Technology and Shaping Education

"Connecting people to information."

Boyd claims that this is the primary use of the Internet. This can be taken in many different ways. While the Internet connects people to textual information, it can also connect people to people and people to other types of media such as videos and podcasts to gather more information on the world. 

I think as educators, its SUPER important that we realize there is more than one way to convey information. Not only does it keep our teaching techniques fresh, but it also helps integrate students into the modern day world.

I grew up when technology was sort of there but it wasn't incorporated too much into the classroom. Through grades K-8 I attended three different private schools. It wasn't until the third school that technology was pretty present within the classroom. Almost every classroom had an interactive whiteboard that teachers were encouraged to use within their lessons. However, none of them knew how to use the technology so they often were turned off and we were instead exposed to a "good old chalkboard with chalk".

Hicks and Turner's "Digital Literacy Can't Wait" made me think back into my elementary years because they specifically go into how certain schools have the technology and they don't use it while other schools don't have the funding for technology but they would love to have it. You also have to think about what technology kids have at home because although you might be able to integrate it into the classroom, home life may be very different.

Personally, I have always been an old fashioned person, but I have recently been trying to integrate technology into my learning because I know I'll have to do it for my own students. I think that in the future, I will be using Google Suite a lot more than I anticipate. There's a bunch of different resources that Google has created and helps with presenting and organizing information. I actually love the idea of Google classroom. Having all assignments in one place along with their due date helps with confusion. It's also really nice how students can download the app to their phone so that they are notified whenever there is a new announcement. It allows teachers to connect more with their students outside of the classroom. 

Google classroom also allows you to submit work in different types of media. You can submit it through a doc or a powerpoint, but it also allows you to submit links meaning you can link a blog or other resources. One of the main ways I want to experiment with the use of technology in my classroom is allowing students to submit not only papers but voice recordings and videos. For example, if the assignment is to write a poem, the student can send a voice recording of the poem that they've written. The use of the voice recording can help identify whether or not students have also picked up on recitation techniques in poetry.

Technology can be scary for teachers who don't integrate it into their everyday lives. But if you start now before stepping into the classroom, integrating it in can become like second nature.

The Dreaded Essay

Essays were something I always struggled with growing up, mostly because I was never taught how to properly write one by a teacher. I went up until ninth grade without writing a proper essay, and when my first one was assigned, it was like it was the end of the world. I had to teach myself how to write an introduction, how to support my claims with evidence, and how to write a conclusion. Long story short, that first essay was not my best work.

But over time I got better because I continually wrote them. However, that does not mean that I wouldn't have appreciated a lesson or two on how to write an essay. It also means that just because I got better, didn't mean I enjoyed writing them. In fact, I dreaded them. My prompt was given to me and it felt like I had to write within a box. There was little to no room to explore topics that I found interesting within a novel because I was told what I was supposed to write. 

In Linda Christensen's Teaching for Joy and Justice, her way of teaching her students how to write an essay as well as the essays she assigns greatly differs from my own experience. For one, she makes the writing interesting for her students so that they can write essays that they are proud of. Christensen claims, "I believe we must steep students in engaging work that connects to their lives; rehearse the essay about big ideas; teach how essays work by examining models by student and professional writers, and teach them how to write by guiding them through the essay writing process"(121).

There's a lot to unpack with that single quote. I think the first step that Christensen mentions is the most important. Get to know your students so that you can assign relevant work to them. Students will most likely produce better work when they feel passionate about what they are writing about because they will put more time and effort in getting to know the material. This idea of assigning relevant work pushes away from the common practice of assigning common prompts among all students. The last thing a student wants to feel is as if they as writing within a box. I can definitely back that from experience. Instead, like Christensen mentions later on within this chapter, allow your students to develop their own prompts based upon what they found interesting within the novel. This does not mean that as a teacher, you can't help them guide them to a final prompt decision, but leaving things open can push for more meaningful writing. In fact, this guidance is where the "essay about big ideas" comes in. Presenting a big idea from the novel and allowing students to come up with topics is how this meaningful writing will develop.

I also like Christensen's idea about teaching how an essay works as opposed to giving students a template on how an essay should be written. When you tell students how an essay should be written, they stick to that way and writing becomes boring really fast. However, when you teach how an essay works, it allows students to explore different ways in which they can present the information that they are arguing. Allowing students to take apart essays with highlighters gives the experience with writing and will influence them to become better writers.

Out of all of this, I think my favorite part of the quote is guiding students through the essay writing process. I got to see the "in-class conferences" that Christensen talks about in person when I did classroom observations two weeks ago. The teacher took each students aside and talked with them about the main parts within their essay and what they were having trouble with. She tried to help guide them and also offered advice on where they could make their essay stronger. I think doing this while students are writing is a lot more helpful than telling them where they went wrong for the first time on their draft. It allows students to correct their mistakes while they write instead of after the essay is done when the last thing they want to do is revisit something that in their mind is "finished". It also allows students to verbalize what they are writing about so that maybe they can hear where they have gaps within their argument.

If essay writing became a more involved process like we see here with Christensen, maybe students will react with something more than a groan when the assignment of an essay comes up within class.

Are We Serving Our Students?

Standardized testing and standards.

I learned to dislike both these things at a young age through the taking of tests and teachers venting how they skewed learning. I was fortunate to go to a private school growing up. Every year from grades 4-8, I was required to take CAT testing (California Achievement Testing). Don't ask me why we took a California test in Rhode Island, I'm still trying to figure that out myself, but I remember absolutely despising October because that's when everyone knew it was time.

It only took a week to take a test that would spit out scores on whether we were behind, average, or exceeding expectations. ONE test decided this. A test that had questions on things I had never even heard before. How can I be considered "average" when the knowledge that I'm supposed to share is being chosen for me?

Yearly standardized testing stopped when I entered ninth grade, but now public school systems told me I had to exceed according to standards. Teachers constantly complained within class that they had to teach a certain way because they were restricted by the standards.

In a way, teachers feeling restricted by the standards connects to the article "Racial Justice is Not a Choice". Within the article, it states "High-stakes standardized test also discipline curriculum and learning: they determine what knowledge and content is considered legitimate for teaching in the classroom. They also discipline teachers' pedagogy because they compel teachers to teach to the test and place restrictions on depth and breadth of subject matter."(246) Just as teachers teach to the test, they also teach to the standards. The standards tell teachers what students should be learning, which helps students stay on track, but in a way, it causes teachers to be less creative in how they present material and what material they present. Also, kind of like how standardized testing determines what is being taught in schools.

This "standardization" of learning does not cater to all students. Children learn in different ways and have different upbringings and therefor the information being thrown at them is received differently every time. So how are all students supposed to meet standards at the same time in this way?

Here is a link to an article about the pros and cons of standardized learning. I thought the writer made some pretty interesting points about how it helps students, one being the "Ease of implementation at scale". What do you think about this advantage stated? In theory it might work, but what about in practice?

My Language Isn't Everyone's

Language is the key.

Growing up, this is something that was taught to me going through elementary school all the way through high school. Sure, I was exposed to Spanish class, but that was just an "elective". Speaking a different language was saved for our language classes. Anywhere else within the school was reserved for English only. Even the ESL students were reserved to one room; separated from everyone else because they consistently spoke a different language.

Why?

Like Linda Christensen says in her chapter "Language and Power", my teachers told me the same thing: in order to get a job and make it in the real world, one had to properly learn how to speak and write. Otherwise, you would never get a job.

I took this as my religion. Fear of failing in life, failing out of college because my writing and diction wasn't up to par pushed me. I worked on my grammar and said nothing else on the matter. I never even thought of my peers that were forced to leave a part of themselves behind because they had to speak proper English rather than their home language.

Language may be the key to the professional world but language is also power, and by taking away a student's home language, you are also taking away their chance to empower themselves. Schools tend to "white wash" students so that they are able to conform to the dominate society. By doing this, students have "...a disconnect between generations of language speakers and a loss of family ties, traditions, and cultural memory"(Christensen, 209). Where a person comes from is often a big part of their identity. By telling someone that the language that they use isn't proper, it can cause a lot of personal confusion and devaluation.

This makes me question, how can I teach my students in a way where I am setting them up for the professional world, but at the same time, I am showing that I value where they come from?

Here is a video I found from a documentary about using Ebonics within the classroom. It talks about how the lesson isn't teaching the language, but instead is guiding students toward the language they should be using within the classroom. Using the word "translation" instead of correcting the ebonics makes the children feel like their language is still valued because it is not being labeled as "wrong".

Language might be the key to the American world, but empowerment is the key to student success. By taking into consideration students' backgrounds in lessons, we empower them to be proud of where they come from and bring to the table what they have learned from their own cultural background.

Community in Narrative Writing

Narrative writing has always been one of my personal forms of writing. It's open and not ridged like formal essays. Although I have to stay focused on what I am writing, I am allowed freedom on what I am writing about. I'm able to let my personality come out in my piece.

However, like Christensen states within Chapter 2 of her book Teaching for Joy and Justice, it is rarely taught anymore. Teachers have come to focus more on a the formal essay that students will need to know how to write by college instead of focusing on the type of writing that allows students to become stronger analyzers. If you know the techniques and have used them yourself, the more in tune you are when they appear within other authors' writing.

Narrative writing also takes away the one view on society that most people are exposed to. It allows students to see the world from their peers' perspectives who might have a different background than themselves. Christensen states, "As students analyze their own experiences and hear stories from their classmates' lives, we make it possible to 'challenge the myths of our society, to perceive more clearly its realities, and to find alternatives, and ultimately, new directions for action'..."(61). The single focus sense on society becomes multi focused and opens students' minds to change to help students who may write about the struggles they have within their everyday lives.

Here is an article I found that supports Christensen's argument that narrative writing is just as important as formal writing.They state that the point of life is for students to analyze and understand their own experiences so that they can grow as a person. This can be done through narrative writing. I really like the idea of having students keep a journal which eventually expands to a larger project.

I think that this journal activity can be combined with Christensen's Read-Around activity. I really like the idea for my own classroom. In a way, it gives students a space where they can write their thoughts down and then pick an event that they are comfortable expanding. The activity is then transferred from individual into something thats more involving when students go around the circle to share what they wrote and how the writing connects to them. It can become a very multidimensional project to shake things up so the typical lecture style classroom isn't always in default.

I Knew You Were Trouble

I knew you were trouble
The first day that I saw your grin
It was charming--it pulled me in
I didn't know you had a double
Someone that I would come to know in the end

 I knew you were trouble
But I didn't seem to care
I had you and my happiness was there
But I didn't know you had a double
Someone that I would come to know in the end

 I knew you were trouble
The day you broke my heart in two--
You made it seem like I was nothing to you
Cruel and heartless was the double
The someone in the end wasn't you


 

Flying From the Nest

"I don't know if I can do this."
Marina sat in front of her computer with her two parents behind her. The screen was lit up to show her email. Her cursor hesitantly hovered over the refresh button.
"It's ok, honey." She felt her mother's hand stroke the back of her head. "At least one school accepted you."
"Besides," her father quipped up, trying to ease his daughter's ease without knowing that he was about to make it all the worse, "we all know you're going to end up at Union."
The early acceptance to Union College had come in the mail about a month earlier. Her parents were ecstatic. Union was a family tradition. And it was quite literally a hop, skip, and a jump down the street from where she currently lived. She would be living at home if she did attend. It would be the ultimate college experience within the comfort zone of the small New York town that she had grown up in.
The clock on her computer switched to 4:01pm. She hit refresh.
Marina glanced nervously at her parents as three emails appeared within her inbox. One from Southern New York University, one from Western New England University, and one from University of California, Los Angeles. Her parents knew of two of the schools she had applied for. The third came as a surprise.
She quickly clicked the first email before the third school could register within their minds.
ACCEPTED.
She felt a hand squeeze her shoulder from where her mother was standing. Neither of her parents said anything. Marina went to open the second email.
ACCEPTED.
Marina paused. Still nothing from her parents. She felt a pit form in her stomach, knowing that she had in some way disappointed them as she opened the third email.
ACCEPTED.
A small smile broke out on her lips before it melted away. She glanced over her shoulder at her parents.
Before this, her parents had thought that Marina had only applied to schools within three hours of home. They had no idea that their only daughter wanted to fly all the way across the country for the next four years.
"It's what I want."
Marina was sick of the New York area. She wanted new experiences. She wanted to explore. She wanted to discover who she was. But on her own.
Her mother nodded, still looking at the computer screen.
"We'll talk about it."
Marina didn't see what there was to talk about, but she nodded as well. She already knew where she was heading.
Marina was ready to fly away from the nest.