RSS in the Classroom

Three ways to use RSS fields in the ELA classroom:

1. Research projects where you would like students to be sharing and gaining information with others. You might give students an open range of topics, and then you as the teacher could add RSS feeds to your "aggregator" to help your students. In addition, your students could be using RSS feeds to gain new information every hour. This could be a great tool to have students bringing in new discussion information each class.

2. Each class could begin by students all sharing new information they received on their RSS feeds. (Of course somehow related to the Unit plan) Students might enjoy bringing in new information each day as opposed to being assigned a boring novel they may never read anyway.

3. Monitoring students blogging or wikis. An aggregator would allow the teacher to see what their students are posting at all times, without having to go to each different page. This would work much like the bloglines that we use to see who is posting new information for Eng 307. You could give students a deadline, and you would know if they did not meet it because it would not show as new information on bloglines.

Side Note:
I personally enjoy getting the NY Times feed. I find the news channels in the area tend not to be very informational when it comes to world news....Might be a great way to bring current events into the classroom...

3.0 Flat Teaching World

Friedmen discusses the employee who knows how to use technology and the employee that does not use technology. He states at one point, in "The Triple Convergence" chapter, that the business will not run smoothly just because they have new technology. The business will not run smoothly until all employees can use the technology. In the teaching world, we all need to know how to use technology to make education run smoothly.

As we have been discussing, technology in the classroom is what motivates students. Teachers need to know how to use this technology to create productive learning environments. Our students will need to fight to get more individualized jobs, and we need to prepare them with the tools they will need. Our students need to communicate and compete with not only other Americans, but other people from other countries as well.

To get the best job, and keep the education running smoothly teachers need to be able to use new technology. Teachers need to be able to teach the skills students need to make corporations run smoothly, etc.

College Buys You a Job

A college education buys you a decent job. The more you pay the more you receive. If you pay to go to Yale, you graduate with a degree from Yale, and that degree gets you a job. In my opinion Friedman would see this as another flattener. Everyone is trying to buy their way into a great job. Well certainly not everyone, because there are still those who do not go to college. Or what about those that go for a few years and realize that they cannot survive.

According to the NY Times Magazine article, the price of college has out grown the outcome of the college degree. I disagree with this idea. As I said before, the more you pay the more you receive. Not that those who go to more expensive colleges get better educations, because they certainly do not. The issue is that businesses are looking to hire the student who went to MIT or Yale, etc. I often hear of my friends that go to great schools getting great high-paying jobs.

The article also mentions the idea that what is most marketable is the person that can do more than one thing. The person who is capable of thinking outside the box, and has not concentrated on one area of study. This person is the creator of new things, things that have not been discovered yet that will bring in mass amounts of money. But then again, the You-Tube and Napster stories seem to come from places like Yale and Harvard...

Wiki Reflection

The wiki was an interesting project to undertake. My group and I learned how to navigate through wikis, and create internal/external links. I think I learned much more by working on the wiki on my own than I would have if someone had attempted to teach me how to use wikis. I think it is key to allow students to investigate technology on their own before giving them specific assignments. It is important for students to be comfortable with their surroudings, as I was with using the wiki.

Wikis are a good way to make students accountable for the work that is assigned to them. The material that is posted on wikipedia must be factual. Students would have to do their assignments and then post factual information about what they read or discovered on their wiki. Students create user names and therefore teachers can easily monitor their progress, and how often they post and how accurate their posts are.

NCTE and Media Literacy

"1. Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works."http://www.ncte.org

That is the first standard on the NCTE website. This standard, in my mind, covers all of the other standards. We need to build our students' understanding of the cultures of the U.S. and the World. As we know, technology is the key ingredient to many cultures around the world. Teaching students to understand cultures, and be able to respond to the demands of the world around them means teaching media literacy. Some of the other standards talk about students using a wide range of strategies with all kinds of literature. Teaching media literacy gives students the strategies to access the internet and the advertisements they view all the time, etc.

One of the standards expresses the idea that students participate in a variety of literacy communities. Social/community websites are a literacy community. Students would be able to learn from people all over the world by accessing these types of websites. In other words, get involved in other cultures. Students can learn about and understand the world by studying and using the media. They no longer have to read about other cultures from books alone. Students can now blog with people in other cultures and learn first hand about their world.

Renee Hobbs and Media Literacy

Renee Hobbs researched how media literacy was being taught in English 11. I think her research relates very closely to the standards Project Look Sharp is addressing. Hobbs set out to prove that teaching media literacy improves reading comprehension and writing skills. Hobbs also goes into detail discussing how teaching media literacy teaches students how to critically analyze the media that is all around them. I think her research is extremely important to today's schools. I think more schools should be adopting media literacy into the regular curriculum of the ELA classroom. It is more important to teach students how to read the world they live in, than to teach them how to read books they cannot relate to or understand.

I find Hobb's ideas for teaching critical analysis of news shows very interesting. Students need to understand what is fiction and non-fiction in a realistic sense. I think her research reflects the information that Warlick and Richardson are telling us needs to be in our classrooms. We need to be using social websites, searching the web, and analyzing media with our students. I think what Hobbs is discussing in her book is a great way to get students motivated in the classroom. Students might not mind reading or writing during class if it is based on a TV show, etc.

The Six Principles of Project Look Sharp

The first principle of PLS talks about looking at literacy from books to websites. Hobbs was researching teachers that brought different types of media into the classrooms. Teachers that went beyond looking at books and started looking at TV ads and websites. Hobbs researched the impact that bringing media into the classroom had on student achievement.

PLS also talks about the importance of students being able to analyze media. Students need to be able to recognize bias and credibility, according to PLS. Similarly, Hobbs discusses the way in which students analyze the news, fiction and non-fiction. Hobbs mentions the idea of "what is newsworthy?" Teaching students in the way PLS suggests, and Hobbs suggests students will be able to critically analyze the world around them, and not just the old dusty novel on the shelf.

Hobbs looked at media literacy in the English classroom, but as PLS suggests I think media literacy should be taught across the curriculum.

The Machine

Digital text is the new text! What a message! In other words, why are we still teaching the old fashioned way? Write the paper, print the paper, grade the paper, toss the paper...

This is the begining of the paperless classroom. The youtube video, puts everything we have been learning, in English 307, in perspective. I think teaching using the wikis and blogging will keep students doing what they love. Students enjoy blogging on eachother's pages, and commenting on myspace. Why not have them doing these things in the classroom in an educational way? For the first time, students can do something they love in school. Not only is blogging something they enjoy, but it is something that is useful. Students will be using blogs and web 2.0 in the real world. So why not teach them something they can use?

And I'll say it again, let students socialize through the web! This is how our students are going to be learning. This is how oue students are going to be living! The video reiterates everything Warlick and Richardson have been discussing on blogs and in books for years.

Unlearning #3

Will Richardson writes, "We need to unlearn the notion that our students don't need to see and understand how we ourselves learn." I completely agree with Will here. It is extremely important for students to see how we learn. For instance modeling how we write. Our writing process could be something that we model for our students. Students want to know how their teachers think, and what our thought processes are.

Going back to my previous two posts, I think it is important for students to teach the teachers about technology. Let them teach you then they can see how you, as the teacher learn. Learning is something we all do everyday. We have no reason to make anyone believe that we as teachers know absolutely everything. Because we certainly don't. So in my opinion, students should know how teachers learn and think!

Unlearning #2

Not only are we no longer the fountain of knowledge but our students, the "digital natives" know more than we do about technology. I am able to multi-task, but not quite like my students will be able to. They can type on the computer, talk to a friend on the phone, and watch tv or youtube all at the same time.

I recently read the Time Magazine article, "Are Kids too Wired for Their Own Good?" In this article, it talks about the idea that children are social creatures. Duh! Kids learn through socializing with one another. The amount of multi-tasking that kids are doing requires quite a bit of cognitive engagement. According to the article, "we know a staggering amount about the algebraic skills of today's teenagers but next to nothing about the skills they're actually going to use" (Johnson, Time Magazine). In other words, lets learn something from our students! Lets get them engaged in our classrooms. When it comes to technology, they can teach the teacher.

Lesson Idea: Put students into groups, and have each group come up with one piece of technology they can teach to you and the class. This would only take a couple class periods, but students would have ownership of their classroom.

Unlearning #1

Will Richardson's very first item to unlearn, on his blog http://weblogg-ed.com, is the whole idea of the teacher being the fountain of knowledge. Teachers are no longer the only ones with knowledge in the classroom. Not only can our students teach us, but we can connect through the internet to people that have more knowledge than we do. For example, a teacher could be teaching a current novel, and have easy access to discussing the novel with the author. Many times, authors have their own blogs or websites, let alone email.

We can't always be the fountain of knowledge! It's not any fun anyway! During student teaching I truly enjoyed teaching lessons where my students did their own thinking and learning. They work with eachother to build on prior knowledge and create meaning. Now I could even teach lessons where my students might be able to show me a thing or two about technology.

What should students learn in ELA Classrooms?

What should students learn in ELA classrooms? Well if you listen to Will Richardson's recent podcast you might have an idea. The men in the podcast discuss a program called "Second Life" this program, which I haven't had a chance to resarch yet, is going to be changing teaching and learning in the United States. Because of something called an online presence, you can represent yourself in any way that you want. This takes away perceptions that are present in verbal communication. Non-verbal communication in this case has quite an impact.

Social technologies are changing the world that we live in. There is very social learning going on most everywhere except in schools. We have citizen journalism with blogs, podcasts, and youtube. Politics is being changed by social technologies as well. People can converse about ideas on political blogs. Recently, canidacies were announced on youtube. Now politicians have to be even more careful, they are being watched and people can voice opinions on the internet to very large audiences.

Blogs allow conversations to go on after the class or conference has ended. Every area outside of school is using social technology. These sites are going to change what we know about schools and learning. Our students need to be using these sites as much in school as they do at home. These sites will help students connect with others and even engage each other in learning. Students should be writing, reading, and connected with others through social technologies. This is where the ELA classroom comes in. Students don't want to hear their teacher drone on about Macbeth. They would rather read and then be able to blog with each other about what is going on in the play. Social technologies should be working their way more and more into the ELA classrooms.

Flattener #4

I think making the connection here between community websites and enducation is a little difficult. I certainly think that community websites are great for education, and extremely useful, but I cannot tell if Friedman is talking about community websites in a good way. Friedman talks about the community websites as being a flattener. In this case, is that so bad?

If our students can connect with students all accross the world through a community website is that so bad? No, I certainly don't think so! Community websites help answer the question, "what should our students be learning?" Students should be learning how to communicate in a world that communicates through the internet. I think using community websites would engage students in the classroom. As research and Time Magazine tell us, our students are fluent in community websites. If we bring these things into the classroom, and use them as teaching/learning tools, students might find themselves motivated to do work in our classrooms.

In the case of community websites, in my opinion, go ahead and flatten the world!

Bookmarks and Favorites

When I write research papers, or just papers in general I often use information from many different sources. Usually, because I don't write a paper or a lesson plan in one sitting, I add the websites that I am using to the favorites on my computer. This way I can use the pages as a wish and never have to take the time to type in the web-address. If I am going to be using a computer other than my own, I email myself the list of websites. Then when I sit down to do work on a different computer I can use the same websites, since I can't access my personal favorites from another computer.

Little did I know that there are websites out there that can make this an even easier process. I took a look a www.backflip.com, and this site can be used to bookmark all your favorite sites. Or particualr sites you may be using at any given time. The great thing about this is that it doesn't just save the sites to your personal computer. You can now access your favorite pages from any computer anywhere without going through the effort of emailing yourself, etc. Another site like this one, but completely devoted to teachers is http://pinetlibrary.com. The great thing about this site is that it's teachers saving their favorite pages. You can access other sources that other teachers find useful. Instead of googling to help you create lesson plans, you can now connect easily with other sites that other teachers are using all the time. This is a great way to see what good and bad things other teachers are attempting, and maybe other teachers will enjoy using the information you can provide for them.