Saturday, February 1, 2014
Networked Classroom or Bust
Twelve years ago, I worked in a small public school district with only one school at every level. In my 3rd year of teaching I decided to move to the middle school and try my hand at teaching only 6th grade math all day. I thought it would be much easier than trying to plan for all the subjects in elementary. Well, I was completely correct in this thinking, but I had many challenges too. I was the ONLY 6th grade math teacher in the entire district. I could collaborate vertically with the other middle school math teachers, the elementary teachers and high school math teachers, but there were no other teachers teaching the same thing as me.
After reading Chapter 3 this week, I started to wonder, "What would my years in 6th grade math have been like if I had a PLN back then?" I was really feeling a bit jealous of Clarence in the first part of the chapter when he states "I can't imagine closing my door and having to generate all of these ideas on my own." I HAD TO! It was draining and frustrating. As I reflect on those years, it makes me sad to think of how much better of a teacher I could have been if I would have connected to other teachers outside of those 4 walls.
Enough beating myself up about the past...I am now more resolved about what the future brings. After reading Chapter 3 I have realized that I am already connecting my 3rd graders to the outside of the classroom by beginning to use Edmodo for our read aloud questions. I also am going to start connecting them more to the outside world by publishing their work to websites instead of just on the bulletin board. Our next writing assignment will end with them reading a letter to create a Voki. One we already did was on Biteslide. There are so many more I want to try, but it takes time to introduce them and I don't want to overwhelm them or myself.
One of my biggest take-aways from this chapter is the line that says "Instead of being the smartest people in the room, we need to be effective connectors for our students, able to sift through all those potential teachers online, find the most relevant ones, and effectively use technologies such as blogs, Skype, or others to bring them to our students."(Richardson & Mancabelli, Kindle location 1545)This is the direction I would like to go next in my journey to having a networked classroom. It will require more intentional planning and parents will need to be included in the shift as well. I am fortunate to have a community of parents who are mostly professionals and who understand the importance of technology in the classroom.
One issue I was thinking about in being more connected to teachers outside of the building is: how are we going to handle other teachers in our PLC who are unwilling to jump on board? In my 3rd grade PLC, we plan together a lot. There are lots of dates we have to stick to, common assessments to give. If I am taking my class on a different path to learning, what is going to happen to our PLC? Or any PLC for that matter. I don't want to hold back if I feel ready to be networked, but I don't want to feel isolated in my grade level either? I would love to hear your thoughts about how trying to be networked will effect PLC's.
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I think networked classrooms, PLN's, and collaborative lessons will be great for new teachers. However, I am a little concerned that as a result we are creating too many educators who simply "copy" other lesson plans that may not be what is best for "their kids". When you had to make all your lessons because you were the only one teaching math, although draining and frustrating, you were doing the work of a teacher that will benefit you for the rest of your career. I have been doing this for 18 years and my first 5-7 years I had to make all my tests, lessons, final exams, and do all my research to teach multiple preps. It was exhausting, but it was during those years when I became an "expert" in my profession. I have noticed recently that too many new teachers don't have those kind of experiences to draw from and simply get online to "borrow" another teacher's power point presentation to use in class. When you present someone else's material, you miss out on the depth of knowledge that is gained by doing the extensive research that is needed to create a presentation, or your own test. I have had a couple student teachers who have shown such a shallow depth of knowledge of their subject matter yet demonstrate mastery of digital tools. They relied too heavily on the science of teaching, by taking questions from some test generator or using lessons that were tagged "best practices", and as a result were not able to connect the subject to the students because they did not possess any real knowledge of government/history. I think our greatest challenge as educators is that we maintain a balance of using the best of both worlds. We need to tap into others who have generated great ideas, yet we still have to do the hard work of preparation and master our subject.
ReplyDeleteI read in your post that you want your students to use Voki. A totally fun app, but I would also like to suggest Telegami. I just used it with 4th grade at Castlio and it is fantastic! Also you can import all your Telegamis into iMovie and play them back to back.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to one of the Telegami's made by 4th grade students on Bessie Coleman. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48lA6pb-WEg
ReplyDeleteI know I will have a tough time with the math teachers at my high school. Teachers that I know that are tech coord tell me math teachers are the worst for wanting to change, as a general rule. Most of the do not want to do projects either.
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