Week 3: A Portal to Media Literacy

The video of A Portal to Media Literacy is refreshing.  I like how Michael Wesch describes the walls of the classroom and if they could talk what would they tell us.  He breaks down the idea of what school is and how learning in the new media age is changing; how we view the institution of school. I think this is important for educators to see as the information highway is changing how students look and interact with the world.  They are more connected to the world than we as adults could have ever imagined.  Because of the students being so connected, we as educators need to harness this spirit and help them to learn using this connectedness.  At one point in the video he described how the students are taking in information while in the large lecture hall type classroom and never discuss the information.  But then when they are in a small classroom setting where interactions can take place the students are still expecting to just received the information.  They don't know how to interact with a discussion or how to ask those thought provoking questions that will lead to a better understanding of the topic.  

The interactive classroom is where we as educators need training and we need to train our students how to ask questions and how to make deeper connections and understandings of the topics.  By using the media literacies, all students can interact and develop deeper understandings by contributing to the ongoing discussion.

Week 3 - Vitrual Learning Communities

Virtual Learning Communities are best described in the e-book, Connections:  Virtual Learning Communities.  I like how Richard Schwier describes the term communities as a metaphor and how our perception of a community is very different from our reality of a community.  We are all part of a community in some way.  It makes me think about how our principle is working to create our middle school community.  We are a community because our common interest is that we work and learn in the middle school.  He is promoting the family aspect of the community in terms that we are all here to help each other and to learn from each other.  This is the idea that Schwier was trying to get across about a good virtual community.  I think of this idea he has created at our middle school can easily be transferred into the virtual learning community of our online interests.  Using virtual learning communities to build on our "Do-it-yourself-learning" is a great tool where the learning can take place.  

There are so many ways to connect with these Virtual Learning Communities.  I did a google search to see what would come up with Virtual Learning Communities and there were 4,990,000 sites that came up.  The first VLC was one about Everyday Mathematics.  It is described as a place for educators to meet and support each other as their students are learning.  This is a prime example of how a VLC can be used.  I would love to see a VLC come to my school.  I think this would be a great place for us as educators to connect and support each other with our professional development and our own desire to learn.  One of the issues faced in the middle school is not enough time to connect with our colleagues to discuss the curriculum or even to share ideas around a common topic.  I think the VLC would be a great way to accomplish this task.  

The only question now I guess is how to promote a VLC in a school?  How do you involve teachers to share their ideas and thinking to help each other learn more about a topic?  Is there a great way to entice educators who may not be technology savvy?  What is the best way to "hook" them into contributing?  This is a question that came up in chapter 2 of Connections: Virtual Learning Communities.  VLCs are only as good as the contributors.  If the contributions are not what people are looking for then they will not come back.  So how do you educate educators that may be skeptical about contributing? 

Week 2 - KWL and Reflection

The  Connected Educator is a book that I have found to be refreshing.  I have had a lot of connections with the first chapter and the discussion about the New Media Literacies that all students and teachers need to know.  I was part of a group in New Hampshire who explored the New Media Literacies as the Early Adopters.  It was a learning experience for me to get an understanding of what the literacies were and how we could use them.  I also found that it was my first real experience with online learning.  I did not do as well with the online learning as I had hoped to do so I am working hard on each experience to get the most out of the online learning experience.  I loved the idea of the Ning that the New Media Literacies had set up to help people develop their understanding of the literacies through challenges in the learning library.  It really helped make it real and useful as a learner.  It was great, as well, as a way to introduce the literacies to our students.  

The interactive tools they have included in the book is really helpful to me with giving me ways to make the connections with the material.  The checklist/scoring guide to see how you measure up with the new literacies was helpful yo me to realize that even though I know them all and think that I am including them in my lessons, I really am not.  So now I find myself thinking harder and looking for more ideas on how to accomplish the task of integrating the new literacies in my classroom.  I also liked the google map and how it explains how to use the tool to put your information.  I have already started thinking about how to use this interactive map idea with my social studies class.   

Interesting enough I have realized that I don't have a very big digital footprint.  After watching the video about our digital footprint, I went online and googled my name and realized that there is a dentist out west that has far more information on the web than I do.  I have a Facebook account and use it to read and keep up on my friends but I don't write on it very often.  I have a Twitter account that I don't know really how to use. I upload pictures to Shutterfly but have not shared the information with friends and family.  I have realized that I need to update my digital footprint and start to participate more in the world now as opposed to waiting to see what will come up next.  

Sharing my KWL chart :
What I know:  I feel that I am knowledgeable in the area Microsoft applications like word, excel, and powerpoint.  I have used wikispaces to create wikis for my classes and for groups that I have been involved with as a way for all of us to share information in one place.  I have used Glogster in my classroom.  This is a great tool for creating projects but also a good way to have a collecting point for a digit portfolio.    

What I want to Learn:  I want to know more about ways to use technology more efficient in my classroom.  I want to teach my students how to be good digital citizens so I need to find good ways to make this happen.  I want to find better ways to use my interactive whiteboard as well as the document camera and laptops.  I would love to find a way to get my students to interact more through a blog or wiki to enhance their learning experience in the middle school.