Skip to main content

If I knew then... pt. 2

Again, I find myself in a place where I wish that I had known what I learned about this week when I was still in the classroom. As a High School ELA teacher, even in a title one school here in Florida, we had a computer cart in the classroom with enough computers for each student. While many social media sites were blocked (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Many of these other online tools would not have been. I wish I could have tried a more networked learning community style.

I think the use of a class bog, collection and curation tools, the online badges, and the primary resource sites form the creative commons unit come to mind. So, to answer the question, I think in some cases the tools help foster ideas, though I would argue that once you know of the tools then you would probably get ideas of how to use them when you come across a subject. I think I could have fostered more motivation from my students, possibly given them the additional time and space for them to work at their own pace, and hopefully taught them more.

Every now and then I miss being in the classroom, particularly when I find things that could’ve helped make the experience better!


Comments

  1. I have a good friend who after teaching about ten years became a principal for about ten years and is now in the district office. We have had many conversations that ended with, "I think I want to go back to the classroom one day before I retire so that I can use all I've learned." Of course, he's still applying things he learned, just in a different way. Maybe you will too. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Lori!

      I'm not sure I will go back, but I have some friends who only want to teach, so they will definitely benefit from my studies!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Culture of Connectivity - Jose Van Dijck - Chapter 2

In chapter 2, van Dijck gets a little more technical. He presents definitions for various aspects of the social media construction.  Technologies included: data, metadata, algorithm, protocols, interfaces, and defaults He broke down the concepts of users and usage: " Implicit participation is the usage inscribed in the engineer's design by means of the coding mechanisms" (p.33).  " Explicit use refers to how real or actual users interact with social media" (p.33). He discuses content (text, music, or videos) and how these display the opinions of the users, the things they are interested in or want, and other social trends and consumer practices.  He describes ownership of the social media site, governance (mechanisms, communication and data traffic management), and business models and intentions of the site and how these 3 things work with the previous 3 things (content, user agency, and content) to create online sociality. Ultimately the focus of this chapter...

The Big Sleep - Book Suggestion

Reading has always been a bit of an escape for me. As long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with fiction and the ability to get away from my present and go pretty much anywhere. Even as I am pursuing my Phd, I find that I am constantly buying (odd for someone with a Library degree) the next novel that I want to read. I almost always have a novel on me, I think I really picked the habit up when I moved to New York and realized there is so much time to read throughout the day that you might miss. Taking the train, waiting rooms, random periods when you are in between tasks, etc. So since then, I find that I get through more novels that expected, even though I'm in a period of study that requires a lot of reading. I've been on a bit of a noir kick. I love the old movies and I've discovered that some of my favorites are based on novels and that the author has written many more. I've always loved The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and found out tha...

The Culture of Connectivity - Jose Van Dijck - Intro and Chapter 1

One of the adventures I've decided to take on during this course is an additional reading of a book titled: The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media . The book is written by Jose Van Dijck (2013) with the aim to:  "offer an analytical model to elucidate how platforms have become central forces in the construction of sociality, how owners and users have helped shape and are shaped by this construction; in other words, it wants to enhance a historical understanding of social media's impact on the everyday lives of families" (p.23). She begins with an introduction of social media and defines it as a group of online applications, inspired by the ideology and foundations of Web 2.0, that focus on the generation of content by its users. The ideology behind Web 2.0 tech is focused on connectedness and a participatory culture. He identifies several types of social media: social network sites (SNS), user-generated content (UGC), trading and marketing sit...