Do we really need it?

So my assignment this week was to build a "Netvibe" website in order to have one place where all the cool blogs, websites, and constant news feeds on my topic of choice can be displayed in one place. I'm hitting another wall with this one. Not because it's difficult, but because I'm wondering at the wisdom of it. Again I feel like I'm not even using all the good stuff I've found the old-fashioned way, so why would I look for even more things? Even with all the filters out there, the amount of information coming in to my netvibe page is overwhelming! How can I possibly keep up with it? Time is of the essence.... or is it?

What's the ultimate goal here? Just to gain knowledge/learning for the sake of learning? Surely there has to be more. I need the purpose here... I'm losing focus.

So let me go back to my basic. I want to be the very best possible teacher I can be in order to help my students become the very best possible citizens they can be in the world we share together.

Anyone else collecting info and now wondering what to do with it? What's your focus? How are you able to sort through things you are learning to choose the stuff that's really important? How do you manage your time? With the stuff I'm collecting on Netvibes, I could be sitting at the computer reading 24/7.
HELP!! I'm drowning here...

Crap Detection

Ever watched the movie "Wag the Dog?" Throughout all of Rheingold's blog, Crap Detection 101, I kept having flashbacks to the movie. The main premise, in case you haven't seen the movie, is to create a political crisis though medica deception so that attention is diverted from a real situation that could have meant the downfall of the president. Since watching that movie, I have never been able to watch news without a critical eye again. And, now since reading Rheingold's blog and watching the video clip, I won't be able to look at anything I find online without being just a little bit skeptical.

For me, one of the main things I've learned, will be that unlike with books where checks and balances are in place that only credible things are published, things on the web are checked and balanced by the consumer. We are responsible for checking all sources (triangulate!) and determining which items are valuable. We will need to exercise our "think for yourself" muscles. I wonder if I've ever really been taught how to do that?

One of my quandries while reading this was realizing that I had always thought, and I think have been taught, that the internet has made things easier to find facts and information. But now I wonder. I think it might be more difficult.

So how does that affect the way I teach grade 1? I do not allow them to go on information sites without me first having researched those. I have done research with students, but done it through child friendly search engines. As a student myself, I need to make sure to triangulate my sources. Using search engines such as ERIC puts a great filter over articles I may want to use.

Overall, I need to have an attitude of suspicion towards things I read on the web.

My Learning Network

So here it is! My map that I made with the assistance of Mindomo. It worked quite well, but I hope there's some way to enlarge the picture without blurring it too badly. Hmmm.
So what I have learned about my learning network? I think I realized I need to acknowledge my background as part of what affects my learning. Fortunately, I grew up in a home where education was valued and it was expected of all of us kids to go to post secondary school and I watched my parents constantly upgrade themselves with self study, community courses, and reading.
Other learning cells are about the same as I blogged about earlier, but I thought it was really cool the way I could insert hyperlinks into my map. :) These show the blogs I am currently following in my quest to continue my own learning.

Connectivism

Our assignment for this week was to watch some podcasts of George Siemens and Steven Downes on the topic of connectivism and networks.
The first part of the assignment was to draw out our own networks as we perceived them to be at this point. I duly went and drew a nice little diagram showing my connections. I divided them into 5 categories: face to face (neighbours, family, care group, church), Social Networks (facebook and my blog) LTT class (colleagues, professor, mentor) and Online Stuff(Educator's PLN, Group Ed Tech Talk, videos, other blogs, educational websites) and my school (teaching partner, principal, other teachers, students).

Then I watched all 7 podcasts. (Aren't you proud of me??) Their basic premise is that learning is not a "inside an individual" but rather takes place within a network of knowledge, of which a person's own brain is just one part. As people, our desire is to express our thoughts through language of whatever medium (art, speech, etc). Knowledge is constantly changing and we as human beings, must find a way to learn so that we stay current. "What we know today is not as important as our ability to stay current." According to Downes, networks must be open, autonomous, diverse and connected. Only then will the learning be optimized.

I think I'm questioning the basic premise that increased knowledge is the ultimate goal. Really? Why? Does this not just make another power system..those with the most networks have the most power because they have the most knowledge at their fingertips?

And yet, I love the idea of community/connectivism. I identified closely with Siemens' description of how he grew up. Although my community was not as narrowly conservative as his was, I know of which he speaks. I wonder if he would say he has given anything worthwhile up in his quest for knowledge?

I believe in community rather than heirarchy. At times when I was listening to these podcasts, I thought I could be sitting in church listening to a sermon about how the people of God are to live. It is not about the individual, it is about the community with the common purpose, not of building some big building, but of building the community of God. Communities need to be open, diverse, connected and autonomous.

And yet, I fear this is a educational utopia.

How does this affect how I teach in a school where some of my fellow colleagues refuse to touch the computers and feel that they have enough to teach without adding to their plates. How do I influence them to extend their boundaries? Look beyond their classroom to the world beyond? To realize that teaching is not about filling kids' heads with knowledge, but teaching kids to make relevant networks.

How will this change the way I teach Grade 1? Any ideas?

Developing Leadership

Leadership is an elusive thing. I think it's difficult to track or to guage effectively. I've often heard about "servant leadership." I think that phrase is valid, for in my experience, the more I'm willing to do for others, the more willing they seem to be to acknowledge my leadership and ask for more.

For example, this past week I demonstrated with my class an example of technology infusion...or at least how I define it. The students had illustrated a fact they had learned about bears on a kid pix program and I then collected these and made a slide show out of them to show the school. I thought that this demonstration of student learning would be one teachers would embrace and would therefore ask me how else technology could be used to meet learning outcomes, etc. It hasn't happened yet.

But, one teacher is asking me to help her out with getting her Grade 2/3 students on the computers. She, by her own admission, is petrified of all this technology and was unable to even approach it with her students. So, I offered to help. When asking her what she wanted, I realized that she had not even taken the first steps of putting her class list together and choosing courseware for the students to experiment with. One morning I showed up extra early and asked her for her classlist so that I could start on this. She was eager to observe and within 10 minutes, we had her class ready to sign on for the very first time. As she left me that morning, she said "This is exactly what I needed..someone to show me what to do and how. THANK YOU!"

Success!

I viewed today as a sort of lithmus test as to my capability as a technology leader within the school. What did I do? Well, my students were on schedule for leading the school in the weekly assembly. So what, you say? Well...it was a little different from the usual poems, songs and posters with speeches that most classes have done to reflect their learning. I wanted to use technology in a meaningful way and so I had the children use the kid pix program to illustrate a statement of their learning about bears that we had done in the past month or so. Each child was to choose one fact that they could illustrate. After they did this picture, I also had them record their voice stating their fact on the slide. I also imported a snapshot of the student to put into the corner of each picture so that when their picture was displayed, you would see their picture, as well as hear their voice. And today, it all went well. Teachers and students, I believe, were duly impressed that Grade 1's could do this work on the computer. I was so very grateful that the technology worked today. There were sometimes in the past few weeks that I wondered at my foolishness in attempting such a thing. No one in our school has done this before so I couldn't ask for help from anyone. I had to learn it on my own. And this is the learning I have done:

- how to make the computer and the projector communicate. Sometimes during my classes when I wanted to show the students what I wanted them to do, I tried to use the projector and it wouldn't work. Ugh! And our little mini-notebooks are not suitable for showing 20 eager students at once. But, if all else fails, read the instructions! Earlier in the week, in a fit of panic cause the projector wasn't receiving the images from the computer, I started to read the owner's manual and lo and behold, there was a neat little trick I could try. The "fn" key together with the F2 turned it all on. Whew!

- how to save so it actually saves! My poor students had to do a minimum of 3 pictures for me before I figured out how to save it so that it worked. Some students, and I still don't quite know why, just couldn't get their pictures saved until the 4th or 5th time. Fortunately, the students are patient with me. :)

- how to use the kid pix program. This was brand new for me and I quite enjoyed it. There are a number of features on it that added a lot to the slide show and it was fun to play with them.

- how to import jpeg files into the kid pix program. Unfortunately, the webcams on our notebooks have been disabled, so I needed to take pictures using my digital camera and then import those pictures to the program. I found this information on the internet using google search.

- how to use my flash drive in yet another way. I found out earlier this week when we were doing a rehearsal in the gym, that the gym does not have wireless and so my slide show, which was saved on the server, was useless as it couldn't be accessed. Thank goodness for flashdrives. And because the program is loaded onto the computers, it was able to read the flashdrive and present.

- how to brainstorm with others. I knew the speakers on the notebook wouldn't be able to project for all 300+ students, but I thought I'd be able to mic it. Unfortunately, even that didn't work. As a few of us were brainstorming about this, the school secretary asked if it was possible to put a speaker jack in and so I brought my computer speakers from home. It worked fabulously! Whew!

But besides all that techie stuff, what did I learn? I learned that leadership often means just doing it! My hope is that teachers will have taken note that our notebooks can be used in educationally sound and relevant ways to the curriculum. Leadership has risks...if this hadn't worked, would the staff view me as someone who is a technology leader? I doubt it. One teacher approached me after the assembly to say that she was going to ask me next year how to do a slideshow.

But mostly I'm just relieved right now. It worked...now on to tomorrow. What should I have the students do with the computers during first block? Hmmm....