Saturday, February 09, 2013

Rotary Presentation

Last week I was fortunate enough to be asked to speak at the rotary club. I presented, as luck would have it, with my reverse mentor, who is also one of the student rotarians for the month. It was an honor.

Here are the pictures from my presentation.

The above image contains some of the apps and sites that I could possibly teach without (the main ones are blogger, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, TED Talks, Vuvox, Popplet, and Dropbox)


These two books have been paramount in my teaching methodologies.  The first, The Influence of Teachers, reminds us that schools have to change because their purposes have changed.  School used to be first, where the knowledge was kept (in the teachers' heads, in the library, and so on).  Now, any kid with an internet connection and laptop has access to far more information than that.  Teachers have to model how to find and sift through information.  We have to model how to be active learners.  School used to be social in nature.  That's where you saw your friends.  There's several apps for that now.  And this is creating huge problems (cyber bullying for example).  Now schools need to teach digital citizenship.  Finally, schools used to be daycare.  That part is still true.  But schools can do so much more than just keep the kids buys for nine months out of the year.

The second book is The World is Flat.  This book should be mandatory for every educator.  It illustrates how the world changed so dramatically from the industrial age to the information age and now to the imagination age.  Unbelievably, in its first edition in 2004, Facebook is not even mentioned in the book.  As Friedman states when the first edition came out  Twitter was a sound; LinkedIn was a prison; the cloud was in the sky; 4G was a parking spot; apps were what you sent to colleges; and Skype was a typo.



And here are my amazing students.  Though they are impacted greatly by technology, that doesn't mean they still don't like to read (even when they are out on the lake).  At the top my reverse mentor, Sam, reads instead of fishing.  In the bottom right, Alexa does her research on one tablet while typing her paper on the Mac Air.  In the lower left, two of my College Comp 2 students read their presentation notes from the iPods.


How can I rip on the millennials, when I'm just as bad.  The top picture illustrates how the millennials access the world: through various modes of technology.  KoKo is playing a Nintendo game while checking on her Facebook page, listening to her iPod, and texting on her phone.  The picture in the lower right is a screen capture of my iPhone education folder.  With Youtube, TED Talks, Khan Academy, Google Docs, Evernote, Dropbox, and Vimeo, the sky is the limit for educators and students, whether in school or out.


More evidence of technology's vital role in learning.  The top two pictures are students using cell phones in my class.  The middle Tweet is from the author Penny Kittle who offers to Skype with my College Comp class to model reading and writing strategies.  And the bottom Tweet is from a former College Comp student reminding me that the work I do is valid when they get to college.

I would tell every teacher, students are going to Tweet about you.  Is it going to be about how much they enjoy and learn in your class or is it going to be about how boring and pointless they find it?  The choice is yours.



Here is more tech used in my classes.  The top is our College Comp 2 blog.  The arrows point to examples of student work that I've uploaded to the blog.  The bottom is TweetGrid.  This allows us to monitor Tweets or hashtags in real time.  On the far left is a twitter discussion.  The middle is a homework assignment I had given my students.  On the right is a current Twitter discussion we were having as we listened to a podcast.  What I love about this is that we had various students (not only in the class but in around the school and even in college) chiming in and giving us feedback.



Here is it is.  The top two reasons are what drive my passion for teaching.  It's the greatest job in the world.  I know I positively impact the lives of my students.  I inspire them; they inspire me.  It doesn't get much better than that.

How to get a hold of me or contact me.  Please do.




No comments: