Recently, we had an assignment for which we had to learn about one of three different online resources that could be helpful as a teacher. I was assigned to research Evernote and didn't have much experience with it at all prior to the assignment. However, now I find myself using it everyday to organize my assignment to do list.
Evernote is primarily a tool to organize all different types of files across multiple different devices. There is an online interface or a download for your laptop, in addition to apps for android, iphone, and ipads.
You can create notes that contain any type of file (text, lists, pdfs, and audio files to name a few) and then organize them into notebooks. These can then be sync across devices so then you can access your information anywhere.
As I have mentioned I have been using Evernote to keep track of my assignments for the MAC program. There's a great function where you can add a check box to a list and make an interactive to-do list. Having my to-do list on my computer and phone has been helpful in organizing my assignments and therefore providing some stress-relief. Here's a screenshot of my to-do list for tomorrow! Still so much to do.
While I like certain features of Evernote it does have some problems with the free version such as limited search capabilities and memory. However, you can pay for the premium version of Evernote if you want these features. Right now I'm not at the point where I feel inclined to buy the premium version.
Other students presented on Google Drive and BlendSpace. These resources are also very cool! Google Docs, I feel don't need much explanation. In google drive you can create/upload and save files such as text, powerpoint, and excel files. The storage capability, as long as you have a free gmail account, is unlimited. You can then share these files with other users. There a lot of cool other features like forms and while I didn't know about all the capabilities it all seems fairly user friendly.
The other tool BlendSpace is an online place to make lesson plans. They are interactive and you can add videos, quizzes, images, and games to a sequenced lesson. This will definitely be a cool tool to try out with my future classrooms.
While all of these tools are really cool they have differing levels of applicability to my life as a teacher now. I am most worried about spreading my life too thin across the internet and it actually causing me to become disorganized, the opposite of what the goal of these tools are created to do.
My husband and I love to play the LEGO video games and have played quite a few of them including The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, among others. There is something about these games that are rated E for everyone that makes them irresistible to us even as adults. Here's a quick demo of The Lord of the Rings LEGO game so you can get the gist:
In each of these video games you play through either one movie, or a series of movies in which each level is a segment of the game. To beat a level one must simply make it to the end of level.
As you play through the level you collect coins either by destroying LEGO structures or by defeating enemies.
You also have four health markers and if you are attacked you lose "hearts." If you lose hearts you "die" which is essentially losing a quantity of the coins you collected and regenerating. You lose coins until you have no more but then the game continues and there is no consequence. You continue to collect coins and move throughout the level.
As this game is made for younger children one can always make it through the level, that is not the challenge.
Getting through the level is one accomplishment that counts towards your percentage through the game. The goal is to beat the entire game by reaching 100%. To do this you must collect a certain number of coins in each level, find 10 artifacts, and a red brick. When you reach the number of coins required in a level you get something called a "true adventure" or "true pirate" or true something-or-other depending on what game you are playing. Each artifact that you find is a part of a trophy that is eventually completed (if you get all 10 artifacts) for each level. The red brick that you find unlocks a certain skill, such as one that attracts coins to you, that you can then buy with your collected coins.
To completely beat the game you must do these three things for each level. You do not have to accomplish each of these goals in one turn of the level. In fact it becomes easier if you play again. The first time through the level you are limited to a certain character (or characters if playing with two people) and those characters have certain skills. With those certain skills you cannot do everything in the level and find all of the artifacts. As you move through the levels, you either rescue or unlock characters that can do certain actions. After you play the level once, you can free play the level using any characters that you have available and you can interchange between them during game play.
These games are not extremely difficult but they do require a certain level of team-work (if playing with another person) and strategy.
So why did I just explain this awesome series of video games? Why do you people out there that care about education care about these games built for kids? If my husband and I, as grown adults, find some challenge and fun in these games, imagine how a younger player may feel. These principles are ones that should be applied to education. In the LEGO games you may fail but you instantly get to try and try again. You get to set your own goals and determine whether you want to play through the game to get 100% completion or if you are just content playing through the game or story of the movie. This game is very open ended and encourages exploration in each level. Players are free to choose where the wander, what they want to destroy, and how much time to spend in each part of the level. These are all concepts that would make education truly better. Students should feel that it is ok to be wrong and to fail with numerous chances to succeed. They should be challenged and set their own goals. So many of these concepts can apply to education...this post isn't necessarily about video games being included in the classroom but more about being aware of why students will sit and play video games for hours. Hopefully this post provided some insight about how we can make education more like a video game.
Video game creators and educators have a similar audience in mind, and maybe we should learn a few lessons from them!
Overwhelmed. After this week's class of Teaching with Technology I feel like in the next few years, as a new teacher, I will face many difficulties and being aware of it is overwhelming. I know the point of our class conversations was not to inspire fear of the future but instead for us to know the world of education that we are going to be entering, in a short few weeks as teacher interns and in a year in my very own classroom. This world is a world of standardized exams and teacher assessments that will depend on the "growth" of their students. How do we become effective teachers that care about students social and emotional needs while also making sure that students are able to successfully pass and grow on standardized tests? This, in addition to all of the other responsibilities teachers have, is overwhelming and what I believe will be the biggest struggle of being an educator.
First, lets talk quickly about standardized exams measuring students' growth. Half of the battle of passing a standardized exam is strategy such as knowing how to approach specific problems, what types of questions that can be asked, and time management skills. But shouldn't education focus on actually teaching important content material not how to take a test? I believe that standards can be a positive influence in education as they provide important information guidance for what teachers should teach, but one should not take them as an end-all-be-all. What you teach shouldn't only be to the standards...standards should be a guide. Back to standardized testing...my other question is if a students growth or success (however that's defined) can be measured in one day by one test. There a lot of problems with standardized testing, but it only seems to be playing a larger role in education as time goes on.
I was also shocked about the computer testing interface that is going to be used for annual student standardized testing. It was nearly impossible to use and was confusing to navigate. It also seemed to limit the ability to move forward in a question sequence and come back to a problem, which decreases the opportunity for smart test taking . If these standardized tests adjust to the difficulty of the student as they progress through the test, students will manipulate the system (as I learned they do so well while playing math computer games with 8th graders at our summer placement). These computer assessments are a little intimidating as a teacher whose job depends on the growth of the students as measured by these standardized assessments.
As these standardized assessments are part of the teacher assessment bills waiting to be passed into law, they are going to directly affect what districts teachers want to work in. If teacher assessment is directly tied (with such a high percentage) to the students' standardized test scores, teachers will only want to work in high performing districts and those students, who require the best teachers, in low-income marginalized communities will be less favorable to work with as those students will not see growth in the same ways that more successful school districts will. Our state representative assured us that these new standardized tests will not be used to compare across districts, but are only meant to compare the students to themselves. I have a hard time understanding how other comparisons will not be made, maybe they will not be made to determine funding, but I think other comparisons could be easily made. I would like to work in a urban high-needs community and believe that the students in those communities can grow leaps and bounds and achieve greater "growth" than in more successful school districts. But is this "growth" adequately measured by standardized tests?
While I believe the current state of education is in a pretty sad state, it doesn't seem to be moving in the right direction. What kind of reform will be required to change education? How much failure would it take? How many years of standardized testing and unfair assessments will there be?
In the first class meeting of Education 504: Teaching with Technology we completed an activity in which we thought of what our ideal classroom would look like. My ideas were very different than my fellow classmates and because of this I hesitated to share with the class. My ideal classroom was most definitely a classroom of the future instead of a classroom that could be created with today's resources and technology. I believe that in my lifetime the use of technology in the classroom, and in our daily lives, will change significantly. One of the most important goals in education is creating the innovators of tomorrow and John Dewey states in "My Pedagogical Creed" one of the foremost issues with educating people for the future:
"With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgment may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently."
In this respect I agree wholeheartedly with Dewey. We as teachers, need to move beyond the classrooms of our past, and our current perceptions need to change in order to educate our worlds' future leaders and innovators. The video below shows what I think future classrooms will look like and this I believe to be close to my ideal classroom.
While this entire incorporation of glass technologies into every aspect of our lives is very futuristic and cool, the classroom environment is shown in at approximately 1:50.
This classroom is very futuristic and I have to add that I think balance inside the classroom is important, I think there is no replacement for spending time out in nature and for doing hands-on science labs. This classroom however does give itself to active learning that is student centered, as promoted by Dewey.
When Dewey shared his thoughts on education they were radical and as time has passed a majority of his ideas are being accepted and used by more and more educators as standard practice. I think a lot of educators would see this futuristic classroom as radical, much in the same way. Although the incorporation of technology in the classroom is difficult, I think it is essential to have an open mind to what the future holds.
I also believe that it is important to teach the value of education to our students and that the goals is not to pass a standardized test or to only be trained for a certain job. Dewey stresses that "education ... is a process of living and not a preparation for future living." I feel that even now I have a hard time keeping this goal of education in mind personally (especially due to the fact of being in a program like the MAC program) but it is a key concept to stress to develop lifelong learners in the classroom.
While I agree with most of Dewey's ideas there are some that I find very radical. The major idea that introducing students too soon to special studies (reading, writing, science, literature, history, geography) is a violation of a child's nature and that instead education should only be related to their social life is surprising. I understand the importance of trans-disciplinary education and the intersection of many disciplines, however, I find the idea of teaching with no distinction between different subject materials as somewhat inefficient. I also think some of the argument as school as a social institution that is the extension of the home has not translated well with time. When Dewey first wrote about these thoughts the concept of family is very different. Some students do not come from a traditional family with strong family values and I think this provides some issues when we look at the social responsibility of the family and school in Dewey's arguments.
Dewey thoughts provide incredible insight into education and his ideas seem somewhat timeless but the biggest question is "Do we Dewey?" and how do we completely reform our perceptions of education today?
