How will you continue to learn new ways of doing new things?

One of the biggest burdens of teacher’s job is that one can easily get bored of teaching the same content over and over again for years. Thank God there is an amount of flexibility in planning the curriculum that allows for changes and it saves us from becoming automatized repeating machines, but there are also some essential things that each generation has to learn. So when I’m not too happy with repeating the same lectures and activities with another generation I’ll turn to new ways and new things:) I really feel that the only way kids can be and stay enthusiastic about something is for the teacher to be enthusiastic as well. That's why I need to keep looking for new ways of staying inspired. Sometimes I have no clue what I am looking for and others I have a clear vision of what I need for my lecture and I simply have to look for a medium that can help me bring my idea to life. If there’s no solution in sight asking around has proven to do the job whether through discussions with the colleagues here at school and online, or through various researches. After I find what I think could work all is left for me to do is to experiment with it, test it, and redo it, until I reach the point where I feel satisfied with it and the chances are this will work for the kids as well.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

I think that in order for our students to realize the benefits of this phrase we need to encourage them to collaborate as much as possible. They need to see firsthand how putting their minds together can help them come up with amazing ideas that they couldn’t have came up with individually. Once they learn this the same philosophy will be naturally transferred to the use of web tools.

When encouraging the students to use the Internet we need to model how we are not using it solely as a resource from which information could be drawn but also that we ourselves can by contributing to various discussions become a source of information. I myself learned that if I can’t find the exact piece of information I am looking for posting a question on a forum or a blog can help. My question can further get someone else's mind going and taking into consideration different perspectives we can together come up with a solutions. So next time a student comes and says I tried to find the answer to my question online but couldn’t we can try to look for it together and post a questions, contribute to a discussions, connect to people of similar interest etc. I think that the best way for them to realize that finding information is a process is to engage them into one and let them see that there is a lot more to it than simply typing the word and pressing enter.

Online Organization

The minute I saw the mind maps that bubbl.us offers it's visual appearance immediately reminded me of something I use to explore at the university. It is called Transformational Grammar and it deals with the rules our brains apply when processing language. One of the focuses of TG is a tree-like representation of sentence's structure just like the one I posted here. Now maybe this is not a mind map in the same sense we discussed in this module but then again maybe it is even more of a mind map then that:)

Mind maps could be used to help students enhance their organizational skills but I feel that with Lower School students this can only be done with a lot of help from the teacher. For example when we are having group discussions about various topics students can at the same time use mind maps to graphically represent our train of thoughts. This will help them get a more clear picture of the beauty of brainstorming and help them start to use this sort of tools in their future learning. However, I think that at young age this maybe a bit too advance for them and that's why at this period we should (as with bunch of other things) model this approach for them. One great way bubbl.us can be used however is story maps. Each time I want to use story maps in class I end up googeling through millions of versions until I find the one that most suite the story in question. With this web site in mind students can now make their own story maps adding the branches as they see fit. This will definitely make them more engaged in the activity then when they are simply presented with a printed copy of a map.

Google Earth

A night before my friend's trip to a congress in Florence she was wondering how close her hotel is to the building where the congress will take place and will she have enough time to see some of the city's sights. It was amazing to all of a sudden have this information just a click away. We took a 3D tour, followed the path from the hotel to the center of the city, it calculated the time, the distance and we had a peek of what she is going to see. So she had everything planed out and what I especially liked, the information she got were accurate (unlike the ones you get at travel agencies which most of the time just try to make sure you hear what you wanna hear) I must add that there are a lot of occasions when I would choose not to use Google Earth. There is just some special charm in going through the unknown town with a map and seeing some of the sights for the first time.

Google maps I'll definitely use for the unit on Explorers and I'll have the kids make a map of an explorer’s path. Also it can come in handy when talking about land forms that they can now visit without leaving the classroom (especially because some of the places happen to be too far away from school). Heroes, inventors and writers can also be located. Children will especially benefit from this since for the majority of them it is very important to have something they can visually connect the content to.

Picasa... nice!

While some people were trying to get some rest others just didn't feel tired enough... :)

How might we prepare students for a life of mass-sharing?

This is a question that occasionally pops into my mind every now and then or should I say each time my students demonstrate that sharing is not something they are particularly good at. At young age kids are more likely to gravitate towards clear cuts between mine and yours, starting with “my pencil”, “my eraser” to “my idea - stop copying”. This is why sharing is not an easy skill for them. In order to help them realize the benefits of cooperation we started reading stories that have a clear massage of what people can achieve when they are willing to work together. However, what kids of young age are good at is doing things without realizing they are doing them or in this case sharing without knowing that they are sharing. This happens each time we brainstorm things we know about a certain concept, figuring out how to solve a given problem, sharing ideas about text read etc. Also group activities are an excellent way of proving how they can put their minds together. What I try to do is arrange the groups so that the students whose opinions differ a lot are put in the same groups. This way I know that there will come a certain point when the clash of opinions will happen. That’s when I as a teacher step up as some sort of facilitator and help them incorporate what both sides are saying into their work. Often they end up being surprised that they can gain something out of a disagreement. I think the best way to prepare them for a life of mass-sharing is just to constantly show them trough work and practical examples how sharing enriches their learning and helps them come up with ideas that they would not be able to think of without a little nudge from others.

Online resources

What online resources have you used to improve your teaching, and how do you usually find them?

When I’m out of ideas or simply can’t think of the best way to present a new unit I turn to Google, type in name of a unit plus activities and usually what I read in first 3 or 4 web sites gets my imagination going. The websites that have proven to be quite useful are http://www.hajdeda.org.rs/ or http://www.zvrk.rs/. However, I must say that there is an obvious shortage of educational web sites in Serbian. I often find great ideas that could be applied to mother tongue classes but I need to further work on them by translating which is not always so simple because for example there could be a rhyme that needs to be preserved or a certain pattern that needs to be followed etc. What I lack the most are interactive websites. In one class there could be students of up to three different levels of knowledge and it is hard to work with such a diverse group because you’ll have three students that are finishing the tasks pretty fast and three that will take half an hour and another three that will need a whole class. The third group usually needs a teacher by their side and in these sorts of situations I wish I had a website that the first two groups can explore and do bunch of very fun tests and activities that will be just as amusing to them as they would be educational. What happens in my class is I constantly need to come to all three groups and check how they did and comment on their work so I’m usually a bit torn apart. It would be great if I had a “virtual assistant” in a form of an interactive website that could take half of my load without lowering the quality of what is going on in the classroom.

Then and Now

Think back a few years to how you used to use your computer. Describe any changes you've noticed over that time. Finally, make some predictions about your computer use in 2013.

Before I had my ancient laptop I was always afraid that figuring out how to use different features of computer could lead to erasing valuable files and causing it to breakdown.:)

I got my first computer back when I was in high school. At that time I remember we were learning the basics of MS DOS exploring commands such as time, date, cd, color, dir etc. Whether it will come a day when I will find these things applicable remains to be seen. However, better things were coming my way. Soon enough we started learning different ways of editing text in Microsoft Word and just when I thought things are finally making sense our teacher decided that we spent enough time in a computer lab and that we should go back to the white board and do some Basic Pascal programming…. Oh those days of horror.

At home I couldn’t wait for a friend of mine to come over and set my first Internet dial up connection. I clearly remember his explanation of what Internet is all about. He said that anything I could think of can be found online. Inexperience spoke out of me and I asked him to further clarify his words. He said, I quote – You see this door (pointing at my door) you can find information regarding this very same door online. And I thought to myself I couldn’t be more illuminated :)

Then came the days of advices coming from different experts each having their own explanation of why I should/shouldn’t be using a certain program followed by deleting and installing stuff. When I got tired of this I decided to seek help. This was the key of becoming accustomed to using a computer. All fear was gone and help menu became a true friend of mine.

Today Internet is the most valuable resource for me whether I’m preparing class activities, cooking dinner, figuring out ways to get to a certain location, reading news, socializing with people from other parts of the world etc.

Looking at people who lost the battle with technology I sometimes wonder am I going to become one of them as time passes. Will I be stuck using Microsoft Word when every one else turn to some other way advanced program. I hope not! So far I’m keeping up!:)

Being in a public domain ...

Some people have strong feelings about being in the public domain (meaning their pictures, thoughts, interests... can be potentially accessed by people they don't know). Explain your feelings? How do we address these concerns as teachers and role models? How do we teach this?

I guess I could say I’m among one of those people who have strong feelings about being in the public domain. I was never a big fan of web sites such as Facebook, Myspace etc. However, I am at the same time aware or their good sides and I always end up opening an account and exchanging information. This way I’m balancing between being a bit paranoid and staying open-minded.:) Having never had a bad experience regarding Internet surely helps.

I can’t imagine giving up the ability of having Internet as a resource where everything is just a click away. I also try to encourage my students to fully use it as a resource but to think twice before sharing any personal data online. Since they are very young I feel strongly about supervising the content they have access to both by parents at home and teachers at school. That is the simplest way to make sure they are getting the most out of Internet while at the same time staying safe.

Google Docs

I think Google Docs will save a lot of my nerves in the future. Up till now I saved all my work on a memory stick because I usually do my prep partly at school and partly at home so I use two different computers. In the process I often had to do some extra work such as converting .docx files to .doc and vice versa because of 2 different versions of Microsoft Office. Also I try to make worksheets fun and colorful so I use different fonts only to find out that I don't have the fonts I used on my home computer installed on the school laptop. Docs should change all this for me.

As a language teacher the most obvious way I can use Docs is for writing assignments. I can comment on student's work from the very first draft they make and help them structure their work better. After the assignment is finished we can go back to the mistakes they made and see how did they correct them. This walking trough steps they took can help them memorize the dos and don'ts much better then simply looking at the final version of their work in notebooks.

Working on end of the unit projects sometimes requires my students to go back to what we learned by rereading. Instead of going trough different books it would be much easier for them to create a Google doc and write down information that they find important and when time comes just go trough what they wrote.

One more thing I can use Docs for is collaboration with other language teachers. During team meetings we often take notes so we all come up with different versions of the same texts. This way we can put all of our notes at the same place and make it available to all of us right away.

Gmail vs. Other emails

Before I start sharing my impressions about Gmail I must say that people who use it tend to go around telling other people that it is the greatest and possibly the only true way one can exchange digital messages. A couple of times I felt quite pressured to open a gmail account. Up till now I managed to avoid creating one but with 1:1 Program my time ran out.

Here are a few features that I - now a proud owner of Gmail account like so far. It is pretty plain and therefor easy to use. The chat application works better then the one Yahoo offers. It automatically keeps addresses that you've emailed on your contact list whereas Yahoo asks whether or not you want to add them. It allows dividing contacts into groups. Task reminder application can also come in handy although I don't see me using it very often. (Long live sticky notes!)

I think this is it for now but I am meticulously exploring and hoping for all my friends sake (the ones mentioned in the first paragraph) that it will live up to it's reputation.