I began my year with absolutely no experience teaching using any form of technology. I had never used networked computers on an “intranet”. I had no idea how to fix the simplest of problems.  I had no idea how to “teach” my students. The instruction methodology I had used in the classroom was not working in the lab.  So how does a linear teacher teach using a nonlinear tool? I managed to find a way that works for me.

The biggest learning this year:

• realizing the power of a good PLN – Twitter included
• using technology as a tool
• finding my instructional stride & understanding it still has to fit me when using technology
• keeping my technological learning transparent and letting the students teach me and learn with me
• taking risks as a teacher and seeing my students take risks with me – this one was the best one

All this new learning also created some questions:

• How important is the process when teaching new technology to students?
• How big is the risk to student safety when using certain Web 2.0 tools – in terms of giving of private information for accounts and where is the information stored and who has access to it?
• How big of a risk will I take in allowing under 13 yr old students to use various Web 2.0 tools?
• How to I ensure I am using the technology as a tool to drive good curriculum and not just use the technology for its own sake?
• How do I assess the learning and by what criteria?
• Does using Web 2.0 tools to enhance the curriculum increase student learning?

It seems my learning has created more questions than it has answered. I would hope that is the sign of an effective teacher.

So the stack of professional reading grows higher for the summer as the need to revamp my prep classes and manner in which I teach grows stronger.

What was your biggest learning this school year?

What are you reflecting on?

Anything good to read this summer?

]]> http://blogjunkie.edublogs.org/2009/06/13/a-year-of-teaching-with-technology-in-review/feed/ 3 http://blogjunkie.edublogs.org/2009/05/18/why-we-teach/ http://blogjunkie.edublogs.org/2009/05/18/why-we-teach/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 18:20:27 +0000 blogjunkie http://blogjunkie.edublogs.org/?p=51

Bear with me, this is more than a cliche.

Last night we celebrated my daughter’s birthday with a BBQ for family and friends. I had the incredible pleasure of having an extended conversation with one of her friends, a young man 25 years old, who I have always liked, but could have never said why.  It was a teacher thing.  This young man has pulled himself out of the “hood” from a family with problems.  At the end of our conversation, I more than liked this young man, I admired and respected him. We talked about how some children come from troubled homes and hide their problems when at school so no one will know or see their pain and what that behavior looks like.

We talked about the school were he went for most of his elementary school years.  I know the school and it too has been pulled up by its bootstraps out of the gutter of gang fights, drugs, low academic standing etc… I have worked in several Category 2 inner city schools and struggled with my upper-middle class view points. I told him a story of a young boy in one of my classes who I had tried very hard to reach all year. He also came from a family in crisis.  One afternoon, during an art class, I sent him to get some more paper as we had run out. He had to leave the building, cross a small parking lot to the second school building where the office was. This was not an issue, we did this with the students all the time, out of necessity. The day I sent my student, the door, unknown to me, was locked. He was gone for a longer time than he should have and I sent a student to find him. When he came in he was very, very upset. The look on his face was one I could not complete decipher at first. He was upset and angry and I got that, but there was more that I couldn’t figure out. When I asked him why he didn’t bang on the door or come to the class window he began to get more upset and shut down. It was the look in those deep, dark brown eyes that drilled through me and impaled me to the wall. It took me days to figure it out. I had to shift my point of view from myself to him. He had been in the one place where he would be safe with the one person in his life he knew cared and he trusted. The look in his eyes was betrayal.  I had accidentally, over a locked door, betrayed his trust.  Whatever happened at home to cause this reaction, I had managed to repeat at school.

This story opened the young man at my home to tell me his story. This is why we get up each morning, unlock our classroom doors while balancing the mug of ever present java on top of a pile of marked papers to begin the day, fresh and new from yesterday. He told me of his grade 7 teacher at the school we had been discussing. This teacher took a vested interested in this young man. He had him do small projects on the computers at recesses, had him help build the ice rink outside and give out the skates at recess. He kept him out of the gangs and got him to stop fighting. I quote, verbatim: “He saved my life.”

So here it is.  The 4th week of the Twitter challenge.  (It is actually the 5th week, but I had to stop for a week to focus on the 5 Days of Google course!) To continue or cease is the question.  I have not been really sure about the value of a Twitter network.  As the weeks progressed its value began to appear.  The biggest being the PLN it created for me and the sharing of ideas by other teachers.  That culminated itself yesterday.

I had not been very active on Twitter last week.  Until last night.  There were tweets that attracted my attention on unintentional gender bias.  I followed the tweets to David Truss’s blog and continued to follow along to Betty Gilgoff’s blog.  I also took a side trip to Dan Meyer’s blog.  These posting had nothing in common, except to me.  The connection between them made plain the power of my Twitter PLN.

Now, to humbly attempt to write this as well as Dan. I am a linear, logical thinker and I find the web is not a place for linear thinking.  I lose focus and get lost in info overload. Dan’s blog is my anchor. His ability to get to the point, to be linear and logical helps refocus my own very linear thinking.  Dan is at a place in his career where I am.  His post really hit home.  He’s looking for a challenge to keep him “lean and hungry” for the next 30 years to provide his needed level of job satisfaction.  Our difference is I have challenges, more than I can manage, which is causing job satisfaction in my current position to fast lose its lustre.  Dan listed his former challenges and that list is what I needed to “see”.  It helped me clarify what was causing my own lack of job satisfaction and now I know how to fix it.  He, as usual, helped me refocus and clarify.  I wish I could offer the same level of help back.  What does David and Betty’s gender bias discussion have to do with any of this?

One of the most important missing pieces in my former teaching position – the one that caused most of my lack of job satisfaction and caused me to leave – was lack of professional development and dialogue.  On Twitter and in the blogs came a marvelous dialogue on gender bias started by a man (David Truss) regarding biases against women.  The topic is one we all think about but do not speak about.  It was brought up and discussed by men and women from all over the North American and Australian continents with grace, tact and professionalism.  That is what made the power of the Twitter PLN so very, very clear. It was everything I have been looking for for the past 9 years. I now have a way to provide professional development, dialogue and a place to refocus which in turn provides me with a way to create/maintain the job satisfaction I have lost in the past or currently been losing.  All from a set of apparently disconnected posts and tweets on my own PLN. That has immense value to me.

Will I continue with Twitter?  Definitely.

Some time ago, while reading (and lurking) a post on Dan Meyers blog, here, he made a statement about teaching just being a job while on a rant about Freedom Writers. My first reaction was, wait a minute young’un this isn’t just a job! Working at the gas station in high school was just a job, working for Social Services as a typist was just a job, working at the utility company collecting their damn money was JUST A JOB, teaching is NOT just a job!” But then I decided think about it. After all, Dan just doesn’t blog about things that are superficial. So what was he getting at. It took me some time to get the gist of what he was talking about. Finally, on the circuit in the gym, and a sentence from an intermediate level novel I was reading, the light goes on. I finally “get” it. Seems I’m a slow thinker.

While you may be as passionate about teaching as I am, to the point where it nearly took over my life – because I allowed it to – and you may be very good at it and be very concerned about your teaching methods, philosophy, student achievement…teaching is just a job. It does not define who you are. It is only what you do. I no longer say to people, “I am a teacher.” I am not a teacher, I am Cindy. I now say, “I teach” because teaching is just a job. Thanks Dan.