Oh… the dilemmas that surround me…

I’ve been in the process of getting together my workshop selections for Ulearn07 and have been reading the abstracts from all sorts of knowledgeable and intelligent people. My dilemma comes when there are so many workshops that I want to do and so many of them that clash that I am starting to fret about which ones to choose. Why is it that as teachers we want to learn – have to learn – and when there are so many options I can’t make up my mind. I may end up doing what my sister did when it came to naming her new baby and flip a coin….

Back to the whole blogging thing. I have been reading Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat and as I am am going I am writing some thoughts about what he has written and how they apply to me and my own professional practice. Will add these later once I’ve converted some of my scribblings into something I can decipher and share with the world at large. I have to say its been a great read….not at all the falling asleep late at night stuff that I have picked up in the past.

Anyways back to making decisions….wish me luck!!

How cool is this??

As a ICT specialist I don’t have my own class, instead I see the entire school over the course of the week for between 45 mins and 90 mins. Doesn’t leave me a lot of time to really get my teeth into something with 30 odd kids in each of the blocks. Today, however, I set out to start blogging with some kids.
I borrowed 8 kids from a couple of year 2 classes and the fun began. We talked about diaries and learning about people – kinda approriate because they are looking at the Netherlands and one of the most famous diaries of all time came from there. I showed them a blog written by a girl their own age. I showed them how to read the comments and how to move between posts and pages easily. Then I let them read. Just like I wouldn’t ask them to write an acrostic poem without first reading a few and getting the idea, I don’t want to get them writing blogs without at least reading a selection.
Five minutes in and one of the girls says. “Miss Wills, this girl walked across the River Gorge Bridge and that was in the book we read last week!” Completely unscripted and completely surprised me. Here in a totally different literacy environment the kids were able to write a comment on the girl’s blog explaining the cool coincidence. The girls were eager to continue, even asking if they could come back at lunchtime to read more. So now I am in the process of setting up a blogmeister blog for the class so that they can share their experiences with the world.
This was truly an empowering experience and really showed me how small the world can be thanks to this great technology.
I’m sure many people out there have had really cool “light bulb” moments…care to share!!!

New Goal: Find more blogs that the kids will be interested in reading and get them commenting on them – on the things they find interesting!!

I’ve Been Critical Thinking…

Oh dear, has it really happened? Can it be that learning about this whole Web 2.0 and in particular blogging that I have to start thinking critically about people are saying on this topic. I was reading a response in David Warlick’s blog where David replies to a comment from David Thornburg. David T had added a comment to one of David W’s blogs. It was interesting reading the reply. The thing that hit me in the face is that these two pretty insightful men had extremely differing views on WEB 2.0 (and even if there is a thing called Web 2.0!). If these academics can’t even agree – where does that leave me??
The more I read the more confused and confuddled I get. It’s not just about the technology but more importantly it is about how we, as educators, use the technology. Even as I write that it feels wrong. WEb 2.0 isn’t about us as educators using technology and then teaching it. It is an organic process that is happening to our students, to us, to our parents. It is happening all around us, all of the time. We have to break through the (dare I mention it) “sage on the stage” mentality and into the flat world. This seems fine in theory but with colleagues that aren’t comfortable with “playing” with software to learn how to use it and use it efficiently in their own classroom. Surprisingly it’s not always the older colleagues either. I guess I don’t help the situation by providing “how to” guides and talking about all the great stuff that can be achieved with Web 2.0 but I find that they switch off to the great stuff because they “don’t know how to do it” with the technology.
Anyway way off track with the real reason for this post. The more I read the more I realize that blogging isn’t just about writing but it’s also about reading. Now I know that this may seem obvious to those who have been doing this for awhile, but I truly did think it was all about the writing. I mean this makes sense right. I write, I type, I post it online. But then I realized I had been doing more reading than writing. To be able to have an opinion, I need to have read what is going on in the fields I want to write on. How can I bring this realization into a classroom???
Here is a goal for me: Find a selection of children’s blogs that my kids will find interesting and motivating. Get the children to read them and have conversations about what they have read. Really try and get them excited about reading other people’s ideas and promote the idea that they too can publish their own ideas.
Wish me luck….