pdZone

The New York Times > In the Classroom, Web Logs Are the New Bulletin Boards

This article from the NY Times captures a lot of what I would like to try to get across to the staff in my school.

Techlearning – What Do They Need to Know About Cyber Safety? – August 1, 2004

This is a very interesting article about online safety and the importance of teaching younger students strategies for safe surfing. It includes a link to the Safety Clicks video (starring Dexter, from Dexter’s Laboratory). Two facts from the author’s classroom experience really struck me:
“These results appear to show that by third and fourth grade, one-third of the students have their own Email accounts.”
“Only 39% of grade three students said they do, but 63% of the fourth grade students responded that they discuss cyber safety issues at home.”
I honestly didn’t realize the numbers of young children who already have e-mail access. All the more reason to push for the idea of teaching about cyber safety. This is already something that I plan as an area of focus this year. This article will certainly help. I will refer to it at our board computer committee meeting at the beginning of the year.

No Two Swimmers Float Alike

This is a very engaging article by the late Guy Bensusan. I do not have any experience with Mr. Bensusan’s writings, but I really enjoyed this tale of transferring differentiated teaching styles from the swimming pool to the classroom. It presents an individualized learner-centered philosophy that leads to increased confidence and the motivation to succeed.
Wow, can you tell I just finished my summer courses?)

This article appears in the July edition of the International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning

Educational Weblogs: Blogs and Wikis as WebQuest Tasks

Before I even begin, just a word about the vocabulary related to the article. I consider myself reasonably computer literate. I no longer try to trim the edges of my old 45s to play them in the CD-ROM, and I seldon try to roll a piece of paper into the keyboard to type a letter. That said, I was almost totally oblivious to the nature of weblogs, wikis, and their related applications just two years ago. Let’s face it – wiki? blog? These sound like the names of villains from Battlestar Galactica.
But, the hamster started running and powered up the rather dim bulb in my head and I started to learn a bit about these things. Biz Stone’s book Blogging was a big help. For someone who is new to this area, it can be very hard to conceptualize. The presentation to which Al refers in his entry, does a good job of explaining the concepts. The use of WebQuests can give a solid classroom application of the tools involved.

I still had a few small details to take care of in my FSL, but I also had some editing to do on the two courses that I was writing this summer. I has been a busy few months! I just sent in my final revisions, so I think we’it’s all done.

It feels kind of strange. This will be my first free time in quite a while. I guess teaching math for only the second time in 16 years will take care of that. School is only a couple of weeks away. I guess I have to start getting ready. Sigh!

With school in mind, I though I would take the time to share some of the resources I used for my courses this summer. They were very useful to me. I hope that somebody reads this (I’ll send an SOS to the world…) and finds some of it as useful as it was to me. Here goes!

• WikiNiMST – This French-language wiki engine, optimized for educational use, was a valuable tool in working back and forth between home and the University.
• Mario tout de go… – Mario Asselin’s experiences in the use of electronic portfolios for both students and teachers.
• Weblogg-ed – Will Richardson’s chronicles of his own experiences in using weblogs in education.
• Weblogs – can they accelerate expertise? – Guy Dickinson writes about the valuable role weblogs can play in the learning process.
• Apple Classroom of Tomorrow – This document is almost ten years old, but my experience has shown me that many teachers are still toward the lower end of the development continuum in terms of their skill and comfort with computers.
• Professional Development in a Technological Age – This document by Cathy Miles Grant is a few years old as well, but it also contains some useful suggestions for PD that are just as valid today.
• Professional Development From Reports to Reality – This document, by Glenn Kleiman and Kirsten Johnson, also looks at the realities of PD and ICT use in schools.
• Communiquer à l’heure d’Internet – Marie-France Laberge writes about the evolution of education and, perhaps, of thinking. (from Vie pédagogique, an educational publication from the government of Québec)
• Computers Make Sense According to Brain Research… But What do Students Think? and FSL teachers and technology: Findings from a national survey – results from a pair of studies by Miles Turnbull and Geoff Lawrence.

I actually have plenty more, but I’ll start with those.
(Boy, it’s nice to be done!)

It’s about 2:30 in the morning and I just submitted my final project for my FSL Specialist course. I’d be lying if I said I loved taking these courses. Actually, I wouldn’t. I love being a student and I love learning!
I have learned a lot over the past few months, through courses I have taken as well as those that I have written, and hope to start posting some of it here as time permits. I have benefited greatly from some of the great work that people like Will and Mario have done, and from all of the other people who publish their own reflections, as well as providing links to other valuable resources. I have some great ideas that I hope to be able to implement in my own classes this fall. I also hope to be able to provide some PD sessions and share some of what I have learned from all of you.
Merci beaucoup!