In your conference reflection please include:
- Identify one thing learned from the keynote and one of the breakout sessions.
- Explain two things learned from the conference that can be used with students.
- Identify what was accomplished in the workshop.
- Develop an academic technology professional development goal that utilizes a web 2.0 tool. (This was done the day of the conference. Please include it at the bottom of your reflection.)
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I realize that some of my colleagues were not impressed with Alan November, but I was! He challenged me to think about education in a way that was WAY beyond my comfort zone. I pride myself as being an "outside the box" type of thinker, but he proved me wrong! The most important thing that I took from his presentation is that I need to empower my students to use technology to solve problems. An example of this was recently, when my class was downloading pictures from their digital cameras in the lab. Many of them had too many pictures on their memory cards and as a result were not able to save their pictures to their computers. I suggested that Nikki and I take care of the problem, but Nikki reminded me that it was important for the children to learn to solve these types of problems. So, we taught them how to use the Control key to select several items at one time and then cut and paste them into a folder on the desktop. Had I "fixed" this problem, the children would not have learned that particular concept. My favorite, and I felt the most relavent break- out session at the 21st Century Teaching and Learning Conference, was that of Steve Hargadon. He based his presentation on what he considers to be the Ten Trends that will have a profound impact on education.
1. We are in a "New publishing revolution. Web 1.0 was all about receiving, reading and researching. Web 2.0 is about contributing, collaborating, and creating.
2. The Tidal Wave of Information. We used to receive filtered information and now we need to sort through it to get the specific information that we would like. How to deal with Information Overload: Treat your inbox like the newspaper. It is information that you can choose to read or not. Use RSS feeds from blogs that you want to read and see updates from.
3. A culture of Openness. Open source software (Google, Firefox). (MITOPENCOURSEWARE ~ free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT No registration required.)
4. A culture of participation. You have the ability to participate (Amazon.com, American Idol, Wiki’s)
5. The Long Tail. It now costs more to get items in a store and costs less to handle a transaction online. (Amazon, Netflix, Rhapsoday, GlobalScholar).
6. From Mass Production to Mass Customization. People expect customization, such as individual learning plans. (I did not understand this very well.)
7. Collaborators Rule!
8. The World is getting Flatter and Faster. (Skype)
9. He skipped this due to time constraints.
10. The Power of Social Networking (My Space, Facebook)
What should be done? Students need teachers more than ever. We need to learn how to use the same technologies that our students use and then teach them to use it wisely.
One thing I learned in the conference that can be used with the children in my first grade classroom is a new feature of the Google Earth application. The street view feature is amazing! While studying Tokyo, Japan, I took my students down to the street-level in Tokyo and we were able to see what "real time" Tokyo looked like! The children were amazed by how similar the big city of Tokyo was to some of our big cities. Both cities had flower shops, cars, traffic lights, restaurants, pedestrians, people on bikes, etc. This activity supported the first grade curriculum piece of studying how given cultures are alike and different.
Another thing I learned about that I can use with my class is the ability to use the Skype application to communicate with children in other countries. The first grade team would like to develop an activity where we could speak with children in the countries that we study in our social studies curriculum. If we are given an opportunity for summer curriculum writing, we would look into creating this particular opportunity.
My academic technology professional development goal was to learn how to use the Google Earth application in more depth and utilize it with my students during social studies lessons. So far, I have accomplished this goal during our study of Japan. I intend to use it again during our study of Ghana, and Brazil.
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