Aug

8

My blog Teachers At Risk is two years old- how many people years is that?

Filed Under Blogging in and out of the Classroom, The Way I See It | 12 Comments

Imagine, my blog “Teachers At Risk” is 2 years old already.  Time really does fly. I’m just sitting here  at the computer reflecting back on those two years and find myself wondering, don’t ask me why,  how many people years  would two blog years be?  When we talk about the ages of cats and dogs we’ll often  translate cat years and dog years into people years. We’ll say that when a  dog is one year old, it’s the equivalent of  being seven people years old.  How would that work for blogs?  What does one blog year equal in people years? How old is “Teachers At Risk” in people years? The terrible two’s seemed to last for about two months.  Does that mean Teachers At Risk is  24 years people years old .  I don’t really know,  but I do know that I’ve enjoyed  writing the blog.

I certainly didn’t have any idea when I started Teachers At Risk back at the beginning of August 2006 where it would take me. I’ve met wonderful people and learned so many things. It’s been one of the most rewarding things that I’ve done.

I’m trying to remember what it felt like when I first started blogging.  I do remember that  I kept wondering  who was going to want to read Teachers At Risk, a blog about teaching “at rIsk” kids and  how were people were  going to  find  it  even if they wanted to read it when there were millions and millions of blogs out there.   I didn’t really appreciate the power of  search engines and referring sites to lead  educators, parents and even students  to Teachers At Risk. Thirty percent of my traffic now comes from referring sites. Thank you.

There were lots of exciting moments in the last two years. Here are some

  • The very first comment I got for my very first post was exciting.  -  thanks Jason.
  • When Google Analytics told me that I had 5500 visits a month from readers in 85 countries.  My husband  Kurt and  I  had lots of fun looking  at the map of the world to see where everyone  came from.
  • When David Synder at  The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development gave Teachers At Risk a favourable review. That was exciting, too.  I’ve  gone to their conferences many times and bought many of their publications. I really respect ASCD.  It’s one thing for family and friends to say that your doing a good job,  but when ASCD says that  well… ASCD also published a short piece I wrote about differentiating homework.
  • Getting emails from  readers during the last two years was pretty exciting too, especially the one from  Sage Publishing saying that they wanted to purchase two of my articles from my blog to put into a textbook for preservice teachers.  What a wonderful way to mentor teachers.
  • It was great to be able to share all the cool stuff I’ve learned about the technical aspects of blogging and other digital technology with some of my colleagues at school. I don’t expect everyone to be as excited about the whole thing as I am. But, it’s nice to see the interest growing.
  • Another exciting offshoot of Teachers At risk was my class blog. I thought that since my students practically live in the  digital world with text messaging, face book, MSN  and what not that I could bring the classroom to them through digital technology so I stated a class blog and the kids loved it. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done to engage and motivate my students.  I’m really looking forward to the new school year.
  • Becoming part of an on-line community that shares with and supports one another is also exciting.

After rereading the part above about the exciting moments, I was thinking maybe I’ve over used the word exciting.  But,  then I decided I hadn’t .   It was exciting. What can I say.

One of the most important lessons I learned about blogging was that my blog didn’t have to be perfect.  It just had to be me. When I went to push the publish button after finishing my first few posts, I died a thousand deaths  thinking about all the mistakes  I might have made and didn’t see.   It was paralyzing, to say the least.  But then, I realized my blog  didn’t have to be perfect.  Why?  Well it’s only a blog after all. Let’s keep things in perspective.  No professional editors are pouring over it to fix things the way they do in newspapers or magazines.  It’s only me.  So, I don’t sweat it anymore.  When I find errors, I fix them. Otherwise, ignorance is bliss.

At this point, I  want to thank my  husband Kurt, daughter Lisa, son Chris and my friend Jason Jarrett for all the support they’ve given me right from the beginning  helping me learn the technical ropes and rescuing me when I’ve had  technical difficulties. They’ve had  lots of opportunities to practice being patient, let me tell you. At one point,  Jason even held up a page from a manual to the webcam on his Mac during a Skype conversation so that I could see what I needed to do. I’m a visual learner and wasn’t getting it when he was telling me over the phone  so he showed me using the camera.   He’s in England and I’m in Canada.That was amazing. thank you all.

What will the next two years bring?  Who knows.  I can hardly wait.

Jul

20

I’ve learned it’s OK for teachers and students to learn to use the new digital technology together

Filed Under Blogging in and out of the Classroom, Dealing With Stress, The Way I See It | 3 Comments

 
icon for podpress  I've learned it's OK for teachers and students to learn to use the new digital technology together [4:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (218)

I’ve learned it’s OK for students and teachers to learn to use the new digital technology  together in the classroom.   This past semester, I learned  from my students, and my student learned  from me.    I got  all kinds of positive feedback from students and parents for what  were doing in the classroom. It was amazing.

I started to think again  about my experience using technology in the classroom this past semester after reading  Chris Wood’s comment in response to David Adams post on teachers and the new technology. Chris wrote

Many teachers hailing from the traditional school of thought may be more reluctant than their more contemporary counterparts to introduce and use technological tools for education purposes in their classrooms. This can cause a problem when a mandate is passed down through a school district, requiring the incorporation of a technological tool (i.e. Smartboard). In a perfect world, the technology would be introduced only after the teacher has had sufficient training in not only the use of the technology, but also the upkeep and troubleshooting of the technology. The problem that I see developing is a reluctance on the part of these more traditional teachers to learn the new technology, making its use in the classroom a futile attempt at education.

As educators, it is our obligation to ensure that we stay informed on the different kinds of technology available to us and our students, as well as, when implemented, are fully cognizant of the tools functions and workings. When time is wasted on the upkeep of technology, time is wasted, and in our current classroom situations, we cannot afford any wasted time.

How did I cope with learning to use new digital technology in the classroom?  Actually it wasn’t that hard .  I just asked my students to help me.  I’d been blogging and podcasting for about a year and a half so I felt confidant about introducing the new class blog,  but I knew  there’d be lots of new stuff coming on line all the time that of course I wouldn’t be familiar with.  I knew I wouldn’t have time to  learn to be an expert in using all of it, so I decided to take a deep breath and take the plunge.

I told my students at the beginning of the semester that there was some new cool technology that we’d be using in class and that  since it was so new , I was just learning how to use it and sometimes I might need their help. They were OK with that. I was OK with that. I told them that teachers are life long learners and just because I’d  been teaching for more than 20 years didn’t mean I know it all. I’m always learning.

My students were very accepting of the fact that I didn’t have the technology down pat , and  because I was upfront and honest about what I was trying to do, I didn’t lose their respect.  On the contrary, as time went on   they respected me more and more for what I was trying to do and told  me they wished more teachers would teach using the new digital technology.  No one complained  that I didn’t know what I was doing.  They just helped when I asked for help and even sometimes when I didn’t ask for help. They’d just jump in whenever.

My grade 11/12 classes absolutely loved using the class blog because they were comfortable working on the computer and trying new things. If we ran into problems during class time, and we did,  I simply asked the students to complete the  work at home. It wasn’t a problem.

I never felt I was wasting time.  It’s all about quality not quantity.  It’s all about collaborative learning. It’s all about working together and problem solving- important skills in the real world, and  it’s all about showing students that  I’m a life long learner and probably they probably will be too. I’m looking forward to next semester to see what we can learn together.

Jul

11

High cost of gas is driving students to take on-line courses

Filed Under The Way I See It | 1 Comment


Photo by Cyfer13. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0

Registration for on-line courses has increased 35% to 114% this past year.  With gas costing more than $4.00 a gallon,  more  and more students are opting  to take on-line courses to try to save money.  Even though many students prefer the campus experience,  many feel  have little choice. The cost of gasoline can be as much as 50% of the cost of tuition. Basically for some students, what it boils down to is taking  courses on-line or not at all.

While taking courses on-line  enables  students to get around the high cost of gas,  there are still some  problems.   Not  all courses are offered on-line.  Only a small fraction are and manyof those  have waiting lists.  Education institutions are having to train new staff as quickly as possible to meet the new demand.

The other problem for students hoping to take on line courses is that in some places like rural areas the high speed internet connections that on-line courses require is not available.  Then, it becomes a question of equity.

I wonder if high speed internet access is going to be considered a common good and just like access to electricity in an earlier day,  there will be a political will to make it available to everywhere everywhere. Maybe it’s a case of when big business is ready, the internet will come.  I try not to be too cynical,  but at my age it’s hard.

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