"Engage Me"- Today's students

As a teacher in today's world, there are so many resources to refer to when trying to keep in touch with trends and new research about teaching strategies and methods.... especially regarding technology.  As a fairly new teacher, it gets pretty overwhelming.  When perusing the blogroll I've set up to follow and keep in touch with other educators or professionals in the field, my eyes need a moment to catch up with all the information presented on the pages.

After watching a few videos regarding the use of technology within classrooms and their benefits, two of the videos stuck with me, the first being A Vision of K-12 Students Today. This video could be seen as motivation for teachers to start taking the fact that students love using their iPods, laptops, and cell phones as a form of communication and learning into consideration when teaching these students.  The students shown range in age from primary school age to high school, and in lieu of speaking, instead hold up whiteboards with statistics or facts about what is presumably their thoughts on how they're being taught in school.  For example, one child's board read "14% of teachers let me create something new with technology", while another kid's board read "76% of my teachers have never used wikis, podcasts..." and so on.  I found these facts to be interesting and somewhat eye-opening, but also realize that this video was uploaded six years ago in 2007.  I realized that MANY of these statistics have changed since then, perhaps drastically.  I say this because while having been enrolled in education classes for the past six years, I know that many degrees are beginning to require classes about the use of technology in classrooms, and professional development workshops are offered quite often within schools, at least the Buffalo Public Schools I am familiar with.  However, I do also realize that many thoughts and ideas the children conveyed still hold true with many current students who wish to be able to interact more with technology while being taught.  This video was pretty interesting and definitely brings the thought to my mind: How can I help my students develop high level thinking skills with the use of technology?  (Side-note: I found one viewer's comment on this video amusing as they pointed out "For a video trying to emphasize the importance of technology, I find it odd that they communicate almost entirely by whiteboard....")

 A Still from A Vision of K-12 Students Today

 Another YouTube video titled 21st Century Education in New Brunswick, Canada presented a similar view on where education is in regards to how students are or are not able to utilize various technological advances that are available to them through their schools, in this case, schools in New Brunswick, Canada.  In a fashion similiar to the above mentioned video A Vision of K-12 Students Today, upbeat music paired with facts concerning the lack of use of technology in classrooms now helps to present the challenges that public education in this province is facing.  It's mentioned that while some schools are using web programs to allow young students to collaborate with other learners across countries about the same topic, such as the oncoming of Spring for example, the problem is the fact that not all schools are as up-to-date with its technologically advanced students. 

 A Still from 21st Century Education in New Brunswick, Canada

Both videos are great ways to begin discussions about what could be done in order to not ignore the advanced computer skills students have, but instead embrace these skills when thinking of how to teach students important content.  The fact that so many adults, teachers included, shake their heads while saying "Kids today..." when they see a child texting or listening to a book or song on an iPod really shows the type of negative connotations many have with technology.  I agree with these videos as they say public education should speed things up a bit wen it comes to pairing technology with learning objectives that need to be met. 

Classroom Blogs

After reading the first chapter of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson, I was reminded of a time in my childhood, particularly the nineties, when I was learning how to look up information in encyclopedias.  This was a skill that was described to me as essential to my academic future; one that I would use to get information for papers I would have to write and research I would have to do.  Then, in almost no time at all, the internet happened.  Now, in place of encyclopedias, students use websites, skype, social networks, and blogs to complete assignments at home, and now slowly are being introduced to educational websites within the classroom.  As a current substitute teacher, blogs, however, are not used in classrooms as much as other web tools. This blog post is therefore a reflection of how I may be able to use blogs in my future public school language classroom.

I like the idea of using a blog as an E-portfolio for each student.  These students can post any work that may be a work-in-progress, such as an essay, short story, or even sentences in the target language depending on their language level.  The use of a blog to do this would allow students to comment on posts by their peers with either words of encouragement or suggestions for improvement. I think this would help students work with each other within an engaged learning community to complete their best work.  It would also allow me as their teacher to be able to actually read the 'learning' that is taking place as they comment and adjust their work according to suggestions.  This aligns with the ACTFL Communities and Communication standards.

There are a lot of ways teachers can use blogs as a tool for professional development.  One way that I would be interested in trying would be to use the blogs as a source to gain endless ideas from other bloggers who have suggestions for teaching materials or post informative articles, or even suggest other sites to use with language learners.  The idea of a blog allowing anyone's voice or ideas is so mind-blowing when I think of how many teachers are out there who have years of experience under their belt.  The use of comments would allow suggestions or tips on any topic posted by a blogger who is either asking for opinions or simply sharing ideas.  I look forward to getting a chance to try these ideas out in my future classroom!