Caryn's Thoughts on "World Without Walls"

CARYN'S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS on "World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others" by Will Richardson

WARNING: This blog post is simply my note-taking and thinking on the required reading article. Perhaps I am a complete dolt, but I have a lot of questions about this article and some of the ideas it presents. My theories and ideas at the end of this post are not set in stone, I'm a work in progress and so are my thoughts.

Who is this guy?
From a BRIEF google search which included Wikipedia and District Administration Magazine column "The Pulse", the author of this article was a public school teacher in New Jersey for 22 years, is the author of a book, "Blogs, Wikis...", runs the Weblogged blog, and is a speaker, presenter, etc. of implementing technology into the classroom.

Paragraph 5 - "Welcome to the Collaboration Age" where all can access the "most transformative connecting technologies the world has ever seen." Hmmm.

Paragraph 6 - We can "mine the wisdom and experiences of more than 1 billion people" and "do good work together." Just how many of those 1 billion people are actually wise enough in experiences and maturity for me to consider appropriate teachers for my students? And if we can "do good work together" then can't these technologies also help the less moral to do bad work together?

Paragraph 7 - "Our ability to learn whatever we want, whenever we want, from whomever we want is rendering the linear, age-grouped, teacher-guided curriculum less and less relevant." Really? As adults, we have the life experience and educational foundation on which to build new learning and explore our passions. Do children have the basic foundation on which they can construct meaning for themselves about whatever they want from whomever they want?

Paragraph 9 - "...facts and truths are constantly changing..." Which facts are constantly changing? Which truths are constantly changing? The internet and it's capabilities are certainly undergoing radical change, but I'd say a pebble is still a pebble, and a mother's love for her child are facts and truths that don't change that much across the years.
"...working together is becoming the norm, not the exception." When has working alone been the norm? Since the dawn of humanity, any significant endeavor from planting a garden, to constructing a building, to raising children has been accomplished by people working together.

Paragraph 10 - "It's about being able to form safe, effective networks and communities around those explorations, trust and be trusted in the process..." How do you develop trust with someone you have never met and only know in relation to one, shared interest?

Paragraph 11 - "It's about working together to create our own curricula..." Do you mean that we get to decide what we think we should learn? Do kids also get to create their own curricula? Do they have the maturity to know what it is they need to learn? From my experience, these young individuals, if given the choice, would eat junk food, shun vegetables, never bathe or brush their teeth, stay up too late, and watch junk on a screen instead of getting exercise. Should they be creating their own curricula?

Paragraph 12 - the "most effective teachers will be the ones they discover, not the ones they are given." Yes, this can sometimes be the case. It is also true that some of the teachers we learn the most from are the people we would never have chosen to be our teachers.

Paragraph 13 - "That's no slight against the people in their face-to-face classrooms, who are equally important in a connected world..." Um, well, actually, I am feeling a bit slighted. And exactly HOW are face-to-face teachers "equally important?" It's a nice, PR statement with nothing to back it up.

Paragraph 16 - "We must also expand our ability to think critically about the deluge of information now being produced by millions of amateur authors without traditional editors and researchers as gatekeepers." YES! Anyone can be an author these days. All you have to do is sign up and post your blog. You can put anything you want on your profile page. Who's going to check?

Paragraph 18 - New word for me: Vetting - checking out someone's background.

Paragraph 22 - "We no longer have to be present to participate." Yes, but how fully can one participate without being present? It's all good and fine to offer your opinion on what is being done somewhere else by someone else, but there is no substitute for real-time, hands-on participation.

Paragraph 24 - "...not to mention maintaining a healthy balance between our face-to-face and virtual lives..." Has anyone defined what this sort of healthy balance looks like? I'd like to know. Again, this is a nice quip with no support.

Paragraph 28 - "In our zeal to hold on to the old structures of teaching and learning..." Sorry, as a teacher my zeal is for my students, not for my structures of teaching. If I'm not trying to foster a love of learning and helping each of my students to develop a solid foundation for their future learning, then I shouldn't be a teacher.

Paragraphs 29 & 30 - "What educators must do now" is "begin to co-create and colearn the same way may of our students already do." I do not disagree. There are many ways to use technology to collaborate and connect with learners not sharing your classroom.

However, when push comes to shove, we all still need to learn to work with the people that we sit next to in class, rub shoulders with in the hallways, and see each day. This is why many of today's teachers are best equipped to teach today's students. We may not know how to navigate our way adroitly around the web, but we know how to walk across the room, say hello, shake a hand, work on a joint project, and think of clever and meaningful ways to interact without having to resort to the backspace key.

Real-time, face-to-face interactions and hands-on participation are facts and truths that will not change. No matter how much time we spend interacting with one another, screen-to-screen, from the safety of our cubicles, there is a real world out there where we still need to work. Real people need eye-contact. Real people need real hugs. Real problems need real people and a commitment to be present to participate.

Caryn's Synthesis of Disruptive Innovation Theory

CARYN'S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS on "Disrupting Class: Student-Centric Education Is The Future" by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael B. Horn

WARNING: This blog post is simply my note-taking and thinking on the required reading article.

What I underlined that got me thinking:
- Computers installed in classrooms in the US in the last 2 decades haven't "transformed the classroom" and their use has not "boosted learning." They have only added a heavy price tag to the existing system. (paragraph 12)

- "An organization's natural instinct is to cram the innovation into its existing operating model to sustain what it already does." (paragraph 13)

- Instead, technology can be used to transform the classroom when it does not "compete against the existing paradigm or serve existing customers" but rather "targets those who are not being served..." (paragraph 14)

- Potential of learning software modules: "Parents and teachers will be able to diagnose why children are not learning and find customized instructional software written to help students who closely match their children in learning style." (paragraph 25)

My Thoughts:
Caryn's Synthesis of Article - It seems to me that "Disruptive innovation theory" in education means finding an area of curriculum that a school cannot or does not yet offer and then start at that point for implementing the use of technology. For example, any remedial or advanced course, or any language class not normally offered can be first offered via an online option. Once the technology successfully meets the new need, it will grow to become a fully-functioning program which is user-friendly and meets the needs of the target group.

Caryn's Practice Blog - practicing embedding links.

After the session with Chris Betcher, I found the following things meaningful.

I don't read the news on a regular basis. I want a quick site that tells me what is the most important/newsworthy news of the day.

The newsmap site was great.

I also found the google tool Google Squared was a fabulous place where information is synthesized, combining many searches in one spreadsheet. I will be able to share this with the 4th grade team this week. The students are doing author studies and will be searching for information about a chosen children's book author.

Widget

The other day I said to a friend, "Sorry I was a little late, Caspian, my 9 year old son, was helping me put a widget on my blog." The interesting thing was that I actually understand what I had just said. I couldn't have said that a week ago.

What do I hope to get out of this course?

I hope to be able to set up a blog for use in my classroom next year. If I am to be expected to use a blog to communicate with my students' parents, I want to do some of the learning now when I have fewer demands on my time.

Although I am not eager to spend more of my time in front of a screen, I realize that there might be times when communicating by this method will be more effective.

I find that spending time with my family and friends f2f is a priority for me. Maintaining relationships with friends and family via email/texting/blogging happens only when face to face contact is impossible.

Blog Test

This is a test. This is only a test. Do not freak out, it's only a new blog.