Edublogger Reflection

This semester we were challenged to become active in the education blogging community. I was honestly pretty overwhelmed at first...I kept looking at edublogs but feeling that I was not worthy of commenting on their posts, so I kept procrastinating my comments on their blogs. However, I eventually did force myself to comment on two blogs (yesterday) and want to share my experience. I ended up commenting on a high school science and chemistry teachers' blogs, but have not received any responses yet (but don't worry I'll update you if/when I hear anything from them).

The first blog which was the one from a high school science teacher in Colorado is titled Science Education on the Edge: Experimenting with student-centered science education. There were many different interesting posts on this blog from thoughts on AP chemistry teacher workshops, to portfolios, to BYOD. I decided to comment on the BYOD post as I learned a great deal about what a BYOD program truly looks like a high school and issues that can arise when students are able to have unlimited access to the internet. I shared my experiences at my own school and asked about how this particular school established a school community that supports the BYOD movement.

"What an interesting story! I am a currently a student teacher in a masters degree program and have faced very different circumstances in my own school. We do not have a BYOD program established in our school and instead have a strict ban on cellphone. and other devices, at school. Teachers can choose to have students use their own tech in the classroom at their own discretion, but most teachers do not take advantage of this opportunity. We have learned a great deal about BYOD in our technology class, and I can understand both the pros and cons of this type of program.

I am curious to learn more about how BYOD at your school was implemented and how the culture of school has changed due to BYOD. Overall do you think that both students and teachers have taken advantage of BYOD? At my school, students do not have access to the WiFi other than through the guest network. Even as a student teacher, I only have access through the guest network (which can sometimes honestly be a pain). On this guest network there is a significant amount of restrictions. However, when students log onto computers in the computer lab they can get onto youtube and tend to listen to inappropriate music from school. I am not sure how the system is setup and how the restrictions vary from one type of account to another. Now I might have to look into this!

Thanks for the insightful post!"

I think the most challenging aspect of implementing a BYOD in a school, from my own perspective and experiences, would be the development of technology norms and of a culture where tech is a tool and students are responsible about their use of technology. 

The second blog I commented on is called TEACHINGchemistry: building a 21st century chemistry classroom written by a high school chemistry teacher.  This is a blog that I started to read through every blog on...I got caught up in a series of very interesting posts. The post that I eventually ended up commenting on was focused on unhelpful grading practices. When I started my placement, I was suprised about some of the practices that my mentor teacher used (such as not assigning or grading homework). The author of this blog follows many of the same principles as my mentor teacher and I asked her opinion of differences in their practices. Below is my comment:

"What an interesting post!

I am a current masters student in an education program and completing my student teaching. I will be certified to teach both chemistry and math, and am student teaching in a chemistry classroom that has sections of general, honors, and AP chemistry. My mentor teacher also does not grade homework and when I first learned that he didn’t I was SO CONFUSED. All of my previous experiences in the classroom, from elementary school through college and then through my second grad school program, all included GRADED homework assignments. It felt so wrong to me. It was definitely something that I had to adjust to as a new teacher. I have realized that some of our students are not practicing as frequently or as thoroughly as they should be. How did you create a classroom culture where students are engaged in their practice problems without the promise of points?

In my placement we do only allow students to earn back so many points on exam retakes. However in order to retake students must complete online study problems and meet with an instructor to go through the material covered in the assessment. Overall this process takes a few days to complete and I honestly think that students should be able to earn back more if not all of the points that they missed.

In our classroom we do not drop the lowest score however if a student scores below a 40% it is not entered into the system. The lowest score a student can receive is a 40% as my mentor teacher thinks that anything lower will make it impossible for a student bring up their grades. What do you think of this policy?

Your posts have been so interesting to follow! I’ll definitely be back to read more!"

Overall, I was really inspired by reading some of these blogs and it made me not only think about how I write my own blog posts but my own practices. That is truly where the power of this assignment we were given is. It has opened up a new world of resources and ideas and I can't wait to implement some new things in my practices as both a chemistry teacher and supporter of technology. Hopefully I'll hear something from the edubloggers that I read and commented on...like I said I'll keep you posted. 

Tech In My Placement

In my past life as a research scientist in an ultrafast laser lab, technology was the center of my science world. I programmed experimental interfaces, had to rebuild/fix lasers when needed, and had to work constantly on a computer to analyze data and write for scientific journals. In my own practices as a scientist technology was essential...and at times served as an extension to my own body. Due to my experiences, I personally believe that students NEED to know how to use tech as a tool and will be disadvantaged in the workplace and in their future education if they cannot appropriately use computers.

I have even considered teaching my future children to program at a young age...if you think I'm crazy or that this is cool you should check out SCRATCH. I think it is important to teach children and our students how to use technology appropriately, but that it is key that they understand the power of tech as a tool.

While completing the Tech in My Placement survey I was honestly surprised by the types of tech (from computer labs, to video equipment and software, to even personal tech that students bring to school). I think it is pretty neat how our school has video announcements and a news team that creates and shares stories with the student body. In my own classroom we have a document camera, a projector, and a very old computer meant to be used by my mentor. My mentor teacher bought the projector that he uses (although he was later given one by the district as a reward that he ended up giving to another teacher to use) and got a document camera through a grant. In addition, he bought a personal computer that he uses for teaching purposes. We are very fortunate that my mentor is part of a national fellowship program as they have afforded him different experimental probes to use, in addition to a few bought by the school. We frequently visit the computer lab for our classes, as we do not have laptops in our classroom. On those computers we have instructed students on how to complete basic tasks on Excel, complete online homework, and run Phet simulations. Overall technology is most definitely used in our classroom.

Although we do use a wide variety of tech tools in my placement, I am somewhat disappointed by the capabilities of the computers as well as student training to use technology. It honestly takes a good 10 minutes for students to turn computers on and log into their personal accounts in the computer lab. The software on the computers is too new for the computers that it is required to run on...this turns the computers to muck and makes it incredibly difficult for students to work efficiently on. Once the start-up process is complete, opening an internet browser seems to take an eternity. Especially when you only have a short time with students, it makes it incredibly difficult to use time efficiently.

I am also somewhat disappointed about the training that students have had with technology. I have seen students text at warp speed but they do not know how to type or how to navigate a simple Google search. This week I spent a good three minutes teaching a student the intricacies of a right-click. In my own educational experiences, we had a technology class in which we had to type at a certain rate and be able to use multiple fingers. We had to know how to use the basic Microsoft office package. I know that some instruction is totally manageable to teachers to complete, but I would argue that learning how to use technology is just as important if not more important for students to learn in school to be adequately prepared for the workplace. As a student teacher, I cannot change the whole system but I can try to incorporate more and more well-scaffolded technology uses into my own practices. This is challenging and time consuming but I personally feel that it is extremely worthwhile.

Something I find interesting about my placement is our no cell phone policy. Teachers can choose to allow students to use their self-phones but it is on a strictly classroom-by-classroom basis. In my classroom, we have only encouraged a student to use their cellphone one time and it was when the schools technology was not functioning correctly. Students have their phones taken away on a daily basis. I like to think that there is a positive way to establish norms in the classroom to channel students interests and skills with technology. I plan on trying to incorporate some of this into my student teaching, if possible, next semester and will definitely try to utilize it when I have my own classroom.

But for now, in conclusion, I feel as if I definitely learned a lot by completing the Tech in My Placement survey and it got me thinking about how my students use technology and ideas for what I can do as a teacher to bring technology into my own classroom.