Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Walking the Technology Walk


       Our school district talks a lot about technology—but with three 15-year-old computers in most of our classrooms, there’s not much walk with that talk.  So why would any teacher be reluctant to put to use Internet-accessible computers that students bring into our classrooms with them?  More than half of my seniors walk into my classroom with such computers—only they call them cell phones!

       Our students are symbiotically enmeshed with these technological devices, and in ways that grievously irritate most teachers.   You see, we aren’t here because we need a job.  We’re here because we truly and deeply believe that what we have to impart to our tender young charges is crucially significant to their lives and intellectual wellbeing—far more significant than their plans for nutrition break as negotiated through text messages!  So when they make those plans their priority, instead of what we think should be their priority… well, let’s just say that for me, that is a significant threat to my psychological comfort zone.  So, between my control issues—I mean, my comfort zone, and the fact that I do not, in fact, really understand the astronomical potentialities of those tiny devices, and therefore am rather threatened by them, it seems the easiest policy to follow is “Off with their heads!”  

       Is Mr. Carroll’s Queen of Hearts someone I want to take for my pedagogical model?

       While I wouldn’t mind my classroom being seen as moderately analogous to what was down the rabbit hole, I’d like my students to be able to accomplish something Alice never did:  making sense of what’s going on down there.  My students grew up with entirely different information processing strategies than those I and most of my colleagues experienced.  But as a general rule, our strategies are what’s in place in our classrooms.  And unfortunately, our students make about as much sense of those strategies as Alice made of mushrooms.

       There are many ways to access our students’ information processing systems, but, much to our dismay, most of them involve screens.  This becomes problematic when there are only three screens in the classroom.  So forcing the twenty-plus kids who enter the room with fully functional, Internet-accessing screens to keep them in their pockets—or, rather, under their desks!—seems utterly profligate.  

       Results of my research were overwhelming:  cell phones helped students.  From organizational tasks like recording assignments or filing information to higher level cognitive skills like taking literature notes or creating symbolic visuals, cell phones enabled students to process information more effectively and professionally.  And we really didn’t even officially “use” either the Internet or word processing capabilities of the steadily increasing (from over 50% to begin with) number of “smart phones.”
 
       For most of the world, cell phones are the majority of the population’s personal computers.  If cell phones give our students access to more effective (for them) information processing strategies, aren’t we being negligent if we refuse to allow them in our classrooms?


Sunday, May 29, 2011

Wk4 Publishing_Leadership Project


The two publications I selected were National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) publication English Education and Association for Educational Communications and Technology.  These publications, while academic, both accepted articles exploring innovative strategies in a more reflective or informal style.  Their readership is by definition dedicated to improving strategies for designing and implementing instruction, and such teachers would find a lot to think about in an article exploring the use of cell phones in a classroom.

Here is my article link:  


Here are my blog links:


 
  

Wk4 Reflection: Publishing_Leadership Project, Part 2 of 2

POST 5
Years ago, I took a 4-day seminar at UCLA extension on writing the personal essay.  We spent an entire morning—1/8 of our time together—addressing the question of where to publish.  Because fun as it is to write something and polish it till it’s all shiny, it just stays an empty vine if you don’t put it out there and let it bear fruit. 

But therein lies a huge risk for those of us who haven’t been risk-takers:  REJECTION!  So my first impulse is to start someplace small.  But I find myself stopping and analyzing my first impulse these days!

So I checked out one “Big Name” publication and one that seems like an easier fit.

The NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) is a well established and prestigious group that actually runs several publications.  The one that seemed closest my project’s idea is English Education, which, to quote their website (http://www.ncte.org/journals/ee/write) “serves those NCTE members who are engaged in the preparation, support, and continuing education of teachers of English language arts/literacy.”  I’m really not as interested in publishing “traditional theoretical and research articles,” but the second type of article is described as “shorter, innovative/nontraditional ‘Extending the Conversation’ articles.”  That would give me some fluidity in my style, as well as shortening the part of the lit review I’d need to include.

The second publication is Association for Educational Communications and Technology, one of many Springer publications, which could be just as prestigious as NCTE, for all I know, which isn’t, in this arena, much.  This publication also has a Research Section, which is looking for rigorous research-oriented articles, as well as a Development Section, which, in addition to instructional design research papers, welcomes, according to their website (http://www.aect.org/intranet/Publications/index.asp), “papers that report outcomes of innovative approaches in applying technology to instructional development.”  That sounds like me.

Having to pick one, as each publication requires that all articles be submitted to theirs exclusively, I will probably go with the one I’m more familiar with first, but I’m not sure how open NCTE is, in spite of their “innovative/nontraditional” description, to technological advances like cell phones in the classroom.  (I’m afraid I speak from experience—previous experience, I should say!—here.)  But now that I am an innovator, in addition to being a proselyte, I’d of course like to start changing the world in the very bastion of traditionalism!  Well, at least I’m not pretending to not be who I am…

Wk4 Reflection: Publishing_Leadership Project, Part 1 of 2


POST 4
Um…. Do I really have to do this one?

OK, in the spirit of Zanderism, let me analyze that impulse that says, “Push yourself, Deb!  Get outside your box!  Do a presentation!”

Why?  This entire year has been all about that.  And one thing I’ve learned is that people should learn new things, but they should also honor their own gifts.  And I’m a writer.  I think by writing.  I understand and get insights by writing.  What is, is.  The presentations and videos I’ve done that I really was proud of, well, what they started with was good writing.  I’m pretty sure it was a blog earlier this month in which I commented that my AR pitch, a work I’m pretty proud of, basically got written in the half-hour between my mammogram and a nail appointment—and then took another 40 hours to turn into a video.  Now, it was a great educational experience, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but if somebody were paying for it, they should pay me for the writing and someone faster to do the visual!

So that voice is not, at this time, coming from an exuberant, adventurous place, but from the place that says, “Your gifts aren’t good enough!  Try harder!  You need to get better!”

Bite me.

So I’m going to stick with what I love, enjoy, and am good at.  Let’s do publication.

Wk4 Response 3: Anne Alsup’s Anecdotes


POST Extra
I too felt indignation at the thought of blaming myself for what was done to me, but Zanders is right, the blame game doesn’t make the world a better place.

Indignation.  Righteous anger—yep, that’s what it is. 

I’ve had to deal with several things the past few years that haven’t just seemed to me monstrously unjust but been documented by “Impartial Observers” to actually BE monstrously unjust.  (Ask me about the Batmobile some time.)  And this stupid book has me asking—not for the first time, but maybe with a touch more courage to hear the answer—what the heck I’m doing to precipitate this.  I still don’t know.  It doesn’t make sense to me.

But that’s where my calculating self has taken over; see, if I could get it to make sense, the unfairness would surely have to give way to sense, wouldn’t it?

Talk about stupid—how do we manage to cling to nonsensical ideas like that????

I’m not editing that out because I am making a—not a commitment, but an effort—toward transparency.  And that’s what I said to myself.

What is, is.  I cannot control the forces that create injustice and unfairness in the world.  What I can control is my commitment to Rule #6.  What I can control is my thoughts:  “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” has been the “watchman to my heart” this last 6 weeks, and I am beginning to see fruit.  (I heard a nurse explain once that emotions are chemical responses to our thoughts—and that we absolutely could not control the chemicals, but we COULD control the thoughts that produce them… with some practice!) 

I’m a little irritated at myself this afternoon that my “responses” to other people have been—just say it like it is, Deb—all about me.  But then I heard another thought:  that when something I say sparks learning & insight in someone else, I feel satisfied; I feel I’ve succeeded at my job.  I hope you feel that way now.  I’m having a hard time today, and you just made it easier.  Thanks.

Wk4 Response 2: Tricia’s Tech & Art


POST 3
"Trying to remember myself in each other person’s shoes will help me to react with a more enlightened attitude, just as Ben did when his students partied in South America. What would it have helped to “go off” like so many of us teachers are expected to do. Instead, the kids understood, felt enabled, apologetic, regretful, and still valued. Amazing."

Oi, Tricia—why is this such a hard thing?  It’s obvious that appealing to the best in young people means a different thing than I thought it did—that it means seeing the vision they’ve already got for themselves, NOT implanting the vision I’VE got for them—which is certainly why I “go off”! 

You know, I think of myself as a kind and giving person—that people feel better about themselves when I am around.  And there are a lot of instances where that just isn’t true.  Because there are an awful lot of instances where I’m all about me.  Even when I’m trying really hard to be all about… “not me”!!!!  LOL!

What is, is.  “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”  But it’ll surely beat the heck out of you first.  Hmmm… getting the “heck” out is kind of the point, though, isn’t it?………….

Wk4 Response 1: Jeannine Berube's Bodacious Blog


POST 2
"Am I willing to live in the Universe of Possibility?  That is the most honest question I can present to  myself as I finish reading this book.   Knowing now not only of this new universe, but also having been given the tools to navigate, am I ready to embark on this new adventure, to learn to be the “BOARD” on which my life is played?  Am I willing to enroll others in the “game” rather than scare them to death; to begin to create new frameworks of possibility, to truly tell the story of WE instead of me?"

My calculating part says “I’m tired”—my central self says “I’m scared.”  “STOP!  You’re BOTH right!”  (Was it a Doublemint commercial?)  Yes, having wrapped up my school year last week, the usual exhaustion is enervating me, making the much that is going on both personally and academically feel a lot harder than it is.  But I’m also very afraid of giving up some of my old roles and old rules.  Sure, they haven’t worked very well, but they’re the only roles and rules I’ve got.  I had.  I don’t have to choose to walk that way any more. 

You know what else you don’t need to do, Debra Jo?  You don’t need to undertake a revolution right now.  Just love yourself—give yourself the compassion and understanding you’d give someone else in your position!

Excuse me, Jeannine, I just took a little aside in our conversation to have one with myself, which was a little self-centered!  (Ha.  Ha.)  Uh oh.  How do you manage to constantly open me up to truth?  In fact, that’s all I’ve been doing—writing about me.  This morning, talking about being vines & branches, the pastor said something about producing fruit being about caring for the other person more than you care about yourself, and between that and the book, I’m open to seeing what I’m seeing, and hearing what you’re saying. 

I’m a little irritated at myself this afternoon that my “responses” to other people have been—just say it like it is, Deb—all about me.  But then I heard another thought:  that when something I say sparks learning & insight in someone else, I feel satisfied; I feel I’ve succeeded at my job.  I hope you feel that way now.  I’m having a hard time today, and you just made it easier.  Thanks.