartedly agree with his opinions that students learn by doing and that communities of learning enhance and are central to education. His thoughts on presenting science as 'objective' similarly resonated with me:

I believe that one of the greatest difficulties in the present teaching of science is that the material is presented in purely objective form, or is treated as a new peculiar kind of experience which the child can add to that which he has already had. - John Dewey, 1897

Teaching science should not be about additive learning. It should be about integrated learning - working with what the student knows and getting them to see and make connections in their own lives. Kudos to Mr. Dewey.

The First Part

The first part of gaining momentum is starting to move. So, here's a test to see if my blog works!