Thing #2

While I had heard the phrase “Web 2.0″ tossed around for a few years, I never knew it incorporated so many different things!  Blogging…Podcasting…File-sharing…Social networking sites…Wikis…Google docs…Wow!  As I read Steve Hargadon’s blog and David Warlick’s article, I became rather overwhelmed.  Perhaps I should reconsider my comment in my “Thing 1″ blog entry about wanting to “swim to the depths” of all that is available out there!   It is unbelievable how easily (and frequently) people share their thoughts and opinions through the Web 2.0 tools.  I’ve never before believed that my thoughts were important enough to post them for all the world to see.  Should we consider whether – in addition to becoming more connected, better educated, and highly technological – we’re all turning into ego-maniacs?

I firmly believe that educators bear the responsibility of educating the whole child, including his academic, social, moral, and physical beings.  With such a burden, it’s no wonder we need a two months hiatus in the summer!  In all seriousness, if these tools are available for students to use on their own, then we bear some of the burden for educating them on the appropriate ways to use them.  When preteens have the power to become “prosumers” and post their thoughts, photos, and videos for all the world to see, then we’d better hope that their teachers have the good sense to teach them to be responsible.  And, that of course means we must show them how to be responsible with these tools.

The students want this.  They are bored stiff with the mundane lectures I grew up hearing.  The reality is that during every other moment of their day, images are flashed in their faces – television, dvd’s in their cars, video games, ipods, computer games, even digital billboards.  Our job is not simply to educate, but to edutain them.  We must lieterally do a song and dance to keep their attention.  What better way to entertain them than to subscribe to their interest in technology?  Then, it is our job to use that technology to teach them the curriculum.  Oh, if it were only as easy as it sounds.

I’d like to return to a topic I mentioned in my “Thing 1″ blog entry.  I want to give my students what they need, but I refuse to sacrifice my mathematics curriculum just to use technology.  For the three years I’ve been teaching, I have looked and listened for good ideas for how to use technology in my classroom.  And, yes, I have heard a few good suggestions.  Use an Active or Smart board.  Check – done.  That’s fantastic!  But, it doesn’t seem to be enough.  Use technology to show students the applications of mathematical concepts to the real world.  Check – done, a little.  But, that doesn’t seem to be enough either.  I’m looking (and hoping) to find ways to incorporate these Web 2.0 tools on a daily or weekly basis, to let them fit seamlessly into my classroom.  And, I haven’t seen it work.  I find it telling that in his article, amidst the literature podcasts, scientific blog entries, and historical debates, the application David Warlick suggested for the mathematics classroom involved the librarian searching for web logs that suggested mathematical applications to physics, chemistry, engineering, and entrepreneurship to be used in a unit on real-world math.  In my opinion, that hardly parallels the suggestions made for the other subject disciplines.  Can you blog about sixth grade math?  Can you make a podcast on Algebra?  Can you do these things without sacrificing the curriculum?

I’m here because I want to learn, and I want to see what works so I can try it too.  I remain open-minded.

Thing #1

I think it is only fair that – at the beginning of this Web 2.0 journey – I make a confession: I am cynical when it comes to incorporating technology into my role as an educator.  At age 25, I find myself in a very awkward position.  In the seven years since I graduated from high school, the age of my paper-and-pencil, no-questions-asked educational experience has become extinct, and I find myself fumbling through the technological reality of the present.  I can remember our elementary school computers with black screens and blinking orange cursors.  I typed class reports on a typewriter, as we did not get our first home computer until I was in eighth grade.  The only technological advantage I had in high school was my TI-83 graphing calculator, which I saw as a god-send.  My cell phone used prepaid minutes, and it lived in the dashboard of my car, pending emergency use only.  When I was issued a school email address in college, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it.  And, when my college philosophy professor required that I make entries in what I now learn is called a blog (but was so new that it didn’t even have a name back then), I found it to be unnatural and uncomfortable to share my thoughts so freely with the world.

I don’t know how it happened so quickly, but the world has changed.  I feel as though I have whiplash from watching it happen.  My memories from middle and high school are so fresh.  We didn’t use this “stuff” then, and I turned out okay.  With arms folded, I stubbornly ask: Why is it so necessary now?

I strongly believe there is a time and place for old-fashioned learning.  I am a math teacher, and I still see the value in paper-and-pencil calculations.  I see how students respond to watching the answer unfold in front of their eyes as they solve a complicated problem.  I know that technology can aide in my teaching; however, I struggle to see its easy applications in my classroom.

While I am admittedly stubborn and cynical, I am not stupid.  I realize that I must keep up with the times.  In any effort to avoid it, I will lose my students’ attention and therefore rob them of the wealth of experience that comes from enjoying learning.  It is with that attitude that I approach this Web 2.0 course.  How can I acknowledge this “necessary evil” without selling my soul?

MOST CHALLENGING…HABIT #3: View problems as challenges – As a general rule, I am not frustrated very easily.  I enjoy learning new things, and I like to think that I rise to the occasion when faced with an obstacle.  However, technology seems to be my Achilles’ heel.  When I was younger, my parents joked that I had the power to break a computer simply by touching it.  I have plenty of stories I could share, the most dramatic of which is the time when the hard drive in my college laptop literally caught flame, melted my computer, and burnt a hole in my desk.  Needless to say, I constantly encounter problems that I cannot seem to solve, and I hope that through the course of this experience I will learn to approach them with the same optimism and determination that I do other problems in my life.

MOST RELEVANT…HABIT #5: Create your own learning toolbox – If I am going to dive into this world of technological advances, then I want to swim to the depths.  I want to learn about all of the “cool stuff” available out there; that way, I can pick and choose from the best features to use in my classroom.

MOST IMPORTANT…HABIT #6: Use technology to your advantage – When I incorporate technology into my classroom, I want it to be useful and meaningful for my curriculum.  I want it to emphasize the meaning of our material, strengthen the students’ understanding of the concepts, and open their eyes to its application and connection to the world around them.  Otherwise, I feel I would be sacrificing the mathematical foundation that is fundamental to my classes.