teacherzeit

too much twitter? Review of The Flickering Mind

2009-03-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

My students get overwhelmed by all of my web-based assignments. That doesn't mean they don't enjoy them -- but, I have to face facts: too much of a good thing gets to be too much, period.

They have accounts for blogging, social networking, wikis, and googledocs. I recently conducted a polldaddy survey. Of course, we have our class website, as well.

I love these toys, and my students often appreciate the creativity. But, for many teachers like me, the web is pretty addictive candy. I do social bookmarking, and am somewhat concerned that those of us in the ed tech world aren't getting carried away. Before you know it, our kids are twittering, facebooking, blogging, skyping...

These are great tools. But we must make sure they aren't mere distractions. I've walked in classrooms where the teacher's smartboard features a textbook company-generated graphic organizer summary of the day's lesson, which generated a few oohs and aahs from a fellow colleague. It's little wonder there are other teachers who are not so turned on to the classroom 2.0.

I've been reading The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promises of Technology, by Todd Oppenheimer. He found classrooms where the teachers proudly watched their students tinker with powerpoints, which were long on flash and short on content; and art students who "created" visual projects throughout the term, without pulling out the paintbrushes. These situations are unfortunate.

I am still not sold on twitter. I get it: you can send concise, 100-plus tweets. I even like the moniker. But it does strike me as another distraction.

That said, Oppenheimer doesn't totally know what he's talking about. He argues that schools spend too much money on technology, which make schools look nice and shiny, but add little educational value. He is wrong: the problem is not the technology, nor the money. Money should be spent on technology. The problem is dumping computers in school districts without employing technicians to keep labs running, and expecting teachers to produce meaningful tech-based lessons without quality training. Most teachers will tell you that most professional development sessions lack substance. It's amazing that schools hand out laptops and smartboards, without sharing how to use them in pedagogically meaningful ways.

I'm not advocating for more twitter, nor less tech funding. What needs to happen is a real committment to developing smart classrooms. Politicians like to boast about the new apple computers in their school districts. Without adequate financial and technical support, they'll continue to gather dust.

I heart "The Class."

2009-03-16T17:01:00.001-07:00

Finally. An honest film about education.

I loved the French film "The Class." The teacher works in a Paris suburb, with high school students with the usual inner city baggage: poverty, racism, and oppression. Unlike that Michelle Pfeiffer movie, the teacher doesn't bribe his students to listen to Bob Dylan, nor create miracles. He's a flawed, but essentially good teacher and human being. In short, he's a teacher, warts and all.

During my first year of teaching, I so desperately wanted to be THAT TEACHER. I would be that force of nature, which inspires kids to want to learn, write poetry, and save the world. I still aspire to those goals -- but with a grain of salt.

Society expects so much from teachers, without understanding that this is a seriously hard job. There is a dirty little secret: we can't do it alone. I met a Swiss man who said that if schools are failing, his fellow citizens don't just dump on the teachers. They look at themselves, and society. In other words, they take ownership of how the schools are run, and wisely conclude that schools are the responsibility of everybody. While I don't agree with everything Obama, it will be very interesting to see how the school funding aspect of his new stimulus package plays out.

Ninging in the Classroom

2009-03-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

What's great about Ning: the pages look clean and tidy, unlike that other social networking site, facebook. We recently completed a Ning project on World War One. The site has separate pages for pictures, videos, and blog entries. I find facebook unwieldy. Nings can also be made public or private. Best of all, the New York City Department of Education hasn't blocked it. Yet?

Here's a student example: http://serbiarules.ning.com/profile/pdasrat

There's also a lot of room for creativity: the student uploaded photos, Serbian folktales, videos. In other words, he went above and beyond the task, and the site gave him a great template to do so.

I know an English teacher who used Ning for literary characters. That idea makes me almost want to teach English.

Mapping Classical Rome

2009-03-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of communitywalk.com. My students have been doing a lot of interactive blogging: they created their own tours of Rome, with pictures from flickr and their own tour guide banter. It incorporates writing, geography, and web 2.0 skills. They enjoyed doing them, and here is a sample project: http://www.communitywalk.com/rome/the_greatest_rome_tour/map/341132

I'm working on a new community walk project: we've been reading Ibn Battuta's journals, and the kids will add markers to the places he visited. I want them to choose a few quotes to add, and provide an interpretation, or two. Finally, they'll add pictures.