by Jeff Utecht
EARCOS Teachers Conference, 2010, Manila, Philippines
"It is predicted by 2019, 50% of high school courses will online. A study released in November found that blended classrooms (those utilizing both traditional and online learning formats) lead to great achievement...it is a whole new way of engaging learners in the learning process."
Florida Virtual High School is the largest virtual high school in the US with over 300,000 students! A portion of kids are high achievers who graduate early and move on the university, but a large portion are kids from low socioeconomic status who need to earn money for their families, so they work a full-time job and still go to high school - online. Some are using online classes for summer school to catch up or get ahead.
Studies showed that the more interactive, the more learning was going on in the online environment. 80% of incoming undergrads will take at least one online class before they graduate from university. Online enrollment in universities is skyrocketing! This is where universities are seeing the majority of growth.
We're talking about personalizing the educational landscape. Your kids do not come to school to learn. Why do they come to school? To see their friends and socialize. What is it that you are doing in your classroom right now that I don't have to take class time to do? It's that stuff that you can put online in order to maximize the face-to-face time.
Social bookmarking is a way that students can prepare for tomorrow's discussion. Their homework could be to use a site like diigo.com to bookmark their sites. Then in class you can discuss why people bookmarked what. We're really good at having kids put stuff on the Internet, but we're not really good about pulling that content back into the classroom. Kids are creating amazing blog posts, but are we having kids come back in and explain why the wrote what they wrote?
Build your lessons and allow your students to create something to show their learning. But at the end of the day, they have to answer the question, they have to reach the learning outcomes. In the beginning, some students will complain, "Please, please, just tell me what I need to know so I can memorize it and pass the test!" You'll have to retrain them. Can they not only create something, but can they analyze it? Do they know why they're doing it?
At Jeff's schools, students start the day with a blog post. One teacher will pick one kid and share it with the class. He'll ask the students to share their thoughts about it, too. (They use netvibes.com.)
OK, my computer's battery died there, so hopefully I'll find the notes later and post them here. Jeff Utecht is a virtual fount of technology information...no pun intended.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Building Learning Communities
by Alan November
Earcos Teachers Conference, 2010, Manila, Philippines
Idea: use Google Docs to get students to take communal notes and invite you so you can view it immediately.
Idea: Start a Ning site and post a video for reflection and discussion before class. (see isabc2009.ning.com) Usually, when a class ends a teacher doesn't have any evidence that the discussion and reflection continues even after the course is finished.
Idea: Get commentary beyond your own classroom. Take advantage of the global motivational force of a worldwide audience. Have students create a Ning site for news stories written by the kids themselves. [This could be a school newspaper!]
Idea: Any novel you read in class from now on, get on the web and connect your kids to people who live in that town. In fact, contact the author (if possible, naturally). Get the students to write to the author and they may get a response. If you get the students to engage the author they're going to take their writing a little more seriously.
Idea: Global elementary classrooms for free with Skype. Find sconnection with teachers around the world across the curriculum.(Youtube: Real-Time Global Education for FREE with Skype)
Idea: Google.com/cse to create a custom search engine. Invite teachers from around the world to add sites to the search engine. Your students can contibute sites to the search engine. Imagine if all the history teachers of the world got together and created a search engine, it would be better than any one search engine created by one teachers! Add your CSE to customsearchengine.com. Imbed it on your class blog or website.
Idea: Make one kid every day the official researcher of the class. While the teacher is teaching, one kid's job is to find the best resources on the web and add them to the search engine (above). All you have to do is invote the kids of the class or whoever to contribute.
Here are the collaborative notes for this session: http://bit.ly/9DRxNu
Earcos Teachers Conference, 2010, Manila, Philippines
Idea: use Google Docs to get students to take communal notes and invite you so you can view it immediately.
Idea: Start a Ning site and post a video for reflection and discussion before class. (see isabc2009.ning.com) Usually, when a class ends a teacher doesn't have any evidence that the discussion and reflection continues even after the course is finished.
Idea: Get commentary beyond your own classroom. Take advantage of the global motivational force of a worldwide audience. Have students create a Ning site for news stories written by the kids themselves. [This could be a school newspaper!]
Idea: Any novel you read in class from now on, get on the web and connect your kids to people who live in that town. In fact, contact the author (if possible, naturally). Get the students to write to the author and they may get a response. If you get the students to engage the author they're going to take their writing a little more seriously.
Idea: Global elementary classrooms for free with Skype. Find sconnection with teachers around the world across the curriculum.(Youtube: Real-Time Global Education for FREE with Skype)
Idea: Google.com/cse to create a custom search engine. Invite teachers from around the world to add sites to the search engine. Your students can contibute sites to the search engine. Imagine if all the history teachers of the world got together and created a search engine, it would be better than any one search engine created by one teachers! Add your CSE to customsearchengine.com. Imbed it on your class blog or website.
Idea: Make one kid every day the official researcher of the class. While the teacher is teaching, one kid's job is to find the best resources on the web and add them to the search engine (above). All you have to do is invote the kids of the class or whoever to contribute.
Here are the collaborative notes for this session: http://bit.ly/9DRxNu
Partnering With Parents: Five Steps to Home-School Collaboration
by Cirecie West-Olatunji, Ph.D., University of Florida
Earcos Teachers Conference, 2010, Manila, Philippines
(These session notes are the words of the speaker, in some cases, paraphrased, and others, quoted.)
The aim of this workshop was to provide us as teachers with new skills for partnering with parents. She asked, "What are your current challenges to partnering with parents?" We answered with things like:
As a parent it is so hard to feel blamed for our children's shortcomings. This can lead to resistance and reluctance to partner with teachers in collaboration, especially if the family has had previous negative school experiences - they've got baggage! Our goal is to get the parent to see us as an advocate for their child. The parent-teacher relationship needs to be like a parental bond - they have to be on the same page even when they disagree, present a united front - otherwise, the student/child will drive a wedge between the parents and teachers.
When someone speaks with a particular pitch or with gestures, it is often assumed that the person is agitated or angry; rarely is it conceived that there night be a misinterpretation of behavior because of culturally embedded norms. What we are saying isn't being communicated, and what we're hearing isn't what's being said! Silence is a useful tool; wait to hear what parents have to say. We can't be afraid to interact with people because we don't understand them. This is where recovery skills come in. Don't be afraid to apologize, and be willing to start over.
70% of what we do should be PREVENTION.
Families should be seen as experts in their children's development and educational needs and thus significant partners in children's education. Funds of knowledge (Moll and Gonzalez): People are not empty vessels. Students and parents come to us with funds of knowledge, and we are most effective when we assume that they have that knowledge and are willing to work with that. We need to think about the way they've socialized their children, particularly in a cultural context. Acculturative stress occurs when the child's home culture collides with the culture of the school. However, the new literature shows that children can and do deal with this stress very well, if we give them the tools.
Family involvement is not just volunteering at a school event or signing a planner, but is a two-way sharing of information that engages families. A caregiver may never set foot in the school and yet still be involved. Unlike traditional "parent involvement" activities that emphasize passive support roles for parents, home-swchool collaboration views education as a shared responsibility in which families and educators develop shared goals and plans that support the success of all students. As teachers, we are challenged to think of new, nontraditional ways of involving parents.
3 questions for parents: Ask them what their schools and families did that helped them! Then you can ask them, "OK, tell me how you're doing that with your child." How can I help? That is partnering with parents. It's empowering, culturally responsive, and it's collaborative.
By focusing on what students' families think, value, and do, it validates and honors differences that exist and brings multiple dimensions of students' lived experinces into the classrom. Understanding students' families can enable teachers to create lesson plans based in students' existing skills and competencies. As a result,
students become more engaged and successful, teachers learn from families, and families engage more in their children's education in and out of school.
FIVE STEPS
Earcos Teachers Conference, 2010, Manila, Philippines
(These session notes are the words of the speaker, in some cases, paraphrased, and others, quoted.)
The aim of this workshop was to provide us as teachers with new skills for partnering with parents. She asked, "What are your current challenges to partnering with parents?" We answered with things like:
- no adequate, easy-to-use systems in place at school
- wrong email or phone number information for parents
- parents traveling a lot
- not knowing when and how to approach the parents
- parents not understanding the programme/assessment at school
- desire to deal with student first, parent as a last resort
- some parents view contact as negative; "My child is in trouble"
- parents are unwilling to self-reflect or change
- teacher colleague parents and friends of teacher who are parents
- finding time to meet
- western values colliding with other culture expectations
- parents not being accessible in general; lack of time, for ex.
- low level of parent education
- really bad home life for the students
- parents who have high expecations for kids but aren't willing to take the time to help them
- language differences
- differences in values
- parents who say they know what's best for their child
As a parent it is so hard to feel blamed for our children's shortcomings. This can lead to resistance and reluctance to partner with teachers in collaboration, especially if the family has had previous negative school experiences - they've got baggage! Our goal is to get the parent to see us as an advocate for their child. The parent-teacher relationship needs to be like a parental bond - they have to be on the same page even when they disagree, present a united front - otherwise, the student/child will drive a wedge between the parents and teachers.
When someone speaks with a particular pitch or with gestures, it is often assumed that the person is agitated or angry; rarely is it conceived that there night be a misinterpretation of behavior because of culturally embedded norms. What we are saying isn't being communicated, and what we're hearing isn't what's being said! Silence is a useful tool; wait to hear what parents have to say. We can't be afraid to interact with people because we don't understand them. This is where recovery skills come in. Don't be afraid to apologize, and be willing to start over.
70% of what we do should be PREVENTION.
Families should be seen as experts in their children's development and educational needs and thus significant partners in children's education. Funds of knowledge (Moll and Gonzalez): People are not empty vessels. Students and parents come to us with funds of knowledge, and we are most effective when we assume that they have that knowledge and are willing to work with that. We need to think about the way they've socialized their children, particularly in a cultural context. Acculturative stress occurs when the child's home culture collides with the culture of the school. However, the new literature shows that children can and do deal with this stress very well, if we give them the tools.
Family involvement is not just volunteering at a school event or signing a planner, but is a two-way sharing of information that engages families. A caregiver may never set foot in the school and yet still be involved. Unlike traditional "parent involvement" activities that emphasize passive support roles for parents, home-swchool collaboration views education as a shared responsibility in which families and educators develop shared goals and plans that support the success of all students. As teachers, we are challenged to think of new, nontraditional ways of involving parents.
3 questions for parents: Ask them what their schools and families did that helped them! Then you can ask them, "OK, tell me how you're doing that with your child." How can I help? That is partnering with parents. It's empowering, culturally responsive, and it's collaborative.
By focusing on what students' families think, value, and do, it validates and honors differences that exist and brings multiple dimensions of students' lived experinces into the classrom. Understanding students' families can enable teachers to create lesson plans based in students' existing skills and competencies. As a result,
students become more engaged and successful, teachers learn from families, and families engage more in their children's education in and out of school.
FIVE STEPS
- Educate yourself about community/family history.
- Increase self-awareness about your biases.
- Respect parents' funds of knowledge.
- Ask questions instead of assuming.
- Seek parnerships.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
100 Percent Renewable? One Danish Island Experiments with Clean Power [Slide Show]
"One small island in Denmark is technically 100 percent powered by sustainable sources of energy. Could the experiment succeed anywhere else?"
Read more and read the slideshow here.
Read more and read the slideshow here.
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