Over the next 3 weeks, I have been assigned to read some of Mrs. Sharon Elin. She is a National Board Certified Teacher and has a passion in educating students in the most creative, inspiring, engaging, and effective ways possible. That includes using technology along with or instead of direct instruction. Otherwise, technology can step back and allow free-flowing interactions between communities. She is also a tech integrator, specializing in language arts in middle schools. The mission is to help other teachers plan their lesson and show them how to take their lesson up a notch. Then, She will interacts with the student, showing the teacher what to do. After that, the teacher will start doing what Mrs. Elin did without her. Otherwise, she loves technology and she loves helping in providing teachers and their students more opportunities to explore, dig deeper, collaborate and create.
HER POSTS
DON'T FORGET THE NEWBIES AT NECC 2009
There was a NECC Conference held on June 28, 2009. This was an educational conference that expand knowledge on technology. This post was basically giving tips to help others how to get through the learning process at the conference. It was advising that speakers should take into considerations of their topics based on the audience's knowledge and newcomers should speak up if they do not understand anything. Not everybody will be an experts. It also advised that people be polite to new presenters because it takes a lot of nerves to get up and speak in front of people. Finally, it advised that Mac users should not show off to non-Mac users. "The apple logo can be intimidating to PC users, especially because Mac people talk in a different language sometimes. It is like traveling in a foreign country. We need translations to understand what you mean when you mention Mac-specific applications such as Keynote or Garage Band," Mrs. Elin posted. She also hoped that every participant will put forth an effort to communicate and share with everyone else without staying to themselves.
TECHNOLOGY GRAVEYARD: WHY SCHOOLS NEED INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATORS
Mrs. Elin was talking about how the school needed to get rid of the old "clunky technology" because it is taking up too much space and keep the school pinned to the past. Technology are advancing everyday and she thinks that the school needs to update along with the technology. She also believes that they need tour guides for the technology world. She calls them "instructional technology integrators, technologists, and ITRTS (Instructional Technology Resource Teachers." I agree with her about these tour guides should be well experience and tech savvy. She said that the integrators with great expertise would be challenging because of several reasons: 1) In the old days, the internet services were web 1.0 and the schools were limited to the connectivity. After this, technology begins to advance like crazy that many school districts were paralyzed in their technological advancement. Also, many teachers and administrators were overwhelmed. 2) Budget problems in schools. 3) Many people believed they can do without the experienced help of technology integrators. Those are just a few reasons and there are probably more outside of what she says. "The secret to managing change and staying grounded in the midst of evolution lies in having the luxury of time to adjust to the newness and having time to reconcile old mindsets and habits with new ways of thinking and new approaches. At today’s pace of change and innovation, school systems need “tour guides” to help with this process." With technology advancing as fast as it is, it would be very important to have real expertise who keep up with the advancement of technology to become tour guides for all over the world. Many people may do without the tour guides, but for some of us, there is no way we can do without tour guides to help us get by in the technology world.
DELICIOUS BINGE AND PURGE: AN INVITATION TO A BOOKMARK MAKEOVER
Mrs. Elin has a delicious page that has all of her bookmarks. "Delicious Binge and Purge" is her way of saying that she needs to clean up her Delicious page. Apparently, she had so many bookmarks that they add up to at least 4,000 or more, according to her video. She used some of them, accidentally click on sites without meaning to do so, or click on them and never return to them again. So basically she "binge and purge" her Delicious site to organize the bookmarks according to whether she uses them or not. So if anyone needs to clean up their Delicious page, all you have to do is "binge and purge."
IMBEDDED LEADERS
The first thing that she said was that "As educators,we are all leaders." I like this because it shows that educators are role models for the generations rising up. It gives the children and teenagers someone to look up to. Educators are leaders because they can make a different in children's and teenagers' lives. She talked about educators have responsibilities to claim their positions as part of the leadership team that officially presides in their districts. And that educators need to think about how they will lead and commit themselves to improvement. I agree with the whole thing. I will apply this to myself because I believe that it is important to take up responsibilities for leadership. It is also important to know how to lead others and be willing to improve your way of commitment. "Voice" is the important way of showing leadership. The education system needs to adjust its views of leadership to include all the voices — from the teachers, the students, the teachers’ aides — and not just the administrators and school board office personnel and state or federal politicians. "There are several fundamental paradigm shifts that must take place, at all levels, among district leaders, administrators, and teachers. Our beliefs about leadership must change."
1) Leadership is more than "authority."- Some educators will view themselves as "in control" and considered it leadership, but it is not; it is management. It also ineffective and counterproductive.
2) Leadership is learned — and earned — from the trenches.- A leader should be able to do any jobs that his or her followers are asked to do and do it better than they can. "No mediocre teacher should be allowed to rise to the ranks of school leadership." Leaders should be able to pass their passions on to others.
3)Leadership does not isolate itself.- Leaders should always keep in contact with others.
4.)Leadership goes both ways.- Leaders should reach out to others and others should reach out to leaders. Either way, it will show leadership.
So basically anyone who is making a difference in others lives is a leader. Reaching out to others, being considerate to others, and giving a helping hand will show that leadership can do anything. It is not a bad thing; however, there will be some that will abuse its power. It will up to the true leaders to show exactly what leadership is, just like what Mrs. Elin had done.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE: INTERNET ADDICTION
She was writing in response to the "Read Write Web blog, Jolie O’Dell struck a defensive nerve in her daring post “Should Tech Get a Turn-Off?” In her post, she confronts the geeky world of internet addiction and wonders if the seductive lure of the internet makes it much too easy to go missing from reality without being aware of it." She was asking if what O'Dell said is true. If you ask Mrs. Elin's family, they would say that the only thing they see of her is the back of her head while she is sitting at a computer desk.
The wonders of internet making it too easy bring people away from reality without being aware of it is a really good questions. It doesn't bring me out of reality because the only reason I am on the computer is for homework purposes. I do get on facebook and check emails, but I only do it for at least 10 minutes. Otherwise, I do other things that doesn't involve the computer: dancing, cleaning, and hanging out with family and friends. However, my brother is a different story. He is on the computer all day. Or at least he was, until mom took it away till he brings his grades up. His room is a mess and instead of cleaning, he just sits on the computer and play games instead of doing things he could be doing.
So I guess this question will depends on who you are as a person. I am physically active and I just cannot sit on the computer playing games or reading news for hours and hours. Plus that, I always tend to want to be in the reality instead of being stuck with something that does not apply to me. I get bored and sick of it. My brother has no problem whatsoever to be on the computer all day that he forgets about reality. He could care less about reality.
So what about you? Does the internet draw you away from reality?
FEAR OF ROTARY-DIAL PHONE (OR, HOW TO BE GENTLE WHEN INTRODUCING TECHNOLOGY)
Mrs. Elin talked about fear of technology. She was explaining about how some people are afraid of change. She uses a 1930’s-40’s video showing a Grandpa grumbling about rotary dial phones. He was not used to the idea of using a rotary dial phones. In fact, he was afraid of it. Eventually, he let go of his fears and got really curious about the new use of technology.
Here are some of the lessons that Grandpa learned:
* Resistance to change is instinctive.
* Defensiveness is a first step toward progress.
* Patience and respect = allowing new learners to struggle and standing by them while they do.
* Learners are comforted by hearing rationale for change.
* Learners feel more like part of a team when they hear what trainers and technicians do behind the scenes to prepare for change.
* The human touch is absolutely essential for progress.
Here are a couple of videos:
I guess I can understand some of what the Grandpa is going through. I am a little afraid of change in technology but only because I am scared I may not keep up with it. Technology is advancing pretty fast and I am actually a slow learner. It is not easy keeping up with technology. The only I can do is try my very best to keep up with it.
WEB 2.0 COST MORE THAN YOU THINK
This post expresses Mrs. Elin's opinions about websites that once used to be free will start charging a fee. To begin with, many websites were free until it gets to the point where it is popular that services will begin to start a subscription fee. Not all websites do this yet; only a few of them like "web companies such as Blinksale, GoToMeeting, CrazyEgg, Jott, and many others have chosen to eliminate their free plans (or switch to free trials).” — PollEverywhere.com. Unfortunately, Mrs. Elin explained that she will have to make some decisions about a few sites that she uses, including Jott.
I think this is a pretty good post for everyone to read because it shows that not all websites are fee like Myspace and Facebook, etc. I guess I have always known about this because of some of the websites my brother gets on. He tends to subscribe on to games that have fee without him knowing it. We have tried to teach him that it it not always a good idea to download or subscribe things without our permission, or in this case mine. All of the games he has downloaded in the past were on my laptop and cause it to go wacko. After having problems about that, I forbidden him from downloading games onto my computer because I did not want his games screwing it up.
A PASSIONATE CRY FOR EDUCATIONAL REFORM
Everyone remember the Dan Brown video? If not, then it is posted down below. Mrs. Elin is responding back to this video encouraging educators to listen because obviously the teaching style right now is not working. She is encouraging everyone to think about what educators can do to change the way they teach to children. Hopefully, the plan will follow.
Here is the Video:
You know, I already did comment on the video but I left something out. In my other post, I said something about how educators need to improve their way of teaching to make things more interesting to students but I never gave some suggestions. One suggestion is to teach something more meaningful and relevant to the students' lives. Another suggestion is to make the class more fun than usual: use hands-on experience instead of just lecturing. Or maybe let the students teach the class based on what they know or experience and this will spark open discussion with the teacher. These are a couple of suggestions; I do not know if any of these could be valid, but they could work. Do you any of you have suggestions of how to make education more relevant?
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