The Transparent Tech Teacher |
Our professor posed these questions for his students this week, "As educational technologists, what did you take away from these generational differences readings? How would you handle a colleague who bought into the notion of digital natives?"
I can hardly wait to get my fingers around this week's topic! I found the literature so fascinating. While immersed in the readings, I went through an interesting series of thoughts. During the reading of Prensky's work, I immediately embraced his phraseology of digital natives. I completely agree with him regarding the differences between us and our students who have grown up in a digital world. (Some of his points, like this one, are no brainers to me.) Unlike Mckenzie, I wasn't so hard on Prensky's work, and didn't completely disagree with the premise of his paper. In fact, I was agreeing with a lot of what he had to say until he presented his solution. That's the piece that didn't sit right with me. I do not think we, as "digital immigrants," need to drop everything we're doing, including and especially our methodology, to suit the needs of our digital natives. I think we need to meet in the middle. Gamification isn't evil and unethical, as Mckenzie makes it sound, but it's not the solution for every problem we have in education, as Prensky claims. Physiological Development I was also especially fascinated with the idea that digital natives' brains may have even developed differently because of the exposure that digital natives have had to technology. It made me think of the period of my life where I learned to speak Portuguese. There were some words, a combination of the letters "lhe" in particular, that non-native speakers had major difficulty pronouncing. It was explained to us that because we had not grown up speaking Portuguese it was possible that our tongue muscle and perhaps even our hard and soft pallets had formed differently. This made it nearly impossible for us as non-native Portuguese speakers to pronounce that combination of letters correctly. Is it possible that children who have been exposed to massive amounts of technology, in any form, have differently developed brains than those of us who did not? If studies prove this to be true, it adds fuel to the fire for the need for change. But even if their brains aren't physiologically different than ours, are we generally in agreement that they learn differently in this digital age? Can we see a gap in how we are teaching and how they are learning? Is there room for growth? Is it just us, the digital immigrants who have to give? I do not believe so. Undigitizing I think rather than hurling ourselves headlong into gamifiying every single subject and concept we teach, we could expend some energy problem solving the best way to address the needs of our digital students, and the solution may actually be to help them change some of their digital ways. I disagree with Prensky, I don't think the digital immigrants have to do all the changing. Is it possible that they, especially the students who have been heavily immersed in technology, need to be undigitized? Would it be worth our while to teach them that everything isn't immediate? That sometimes they have to read before they can watch? That sometimes they don't get to watch at all because not all information comes in movie format?! I'm simply suggesting that we take the good the immigrants have to offer, because there is good present, while adjusting our methods to accommodate some of their needs.
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This week I have invited a friend and colleague of mine, Hailey, to write a post. Hailey teaches 3rd grade at Compass Public Charter School, runs the chess club, tutors students online and owns a successful TPT store. She is a busy woman who's time to write this post is very valued and appreciated! Hi all! My name is Hailey and I blog (occasionally) over at The Third Grade Nest. I’m excited to be joining Becky for a guest post. Becky asked me to write a post about TeachersPayTeachers. I have had a TPT store for the last three years: just search for me at TheThirdGradeNest! I have learned from many other Teacherpreneurs and am excited to share my tips and tricks about setting up a TPT page for your side business. Now, I’m not an expert, and I definitely have room to grow in my business and blogging skills; but after three years I have definitely learned a thing or two! Many of us create our own resources for classroom use. We know that these creations help students in our classrooms and we think about how they could help other classrooms, too. We have probably wondered about setting up our own TeachersPayTeachers store and starting our side business - maybe with the dream of saving some extra money, paying off student loans, or just because we want to share our good ideas. Whatever the reason, I highly recommend starting your own store - we all have great ideas to share with each other!
There are many tips and tricks out there, which can seem confusing and stressful for someone just starting out, but I’m here to break it down into 5 of the most important things for starting your own TeachersPayTeachers page. Here are my top 5 tips for getting your Teachers Pay Teachers Store up and running:
Over the past ten years or so, my personal journey has taken me to the discovery of different methods of energetic and emotional clearing. As Chinese practitioners believe, our bodies are full of energy that flows through chakras and meridians. If this energy becomes stuck or blocked, it causes dis-ease in our bodies. This can look like sickness or pain, or can have an emotional manifestation. Acupuncture, acupressure, massage therapy, yoga, and other forms of healing release these energetic blockages. Over the years I have incorporated some of these healing techniques into my lifetime routine. Several months ago, my teacher friend posted a link to an article about the benefits of using yoga in the classroom. Underneath her facebook post was a caption along the lines of, "I'd love to try this at our school!" Since my own personal discovery of alternative forms of health and healing I've implemented bits and pieces with my students. For example, I have them say positive affirmations before taking standardized tests, or we take a break during learning for some quick energy exercises, breathing and stretches. So when I saw this post about yoga in the classroom, I was very intrigued. I haven't implemented this idea with my class, but I LOVE the thought of it. A google search for "yoga in the classroom" revealed several websites (Yoga Journeys, Yokid, and Yoga 4 Classrooms) containing resources for using yoga with students. Within a few clicks from the home page of these websites I found free videos demonstrating yoga routines, lists of the health benefits of yoga and ideas for incorporating yoga in your classroom. I'm so happy to see educators opening their teaching practice to include alternative methods of health in the lives of their students. "School yoga has been shown to reduce problem behavior, test anxiety, and anger. It has also been shown to increase self-regulation and focus. At all grade levels, from preschool through high school, students have shown improved academic and behavioral performance when yoga has been introduced in the school." ~ NCPAD. Yoga in the Classroom: A New Kind of Education. Photo credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antigua-_Animal_Yoga_at_T.N._Kirnon_(7216056196).jpg
Studies conducted by the Pew Research Center from the year 2014 revealed that 84% of households own a computer and 73% of those households have a broadband internet connection. Another study by the same center shows that 92% of teens (defined as youth ages 13-17 for the purpose of this report) are online daily. To look at the breakdown of this internet usage among teens, the study shows that 24% of teens are online almost constantly, 56% go online several times a day, 12% go on once a day and 2% go online less often. This increase in internet use is driven, in large part, by an increase in access to mobile phones and handheld devices. The same study states that 75% of teens have or have access to their own phone and 30% have their own phones.
That's just one segment of our population. Those of the older generation have much different usage habits and statistics. I take a quick look around my house, I'd say an average American household in terms of income and ability, and here's the tech that is readily visible: two laptop computers, a smart TV, a wireless printer, a cell phone, iPad, portable charger, and blue tooth headphones. Other fairly common tech items not owned by me, but seen frequently in public, include: fit-bit or health monitor, smart watch, and car navigation. We are SURROUNDED by technology. We live in a digital world. So, has it made us better people? Think about yourself on an average day, then go through your daily routine. Take a look around your house; what tech is clearly visible and readily available? How often and in what ways do you use your technology? How do you see other people using it? Has it helped or hindered your quality of life? Top Four Reasons You Should Teach Your Kids to Code1. Coding Helps Kids Develop Problem Solving Skills
Linda Liukas, founder of the Rails Girls coding organization, describes computational thinking as a "a way to structure your thinking in a way a computer understands it." According to Sol Shaikh, a teacher of tech, computational thinking is, "the logical thought process, the ability to spot mistakes, and a willingness to solve a problem." These skills all come from learning to code. Although my experience is not vast, I have worked with coding enough personally and with my students to see these skills being developed first hand. Coding rarely works right the first time. In order to make a game, program or character work, one must be constantly evaluating the written code, the process, and the order of things. This ability to stick with a task through it's completion and all of the skills that come from learning to code can be helpful in any career and in every aspect of life. "Learning to write program stretches your mind, helps you think better, and creates a way of thinking that I think is helpful in all domains." -Bill Gates 2. It is the Wave of the Future Check out these statistics on the growing job market for computer programmers:
Technology isn't going away! 3. Learning Coding Empowers Kids Coding gives kids tools to express themselves in really cool ways. With a spike in technology use in education today, there are surprisingly few schools who extend technology use into the coding arena. Kids no longer just need to know how to use technology but how to create it. 4. Coding is the New Literacy Computing is a language. Learning to code expands our options for communication in the same way learning a new language, such as Spanish or French, does. Coding is quickly becoming the universal language. Being able to speak the language of code will prepare our kids to thrive in this technology rich world. Resources Statistics on the Coding Job Market 5 Reasons to Teach Kids to Code Why We Need to Teach Kids to Code Promote Computer Science Why Learning to Code Benefits Kids The 2017-2018 school year will be my first time teaching a 6th grade coding elective. In my research on what resources to use to develop my curriculum for this course, I refined the tools to those I view most helpful. I've included a brief description of the website, why I prefer it, and the appropriate age level. Coding WebsitesScratch-I fell in love with this free website, developed by MIT students, during a BSU course I took last summer. It has a phenomenal array of tools and endless programming capability and is yet quite simple to understand. Students LOVE this site!
Recommended Grades: upper elementary and middle school students (even high schoolers) Kodable-This is an excellent FREE resource. It is written in a concise and organized manner including everything that the teacher in me loves: teaching objectives, vocabulary, direct instruction lesson plans containing short videos that present lesson content to the teacher, and informal assessments. Recommended Grades: lower elementary Code.org-For the past four years, my students (grades 1st-6th) have used this website in some form, whether they participate in the Hour of Code, visit the website when they've completed their project that week or are completing an assignment for my class. I love this site because it is extremely user friendly and the website is so well developed. Their graphics are amazing and they are constantly adding activities to match current student interests (Frozen, Star Wars, Minecraft...whatever is popular at the time.) They also offer a curriculum for both elementary and middle schools. Recommended Grades: lower & upper elementary and middle school In 2003, I graduated from university and entered the REAL world. My first teaching job came by happenstance and was with a school where I had previously done a lot of subbing. In October, an FTE became available which the teachers voted to use to employ a technology teacher...yours truly! Thus, my first REAL teaching job was placed in my inexperienced hands and I was in the field of technology education completely by accident. I didn't have any training or even special interest in technology, but it was a salaried job with benefits so I neither hesitated nor complained. Fast forward 14 years where I am just beginning my 6th year as a technology teacher at a charter school in Idaho. I now specialize in and love teaching technology.
Since that first teaching job in Draper, Utah I have come so far. The experiences I've had with technology as I strive to teach new and interesting topics to my students as well as content of my master's courses have equipped me to be more prepared and effective teacher than I was 14 years ago. This coming school year, I'm teaching a coding elective for the first time ever. I've allotted time for coding with students in previous years, but this is the first year we'll offer an elective where the focus is strictly coding. It's exciting to look back and see the road that brought me to this point, but it's even more exhilarating to look ahead at the path in front of me. Where will my experiences lead to next? I hope to be a transparent teacher. Transparent is defined as, "easily seen through, recognized or detected; obvious; open, frank, candid" (dictionary app). As with any relationship, being genuine puts a lot of deposits in the emotional bank account. This is the way I try to interact with my students. My blog title is a reminder that candid teaching is important to me. |
AuthorBecky teaches tech to 3rd-6th grade students at Compass Public Charter School. ArchivesBlogrollCategories
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