Podcast On Digital Natives Computer Use

I recently interviewed my Statistics Students on Technology Use. You can hear the podcast at:

http://nancykent.podOmatic.com

Here are the questions I asked them:

1. What current technologies come to mind?

2. What technologies do you use at home the most?

3. How much time to you spend a day using technology? Is it limited?

4. What technologies do you use for educational purposes at home?

5. What technologies do you use for educational purposes during the day at school?

Digital Natives

Digital Native Students Prefer:

• Information gathering quickly from multiple multimediasources
• Multitasking
• Pictures, sound and video
• Random access to hyperlinked multimedia information
• Working interactively and networking with many others simultaneously
• Learning what is relevant,instantly useful and fun
•Like parallel processing
•Like to network with others
•Like to learn “just in time”

Digital Immigrant Faculty Prefer
• Slow and controlled release of information from limited resources
• Complete one task before moving on to the next task
• Like singular processing and single or limited tasking
• Text
• Providing information linearly, logically and sequentially
• Working independently
• Teaching to the curriculum and examinations
• Like to work independently
• Like to learn “just in case”

Source: http://www.labschool.ucla.edu/outreach/PTAConf2006.pdf

Partnership for 21st Century Skills Web Site

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills website has a wealth of resources. My first impression upon reading the MILE guide was disappointment, they had been in operation since 2001 and I have never heard of them! They have a very altruistic mission: to help incorporate the skills our students will need to be successful in the 21st century. They have brought together an impressive list of major stakeholders in technology and education. The technology organizations includes Intel, Cisco, Dell, Apple, HP, Intel and Microsoft. Education members include all levels from Sesame Street and Scholastic to McGraw Hall and the National Education Association.

The web site has resources to help you pave the way down “Route 21”. They have developed a Framework for 21st Century Learning and encourage educators to blend the Core subjects with Life and Career skills, Learning, Thinking and Innovation Skills and Information Communication Technology (ICT) Skills. The site also has an impressive source of publications; my favorite was the content specific Literacy Maps.

The information is organized into Skills, Support Systems, Resources and Partnerships with states. It surprised me that they had links to all media references, even those who were not supportive, such as “Backers of ‘21st Century Skills’ Take Flak”. They also had videos to address the people who say their skills undermine the currently taught skills and attempt to explain how they actually support them when the skills are integrated.

This is a wonderful resource for both students and educators.

21 st Century Skills

It terrifies me to think of the disconnect that the education environment has to the business environment. We are not always flexible, we still have students sitting in rows from 8 – 3. Most of modern communication systems are blocked in the classroom and we are isolated in classrooms limiting collaboration. The business world is embracing technology much quicker than the educational world.

As a teacher in my school, we have the spectrum of teachers trying to embrace technology while others are avoiding it. We all have access to a web portal through our district web page, but less than 20% of the teachers post information on it. We have the same statistics for our electronic grade book (which is not available online to parents). These programs do not even begin to address the wealth of online tools known as Web2.0, a read/write web.

Except for some small pockets of innovative staff, teachers are still operating in the industrial age.

Ok, now for the realitiy check.
I use technology every day: electronic grading programs, maintaining a teacher web portal and communicating to parents and colleagues by email. But I do not always have the tools in our work environment to achieve this such as access to a computer during my prep. We do not have any computers in the staff room, that would be heaven! I have one computer in my classroom, but during my prep, another teacher is teaching in my room, so I do not stay in my room. When I try to correct student work for my computer programming class, I need to load the student’s work from the server, which I also can not access from home. It is imperative I purchase a computer at home to do my work. After I have completed all of this daily work in the evening, it is exhausting to begin prepping an innovative use of technology in my classroom, but I do because I am very passionate about it. But then, when I have prepped a lesson at home, it will not work in our labs due to restrictions and blocked sites. It is often these frustrations that cause teachers to follow the path of least resistance, which in our industrial environment is not the use of technology.

What skills do we need to be preparing our students to have in the 21st Century?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
Are we teaching them?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l72UFXqa8ZU

The Wealth of Information on Blogs via Wiki

Educational Blogs can help teachers sort through the immense resources on the web. Teachers are also creating wikis to organize the blogs. Here are 3 from my Walden class:


Group 1: http://educatorresourceratings.wikispaces.com/

Group 2: http://rating-educator-resources.wikispaces.com/

Group 3: http://walden-tech-resources.wikispaces.com/

Using a Classroom Blog

I teach mathematics to ninth to twelfth graders at a public high school. I think that a blog would be a good instructional tool so that everyone can have a voice and access to the teacher for individual comments. I currently have a class portal at
http://www.hartfordschools.net/Schools/HHS/FacultyandStaff/Math/KentNancy/tabid/425/Default.aspx
which I update every Friday. I post the next week’s assignments, links to our online text book and other useful sites, but it is not interactive. I can think of two useful ways to use a blog in my math classroom.

The first would be to build a body of knowledge around the current topic. I could address common misconceptions and be available to help with homework. I could also post related reading or links that expand the topic if I organize it by chapter and concept. It would be a forum for students to “talk” about mathematics which would allow for greater understanding and a collaborative workspace as students do their assignments. I could also publish student work for students to model. This could serve to inspire student who would like to learn more and expand the walls of the classroom.

The second idea came to me as I was grading a long term problem solving assignment in my Honors Algebra 2 class. I realized some students had a misconception early in the process and therefore the solution was incorrect. If they had had a space to post their ideas, I could have guided them in the right direction. It could be a place for them to interact about content.

Great video references on blogs and rss feeds

Teaching the Net Generation

When people comment on my job of teaching teenagers, I always say, "they are the most amazing people"! Here is a video that proves it:

http://netgened.grownupdigital.com/video/no-future-left-behind-1

Are we holding them back?

Using Techology Thoughtfully

Last summer, I began to analyze how I was using technology. Was I using it to its fullest? I saw some using smartboards to match definitions - when you got the definition onto the word balloon correctly the balloon popped. Although interactive, I knew there was more. I was reminded of Bloom's taxonomy and found out their is a new Digital Blooms' . This included verbs such as blogging, filming, animating, wiki-ing, publishing, videocasting, and podcasting. I knew I had some learning to do. I enrolled in a master's program at Walden University called Integrating Technology in the Classroom. Follow me on my journey of integrating technology into my math classroom.

Just found www.Classroom20.com - it is a great web site, being a visual person, I love this new graphic!