Oh the Possibilities

After reading just the first two chapters of Richardson, I feel inspired. I know I can't do it all but I am excited to start. I am looking forward to using the free tools that are available to us, as teachers and as citizens, to create interactive learning opportunities for my students. One of my favorite quotes from the reading is the comparisons between writing and blogging: "Writing stops; blogging continues. Writing is inside; blogging is outside. Writing is monologue; blogging is conversation. Writing is thesis; blogging is synthesis." I liked this so much because it seems that a lot of formative assessment is handing in a culminating paper or responding in a journal that a teacher scores and gets back to you, but a blog provides feedback opportunities from someone other than the teacher and the conversation and learning can continue beyond handing it in; publishing is NOT the end.

One issue that has continually been brought up at school has been how to motivate our students and how to get them to that "next level of achievement." How do we move beyond proficiency and push our students to achieve at the goal and advanced performance levels? I think that blogging could be the answer we have been looking for; blogs are tools that engage readers with ideas, questions and links and they seek response and commentary and advocate collaboration. We want students to take ownership in their work and seek further knowledge. 

To me it seems that blogging opens doors to endless possibilities and provides opportunities for students to submit works and receive feedback from peers and contributors that are not always their teacher (fancy that). I think this work is easier said than done and that a lot of planning and pre-teaching must be happen to have a classroom blog work as an effective learning tool. Even at a whole school level, positive implications can be seen, take the school webpage from Meriwether Lewis Elementary School in Portland, OR for example. This page shows a wide range of interaction possibilities. In exploring the page it is obvious the second that it loads that the school's site is more of a news outlet than a site to answer the who, what, where of the school. Just the homepage features 5 posts of school activities in the past week, what an easy way to build a school community and create rapport and bonds between classes, families and community members.  Are blogs the answer to student engagement and family involvement?

New Literacies and NETS

When I think of New Literacies, in its upper case form, I am reminded of my coursework in emergent literacy development. I connected the idea of New Literacies to the visual representation that is commonly connected to phonological awareness- a large umbrella. The umbrella was the overarching skill (phonological awareness) and underneath were the components of this "bigger picture." To me, the umbrella of New Literacies, is the skills students and global citizens need to have to successfully interact with the internet as a learning tool. In "Comments on Greenhow, Robelia and Hughes: Expanding the New Literacies Conversation,", the authors state how new literacies can have different meaning to different people. New literacies, in its lowercase form, were those underlying skills of the umbrella, the concepts that need to be achieved in order to reach full aptitude of the overarching idea. In the case of New Literacies, it was important to note that although the new literacies build and further learning possibilities, these skills are continually changing along with the bigger picture. Also, new literacies differ for each person because each persons motives and objectives differ as well.

Think about the constant improvements and changes being made to the internet and the endless possibilities it holds. Parallel this thought with the many schools already behind in educational technologies and think, will education ever catch up and maximize the potential in the internet as a learning tool- as an instructional means to extend learning and increase engagement, collaboration and reflection?

In the recent years of educational reform there has been lots of attention and time focused on learning standards; state standards, national standards, content standards. Although they have been mentioned and grazed over there has not been much thorough discussion on technology standards (at least not at my school).  Administrators look for technology use in lessons and teachers experiment with using the internet to supplement their instruction, but without a rigorous expectation of technology integration and accountability, education will continue to be well behind in instructional options.

The National Educational Technology Standards mirror the lack of discussion in the manner that they too are vague and lack specificity. The NETS for teachers and students both follow five main ideologies. Interesting to me, were the standards for teachers and the action verbs used to describe teacher roles in student learning:  facilitate and inspire, design and develop, model, promote and engage in growth and leadership. It isn't that I do not think this is too much responsibility on a teacher, because these are the things we do for our students on a daily basis, but in terms of technology to teachers have the skill set or opportunities to develop their own tech skills in order to teach today's students? 

From these initial readings and looking closely at the standards, I think an easy way to start incorporating technology into lessons would be modeling the way I navigate the internet to show students the videos or articles I was already planning on sharing. Teachers (including myself) will often have links imbedded into presentations or sites already up and waiting for lessons however I could see getting to these resources a lesson in itself. Students, especially elementary students, could benefit from seeing how to search a webpage or check validity of written works. 

Meet Me

Hi everyone,
My name is Shannon. I teach reading to PK-grade 6 students at CREC Montessori Magnet School in Hartford. I have taught there for 3 years and teaching students how to read/expand their literacy skills is a unique challenge but the students can always bring a smile to my face.

I just got married in the fall and we are currently making updates to our condo in order to sell it and start house searching. My husband and I have a 3 year old hound-mix, Bo. I love doing things outdoors, trying new things and anything that involves traveling.