TLA TAL Digital Citizenship

One thing that comes to mind thinking about users not having been taught how to make appropriate decisions is the prevalence of very young children with their own Facebook pages. A lot of decision-making has to occur when deciding what is appropriate to post for others to see, forever. Important decisions are made about who to “friend,” as well. I have a 6 year old cousin with a Facebook account. He knows that his parents had to lie about his age to set up the account. That message alone concerns me. I am also uncomfortable with the sexually suggestive posts that he has access to through adult friends of his parents. They aren't directing the comments to him but he can read them. That kind of humor is not necessary in a young child's life. Even with Skype, my daughter, Lin, received a message from a complete stranger requesting to be added to Lin's contact list because she “sounds like fun.” The only information available would have been Lin's first name and the state in which she lives. Creepy! Fortunately, as we had discussed, Lin brought her laptop straight to me when the message arrived. That discussion and preparation is the key, in my mind. Kids are going to use technology, we need to teach them to make good decisions for their safety. I have, as a parent chosen which social networking my children are ready for and educated them about their safe use of these sites. I push myself to open more as they become ready to handle more. Quite honestly, I don't think I have enough technology skill to ban my teen from sites. He is way more skilled than I am. I worked to set good values and good decision making in my son. Now, I need to allow him to make decisions.

Digital Use contracts employed by some districts may help. I had a cool link but it has been eaten by my overuse of the highlight and delete functions. Hopefully, the contracts would spur family discussions. It is really important to get parents and kids talking about how the kids use social media. This is not easy (talking to a teenager does not seem to be easy regardless of the topic, in my experience.) However, it is necessary. http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20110328/social-networking-may-affect-kids-health (http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/uploads/KidPledge1.pdf http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/uploads/ParentContract.pdf)

Classroom discussions about digital bullying are important as well as discussions about what types of digital footprints they want to establish for themselves.(http://www.northern-iowan.org/digital-bullying-a-growing-concern-among-students-1.237391)

Social networking with some controls may be a good starting place for younger kids to get the hang of things. (http://coreadvtech.com/student-safe-email -041011http://skidekids.com/ http://www.lilsugar.com/Best-Social-Networks-Kids-15191030 )

Digital communication has affected communication in the world. Change is not necessarily a bad thing. http://www.ehow.com/about_6609852_digital-technology-affect-communication_.html It has positives and negatives. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110806203538.htm We need to work take advantage of the advantages. And...talk to kids about the disadvantages. http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/social-networking-sites.aspx Banning kids os so not the answer! This principal is asking for something that would cause strife and not solve the problems.

http://www.allfacebook.com/principal-asks-parents-to-ban-social-networking-to-prevent-cyber-bullying-2010-04

I love the comment “Learners must be taught how to learn in a digital society. In other words, learners must be taught to learn anything, anytime, anywhere.” The ability to learn anything, anytime, anywhere is so much more valuable random sets of facts memorized for tests! Also, “As new technologies emerge, learners need to learn how to use that technology quickly and appropriately.” New technologies are intimidating to many teachers. Many educators, raised without current technologies, will need to step out of their comfort zones in order to meet students' needs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/education/02iht-educSide.html

http://magazine.jhu.edu/2011/05/teaching-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/

TLA TAL systemic improvement

This (http://screencast.com/t/uHgYPjN7) is the moodle access for district.

This (http://screencast.com/t/qjymQE1jbVCf) is the irritating message that I get when I try to get to my moodle today.  So, just take my word for it, my moodle is cool.  I don't have a classroom so it is designed for teachers to use.  It has links and descriptions of websites and activities that can be used by the teachers.  At this point, it is all related to literacy but I hope to expand into math this year.

My daughter's fifth grade teacher has a moodle which is used to inform parents of classroom activities.  He hopes this year to include online assignments, as well.

I don't believe anyone in my school uses anything with student information attached.  I have seen grades posted with student numbers as opposed to social security numbers or names.
E2020 classes, skype, virtual fieldtrips, and many other online learning opportunities are used by some.  We have only touched the tip of the iceberg but we are moving in the right direction.

TLA TAL Critical Evaluation

I worry about students believing everything they read online.  I can remember proofreading a paper my nephew had written in high school.  He had some obviously inaccurate "facts."  When I pointed that out, he insisted that he'd found them online and they were correct.  Gee, big surprise, his teacher didn't think so either.
Our new technology teacher is fabulous!  I say a lot of growth last year in my daughter's ability to search for information.  I will share this evaluation document with her but it would need some serious tweaking to make it easy enough for elementary age students to use.  I think it was too involved for high school students to be willing to bother with, too.
As an adult, it was easy to recognize that the Martin Luther King, Jr. site was very biased.  I'm afraid that teenagers don't have enough world experience to realize that themselves, though.  Also, as an adult, it was easy to realize rennet is not a small animal.  However, there may be a host of teens who've given up cheese to save the little critters.
I frequently receive emails from my grandmother or well-intentioned friends that I respond to with a link to an article on snopes.com explaining that it is an urban myth.  Educated adults are falling for those things!  It is imperative that we arm our children with the means to critically evaluate the information they access online.

TLA TAL Information Gathering and Staying Informed

http://screencast.com/t/OXfBWcaqCMy

RSS feeds are something I'd heard about but wasn't really sure what it meant or how to get it.  I really like having the educational news stream right onto my igoogle page.  This makes it so much easier to keep up with current events.  I will be able to share the information with the staff at my school as it pertains to each person or grade level.  I will also be able to share information with the school improvement team as I find ideas that may benefit our school.

http://screencast.com/t/jZkZHMjCEL

Google alerts could be cool this year.  Quite honestly, Saranac Schools are not generally heating up the news wires.  However, there was an occasion last year in which a couple of teachers saw a news piece about one of our teachers that others were later unable to find.  I like the idea that I will automatically be alerted when we are in the news.  So far, no alerts have come.  We have discussed, as a staff, the benefits of getting positive stories about our district out there.  I am going to make it a goal for the year to have at least 2 postitive news pieces that I am responsible for.

IES What Works Clearinghouse

This was very interesting. I was happy to see Accelerated Reader as a plus. It is a program we use at our school that I have mixed feelings about. For some kids, it works well. I was not surprised by the low rating for Read Naturally. We did a one year pilot that was horrible. Reading Recovery was rated quite highly. That was unfortunately one of the cuts our district made a few years ago. We piloted Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) last year and I had hoped to see a rating on that but it isn't there. We had good success in our district and will be expanding LLI this year.  

TLA TAL What works and what doesn't Hattie Research

Hattie research:

My initial read-through of these results was stressful. I noticed that feedback was number one and thought about feedback as teacher's promptly grading papers. Once I read the information underneath, and realized the feedback is much deeper than that, it made sense. I was similarly struck at the bottom of the list by individualization. Again, reading the comments clarified things. I think this study could be dangerous in the wrong hands. If someone just had the labels without the extra information, it could be interpreted quite differently. I felt that if individualizing things is ineffective, I've been steering things the wrong way. However, I believe I just have a different meaning for the word individualize than the author does. To me, it meant allowing differences (e.g. multiple means of …) if it is instead interpreted as a completely individualized course of study more like the old SRA, that is non-interactive, I can see why it is in the red zone. Direct instruction doesn't necessarily sound like old, traditional teaching to me. It sounds like Lucy Calkins. Say what you want students to learn, model, allow for guided practice, allow for individual practice.

TLA TAL UDL Reflection

UDL needs to provide muliple means of representation, multiple means of expression, and multiple means of engagement.

I love the idea that curriculum should accommodate all kinds of learners from the beginning, not just providing a change for one child as an afterthought. I think less kids would “slip through the cracks” if they truly had multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression. Some of them spend their whole school career with someone trying to stuff their little round peg into a square hole. Maybe its the hole that needs changing.

I think the idea of beginning with the end in mind is huge. If teachers are really focusing their lessons and assignments on the things they really want students to learn, their lessons will end up stronger. Sometimes, teachers get sidetracked and continually reviewing what you are planning to do in your lesson with the stated end goals of your curriculum could really help with that. Also, thinking right from the beginning about what will be difficult for students and how to support them will make a big difference.

As a parent, I'm excited about the inclusion of all learners through UDL. One of my children is a very tactile learner. Standing in front of him and lecturing is just as effective as closing your eyes and clicking your ruby slippers. He simply doesn't learn well that way. One of my children needs extra processing time. A traditional classroom model of teacher asks, student raises hand and answers within a second isn't going to work for her. If 2 out of 2 of my kids need something just a bit different than the traditional, I suspect almost all children do. Teaching for an imaginary average child is not acceptable.

One of the You Tube videos I viewed was UDL Guidelines in Practice Grade 5 Language Arts . The lesson included references to resources the students had at their fingertips and were invited to use, it was pretty brief, it connected the day's work with previous worth, and it provided a focused goal to students. I think, too often, students can't figure out the connections between the things done at school. It is important for teachers to provide them. I really like that the kids have resources and are expected to use them. That will benefit them in the future, as well.