Step by Step
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| Learning to Walk |
Last year, I was fortunate enough
to be around my nephew (who was then around a year old) when he was first
learning how to walk. Being the
first baby in the family, it was a rollercoaster of emotions ranging from
feeling proud and joyful to the anxiety and nervousness that he was going to
fall. I loved watching every
wobbly step but wanted to rush in to catch him if his wobble turned into a
stumble or a fall. I learned
through that experience, and with many reminders from my sister-in-law, that if
he didn’t go through that process of wobbling and stumbling on his own then
what would be the point of learning to walk, if he always had somewhere there
to catch him and put him back on his feet?
Weaving my way through this
inquiry process brought me back to this same experience, only this time I was
the one learning how to walk and stumbling my way through it. I think that when I began this inquiry
process I had the intention to stand and run, meanwhile forgetting about the stumbling
and walking that comes prior.
Lucky for me, through the tools that I chose, I had many others that
could offer me a shoulder to hold, in order to keep me on my feet. The professional community that I have
discovered became my cheering crowd, motivating me to continue to take baby
steps. I may not have stood and
ran like I intended, but I believe that I am well on my way.
Reflecting on Personal and Professional Goals
Four goals were the basis and the
foundation of my inquiry project.
While I may not have accomplished every aspect of all four, I am on my
way and I have no intention of turning back now.
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| Professional Learning Network |
1.
How
can Web 2.0 tools be used to grow and expand my Professional Learning Network
outside of my school environment?
When I think
about this goal, Twitter immediately jumps to my mind. I was very cautious about entering the
“Twitterverse” prior to beginning this inquiry because of the thoughts of
having another Facebook-like account that brought me useless information about
the day-to-day lives of people that I don’t even know. Being very selective in my choices of
who to follow has allowed me to very successful grow an online Professional
Learning Network through Twitter.
My intention with Twitter was to use it as a professional development
tool and so I have only chosen to follow individuals who use their Twitter
account as a professional tool. I
do not want to know about when these individuals went to the grocery store or
that they went to see a movie, so I do not choose to follow individuals who
Tweet personally. Instead, the groups
of professionals that I have chosen to follow provide me with enormous amounts
of support, ideas, and learning opportunities sent directly to my devices each
and every day.
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The greatest
benefit that has occurred from my Twitter usage is the support that I have for
the integration of technology as well as Daily 5 in my classroom. There is a large group of teachers out
there who, like me, are exploring either technology and/or Daily 5 in their
classroom and are reaching out for support. In the wide world of the online universe, it feels great to
be able to reach out and find support from, basically, strangers who are
willing to help in any way possible.
The other aspect
of my Professional Learning Network has come through my Google Reader and RSS
feed. At first, I was a bit
overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information that was delivered to my Google
Reader each day, but slowly I began to realize that I did not have to follow
every blog that I found one good post from or that I did not have to fully read
every post that was delivered.
Again, begin selective in which blogs I choose to follow has allowed me
to create a great basis of information that relates to those areas in which I
am specifically looking for professional development (Daily 5 and Technology)
as well as some personal opportunities such as blogs about my community of Fort
McMurray. Also, realizing that if
a post was delivered that maybe I was not interested in or did not relate to my
teaching and learning situation, it was perfectly fine to skim over or
completely bypass.
Over the past
couple of weeks I have added and removed blogs from my Google Reader account
and users from my Twitter following list and I will continue to make
adjustments as my teaching and learning situation grows and changes. This inquiry process has allowed me the
opportunity to discover and develop a group of professionals who I can relate
to and learn through and with as we all continue to grow and change in our
professional lives.
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| Clutter |
2.
How
can Web 2.0 tools be used to better organize the enormous amounts of
information that I am exposed to on a daily basis?
Technology has
finally become my organizational friend instead of my enemy. Prior to beginning this inquiry
process, I had long since given up on any hope of finding a way to organize
myself in this online world.
Bookmarks, useful lesson plan ideas, interesting articles, recipes, etc.
all became part of a cluttered mess of information that I never had the
opportunity to look back at and use to their full potential. A notebook sat beside my computer so
that I could jot down notes of useful links that I had found, but then finding
the information in the notebook also became a monotonous task, or the notebook
was not around when I found something useful on another device.
Evernote and
Diigo have become two of my favorite tools for becoming organized in this great
big online universe. The fact that
they can be loaded onto all of my devices and link everything back to one
central “warehouse” of information that has categories, tags and a fully
developed organization system, has allowed me to take control of the
information that I want to use instead of the information taking control of
me. I no longer feel overwhelmed
or lost in the midst of great information because I can take control and
organize it in a manner than allows me to return to it and pull out at a later
date without any frustration.
It has also
taught me to be more diligent in the organization in other areas such as my
e-mail or documents and files on my computer. I have learned to make clear folders and labels in order for
each piece of information to have a logical “drawer” in my extra large filing
cabinet of digital information. I
no longer have pages of e-mails that cause important messages to get lost in
the mess or dozens of files thrown into a generic folder that makes it
impossible to find.
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3.
How
can I integrate the use of Web 2.0 tools into the classroom setting at a
primary level?
Now that I have
become more comfortable with a number of these tools on my own, I am ready to
take steps to encourage the same from my students. Part of the roadblock that held me back previously was the
thought that the technologies were too advanced or beyond the ability level of
my young students. I had forgotten
that my students have grown up as what Prensky (as cited in Kist, 2010) calls
“digital native[s],” with this technology all around them and that, in many
cases, I had not given them enough credit (pg. 6). They can handle it and so as a class we are now ready to
take that next step forward.
Many of the
tools that I explored are designed with education in mine and are so
user-friendly that students would be more than capable of using them in order
to further expand the depth and breadth of their learning, as well as create
additional motivation factors.
I have taken
baby steps thus far, with the use of Google Apps accounts in the classroom and
introducing the idea of blogging to my students. We are beginning with looking at other students’ blogs and
the writing that occurs in those venues as well as forming comments and the
implications of putting our work online for the whole world to see. Students are remarkable in the ways
that they can surprise you and display such maturity and understanding of the
world as a whole. They seem to
understand the importance and implications of putting their work out there and
take it seriously. We will now be
ready to take on the blogging world after our Christmas break.
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| Sharing Information |
4.
How
can I share the uses and possibilities of these technologies with other
teachers in a way that inspires them to use them in their classrooms?
This is the goal
that I have had the most difficulties with. Coming from a small school with a lot of teachers that would
be considered “digital immigrants” (Prensky, 2001), it has been a difficult and
slow process. Luckily for me, I
have administration on my side with wanting the technology to be used to
inspire students and to be integrated into their learning.
Through my
Professional learning group, I have been able to give suggestions, tips and
strategies for using technology in the classroom but I still feel that the
technology is not being used to its full potential. I continue to offer tutorials about how to use the
technology, arrange webinars on various technological subject areas and assist
teachers in any way possible. I
have also show very basic ways that tools such as Glogster, Animoto and Google
Apps can be used with students in an attempt to inspire teachers to do the
same.
A lot of my
support comes from my own students.
The technology that we use in our classroom sticks with them and they
end up talking about it with students from other classes. As technology is very
motivating and inspiring, other students want to be able to do the same in
their classrooms and then ask their teachers if and when they can use the tools
as well.
I have not had a
lot of success as of yet with the tools that I explored through my inquiry, but
I am not ready to give up yet. I
have successfully encouraged teachers to use tools like Google Apps, Raz-Kids,
online review games, etc. with their students so I think it will just take more
time, assistance and persistence to allow teachers to become comfortable with
the tools and in turn use them with their students.
References
Kist, W. (2010). The socially
networked classroom, teaching in the new media age. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin Press.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6. Retrieved
October 10, 2001, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID:
10.1108/10748120110424816).
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