Blogs I Read

 

There are many benefits to reading education blogs. It makes us think often times about things we take for granted, helps us share ideas and allow us to express our views about certain topics. It is obvious therefore how this can positivily help us as educators. While reflecting  and reading Vicki Davis’ blog, I had the opportunity of viewing a couple other blogs. Free Technology for teachers, 21^st  Century Learning and This week in Education.

In “free technology for teachers, http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/09/braingle-brain-teasers-trivia-and-games.html I learned about Braingle and that it could be a good resource for students to use to practice vocabulary words. There were also other Braingle activities could be useful for educational fun during those few minutes of downtime that teachers sometimes find in the course of a day. I tried some of the quizzes and they were quite fun and pretty straight forward and would be applicable for teachers in especially core subjects. There are questions in a variety of subject areas as well.

The 21^st   Century learning blog while very long, I found an aspect relating to PLP that was interesting and why as professionals it was important to be a part of it. It outlined that fact that through PLP,  we are gaining exposure to the world that our kids already live in easily. The writer pointed out that being a part of this new 21^st century form of learning requires openness to new experiences and letting-go of tradition-based ideas of what schooling is. http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/

Finally I looked at the blog “This week in education on the topic of Black Male Graduation Rate http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/ . The blog speaks about the graduation rate of our Black males in comparison to their White counterparts, the data is sad, American Black males have a graduation rate of 47% compared to a White male graduation rate of  78%.; and it gets worst in cities like Detroit which had one of the worst Black male graduation rates, 27%.  Their graduation rate for young White males was even worse, at 19%, further illustrating the damage done to "relegate" minorities regardless of skin color. Other major cities like New York are also mentioned. I was saddened by the data and can’t help but question that as educators are we really doing all we can to help these students?

I must say while I found these interesting, it was quite time consuming to go through and read, hence a disadvantage of reading these blogs. As it relates to aggregator like Google Reader or Google Sites to collect updates from blogs, I believe its good to have these RSS feeds like Google reader, almost everything online has one and with the many features, it’s just another way to utilize technology in sharing ideas.

Reflection on Vicki Davis' Blog

The excitement

I enjoyed reading Vivki Davis’ Blog, her idea are exciting and includes technology all the way. I thought about this video while I read her blog and thought it necessary to share. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VnHdqpE4RM&feature=related I particularly like the way she links and uses Google which is a popular search engine to bring all the class activities together. She utilizes the site for lesson plans display for her student to know what’s happening. I especially love how she keeps track of these using the “assignment tag”.

Mrs. Davis is very organized, she has obviously given a lot of thought into arranging her page according to various classes, making it easy for students to navigate the pages and get from one item to the next.

In viewing her blog, I could help to think that Mrs. Davis touched on what I call a very “difficult” topic in many school, the “cell phone”. Almost every school has a cell phone policy, 90% of the times it will say, NO CELL phones in the building. It was interesting that Mrs. Davis herself has that policy in the school she now works and how tolerant of her idea the principal was. Her idea of using the very tool that most of our students spend most of their free time on as a part of the teaching/learning process is brilliant. I am however concern that this might not go so easy for other teachers in other schools based on the school culture they are in.

Technology is being used to the fullest in these classes, and students are being met on familiar, relevant grounds. The students themselves seem productive as their interests are being stimulated. I love that fact that the teacher is also very passionate about what she does as is evident in her wanting them to be productive and manage their lives well!

Mrs. Davis made a valuable point about preparing these students for the future. It is indeed these children that are going to take over the future of our country and technological advances. If we don’t prepare them to use the very tools that they are going to be required to manipulate, what have we accomplish as teachers? I absolutely agree with her about us adults, educators, and leaders being more open to saying “I’ll try it”than“no”. I find myself feeling a little guilty as I am one to say no, especially when it’s a written policy. We need to be more open minded about the use of all technology not just what we think is important. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnz9YIpOOT8

The scary part

While I admire Mrs. Davis courage to take on these challenges in a day where many schools have a no tolerable policy against cell phones in school, I find myself thinking this is not a battle I would be willing to fight. I do believe that as a technology/Business teacher she does have an “edge” over the average classroom teacher’. I also thought about how that policy would be out the door if all the teachers in her school also decided to plan lessons encouraging students to use the cell phones. The school district I work for outright forbids the use of cell phones in the school buildings, even the teachers are told to keep their phones off  (PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View). Just recently the principal of my school has taken drastic measures to enforce the policy as set out in the handbook for students http://www.johnston.k12.nc.us/education/components/docmgr/default.php?sectiondetailid=6340&fileitem=26200&catfilter=ALL.  To be honest, although I encourage the use of technology in educating our students in this age where your cell phones, television, computer and radio are all one device, that’s a battle I wouldn’t fight. The reality is that many businesses also have the policy in place and in a sense we are training students that not everywhere in the “real world” will allow them to use their cell phones. This too is teaching responsibility and accountability.

Finally I look at the amount of time spent creating these pages. This is obviously time -consuming, and I wonder where I would find time in my day to do all this, when I barely get a chance to read my school emails in the days. For a teacher of technology/business it might be easy, what about the average teacher.