Victorian or www - Internet is here to stay

I really enjoyed watching the video and listening to our book this week (yes, I found it on an audiobook).  I don’t think we ever really take the time to think or appreciate major events such as the printing press or the telegraph.  It reminds me of all the struggles and setbacks that have to happen before we get the next greatest thing.  It really didn’t just happen, it was a process of hard work, revisions and errors before the final product could be used and make our lives better.  When I was helping 4^th grade with their space unit I started doing some research on my own into the space program.  I listened to books, watched movies, went to the air and space museum in DC and the Houston center where mission control was located during the moon landing.  Thinking about the telegraph was much like my thinking of space travel.  It doesn’t just happen there is a long history of dedication and sacrifice.  What we gain from new inventions makes our world a better place, but it also creates a dark side as well.  I believe I saw a pattern of the same consequences happening with the introduction of a new technology – and this was confirmed with our discussion in class.  It creates new jobs, influences all of our systems (government, business, education, etc.), is used for both good and evil, it can change our social interactions and personal relationships, and can produce even a new language to name a few consequences.  In our discussion we also address a sort of obsession when a new technology is introduced – I believe that also happens in education when something is new and is considered the next best thing to give us all our answers for teaching.  I believe technology is a tool to help us and tools are used differently in every situation.  What works for one person may not work for another.  As I think of all the different tools, I use with students some have worked better than others but it is usually dependent on how and why they are being used.  We cannot use tools just to use them they need to have a very specific purpose.  I do love technology and I love trying new things.  It was amazing to see the parallel of the telegraph and the internet almost being the same story.  It is hard to think of life before we had the Internet just as it would have been hard to go back to the time of the pony express after having the telegraph.  We have to the both the good and the bad as we continue to progress, and technology continues to move forward and improve.  I think I might have jumped around a bit on my thoughts here, so I hope I have made some sort of point. 

This is an update still thinking of how much our lives change with technology.  I had saved this link in my Facebook to show my students and I believe it is very appropriate here and as we move into next week with technology tools This is how Tokyo will use technology to transform the 2020 Olympics

Vygotsky and Learning

I have my undergrad in Child Development, so it was interesting to revisit Vygotsky after 16 years or so.  While I needed to read again his theory in the book Mind in Society, one thing that I remembered vividly was the ZPD, Zone of Proximal Development.  It is interesting that after we read something, I immediately try to either connect it or start looking for ways to make connections.  I think it helps me understand what we are reading if I can try and put it some sort of real-life contexts.  Which now makes me think of what better ways I can present information and really work on authentic experiences.

So back to my connections – I mentioned this in class but will put my story here.  This past week I have been reading one of the Virginia Reader’s Choice (VRC) books to all my K-2 classes.  It is a fun story but in it the characters have a major problem, lie on the ground “thinking” then sit up with a light bulb over their heads.  I was most fascinated with my little kindergarten kiddos.  They are all so new to school, most of our school population does not attend preschool and most struggle speaking English.  I was so curious of where in their upbringing they saw the symbol of the light bulb representing an idea.  Our class mentioned it was most likely cartoons.  This could be true, but I still believe that just like most things young children learned are based on their culture and experience as mentioned by Vygotsky.  One idea of his theory states, “it may be said that the basic characteristic of human behavior in general is that humans personally influence their relations with the environment and through that environment personally change their behavior, subjecting it to their control” (p.51, Mind in Society).  We act on our environment, sort of like a stimulus, while the environment also acts on our thinking process.  It was just so interesting to me that all 100 of these kindergarten students knew what the light bulb meant in this situation.  It made it clear to me that something was modeled to symbolize this idea to all of us in our culture.  Dawn briefly mentioned universal signs that we all could use no matter where in the world we go, which again shows the importance of how our culture influences our learning.

My other experience this week had me thinking about the ZPD.  Our kindergarteners were back again for another computer lesson.  They are learning about community jobs over the next few weeks and they wanted to have all the students use our database PebbleGo – which is amazing and has lots of just perfect information for students K-3.  However, the classes do not have any computers in their rooms yet (they are in the new wing that was built onto our school this summer).  So, they have had one signing on lesson and this is lesson number two – PebbleGo and using a computer mouse.  Past experience with the mouse is usually very frustrating on all parities involved.  They are exposed to technology you can swipe and that does not exist in my library.  They could all relate to what a mouse does and could move the mouse all over the screen.  They needed to learn what side to click on and practice “driving” the mouse. It was a real-life actual development and their potential of what they could do with our guidance and some practice.  Some students really did well and could navigate right away.  I was the most excited that the majority of the students stayed on the correct site.  This is a real improvement from past years when they are clicking all over and too many click out of the program and then too many have their hand up needed assistance.  I did an overall lesson, modeling where we would be going on the database and how to get to the next part of the book.  I set up the blocks once again and we helped each student sign on and showed them again where and how to click individually.  The result was very successful, and I know the students were happy to “drive” on their own and most were doing very well.  We will set up another practice time and as I have seen over the years, with the practice, they become proficient mouse drivers in a just a few months. 

Situated Cognition - My Office 365 experiment

One of the ideas from the article this past week on Situated Cognition really stuck out to me was “like any method that tries to teach abstract concepts independently of authentic situations, overlooks the way understanding is developed through continued, situated use.”  I have tried on several occasions to learn how to use Excel.  But in years past I was not using Excel for really anything in my life and while I went through the motions, I really was not proficient in the program except to add some text and some numbers.  Fast forward about 10 years or so -  I am now using Excel for several purposes and I have viewed many YouTube videos to help me get to my proficiency of using Excel today.  Until I really had a purpose for Excel I really could not wrap my head around it.  I also needed to be hands-on with a purpose.  I think that is a major theme in the article. 

I am working closely with a 5^th grade teacher these past few weeks.  She at times seems nervous about technology but really want to use the laptops to make her students more future ready and doing more with our Office 365 online tools.  While I am not completely proficient with all that Office 365 has to offer, I met with her to discuss what she wanted her students to do and what was the end result.  As the librarian and on the side ITC, I do many things with students, media and technology.  I love to have students use online tools to improve their learning and make it more engaging – I think most of us are like that.  Our goal was to create an Excel document that would be emailed to each student.  The students would then download it to their computer, upload it to their OneDrive then link it to their OneNote that this teacher was creating and using for the first time.  There was a LOT of steps and some new vocabulary that the students would need to learn about this process.  Some students were more familiar than others depending on how much they use their Office 365 out of school hours. 

I spent many hours pondering the best way.  From past experience I knew that modeling on the board they would be lost in about 2 steps and many hands would go up.  I also knew from the past that even typing out a checklist does not do the job either, still too many would need help.  I designed, created and modeled a How-to video – it was a risk as we have never had them do a type of flipped classroom before.  I was knee deep in trying to read our article 3 times but used one entire evening making my video and was ready the next day to risk it and hoping for success.  I had been thinking the students were very situated in this authentic activity.  We used terms from their background knowledge as well as introduced new terms and experiences they had not done before in this program.  It was a HUGE success!  The teacher is beyond thrilled.  The class will now track their scores in Excel online and they all have an online data notebook.  I then spent Friday day after school helping the rest of her team create their notebooks and getting them ready for them to use my video and do the same things with their students.  They want to go even further by using the notebook even more by going more online and more paperless.  I feel that both the teachers and the students had a situated learning experience. 

As the teacher and I reflected on what needed to be changed we both were so impressed on how the students really owned their learning, using the video gave them so much more independence and then those that finished early were the mentors to help the others in their class.  It was a new feeling for both of us to be “less needed”.  I could see both a situated learning experience and PICKLE in this process.  Students of all learning levels and styles were successful.  I had explained again to the teachers and the students that there may be many ways to reach the goal they wanted but with what I knew and what they wanted to do this is what we were going to try.  The rest of the 5^th grade team feels all set up and they are going to proceed without me!  I guess that means I am in “fading” mode and I really hope they too are successful this week.