The future is now (or at least this summer)!!!

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired of buying a laptop or any technology device only for it to be outdated in matter of.....days. But if you're in the market for something new and functional, then you're going to love what's coming around the corner!!!

The new HTC EVO 4G is Sprint's Android and it's amazing. Gone are the days when a cell phone was just, a cell phone. This one in particular, has an HDMI output, 8megapix camera, oh and not to mention that it also runs on droid technology...so it's fast...really fast.

Now before you go and chuck your plastic paper weight that you call a cell phone, Sprint has not listed what the prices are or when exactly it'll be coming out (for sure this summer). Verizon and AT&T are working on their 4G phones but it won't be coming out that fast.

Imagine what this could mean for school technology? How many schools out there have a digital camera and a digital video camera tucked away somewhere collecting dust? How long now till we are looking at those products as obsolete and antiques? Shall I start the timer now?

Technology is moving at an amazing pace, and we as educators have to move as fast to help our students get ready.

How far away are we till our students will be required to have a 4G cellphone for class work?

Would you (or do you) friend your students on Face Book?

I asked this question amongst my co-workers a few weeks ago, and they all responded with a loud NO!!! The primary reason is that they believe that there should be some space between a teacher's life and the student's life. Also, they were afraid of the unknown. What if the student were to see something....what if the teacher were to see something....or the parent? These were all very valid reasons.

Yet I came across a blog post from The Innovative Educator who asked some very thought provoking questions. "How differently might a student/child's life have turned out if a trusted teacher, mentor, adult been in their life? How might an adult's life been enriched if they knew there were students who were looking to them in their online life?"

To go a bit deeper....the student who has been absent for 4 days might never tell you why or where they were, but you might discover that they had a death in the family on facebook. You might be able to see pictures of their travels and as they grow throughout the years.

The other argument, is being a digital role model. Who is going to teach students how to use the web in an appropriate manner if not for the teachers? It's an unstructured environment where the students feel like they can say or do anything without any consequences. They need to be aware that what they put out there, stays out there, and now many potential job clients are using social media to learn more about their clients.

I do think that teaching students how to utilize social media is very important, however I'm not entirely sold on friending them. I think the best way is for teachers to create a fan page, and have the class sign on there. Create weekly discussion posts, and have the class work together from there.

What has been your experience with facebook and students?

Facebook users have bad grades.....

At least that's what a study done by doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and her co-author Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University have concluded. College students who use this very popular social networking site have a considerable difference in G.P.A. from those who don't.

Typically, Facebook users in the study had G.P.As between 3.0 and 3.5, while non-users had G.P.As between 3.5 and 4.0.

In addition, users said they averaged one to five hours a week studying, while non-users studied 11 to 15 hours per week.

The researchers surveyed 219 students at Ohio State, including 102 undergraduate students and 117 graduate students. Of the participants, 148 said they had a Facebook account.

The study found that 85 percent of undergraduates were Facebook users, while only 52 percent of graduate students had accounts.

I can't believe that facebook is the only variable between all these students that links them to lower grades. There should other considerations, like amount of time watching t.v., studying, if they work. The most important thing is, how long are these students on the site? 20 min, 45 min, an hour...more?

Sure, it can be distractating, but how much more than anything else? Maybe we'll find out more data about users in the near future, and we'll have a better idea of the impact it's having on our culture. What do you think of this study? Do you agree or do you have another opinion? Here's an article in Time that also talks about the same thing as well.

Now I have to go and check my facebook status.

Homework....sometimes less is more

As a former student, I hated homework and everything about it. As a teacher, I know it can be a frustrating for both the parents and the students, so I try to send home a few items as possible. When I was a second grade teacher, the only thing I really had them do was read, and then they would record in their journal the title of the book, the page numbers, and a short reflection. What I really wanted them to learn was not going to happen at home, but rather in the classroom. So I just focused all my teaching efforts to make it as effective and efficient as possible. Unfortunately I do know that from time to time we had to do grade level projects where I can see the parent's influence from all different degrees. From writing, to building, to even creating the idea of it, the parents who I saw, had taken away the child's ownership and made it their own. While they might be trying to be helpful, is actually causing serious problems down the line when the projects become bigger and more important.

The Houston Chronicle, wrote a story discussing this very issue and explained that parents who tip over into doing the majority of the thinking and writing need to stop and back off. Helping them with thinking about how to solve it, is fine. Helping them write it and solve it while they watch is not. It's a hard and sometimes blurry line that parents have to deal with. So the rule of thumb is to try to do as less as you can.

How do you feel about homework? Do you notice that as teachers your parents are having more and more influence on it? As parents, are you finding that you are coming more and more to your child's aid?

Technology.....the time is now!!!!!

Learning from textbooks are now a thing of the past.....welcome to the next stage, WEB2.0!!! Writing in journals and sharing only with classmates and the teacher, are now slowly being replaced by blogs and web journals. The feeling of writing to a bigger audience is more "real" to the students, and they will in turn learn to appreciate and take pride in their work.

This should be more than enough reason why teachers need to learn how to learn and apply these tools into their classrooms. Part of what we do, is make sure that by the time they leave school that they will have the tools necessary to get a job. It's now clear to see that the jobs of tomorrow will require the knowledge of basic internet skills. Skills that we as teachers can easily incorporate into what we do in our everyday teaching.

It's hard to change your way of doing things, but in order to best serve the students, we need to. Take a moment and reflect on the amount of time you allow your students to use the internet, and ask yourself if you're doing all that you can. I always feel like I can do more, and after watching this voicethread by Belinda you'll feel a bit better about the why and the how. Now all you have to do, is ask yourself when?

It's goal writing time...

It's that time of the year where I have to sit and go over with my principal about goals that I should have for the year. How many of you have spent hours pondering over this topic? The simple thing would be to look at test scores and reading levels and call it a day. However if anyone were to tell you that teaching is simple, they clearly have no idea what teaching is like. Soooooo I was racking my brain over how to clearly state that I would like to have some kind of positive effect on my kids with it being measurable and defined. But there's the catch...how can someone put a clearly defined and measureable label over something that is clearly not...learning?

We all know that students consume information at different rates and styles yet we are to measure them all in the same method and style. How fair and accurate is that? My point being is that if a student who might not learn how to comprehend a story but learns how to stay out of trouble and helps others around him, be ready for the real world of tomorrow? Clearly we would all love for them to be perfect students with A+ averages, but we all know that's far from the case. So, with that being said, which skill or trait would you want your student to leave your classroom and be successful with? We would all love for our students to be nice, and honest, and responsible, and dependable, so on and so forth. If a student who had history of being disruptive left your room with a desire to help others with positive comments, wouldn't that be just as important and vital to a career as anything else?

Teaching is such a demanding profession. Clearly you need to be everything at all times to everyone. Where would you rate job readiness skills in a student with test scores? How would you know if you were an effective teacher to a student?

What kind of teacher are you?

After watching this video I had to think about how I engage my students. It's easy to get stuck in a routine not using technology, but in the end the ones who suffer are the students. They need to be able to learn how to use the techonolgy around us in manner that will aid them in their learning. How many teachers do you know have no clue what a blog is, or what even a podcast is? We need to do a better job of educating and spreading the word out about technology, so that our students will be better prepared for tomorrow. After watching this video do you feel that you are engaging your students correctly?

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Mother has problems with Bilingual Pre-K

I was going through my google reader when this story came up. At first I was taken back by the title, but after reading the story I realized that the issue of immigration and making english the official language, coming up again.

What's the point in having an english speaking pre-k if the majority of students are bilingual? It is a numbers game, and you can't please everyone, but you at least try to do the best that you can.

What this story doesn't bring up, is that having bilingual pre-k centers does help build the learners into developing their primary language, which, as they grow older, will help them ease into the english language. You can not simply put a native speaker into an esl program, unless they have developed a strong foundation to build on. Which is exactly what this district is doing. Hmmm....What are your thoughts on this story?

Are you a Great Teacher?

This was post was inspired by Patrick Higgins who earlier wrote about Ben Wilkoff’s Academy of Discovery Wiki, and he attributes it to the folks as Science Leadership Academy, and he belives it is something everyone involved in education should examine.

Let’s take a look at some of the words that are used to describe an “Educational Hero” in this picture:

Provocative: the first on the list, and for good reason. What is someone in education if not provocative. By nature, information is meant to incite in us something that lay dormant or underutilized. Giving our students access to such provocation is an act that we need to do often.

Risk-Takers: We teach our students to take compositional risks, to make cognitive leaps, and to attempt to connect several disparate ideas into one usable and coherent whole. Why should we as teachers not be doing the same? By nature, our approach should be daring, and variable based on “teachable moments.”

Balance-Freedom-Guidance: I like the inclusion of these words, and of “nurturing,” because if nothing else, our students need to feel valuable and safe before they can take the risks that they need to. These words, these actions are what makes it easier for learners to reach from the solid ground of what they know towards that which is shaky, unknown, yet incredibly valuable.

Humble: When I work with teachers who are trying to shift away from being the sole arbiters of information in the classroom, I always stress humility over the stress of trying to know everything. Being grounded, centered and comfortable with the idea that you do not have all the answers, and that these students can help you continue to learn, makes it all beautiful, doesn’t it?
Want to be like them: Perhaps the highest compliment anyone in education can receive. With the omnipresent stream of role models of ill-repute, being someone that learners want to be “when they grow up” is no small feat. I remember the moments that some of my past teachers did something amazing, showed us a door that we didn’t know existed, and then thinking back to it years later as I was doing the same thing to a group of students. It is high praise indeed.

As we are all going through our first part of school, I ask each and every one of you.....Do you see youself acting on all of these traits on a daily basis? School life is not easy, and anyone who says it is, is probably not doing it right. However, I challenge you to try to take this task on for one day a week. Then when you can, take it a step further and do 2 days a weeks. The goal ofcourse is being actively involved in each of these components on a daily basis. If you notice that you are simply "going through the motions" try to do your best to come up with a new way of getting your activity done that you haven't tried before. Let me know what your thoughts are on this topic......

What happened to the good ol' days?

I'm sure that this is not a surprise to anyone but I just came across this story and I had to stop and ponder about it. Meals today at many fast food establishments have tried to include healthy food, but as you can see there are too many unhealthy choices. Students now are growing up in a culture where it's not only ok to be lazy, but with the facebook, and myspace, and everything else, why would a teenager want to leave their home this summer? As role models we also have to make smarter choices, and we can also try to incorporate some health fitness into the classroom.

I know that many of us are not P.E. teachers, but that doesn't mean we can't bring a little of that into the classroom. As teachers we can have the students discuss what makes a healthy food choice and an unhealthy food choice. Have them sort ads from a Sunday paper and discuss what they have experienced. Another way is to graph their heartbeat. Have them start cold, and find their pulse and record their rate. Then turn on some music have do some light aerobics for a few min and again record their pulse. You can increase the level of difficulty a few more times, and then do a warm down and take a pulse.

Activities such as these will not only have your students engaged in the lesson, but also aware of good healthy choices. Which is exactly what we as educators should all strive for. We need to encourage more activites just like we had when we were kids.