The Constructivist and the Objectivist

Chapter 2 was particularly interesting to me, in relation to the approaches for teaching technology.  Contstructivist teachers and objectivist teachers (which I equated to direct instruction teachers) always seem to be at odds about which method of teaching is most beneficial to students.  I had never thought about this debate from the viewpoint of teaching technology, but it easily applies.  I personally am more of a constructivist teacher and think that children learn by creating their own knowledge and relationships.  And although it isn't my teaching style, I feel like direct instruction teachers are often pressured to change their teaching style to be more constructivist.  I think this is unfair to the teacher and to the students.  Although teachers need to be constantly developing, when they are taken too far out of their element they can focus too much on the new approach and lose the quality skills that they had previously. I like how the chapter pointed out how there needs to be a balance between the two approaches.  It did a great job of visualizing this point!  Some concepts must be formally taught while others should be constructed. With a balanced approach you are able to reach a wider range of learners in your classroom, creating a better learning environment for all! 

Wireless Connections

Wireless connections have had a huge impact on classrooms.  They allow you to arrange your class in so many new and varied ways.  At the school I taught at previously we did not have wireless connections.  I had to arrange my whole classroom based on where the connection was - and they came and changed it midyear causing me to have to shift the whole class in the middle of the year.  The school I teach at now is accessible with wireless throughout the school.  It's been great!  I was able to arrange my class according to my other needs.  It even allowed me to set my computers up in various places - a research center, a reading center, and one at my guided reading table (also for use w/ the LCD).  I also like that I can just take my laptop with me into other rooms in the building so that we can collaborate without having to worry about finding extra connections and going to a room with a hub. One downfall of wireless connections is that they are not as reliable.  They drop the connection more frequently than hard wired lines.  This is an especially big problem for the classrooms in the trailers. Also, our computers won't update unless it's connected to a hard wired line, so at least once a week you have to manually hook it up and synchronize it.  Even though it has it's difficulties, I love wireless and would never want to go back!!!

Kevin and I sailing in the Great Scot regatta!

We're the boat with the red sail.

"Cybercheating"

I think the topic of "cybercheating" is really interesting. With the popularity of the Internet you can google a topic and find an abundance of information, which is awesome, but this also leads to more sources to plagiarize from (and some students think they are less likely to get caught than out of a book).  There are also several websites that you can buy entire papers from.  Now students can more easily buy papers and plagiarize work in a completely different dimension than they could ten years ago. This also makes a teachers job grading papers more difficult.  Teachers must critically evaluate all of their students' work and decide if it's authentic.  Luckily, as websites have emerged to buy papers about popular topics, so have websites to help teachers catch cybercheaters.  I found this website which has a lot of links about plagiarism as well as links to free plagiarism catching websites: http://www.ncusd203.org/central/html/where/plagiarism_stoppers.html.

Since I teach 2nd grade cybercheating isn't a major concern that I have, but I know it's something I need to prepare my students for so that they do not one day copy someone else's work.  We've been working on reading facts, in books and from websites, and putting them into our own words.  The students also get with their writing buddy to read each other's non-fiction writing and evaluate if it sounds like something their partner would say.  It seems a little young to talk about plagiarizing, but I think it will make them more competent writers and more critical of things that they read.

Wiki

I'm very excited about participating on a wiki, however, I'm having trouble with the wiki on blackboard.  I keep changing the link to be linked directly to my name, but it keeps reverting back to a separate link.  It's very frustrating!  Also, I can't edit it at home.  I think it might be because I have a Mac.  Are any other Mac users having difficulties?  I guess I'll have to try it at work.  Hopefully I'll have better luck there.  I'm looking forward to reading other people's blogs through the wiki and reading what their struggles and successes have been. I've already read a few and it's so exciting to see how similar, yet unique, each one of us feels about the same experience.  I'm sure our students feel the same way about the things that we teach! 

I want to learn how to make a wiki so that students in my classroom can create blogs and connect them to a class wiki.  I think this will be a great way to get the kids communicating outside of school.  The first topic I'd like to try would be writing book recommendations about books that they have recently read.  Then all a student would have to do to choose a new book is go to the wiki and read other students blogs to find a book that sounded right for them.  This will also be an easy way for parents to see how their child is doing and what books they are interested in.  They can even leave comments of encouragement or write their own recommendations!  

Creating a Blog

I'm really glad we created a blog. I hear about them all the time at school and am glad I finally got to make my own. We just had a technology conference at school and blogging was a popular topic. I'm looking forward to bringing this skill into my classroom. It was much easier than I thought it would be!