Students20h

One fact I love about blogging is the speed at which ideas and thoughts can be shared. Finding new forums to share thoughts is an ongoing process.

The students at Student 2.0 are engaging in converstaion that needs to happen. Having a student voice in the edublogoshpere is making the puzzle more complete. Sometimes I feel as though we are preaching to the choir. However, for the longest time, the choir felt as though is was incomplete. It's like we were putting on a concert without the lead singer.

The reason I am blogging is to reach a global audience for the purpose of education reform. When I say education reform, I am talking about making changes that benefit the student, and actually prepare the student for a future that we know nothing about. Not an easy task.

Kevin Walter's Post "Arrogance, Perception, and Mistakes" brought on an interesting conversation in which proved a point. I am not relying on statistical data. I did not count the comments and create a Venn Diagram or a bar graph. I read the post and the comments and realized that Kevin's point was made by the commentors. Teachers are still trying to tell him what is wrong with his views. They tell him what he may want to do next time. Instead of listening to his cries for reform, they jump on the fact that he did not use scientific data for his comments.

The fact of the matter is that students "the majority", if given a choice, would rather not come to school. When they are at school, they say what they think teachers want to hear. One of the only motivators in school is to get good grades, which label these students. They go through the motions on a daily basis. Waking up, getting to school, standing for the Pledge, sitting quietly, raising their hands, standing in line, learning about facts that don't interest them, reading boring textbooks, writing reports, and moving at the sound of a bell. Who wants to do that?

Being in an elementary school setting, I try to prepare the students for a future in which I know nothing about. By the time they are in highschool, I can only hope that they use the tools in which I have made available to them. Hopefully one of my students will create new tools in which I will be using.

School technology vs. School 2.0

The push for technology in schools is the overwhelming theme in schools today. I am not quite sure that the emphasis is on the proper tools. Using online databases, LCD projectors, streaming videos, information tutorials, and educational sites is not enough. Most teachers can use these tools. Who am I kidding... most teachers don't use these tools. That is another topic though.

The problem with pushing technology is that it has many ill effects. A while ago, I wrote a blog about our district and its building of a planetarium. This is put under the false pretense of creating a digital classroom. The Superintendent of our school system is caught up in the hype of being a leader in technology in Maryland. This building will be stationed at our new highschool and will be finished by 2011. As of right now, I can go to Google Earth and switch it over to Google Sky. Any constellation and star can be seen for free. I can project this with my LCD projector in my classroom right now for free. I do not know how much this planetarium will cost, but I'm sure it is not going to be free. I am sure that they will have a huge opening ceremony and our Superintendent will get high praise. But should he?

How many computers could we have bought with this money?

My point...

I think we should be focusing on 1 laptop per child, and school 2.0 literacy training for our teachers. Once we have a laptop for every child, we can start focusing on the literacy aspects. As of right now, my school has a laptop cart with 24 computers. A teacher travels around on the cart having the students use "old technology". This is not the direction we should be heading. We need to prepare the students for a life of using these tools not only to gain information, but to add to the information. I feel if we continue in this direction, our students are going to fall far behind those in which are exposed to web 2.0. We need to stop hiding being a facade of recognition, and start preparing students.

Fearing the Unknown...

I just read a great post by David Warlick. Check it out! The report can also be found here. This report shines a little light on what parents actually know about how their kids are using the internet.

If you don't want the world to know, then...?

Sitting in staff meeting yesterday after school, our community police officer gave us the normal talk about drugs, gangs and violence in our neighborhood. Being in an elementary school, he skipped most of his normal talk because he feels as though we don't have to deal with all of these problems in our school, yet.
The officer went on to tell us a story about how the County Police arrested several gang members near or around our school. He asked us... "How do you think we caught these gang members?". It was a baited question of course. He just clicked on his next slide to show us these students MYSPACE pages. These students published pictures of themselves on MYSPACE in front of large amounts of illegal drugs and guns in their hands. Needless to say, these students from a local high school were wanted for a number of offenses and were arrested when the officer recognized them on the Internet.
Some people would say that this story is quite laughable. Everyone laughs at the bad guy when they are responsible for getting themselves caught. I think there is a television show about this very idea. I did not laugh at the story though. I think this story scratches the surface of what we as a society are up against right now and in the future. Kids growing up today have to be guided as to the amount of personal information they share with the world.
I know that my school district has a whole team that sits behind computers at the Board of Education Central Office that scrolls through MYSPACE pages all day long. They use these pages to find out about trends in schools, fights that may happen, and illegal activities that may be done by students. They have been very successful at preventing many occurrences from taking place in the past few years.
This gets me to my point. If information is put out there for the world to see, it will be used. We need to teach kids at a young age that if they don't want the information known by the world, don't put it on the Internet. Some get it and some don't.

Week of change!

Reading through my feeds, I can definitely tell most of the bloggers are teaching now. New posts are hard to come by. Some days, I can't find the time to eat lunch. I have 15 different classes, 400 different students, and about 60 different teachers to keep in order. Teaching science in an elementary school sure is different.

I have, however, found the time to create a wiki for my 3-5 graders. This will be interesting. Many students are asking... how it works, who can edit information, and what happens if someone deletes everything on the wiki. It's very basic at the moment. Eventually, I want the wiki to become a collaborative source used by students globally for learning purposes. I am trying to find a way to hold students accountable for misuse and sabotage. It sounds as though it will happen... (comments and questions asked by students). If there are any ideas, please feel free to comment. As of right now there is only one user name and password. I think this will need to change.

Validity of Study...

It has been a hot topic in the blogosphere over the last couple of days. The National School Boards Association has released a study (pdf) funded by Microsoft and Verizon, that states...

"The internet isn't as dangerous as people think, and teachers should let students use social networks at school"

You can read more about this study by clicking on the above link. Many bloggers feel as I feel. Is this study valid? Microsoft and Verizon funded the study. I know that it is a start in the right direction, but I want to play devils advocate at the moment. What do you think the other side will say?

It sounds a little like this...
Having Exxon fund a study on oil refinement benefits or...
Halliburton getting all the major reconstruction bids in a war torn Iraq...


Microsoft and Verizon stand to gain billions of dollars from school systems embracing social networking.
I tend to play my games fair, I don't enjoy having a debt with anyone, and I sure would love to see a valid study that shows the benefits of web 2.0 practices in our school systems. I know that there are many benefits... I see it first hand in my classroom. It's not people like us that need convincing. Maybe we should start inviting our congressmen into our classrooms. Maybe a study funded by a third party that doesn't have their hands tied down by one of these billion dollar corporations is what we need. I don't know what the answer is.

The fact of the matter is this...
You can read the study up and down, agree with every small fact that is put on the table, get excited about the changes that might happen, and even blog about the benefits of the study. All the study's credentials were snuffed out the window when I saw the names of the funding companies at the bottom of the page. An exchange of money was involved somewhere.

Education and Trust

I watched an interesting news report today about the DANGERS of putting private online photos on sites like MYSPACE and FACEBOOK. The overall theme was the same that it always is when the media talks about these sites. They are feeding fear to everyone that watches. It seems as if they are trying to scare you into not using the internet.
Matt Lauer spent about 10 minutes saying things like, "We need to protect our kids from these sites", and "These sites are very dangerous to use for kids". We wonder why the overall thought of these sites is negative. Negativity is all you hear about in the media. They do not discuss the people that are using these sites responsibly and actually using them for social networking.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
We need to focus on education of the children and not trying to always protect them. What will happen if you shield your kids eyes from everything bad their whole lives? Children know these sites more than parents do. They will always find a way to use them. Parents need to focus their time on learning these sites, educating the kids, and embracing the technology that is available. I heard Matt Lauer say the term, "The internet craze". I don't think this is a craze. The internet is here to stay. New sites are added daily and they are constantly being mastered by kids younger than you and I. The only way to educate the kids is to become familiar with them ourselves.
NO NEED TO FEAR:
When you say the word MYSPACE, the uneducated person automatically prejudges and fears the site. Why is this? Do they use the site? Do they have a child that had a bad experience with the site? I don't think so. They probably saw an episode of "To Catch a Predator" or saw a report like the one I saw this morning that talks about the negative things that can happen when using these sights. I, on the other hand, embrace the technology and focus on how we can learn from these sites. They are here to stay, I will use them, and I will show my kids how to use them.