What excites you about education and being an educator?

Hi class,

As you are starting your education career or well into the depths of being an educator I know and hope that you are excited about being an educator. I know after being an educator for well into my forth decade - I am still excited about being an educator. Throughout the quarter I will share many of my passions with you as well as some of the current frustrations that some teachers experience.

One thing about being an educator today that excites me is technology - which has come along way from the days when I started teaching and using the dito machine - and 16mm films. There were no overhead projectors - let alone LCDs etc. I remember back to those as the new young teacher who became the advisor to the AV club and was in charge of the AV department - go figure that I was already interested in what would become a staple in many schools.

We have come along way - with types of technology and the use of it in the classroom. In this class we will be using and creating projects using media and technology. As a middle level educator you will be expected to know and to use media - technology experiences with your students. Some of your students may know a lot about using different media forms - possibly more than you know - so you need to know some of the basics.

Please check out the following website and ponder a bit about it and share your thoughts in your blog response to me.

Larry Lessig - how creativity is being strangled - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs&feature=player_embedded#t=831

Teachers today need to build on the power of the traditions on education in the past - but we cannot teach purely "the old fashion way" - that was yesterday - today is here and tomorrow is where our students will live and work and we have to be visionary enough to prepare them not only for the present but also the future. These youtube videos address these issues.

one clip at a time - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZByPflgJ0&feature=player_embedded#t=445

An anthropological introduction to youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU&feature=player_embedded#t=22

The machine is using us - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g&feature=channel

Ever since I started teaching in the 1960s an interest and passion I have had is student voice. This is a powerful video a HS teacher created last year - it demonstrates how powerful student voice can be.

Is Anybody listening? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU&feature=player_embedded

The power of media - technology - is awesome - we can all make a difference large and small.

Twitter and the world malaria day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZADez_MIr5I&feature=player_embedded

Carrot mob makes it rain - http://vimeo.com/925729

So in your blog response to this blog I have two requests:

1. As you watch these videos - write in your blog what your thoughts - and possible applications to your classroom. Make sure you make direct references to the videos you are referring to. I do not expect you to respond to each of the videos - chose what is of interest to you.

2. Share what excites you about being an educator. What motivates you to go into a classroom everyday and face with your students with smiles - laughter - hope - vision and expectations ( expectations for you and for your students).

I look forward to reading your blogs.

So what does it mean to you?

Every once in a while a profession is blessed with someone who truly is leader and visionary for that profession and guides others in it to what it really means to a member of that profession. To be John Lounsbury is that very special person in the academy of education. Lounsbury, with a few other educators, started to study young adolescents as a special population almost four decades ago. Young adolescents were once misunderstood by so many and therefore not appreciated or respected as the special population they are – it was through Lounsbury’s passion that those who work with young adolescents now know how special they are.

His wisdom and passion for young adolescents opened the doors to working with and respecting them that was once dreaded.

One can experience his profound respect for-young adolescents in an online NMSA article Understanding and Appreciating the Wonder Years. In the article he reminds us that “….

Young adolescents are a wondrous group, eager, enthusiastic, curious, adventuresome, full of life, fresh, and refreshing. They are genuine and do not shine in borrowed plumes. Their honesty is often disarming. They have a sense of humor, albeit one that is sometimes a bit weird. We should celebrate this stage of endless discovery during which youth come of age. Their capacities for thinking and reflecting are unfolding. Their outward behavior may belie the seriousness of their inner thoughts, but those who work closely with these young people know of their concern for the less fortunate, the environment, and other national problems. They worry about nuclear war, HIV, family disintegration, and moral issues. Their penchant for service is expressed in such things as can-a-thons, service learning projects, and campaigns to save the whales. They seek heroes and heroines, individuals of character and conscience, ones whose examples can be emulated. This is not the time for adults to abdicate their critically important guidance role, yet this is too often what happens as adults assume that the peer group takes over.”

So my questions to you are: “What does this quote and the respect for young adolescents that Lounsbury has defined mean to you as one who chooses to work with the young adolescent population? How do you plan to respect and celebrate them and guide them and to stand with them in the present and move towards the future they deserve?”

Pondering about: Education technology teaching and how teachers go about thinking

Over the years I have been teaching there have been many profound changes in pedagogical practices - ideologies - and expectations. Over these same years I have observed many educators keeping up with and even some educators leading some of these pedagogical changes. 

I have also observed  teachers who have decided not to keep up with changes - who have decided they already know all they need to know to be a teacher - who have decided not to advance their learning - who have decided to give those educators who want to stay current and be effective educators a hard time - even making teaching in the same school a horrible experience, frequently driving the effective teachers away  - who have decided not to take any additional classes to advance what they might have learned 5-10-15-20 years ago as current and appropriate for todays' students. 

I have always wondered why such teachers remain in schools.  Why don't they leave? Sometimes I think they must be miserable and want others around them to be equally as miserable. Do such teachers really think about their teaching and learning? Do these teachers really care about their students and their students' learning and their students' success? Are these teachers happy not keeping current with new research and discoveries about teaching and learning and knowing?  Are these teachers happy being nay sayers and trying to prove other teachers wrong and in doing so prevent their students from enjoying learning? Do these teachers really want their students to succeed or do they secretly want their students to fail?

I frequently ponder what teachers and other people think are obstacles in schools. What are the obstacles that teachers face that get in the way of successful teaching and learning? What are the reasons behind teachers' resistance to change? The last couple of decades the use of technology and media in our daily lives has grown faster than most of us could have imagined and their use in schools contribute to recent pedagogical practices - ideologies - and expectations.  What is going to happen to teachers who are resistant to changes in the use of technology and media strategies in their classrooms especially because they do not want to learn technological and media classroom strategies? 

Online videos like Did You Know, What If, Pay Attention and others demonstrate how media and technology are critically used in our daily lives and how their impact and influence are not going away rather that they are increasing. How then can teachers accept the need to embrace media - technology strategies in the classroom with their students? How then do teachers learn such media technology strategies? What happens to the teachers who resist learning such media - technology strategies?

What kind of teacher are you?  or are you going to be? One who accepts that media-  technology are here and not going away and are willing to learn or are you going to be a nay sayer teacher who resists learning and being engaged with them and will only find fault with their place in the classroom?  

Are you or will you be the educator that other educators, students, parents and community members look to with respect?  Or will you be the teacher who takes the easy road by resisting change, by not moving forward and by digging in?   

How do you decide or will you decide to be the type of educator you chose to be? What factors contribute to your decisions? Why do you believe or think you have the right to be an educator?  Or do you think you have the right to be an educator? Or do you just want to go into a classroom with students sitting in chairs, in rows with you in the front of the classroom telling the students what to know and then give them tests? 

You have the power to decide.  What is going to guide you?

 

Really thinking and really teaching

I sometimes think that too often educators don't really reflect on what being an educator really is. Sometimes we enter our classrooms without really taking into consideration what an educator really is and what an educator really does and what a really good learning environment should embrace. And then when our students don't perform to our standards or the schools' standards we place the blame on the system - on the kids - on the parents - on the.....

When we enter our classrooms how should the learning environment really look to promote good learning experiences?

So the questions then become... at this time what do you think really is a teacher? What really is an educator? What really is a learning environment? What really are learning experiences?

When you think about really good teaching and really good teachers and really good educators who do you see? What do/did they do that makes you think of them? (don't use names - but identify them when you knew/know them - maybe though grade level - content area etc.)

Describe what you really think are the two most important characteristics each teacher should have and share why you really think they are important.

Describe what you really think the two worst characteristics a teacher should not have and explain why.

Most importantly think about and share how you will try to  achieve the most important characteristics you just identified and how you will really try to avoid the worst characteristics you identified.

Really....

Pondering

Pondering and pets - since so many of you in class now have pets I have to share this ponder with you ...

I am pondering many things these days. One I have pondered about frequently since my mom once said it to me and since I use to always spend this time of year with her and since this is also the time of year that she died - with great fondness to mom now and when she once said to me as my dog walked into the living room and I smiled at him - Do you think our dogs know when we smile at them?"


Anyone pondering about thing they would like to share?

Intercession class

Hi class

The next few days and weeks will be very busy -I hope that you enjoy the process and go with the flow.

After you create your blog think about how you would like to use a blog as a teacher. Tell me three ways you wold like to and why you think using a blog for these reasons wold be an effective classroom strategy for you.

Have fun

Reflections and ponders

You have watched some video clips that share the current use of, the future use of and a variety of concepts related to the use of technology in the classroom.

Please share your thoughts, ponderings, concerns and reflections.