Tech Tip

For those of you that may be trying to build a global community in your classroom, checkout epals.com. This is a really neat idea and would probably work best with upper middle grades and high school students since it requires a personal email address from its users.

Technology Standards

New standards for administrators should parallel the new standards for teachers to some degree. As I read the standards for both, I couldn't help but notice the difference in verbiage. For teachers, there is repeated use of the verbs demonstrate, design, model and for administrators it was identify, provide, and promote. They are all powerful words and while I do feel they are appropriately placed, I also feel that an essential role of an administrator is to be an instructional leader. Administrators cannot have a do as I say, not as I do attitude. In order to support and inspire educators moving into a digital world, administrators must demonstrate and model their uses of the latest technologies. Administrators need not only to provide technology staff development, but attend the sessions. As a future administrator, I will not expect my staff to demonstrate, design, or model anything I cannot do myself.

Overall I think the current administrator standards cover the bases pretty well. However, I do see the need for a monitoring of practices piece that should be incorporated in the revised standards, and the only way for administrators to accurately monitor practices is if they themselves have participated in the same training as their teachers. I don't necessarily think that participation in staff development needs to be a mandatory standard for administrators. I feel it is personal choice that effective instructional leaders should make.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

I have to be honest, before receiving the blog notification from Dr. Floyd and reading the 21st Century Skills Report, I had never heard of this organization. As I was reading the report I was excited to see that North Carolina is amongst one of the nine states involved in the partnership. I think what they are trying to do here is a wonderful idea, but my excitement was quickly replaced by confusion.

I've said it before and will say it again, I am a digital immigrant and apparently more ignorant than I even knew in regards to the technology world. I am confused because while I read that North Carolina is part of the 21st Century Partnership, had I not read it I would have had no idea. What part(s) of North Carolina are we talking about? Not the part where I teach. I have computers older than my students! I think it is essential that we take measures to build the bridge that I've previously spoken about and I am doing all that I can to educate myself in attempt to better serve my digital natives. However, updated equipment would certainly help.

Oprah praised Bill Gates for taking personal measures and money to equip high schools with state of the art technology and science labs to compete with the rest of the world. What about our elementary and middle schools? A house built on sand isn't very sturdy! We are currently hearing, and have always heard, from politicians about the importance of education and measure they plan to take to see that no child is left behind. What positive changes have you seen? Is the Partnership for 21st Century Skills just more political propaganda?

9/11 SHOCKER

As adults many of us woke up this morning and knew exactly where we were this day seven years ago. At work many are dressed in red, white, and blue and some offices even observed with a moment of silence. However, today in elementary school the mood was much different.

I teach two separate blocks of fourth graders, a total of 48 children. With each class I wrote the following on the board:

Today is an important day in American history. Why?

I had them write their responses on paper and I was shocked by what I later read!

Out of 48 students, only 7 of them had any idea why September 11 was an important day in American history. One answer even said, "Today is important because it is Thursday which means the weekend is almost here." I was shocked! While I do realize that most of them were only two years old when this tragedy took place, I was really saddened by their ignorance. I dug a little deeper and was even more shocked to learn that about one-third of them had never even heard of the World Trade Center or Twin Towers! I pulled up video of the attacks on-line and many children gasped in horror when they witnessed the towers falling. My next question was, "For how many of you is that the first time you remember ever seeing that?" A total of 26 children raised their hands! Again, shock. Our military men and women continue to fight this war, and the youth of today doesn't even know why or how it all started!
Is it their fault that they don't know? Absolutely not, like I said they were only two when it happened. Ignorance is a horrible disease that if not treated gets passed down from generation to generation. As educators it is our job to not only teach our state mandated curriculums, but teach these children about what is happening in the world and how it affects all of us. I challenge each of you to find a child under the age of ten and ask the same questions I asked. If you get the same answers, take a minute to educate that child and break the cycle of ignorance.
The war on terrorism continues to this day. I salute, applaud, and pray for our troops as well as the families of the victims of 9-11.

POWERFUL!!!

I know when many of us think of YouTube we think of nothing but garbage. However, there is a powerful video entitled "A Vision of K-12 Students Today". I've provided a link. Please check it out!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8

Collaborative Communities

As I stated on the discussion board, I openly admit that I am a digital immigrant. In my response to the articles about the digital kids in today's classroom, I also spoke of building a bridge from the 20th century classroom to the 21st century learner. As a result of these two ideas, I've been doing a lot of searching on the internet and recently read an article entitled "Teaching Teachers to Track Tech Tips" by Nanette I. Marcum-Dietrich published at techlearning.com. In the article it speaks of building "collaborative communities" between both colleagues and students. While many of us are probably already doing this, I thought it could be something that we start amongst ourselves as students in the LEED 6820 class. The class seems to be a mix of digital natives, immigrants, and even nomads! My tech tip of the week is to visit education-world.com and check out the Tech in the Classroom section. Here you will find many ideas for incorporating technology into the classroom and even the "Technology Lesson Plan of the Week". While I may be an immigrant in the world of technology, there is no need to reinvent the wheel, and I hope to not only build a bridge but a technological community!

WELCOME!!!

Throw out your preconceived notions about the "dumb blonde"! While we do have more fun, we also have plenty to say. You will find that this Blabbering Blonde, while new to blogging, has intelligent thoughts and opinions to share. Welcome & Enjoy!!!