Technology and Responsibility

The question I am going to try to answer this week is: "do schools have a responsibility to teach students how to use technology responsibly?" The answer is yes, schools do have certain responsibilities when it comes to teaching young students about the dangers that can be associated with technology use. As was pointed out in the videos young people just don't understand how their actions can effect them down the line. They do not understand that something that is being sent to one person can end up being seen by everyone in the school. The reality is, at least when it comes to things like sexting, that we can teach students about responsible technology use all that we want but there are still going to be young people doing this. Everyone can relate to being in middle school or high school and being "in love" with that "perfect" guy or girl. When it is looked back on as adults we realize that our hormones were just raging at that time and that we didn't actually "love" that person at all. These children are blinded by what they believe to be love or what they believe to be acceptance or whatever it may be and can still end up making mistakes like this even though they know it is the wrong thing to do. This whole situation is made ever more difficult when we think about how easy it is for children of a very young age to access the internet and to access everybody around them. Every single child has a cell phone and a computer very young and therefore it is hard to police what goes on when these children are using them.
If anything is going to stop this culture of sexting being the "cool" thing than it is going to have to be done by using teamwork. Schools and parents need to band together and tell the stories of students that have made this same mistake. Their stories may make students realize that this momentary lapse in judgement can follow them around for years and eventually ruin their lives. Having talked about this subject with many girls my age over the years I feel that my generation has gotten wise to what can happen when it comes to the abuse of technology. Most of these girls find it offensive and disgusting to share themselves in an obscene way. This leads me to believe that it is becoming a problem in younger and younger children. As I said before I attribute that to children having cell phones and computers at increasingly young ages. The only way to combat this dangerous trend is to educate students from a VERY young age of the consequences of using technology in an inappropriate way. I feel that young people don't realize how connected everything is on the internet and how easy it is for people to see everything that you do. The second part of my solution can only come from parents. Parents should hold off on giving smartphones and computers to their children until they are older and able to responsibly use these tools. Even if a child is given computer access, perhaps the access could be restricted so that nothing in the form of sexting could happen. It is becoming very clear that this is a huge problem in this country but with a little cooperation between schools and parents, children can be taught to be responsible and safe users of technology.

Fair Use and Education.

Fair use is a fairly simple concept that becomes a bit confusing when you begin thinking about the gray areas that exist when it comes to copyright laws and regulations. When somebody puts a copyright on something that they have created, such as an invention, it gives that person exclusive rights to the idea, design, and distribution of that invention. If I were to run home and build the same thing and try to sell it, I would be breaking copyright law.
Fair use comes into play when copyrighted material is being used for educational purposes in the classroom and therefore it is very important for teachers to understand the policy. As I learned from the articles that I read fair use is determined based on four factors: purpose of use, nature of work, amount used, and effect on the market. The first factor is pretty simple. Are you using this work for profit or are you using it to enrich a lesson in your classroom? If you are using a work as an educational tool then much of the time it is fair use. The only way that this could be deemed copyright infringement is if teachers were photocopying entire books and handing them out to the classroom. This is copyright infringement because it effects the market for that book. Since the teacher has copied the entire book for free, none of those students ever have to purchase the book to use it for their educational needs. This loses the publisher and author money for the work that they have created and therefore is against the law. If small excerpts from works or movies are being used to enhance the classroom experience than it is generally fair use. If a teacher is not making a profit, uses only the parts that they need, and does not effect the marketability of a work than it is fair use and can be used in the classroom to help educate students.

Video Tutorial.

I decided to do my video tutorial on a wonderful book called Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively. The book is about a woman named Claudia that has spent her whole life writing popular histories and she has spent her whole life writing her own history, literally and figuratively. This book is college level but I am sure that an advanced high school junior or senior English class could definitely do it.

The assignment that I have given my students is to write about an event in their lives that could be seen from two different perspectives. I want them to think outside the box and not only see how the event was to them but how it might have seemed to the other people involved. Would they agree or would they not agree with my version of events? The second part of the assignment is to look at the history of the world and ask a few questions. Can we trust those that recorded all of the history that we learn about? Can we trust our own memory when it comes to recording our personal history? Is there a reason that someone would deliberately record false history? The issue of trusting recorded history and trusting one's memory is the biggest issue tackled in this novel and I think it is an important one.

There are several goals that I have for my students when completing this assignment. I want them to learn not to trust everything that is taught to them blindly. I want them to ask questions. I want them to be skeptical. I want them to think outside the box and say "what if?" I feel that it is too often that students just waltz through their education and don't question a single thing that a teacher says even though some of it may be wrong. This is a huge disservice to students because once they leave school they're still not going to ask questions. They're still going to take everything that is told to them to heart. This essentially kills the learning process. If you are constantly questioning, thinking, and researching then you will never stop learning, whether you are in school or not. Another thing that I like about this assignment is that it isn't strictly an English assignment. Yes, the writing must be good and it does involve careful reading but it also involves history. It involves doing a little bit of research in another discipline. I believe that blurring the lines between subjects can be a very worthwhile way of teaching students. It teaches the mind to openly think about things instead of only being able to tackle one subject at a time.

Week 9 Assignment.

Screenr was a very easy program to use and I actually had a good deal of fun putting together the powerpoint and then putting attempting to put together an adequate voice performance to accompany it.  In last week's blog I expressed the things that I didn't like very much about powerpoint presentations. I feel as if students don't listen and copy the slides furiously and I feel like teachers post word for word what they are going to say and that is not the way to go. Having said that I think there are times that these slideshows can be effective.
Would I use a slideshow with a voice recording on it in my classroom? Probably not. I do not see the value in having something recorded through a site like Screenr when I could just as easily speak the lesson myself. I do, however, feel that there is a place in education for this tool. Every year students miss days for being sick or fall behind because they just aren't grasping the concepts fast enough. The easy solution would be for the teacher to spend extra time with that student but when you have 120 students it becomes impossible for you to spend extra time with all of them. There just aren't enough hours in the day. As we learned earlier in the semester many teachers are required to have a webpage on the school site. Teachers could record their lectures and post the slideshows or the notes from class and post them on the site. This would give students an opportunity to go back and take a little bit more time to absorb the information. If a student is out sick and feels as if they have fallen behind the lesson is just a click away. There really is a difference between just going to another student and copying the notes and being able to hear what the teacher is saying. Students may ask questions that don't show up on the notes and if you are not present than you have missed out on this important information. I believe that Screenr could help teachers reach students outside of school hours in a way that not many other programs have managed. Bringing the classroom to students when they aren't actually in the classroom is something that can certainly help bridge the gap between very successful students and struggling students.

Slideshow

I have never been the biggest fan of powerpoint presentations. I always felt that it was an excuse for me to furiously copy everything and not pay any attention to a word that my teacher was saying. This can be attributed to several things. First of all, my teacher's slideshows were always long, boring, word for word accounts of what they had to say. It was like copying down the bible or something and just when you thought you were going to finish before the slide changed, it did. This left you with incomplete notes and with no way to fill in the blanks because your mind had been so set on copying that you hadn't heard a word of the lecture. Secondly, I always felt like it was a teacher's easy way out. There was no innovation in what we were learning. It showed that the teacher had given that exact same speech to every class that day and we were just mindlessly listening to it. There was no humor, room for going off to different discussions, or anything of that sort. I'm a big believer that in order to learn, students need to be having fun and powerpoint presentations are far from being fun.

Having said all of that, I do think that they can be successful if done correctly. As the video and article showed us the slides should only have talking points on them. The information should be coming from the instructor, not the slides. They are there just as a basic outline of what is going to be said. Also, the distractions are immense when words and colors start swirling and whirling around the screen. I think that the simpler the slides can be made, the better. My slideshow highlights some of the things that I would like to teach my students in my future English class. In the slides that follow I showed some of the ways that the students will be learning these tasks and next week I will be adding more in depth analysis when I add my voice to it. The final project is in depth and jumps across the many different things I want my students to learn. It will teach them to work together, use technology, critique, and write well written and thought out stories.

Podcast Assignment.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

While making my podcast I really had a wonderful time thinking about the assignment that I would want my students to do and pushing it forward to them in a unique way such as a podcast. This really got me thinking about how if I'm having so much fun with this educational tool than my students could have just as much fun. As I've mentioned countless times, having fun is one of the key ingredients to getting students engaged and involved in their education. I also really loved the idea that the video gave about giving feedback to students through podcasts. Every student becomes disheartened when they receive a graded paper that has more red ink on it than their own handwriting. By giving feedback through podcasts students don't need to see that discouraging sign. It makes a student feel as if the teacher is constructively giving a personalized critique of everything that they had written. The red ink can sometimes feel like an unfair attack by the teacher.
For this assignment I asked my students to do quite a few things. First, I asked them to choose a poem that they enjoyed. This poem could come from any poetry book or website that they choose. The next step is for them to read the poem extremely carefully and note the poetic devices that the author uses such as metaphor, simile, personification, allusion, etc. and speak about how effectively (or ineffectively) they though the author used them. This is where I want the students to give me an overall impression of the piece.
The next step is research based. I want the students to research the author and the time period during which the author lived. This should raise some interesting questions for the students. How are the poems a product of their time period? How did the poet's life affect the way he or she wrote? How did the other author's of the time period or from times before influence the author? Was the author part of a major poetry movement? If so, who were the other important authors of the time? How are the authors different from their chosen author? How are they the same? I give the students a lot of freedom to choose what kinds of issue he or she would like to explore when it comes to their poems. I feel like when a little bit of freedom is given to the students they become mush more involved in their research and writing because they enjoy it so much more.
The next part of this assignment is technology based. The students are asked to create a podcast in which they will be reading the poem that they have chosen for the first part or a poem that they have written themselves. If the student chooses to use the poem from the first part then the reading should be followed by their impressions of the poem and whether the poem was effective or not in their eyes. I have also urged students to have fun with this and perhaps read the poem in the style of the poem's author. If the student chooses to do a poem of their own then I have urged them to follow up the reading with a short response about what inspired them to write the poem. Who are some of their poetic influences? How did the student make decisions about rhyme, metaphor, simile, etc? As I said before this assignment is meant to blend poetry knowledge, research skills, and technological skills together to create a fun and interesting project that I believe the students will get a lot from.

Google Docs.

Having not used Google Docs much before this assignment I was amazed at how easy and useful it can be. I can't even count the number of times that somebody not receiving my e-mail or something being wrong with the e-mail server compromised my ability to produce the work that was due for classes. With Google Docs everything is made so much simpler. There is no copying and pasting and worrying about whether the e-mail got through or not. I love the idea of students being able to collaborate, change things around, and really interact with the work and each other through using this tool while still being in real time. Earlier in the semester I wrote about how I would love to have my class do a class newspaper and while wikis may still be a more appropriate tool for the newspaper, Google Docs could definitely be utilized during the brainstorming and planning stages.
I love the idea of students being able to interact online while working on English based projects because it just can be so useful in today's society. Being able to read and write have always been basic standards that are necessary for us to move along in our education but in this age of booming technology another area has emerged. Technological literacy is extremely important for young students that want a chance to compete in the job market once they graduate school. With technology changing so fast, it is our job to prepare these students with the skills to operate the basic online based tools such as blogs, wikis, and Google Docs so that later they can add onto this on their own. It is essential that students continue to explore technology outside of the classroom because technology changes so fast that what they learn today could be obsolete tomorrow. It is the educators job to provide the basic skills and try to motivate students to continue to grow on their own.

21st Century Learning.

Is there a place for 21st Century Learning in our schools? Of course there is. Does this mean that we need to eliminate content and the gathering of knowledge in order to incorporate 21st Century Learning? No, that makes no sense at all, although it seemed like several of the critiques of 21st Century Learning portrayed it as just that. The reality is that we need to incorporate 21st Century Learning into the confines of the curriculum that we already teach. 

The world is changing more rapidly than any person could ever change. Sir Ken Robinson makes a wonderful point in his video by pointing out that we are supposed to be preparing students that are starting school now to work for the next fifty years when in reality we have no idea what the world will be like in five. One thing we do know, however, is that technology will only become a larger part of schooling as the years pass and more advanced technology comes along. It is for this reason that students MUST be introduced to basic and advanced technological concepts early on in schooling. By the time that these students leave college and are ready to compete in a global economy they need to be versed in the newest technology to have any chance of coming into a good job. On top of that we need to equip students with the tools to adapt even after they are out of school so that they can continue to evolve as technology evolves. What does this mean for teachers? It means that teachers need to be just as fluent in this technology as the students that they are teaching. This is something that was not nearly as necessary ten years ago, proving Sir Ken Robinson's point on how fast the world is changing. It will require extra education and dedication from the educators of today and the educators of tomorrow in order to integrate technology successfully into the classroom and prepare students for life after school. 

From my experience tutoring in several Newark and Montclair schools throughout the years I have found that collaboration between students is essential for the growth of social skills and academic skills. Students that are not comfortable or hesitant working on overwhelming projects alone can find comfort in the helping hand of somebody that is going through the same thing. A second point on this, which i've made before, is that some students don't feel comfortable raising questions or putting forth ideas to an instructor because they don't want to be embarrassed if they are wrong. From my experience a lot of this disappears when the groups are made up of other students. This prepares students for their future careers. There is not one job that students will be vying for that doesn't require collaboration among co-workers. Teachers, businessmen, construction workers, engineers, pilots, and ANY other job is going to require you to work as a team to maximize productivity. This process starts early and the social skills required to do that can be cultivated in the classroom. 

All in all, 21st Century Learning is something that is absolutely necessary for students moving forward as long as it is done in the right way. Collaboration, critical thinking, and technology integration cannot completely replace the knowledge that students must acquire in order to understand certain concepts. There will always be a place in schooling where students need to gain knowledge and learn information in content areas but these goals can be accomplished through things such as group activities, on-line class wikis/blogs, etc. that incorporate the 21st Century Learning method. 

Week 4

Ever since we were assigned to create a wiki I have not been able to stop formulating ways that they could be utilized in my classroom. The ease that they can be created with and the many ways they can be used are the main attractions to this form of technological tools.
The strand that I would incorporate into this lesson is Creativity and Innovation because I believe that these are two very important things to put into a literature/writing class. Students need to be willing to take risks and not be afraid to be as creative and different as they so choose. In an English class there are often many right answers to a question and if a student is too afraid to explore all of the possibilities than the class is a complete waste.
I am going to be assigning this project to my ninth grade class so the content statement is: The use of digital tools and media-rich resources enhances creativity and the construction of knowledge.
The Cumulative Progress Indicator for this assignment is: Synthesize and publish information about a local or global issue or event on a collaborative, web-based service.
As I mentioned before I am going to have my students use wikis in order to create on-line newspapers. The students will be placed into groups of four and each student would be responsible for choosing one section that they would like to include in this newspaper (sports, movies, music, books, etc.). Once each student has provided an idea for a section in the newspaper, each student in the group will write ONE STORY FOR EACH SECTION. For example, there will be four sections in the newspaper and each student will write four stories, one for each section, for a total of sixteen stories. Once the students have peer reviewed and allowed me to review each one of the stories than they can begin their task of putting the newspaper together using their group wiki. They will be required to use pictures, creative formatting, and video if they so choose. Of course the stories must also be written well (good grammar, correct information, etc.). The stories must also be cited correctly and the research tools that are used must be reliable.
All together this activity will teach students how to use a useful tool such as wikis effectively. It will also force them to sit down and examine the world around them. Maybe instead of going on Facebook, they'll check out some news sites. Instead of watching cartoons they'll read the newspaper or watch the news. It will allow them to express events going on in the world around them creatively through the use of technology. As I've mentioned before, students that are having fun and moving outside of their comfort zones while learning stay much more engaged and, I believe, will eventually learn more.
This assignment could also be looked at under the strands:
a. Technology Operations and Concepts because they will be learning to embed pictures and videos and be learning how to format text in effective and creative ways.
c. Communication and Collaboration because these students will have to work together in order to make this newspaper accurate and well presented. They will be able to help each other with difficulties that arise throughout the process.
e. Research and Information Literacy because these students will have to research the stories that they are writing in order to make them as accurate as possible. They will need to practice sound research practices to ensure that everything they write is cited properly and is truthful.

Wikis as a Tool in the Classroom.

For this week's assignment I decided to create a wiki on one of my favorite topics in the english/literature field that I am studying: poetry. I tried to push forth the idea of why some people get started in poetry and I posted some resources that may help students begin writing. The first website I posted is full of scholarly articles, famous poets, and other useful tools that can used in research or for personal growth in the subject. The other site I posted is a commonly used site that can be posted on by any aspiring poet. It gives people the chance to share their poetry with others that are in the same position. It also gives everyone the opportunity to read and critique other's poetry. From there I posted some of my favorite poetry through videos and text. I tried to find videos that exemplified the way that you can combine poetry with other areas such as art and music.
I can see how a wiki could be an incredibly useful classroom tool. For one, unlike a blog, everyone in the classroom could contribute to the wiki directly. Sure, people can comment on my blog but they are not adding directly to the page and making it a more useful page for the next person that visits it. Perhaps there are some things on my poetry wiki that I didn't include and others might think that it would be helpful to add some stuff. This interactive site allows somebody to add on and improve the site at the click of a button.
The list of uses for the wikis really inspired me to think about how I could apply these tools to my future classroom. I specifically love the idea of having mock debates, dong literature circles, creating a class newspaper, and multi author stories. These are all assignments that I have done throughout my school career but adding the technology aspect prepares students through English education and keeps them up to date on the current technology, which is one of the most important things in today's fast changing world. Before this assignment I had never worked with wikis before but finding out how much fun I could have with them makes me realize how much fun my future students would have using them. It is much easier for students to learn if they are engaged and having a good time while learning.

Shore Regional High School Website.

I explored many school's websites and found it interesting that many of the schools I was checking out didn't require teachers to have websites because they can be incredibly helpful tools. I eventually settled on a pretty good teacher website from Shore Regional High School. It is the website of a music teacher named Mr. Kevin Pryor. What originally struck me about this page was right from the start he sold the music program on the homepage. He describes the program as "award winning" and goes on to name the numerous programs that students can enroll in. This includes marching band, jazz band, concert band, music theory, and a few others. This fascinated me because in my high school there was band class and music class. If you didn't want to take one of those two than you didn't get to study music.
Each class has its own section on the page and he doesn't skimp on the amount of information that is provided for each. For example, the chorus section of the page includes the syllabus and the schedule of practices and performances, which is to be expected. He also provides a large amount of recordings that students can use to practice for performances. Under the Band tab he provides another large selection of recordings to practice with. Just by reading the assignments it can be told that Mr. Pryor is a demanding teacher who loves to challenge his students. The assignments that are listed are very in depth and, even as a musician who has played the saxophone for many years, they seem to be difficult.
I have already discussed the reasons that this site is helpful to the students but how is it helpful for the parents of those students? Well, in many places music is an elective. It takes time outside of school, extra funding, and a pretty large commitment if one is to be successful and get everything out of the program that he or she can. Having an instructor that puts this much time and thought into the website for his classes gives parents a confidence that their children aren't wasting their time in the program. Everything is laid out logically and the site is very easy to use if a parent ever needed to contact him or check up on the assignments of their children. It is set up in a way so that there is no room for confusion.
As a side-note, although I didn't notice this when I first began writing this post, Mr. Pryor actually graduated from Montclair State. Just pointing out a strange coincidence.

Shore Regional High School Website.

My Experience With Technology.

When it comes to technology I would categorize myself as "average." I own a Macbook Pro and have, after about a year, figured out how to do pretty much everything on it. I also own my first smartphone, the iPhone 4s, and have figured out that pretty well too. On the subject of blogging this actually isn't the first blog that I have been involved with. I am also on a blogging site called Tumblr and have found that it gives much more room for exploration and customization than Facebook or any other social networking site. I use it to post original writings, workout logs, pictures, and any other entertaining things that I can find while exploring the site. I find this to be a pretty good resource to find others that share my interests in writing, music, humor, and being able to share all of this with others.
My opinion about technology in the classroom is that it is a wonderful resource. Until I began at Montclair State in 2008 the exposure to technology in school was very limited. The amount of information that can be found through the library's database of scholarly articles and online books is amazing and has proved invaluable when writing my countless term papers over the last four years. It is  phenomenal how information can be recalled, from the classroom, at the drop of a hat and applied to the current lesson. The advantages of technology in the classroom also come with the downsides of this technology. Especially when it comes to college courses there often seems to be more time being spent on Facebook or playing games then taking notes or locating information that could prove useful to the lesson that is being taught. I tried taking notes on my computer when I arrived in college but in the end it just proved to be too big of a distraction for me. It seems that I will always be a pen and paper kind of person when it comes to taking notes. In short, I believe that technology needs to be truly integrated into the classroom but I don't believe that technology should become the classroom. There is still value in reading books on paper and being able to write a quick note in the margin or being able to connect
related points in your notebook by drawing an arrow across the page.
A couple things really struck me about the article and the video that we were assigned to watch for this week. I was particularly impressed with the way that the teachers weren't only using the technology to teach lessons straight from the curriculum but they were also using the technology to get students to learn about their cultures. This idea that teachers shouldn't just teach students about a certain book or subject matter but should teach students how to go home and continue to learn on their own is essential to the growth of the education system. The lessons that the teacher taught about "Amistad" were greatly enhanced by the fact that students could dig deeper by doing extra research.
When I was tutoring during my undergraduate classes I developed a big belief that students should always be helping other students. Sometimes a student is too ashamed or intimidated to ask for help from an instructor but would feel comfortable voicing problems with another student. The GenYES program impressed me to no end because I feel that it would solve so many of the problems that I encountered throughout my education. By having students work with teachers and having the teaching and learning go both ways, students begin to feel more as equals. The intimidation factor will begin to melt away and an open dialogue can ensue. The younger generations are learning about technology much faster than the older ones and in order for teachers to become comfortable enough with this technology to utilize it effectively in the classroom there is nobody better to turn to than the students.
Technology integration is an important part of education today because the times are changing faster than most of us can. Technology can keep us up to date on the newest strategies, information, and anything else we could possibly need to bring into our classrooms. One of the last lines of "Learning to Change - Change to Learn" really made me think about the future of the education system. At around the 5:00 mark of the video one of the speakers remarks that it is the "death of education but the dawn of learning." It is a very true statement and it means that we can't rely on the outdated textbooks and hundred year old strategies in order to teach students and keep up with the rate that the world is changing. It is time to learn how to learn again and the only way to effectively do that is to successfully bring technology into today's classrooms.

About Me.

Hey everybody, my name is Chris Williams and I live in Colonia, New Jersey. I graduated with a bachelor's degree from Montclair State in the Spring of 2012 and after having worked several odd jobs since, I decided that it was time to get back to school and finish what I had started. I am currently studying to receive my Masters of Teaching English. Reading and writing are my two passions and you can usually find me with my nose in a book or jotting story ideas in a notebook. Some of my favorite writing would have to be the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and J.R.R. Tolkien. Another thing I love to do is create music. Throughout the years I have been the singer of several bands that have played around New Jersey and I have also played the saxophone since fourth grade, although it has been a while at this point. I am a diehard sports fan and root for the New York Yankees, Giants, and Knicks. I played baseball and football my whole life through high school and attribute that to my continuing dedication to working out and staying as healthy as possible.  I've been in a relationship for four years and am very lucky to have someone that can put up with me all the time and motivate me to move forward in my life and work towards my goals. All in all, I'm in a very good place in my life and I'm excited, albeit a bit nervous, to start this next chapter that will hopefully end with the beginning of my teaching career.