Social & Professional Networks

I LOVE TWITTER! I LOVE TO TWEET! So, sue me.

I use Twitter everyday - as a classroom teacher, as a webmaster for my school site, as a parent liaison, and as someone who just wants to connect with my educational community.  I am also the person hounding others to join in on the fun.  A couple of years ago, I got an iPhone. This was the first thing that changed how I do classroom instruction.  The second thing that changed instruction was Twitter.  It follows you everywhere - constantly reminding you of assignments due, linking you to ideas, videos, concepts, visual aids, online connections, and personal factions that help you feel connected to your community.  In my case, I believe that it connects my students to my classroom and to me.  Even more so than in the couple hours they attend class and the hour or more they complete their homework

Why does this platform work for my students?
Ease of Use: I have embedded my Twitter feed onto my classroom website, so students and parents do not even need a Twitter account to access my tweets. They can view tweets on ANY computer or mobile device connected to the Internet.
It's Fun: Twitter speaks their language.  Most students spend HOURS a day online or talking about what is happening online. This is what connects their social world. If I can get them talking about academic topics in some of their conversations, I have achieved something.
Connectedness: Twitter connects its subjects to everything. What 2 online buttons do you see at the end of every online article, blog, shopping site, or share symbol: Facebook and Twitter. Facebook requires friending, blocking, allowing, etc. Twitter is free, world-wide, available.

Why does this platform work for me, the teacher?
With my phone, I can tweet from anywhere.  I can take a picture; take a screen shot; search a video; record text, audio, or video...and send.  It is within a click away.  My only 3 requirements: Does it promote academia or personal connectedness; is it appropriate?; will my students want to view it?

Okay, enough about how cool it is. Does it build a community with students? Twitter is not something that they belong to. But they belong to Facebook, Instagram, bit.ly, and YouTube. They want to share. They want to have content to share so they can converse. Middle school kids love to gossip and laugh and they LOVE to complain. If I give them a reason to do one of those things, they will forward, share, and discuss.

Students are also at risk, however, of being distracted from good learning or learning altogether.  With freedom comes responsibility.  So, students must have guidance on how to search safely, choose friends wisely, report any inappropriate behavior or messages, and stick to safe content they are comfortable with. It is really easy to get roped in to nasty gossip or peer pressure online. Students just need to know that, just as in face-to-face contact with others, there are sketchy and manipulative people and behavior online. Create boundaries for yourself.

The Internet is a vast universe of knowledge, complexity, diverging viewpoints, and creation.  Think about it: The Internet can lead you to engage in the highest levels of learning. If you are in education, using this explosive tool is not just optional, it is imperative. If you can get kids excited about going on the Internet everyday to discover, share, and create, you've opened up endless possibilities for them.

For more amazing Tweets from Mrs. Banks, search for @teachlikemom on Twitter. :p

The Golden Rule

Is it possible to always be thinking about treating others in the same way you would want to be treated?  Or are we, as Americans...as humans really, inclined to default to protecting our own self-interests?  I feel that at times I let my emotions direct my actions...and do not treat others like I would like to be treated..  Or I'm just too tired to think about anyone else's needs over mine.

The roundtable discussion in the lunch room turned to jingoism.  My co-worker asked whether everyone must feel some sort of jingoism, and will do what it takes to protect it. Even if this feeling may sometimes trump the Golden Rule.  I see where she is coming from. Her family is a military family and it makes sense to want to fight what you believe in heart and soul.  I feel patriotism and love for my country, but I don't feel extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy.  I don't feel that we should force our ideals upon others or expect others to live how we live. In this day and age, I really do question whether I am an outsider in American culture and way of thinking... Anyhow...

On the other hand:  Do you care if others litter?  Speed?  Follow the rules established by society, regardless of which society creates them?  Shouldn't all people have to follow localized rules since you, as a citizen, are expected to follow them?

Another co-worker feels that rules should be followed...period.  She is a self-proclaimed "yes" person, eager to please others and make a difference, even if it is to the detriment to her health or family's well-being.  She believes that rules are there to be followed.

Just some interesting viewpoints to consider...

Using Web 2.0 Tools

My group completed a collaborative project this week.  We all chose a different Web 2.0 tool and created a slide on its merits, weaknesses, and contributions to education. Then we combined each of our slides to create a group presentation. The four tools in our presentation were: Audioboo, Edmodo, GlogsterEdu, and Prezi.  It was a pretty informative and interesting process to hear what others thought...and to reflect on what I thought about each.

I have used Edmodo for the past several years in core classes, as well as in my Introduction to Computers class. In Computers, the students and I utilized Edmodo everyday. I would set up assignments, quizzes, and group work within the element. Initially I create an account for each of them. Students log on each day with a message from me. In Edmodo, the most recent message appears at the top of the page for them. Within that message would be guidelines on where they are first to proceed. These messages will include an objective, directions, rubric, and any other important information they will need for their assignment or project. At first, I encourage students to look around the site and become familiar with the platform. I am there to support them if they have questions along the way. One of my first tasks for them is to send me a message and then to reply to my message. Many of them are very uncomfortable at first with the online platform because they are used to communicating only face-to-face. Below is an example of a message my students would see when they first log in to Edmodo.

I responded to their online messages almost immediately - a message or reply was quicker than if I talked to each of them in person. I used a computer, as well as mobile devices. Students would log in at the beginning of class and often utilize the platform throughout their learning process that day or over several days of a project.  They learned how to communicate with me, turn in assignments, and collaborate with group members - all online.  Most students struggled at first, I believe mainly because they had never used an online platform for these tasks before. Once they got the hang of it, they knew where to look for directions, how to ask for guidance, and what they could share with others. Once they have submitted their assignment, I provide them with a message including what exactly they missed and what exactly they were successful in, using the rubric.

Edmodo is a wonderful platform for encouraging students in using higher order thinking skills.  They are continuously being given opportunities to create a project based on information they learned in a previous lesson. For example, they will learn how to use Word for presenting information within a graph, online programs like LinoIt for interviewing each other about the best way to earn an A in math, then their school platform School Loop for gathering information. They will create a graph based on interviews and rote information they gathered to produce a graph with their findings. In a different example, students collaborate and evaluate each other's conclusions on given situations within the small group element within Edmodo.

Curriculum and standards for technology at the middle school level are pretty loose.  However, with Common Core's arrival, students are expected to navigate, research, communicate, and present their findings using digital means. All of these objectives are supported through Edmodo.

Overall, our group's choices for web tools offer powerful and dynamic ways to support and lead to higher order thinking skills.  Each of us chose a platform that supports creation. In Glogster and Prezi, students create and share a poster or presentation based on information they have researched and sythesized. Audioboo allows students to create a podcast using similar parameters. Each of these tools can be used with any subject...and can be intertwined with each other. As with any assignment, teachers should be clear with learning objectives and guidelines for how they will use the tool. With each of these tools, students will need online access, possible account setups, and time to work within the tools.

Methodologies of the Online Instructor

My current teaching methodologies are quite traditional.  I was trained at a Sacramento area university in a face-to-face cohort.  When I took courses outside my cohort classes, they were in large lecture halls for the most part.  When we worked with technology and computers, the learning tasks were very guided and teacher-paced.  I have learned many of my teaching strategies for direct teaching (such as classroom management, student placement, wait time, lecturing, group work, note-taking) within this context.


However, I am quite determined to deliver the best and most modern teaching I can to my students. So, I take risks. Within my district, I have involved myself in learning about online and blended learning.  I am taking this class currently to learn more (and to interact as a student) about online learning. I am the Webmaster at my site...and signed on as a Tech Liaison at the beginning of last school year. I have taught Basic Computers the last 3 years. I have attended several training workshops on SMART software, as well as for using online tools. I interact with my students on a regular basis using Edmodo, Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. I am involved in two different teacher groupings - one called CTE (California Teaching Excellence) and another multi-month pod through SCOE for using Flipped Learning for the Common Core Standards. In both, we create, collaborate, and share ideas for using technology to improve our teaching and bolster student achievement. I have created several online content videos for my kids to access.

When I think about how my methodologies need to change in an online or blended learning environment, I do realize that I need to continue to take risks and participate in opportunities for me to grow within the area of technology. I would like to learn more about how to deliver content to students and interact in an online format.

I do see challenges that I hope I can overcome. Although I have access with technology, some of my students do not.  There are elements to online and blended learning that are not conducive to students without means.  But, I can be a self-advocate for my students and keep my eyes open for opportunities or try to raise money for resources.

This coming year, I would like to build on some skills and strategies to boost the amount of blended teaching and learning within my classroom. I will be working on more videos with my students - and especially thinking of ways they can access them more easily if they do not have online access at home. I would like to see other classrooms where teachers are interacting with technology within a rotational model. Lastly, I would like to try introducing my students (and myself) to a virtual online learning portal. It would be nice to expose them to more learning outside the traditional model they are so used to. 

Online and blended teacher certification

So, I just signed up to take a 10-week long online course, my first completely online course. I had heard about this through my district and felt like I'd be a perfect candidate. I am smart, capable, driven to learn, curious, and stable in my life and career. I am the school webmaster at the junior high where I teach Language Arts and US History and a Tech Liaison within my district. I am the contact people come to when they're having problems with their computer...or the software they are required to use.

In my first real contact with the information provided in this course, I felt frustrated and lost. But how can such a "techie" feel so out of place in the environment that she normally feels most comfortable? I think the answer exists in a space much bigger than my virtual world. I have signed on to something that is foreign to anything I have done. I have never completed an online course with no face to face contact. Even when I am learning something on the computer, I have colleagues, family, friends, students, or teachers nearby to help talk me through it - to help show me what to do.

I do not like feeling helpless or lost. I guess it makes me feel like a failure. Like I'm not able to use my power to work through it. This may just mean that I will have to rely on the conversation with my online classmates and expertise of my instructor. This takes me back to a place I haven't visited in a long time.

My results from the online learning assessment were not surprising. I have good computer skills - I am eager to learn new things and enjoy working with computers. I am not much of an independent learner. I like touching base with others, including my teachers, face-to-face. I enjoy talking about what I'm learning and appreciate feedback on what I did well and specific feedback on what I can fix or improve. With regards to dependent learning, I respond to deadlines and reminders. I do not like mundane or meneal tasks, as I tend to get overwhelmed by the details. I do not necessarily have a need for online learning...I like to drive, am not confined by geography or overwhelmimg domestic responsibilities. Lastly, with regard to academic achievement, I am a slow reader...and often need to read directions and outlines multiple times, as I do not comprehend well through written words. On the other hand, I have strong interpersonal skills and so prefer to talk through learning tasks. I am careful with my work, as I often re-read and revise my work multiple times. I feel comfortable conveying myself through writing and will ask for help when I don't understand something. The survey suggested that I am not a natural online learner and I would agree. 

My main reason for taking the Tech Connect 2.0 course is to become online certified. I believe that this will help add to my credentials and credibility in my job as my school's Webmaster and district's Tech Liason. I am also looking for ways to better myself and contribute more to my educational community. 

I have two priority learning goals: To learn how to effectively engage with others online in a forum-

style learning environmrent and to build the amount of online tools I have to work with in my job and with colleagues. 

Photo credit: from Artfire, Copyright Valmade 2010

Mediation Day 1

Mediation today.  Still dragging on. Our representative was wonderful and incredibly supportive.  I hope to achieve positive resolution soon.

The Quiet Moments

I love this time of year in education!  Not necessarily because the sun is shining (although warm is nice), but because I start to see the positive relationships with and between members of my classroom strengthen and mold.  As I like to say, teenagers “become snuggly” towards their teacher once a connection is firmly established.  Now I don’t mean that they like hugs and want you to read them fairy tales (although they still want to be read to!).  They simply develop a connection to their teacher and want to do well because they know someone believes in them.  As a classroom teacher, I am privileged to have the flexibility and space to choose how I connect with my kids and what values I will emphasize during the course of each year.  Will I emphasize honesty or integrity?  Or will I emphasize friendship and loyalty?  The truth is, not only do I focus on the classroom community dynamic within the classroom, I try to emphasize qualities based on what each of my students need. 

Teachers pay attention to what a child is lacking in their lives, or to what they are struggling to learn, and they focus on creating lessons that help.  These lessons may, from time to time, put students out of their comfort zone.  In being there, they may blame someone else (even the teacher), for putting them there.  While they grow, they gripe.  While they want to say, “I hate being held accountable for my actions,” they actually say, “My teacher is mean to me.”  While they want to say, “My teacher makes me complete all of my homework,” they actually say, “I hate you.”  While they want to say, “I’m scared to connect with you because I have been let down by important people in my life,” they actually say, “Get away from me – I don’t want to talk to you.”  Within the same breath, young people will blame someone else for “making” them grow. 

With all of this verbal abuse, one might think teachers end every school day in tears.  But this is what makes teaching so special.  When others run away, punish, and accuse students of being crafty, cruel, and crass, a teacher doesn’t give up.  A teacher listens, considers the elements, and helps find solutions.  By the end of each diligent year, stronger, more confident, relaxed, happier children emerge. 

Two springs ago, a friend and colleague of mine came into my classroom to visit on the last day of school.  This classroom had been a challenge for both of us – for me as a classroom teacher and for her a Resource Specialist.  We had extensively collaborated throughout the year to support several students who had IEPs and Behavior Plans.  This year, we had adapted and accommodated for individuals who were mainstreamed but who were extremely challenged.  Eleven children struggled with one or more of the following diagnoses:  ADHD, Tourette Syndrome, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, absent parents, transience, gypsy parents, depression, molestation, neglect, poverty, drug use, violence towards others, and a victim of a sexually violent past.

In addition to these childhood atrocities, this was the year where two-thirds of my class either enrolled after the school year started or left before the year was over. A revolving door.  Our school, like many others, felt the effects of budget cuts to services.  Where there had been a Vice Principal the year before, the school could provide none.  Where the school provided a counseling service previously, this system no longer existed.  Within the first two weeks after thumbing through the cumulative files of my kids, I went to the Principal.  I asked, begged really, to receive guidance and support in dealing with the challenges that came with such a needy, diverse group of kids.  I was given cassette tapes and asked to attend training.  I took what I could get.  Over the next nine months, I attended trainings, I documented everything.  I called parents, met with parents, visited homes, and differentiated like crazy.  I nearly drowned that year, but I didn’t.  I had colleagues and friends who helped keep me nourished.  Nourished enough to be solid for the kids.

When my colleague walked in to our classroom party at the end of the year, she was flabbergasted.  Before she came to mine, she had walked into other classrooms where kids were climbing over others, yelling to each other, and throwing their garbage everywhere.  In my class, students were grouped together having lively conversations.  They had smiles on their faces.  Joyful music played as we all signed classroom yearbooks.  Students were serving up food to others, including my colleague.  She later told me that she could not believe that these same students.  These were the ones who had caused many students and staff members so much anguish; they, who could not handle being around others.  And at this culminating moment, they enjoyed being in the company of both peers and adults!  Busy and joyful, they did not want to be reminiscing about the school year with anyone else.

This same day, a parent visited the classroom to pick up her child.  She wanted to talk to me in private, so that she wouldn’t embarrass her daughter (teenagers…).  Let’s call the parent Mom and the student Alexa.  Alexa struggled with bullying, aggression, anxiety, problems being accepted by peers, defiance towards adults, and depression throughout the year.  Mom said that Alexa was too embarrassed to tell me how she felt, so instead Mom would relay the message.  Mom said that Alexa came home everyday recalling something she had learned from me.  She always brought it up in regular conversation.  Whether it was a class lesson or a personal one, it was clear that her daughter became excited about learning.  Alexa told her mom that I was her favorite teacher.  As tears welled in her eyes, she added:  “You make me want to be a better mother to my child.”  I just about lost it. 

As an educator, these are the moments I eat up.  They are the quiet moments recognized.  Millions of these untold stories exist within our schools.  These invaluable connections between teachers, students, and parents continue to propel the hearts and minds of young people. 

To my teacher friends and colleagues:  The blaring negativity may sometimes seem to swallow your progress and positive intentions in one gulp.  But your efforts will not remain unnoticed.  They just aren’t being vocalized like you deserve.  You are valuable and you are appreciated.  Call me biased, but you are in the best profession to prove that one person can make a positive difference in the lives of many.