Professional development

Over the summer, I have gained information about the use of technology in the classroom. I think I have gained a better understanding of what I am ideally supposed to be working toward with my students to help them use the technology available to them in a more effective way.

It can be easy to replace old technology with new, but of course we are not necessarily doing our students any favors if that is the only way that we use technology. We as teachers need to be examples for our students and guide them toward using technology in new and creative ways, if nothing else to push themselves beyond the more mind-numbing, spirit-crushing ways of using technology that they are used to. Many of our students are used to using technology to try and prove to themselves that they are liked, or to keep track of things they want to buy. This kind of behavior fits better with an older model of education with the purpose of creating good factory workers and consumers of products.

Am I capable of using technology in a more transformative way in the classroom? That remains to be seen.

My digital footprint

I am one of apparently hundreds of Amy Conrads out there, and when I google my name, I primarily find the other ones instead of myself! This is good in some ways, but I would still like to have some sort of positive digital footprint.

I know that in a Google image search, there is one picture of me bowling from an IU Honors Program blog. It's a picture that I personally chose, but I do remember my students finding it and thinking it was really funny; they showed it to me as if it was something scandalous. I think that in reality, it was more a case of them having a hard time seeing me as a real person who did things outside of school.

I am actually currently trying to increase my digital footprint in a positive way. It is occasionally a struggle for me because my instinct is typically to share less instead of more. However, I am finding that I do like sharing the professional side of things as opposed to my personal life.

As for my students, I think they are living in a different world. Some of them may have grown up with an internet presence; nowadays most parents don't think twice about putting pictures of their babies and children online (I don't personally agree with creating an internet presence for children before they are able to understand the ramifications and consent to it, but that's a different topic).

It seems extremely difficult to help students understand the importance of their digital footprint until it is too late. Perhaps learning about the stories of other people might help, but I think that it's more likely to make them think that whatever the negative outcome was, it won't happen to them.

Curating Resources

We all know the feeling of doing lots of research, finding the resources we need, using them, and then forgetting about them until suddenly, we need the same information all over again. Where did it all go? We end up doing the same thing over and over, whether it’s because we forgot we did the work the first time or we cannot easily find it again.

This problem is not just related to online resources; I think it’s more a result of human error and forgetfulness. I always tell my students about studying for my master’s exams, and how I had a huge reading list and read about a third of the books without taking any notes. When the exam date approached, I had a big problem brewing, and ended up reading a lot of the books again so that I could finally take notes and get the information I needed.

Especially now, with such a multitude of resources available for teaching, how can I keep track of everything to insure that I’m providing the best, most diversified experience possible? How do I avoid using an website once and then never again, not because I didn’t like it, but just because I forgot or couldn’t find it again? 

I am learning about various existed methods of resource curation, such as Symbaloo, but I think that ultimately I will have to either make a new habit or use a curation method that I already like. We’re more likely to keep a habit if it relates to something we already do regularly.

I’m playing around with Symbaloo, and I’m not sure yet if I like it or not. It keeps everything organized on one page, but there’s not much context. It’s fine if I can remember more or less what I put on it and why, but it can feel overwhelming and yet also bland when I look at someone else’s Symbaloo. What are all of those links? Why do I care? How do I know which link is most likely to have something that interests me?

I tend to either need something very visual (with a picture to jog my memory - hence the usefulness of Pinterest) or very text-driven (a link with a written description, a document, an online forum). I’m noticing that things that are somewhat “in-between” don’t capture my interest, and increase the likelihood that I’ll forget.

However, the essential thing is that I must absolutely keep track of my resources. I know that if I find something and don’t make a note of it, I will definitely, for sure forget! My personal method is a mix of Goodreads for books (whether it’s reading for pleasure or for personal/professional development), Pinterest for visuals, and plain old GoogleDrive for my big blocks of text. For finding resources and important information, I prefer a mixture of blogs, Twitter, Reddit, and Pinterest.

Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose in my classroom

One advantage of world language instruction is that, in theory, it's fairly clear what kind of progress instructors and students hope to see - a greater proficiency in the use of a language and a better understanding of the culture of the people who use that language.

Of course, it's rarely that easy, and it's tempting at times to turn the world language classroom into 24/7 grammar/vocabulary/quiz/repeat. I know I find myself going in that direction at times, especially since as a student I typically learned well using more "traditional" methods.

I think that implementing the ideas of Dan Pink's TED talk would lead to greater individualization of coursework, and would require setting out some specific goals as well as trying to really understand what the students are looking for in this class. Some students may want to read a book in French, others want to be able to speak it well enough during their travels, others may want to immerse themselves and go to school abroad, or maybe just pronounce it well so they can sing songs in that language (this was sometimes the case when I taught at IU in particular).

By at least knowing their individual interests, they are already understanding their purpose, and perhaps even moving toward autonomy since they may have to do things individually to get to their goal.

In a more concrete way, I am wondering if it might be interesting for students to set some sort of personal goal at the beginning of the year and then chart their progress along the way. It's not very easy to do this during class time, but it would be feasible with a blog, Tumblr, or some other online platform. This would allow them to work with purpose, but also focus individually on something of interest to them, and would show them when they had mastered a topic.

Technology Integration Matrix Reflection

To make this easier to read, I am going to separate it into each of the key sections to rate myself.

• Active: I rate myself here as adaption. I am trying to encourage and facilitate the use of a wider range of technologies, but I don't do it as regularly as I could, and it's still fairly teacher-driven. I could move toward infusion by the end of the next grading period by planning more in advance what the goals of our projects are, so that I can better give guidance and yet also let students make more choices.
• Collaborative: Probably also adaptation. My classes increasingly use GoogleDrive for projects to allow for collaboration, but not in a particularly innovative way. I can move toward infusion in part because of our school's adoption of a BYOD program. As I plan an exchange program with a French high school next year, we could also move toward infusion.
• Constructive: At this point I'd say adoption. I'm open to possibilities but don't always make connections as strongly as I'd like to. Some of this may be partially because I'm still fairly new to high school teaching, but I could move toward adaptation by including tools more seamlessly, and letting students explore them more.
• Authentic: Maybe adaptation - as a world language teacher, technology is very useful to expose students to things that are authentic parts of cultures from all over the world. However, I still don't include much choice. I could move toward infusion by allowing students more self-directed choices for their use of technology.
• Goal-directed: I think I'm fairly low on the chart here - entry or adoption. I haven't yet found ways for students to monitor their progress using technology. I can make progress here by seeing what kinds of programs or methods students could use to track their own progress.

Moving mindset

For this week's reflection, I am choosing to address zero policies. I know that in my district we are being encouraged to stop assigning zeros for homework assignments that were not completed, so this is an area where I imagine that I will be changing my policies to address this "moving mindset."

I can see how changing my zero policies will be helpful to students who grasp the material quickly and don't want to be bothered with what is, frankly, occasionally busy work (or at least is busy work for someone who already understands what they're doing).

It is hard to predict how this kind of policy might change the grades of students who both struggle and generally choose not to do homework assignments.

I find myself examining my own and other teacher reactions to the idea of reformulating zero policies (i.e. stopping giving zeros). Generally, we tend to have a negative gut reaction, and I've been very curious as to why.

When I reflect upon this, I think that as a teacher, we tend to feel fairly powerless with respect to our administration, our community, what will happen to our paychecks, retirement, the legislation of our profession and public opinion of us. I almost wonder if taking away the ability to give that big fat zero in the grade book feels like one of our few powers left is being taken away.

Week 1 Reflection

Looking at the attached rubric, I would say that I'm somewhere on the evolving-effective spectrum. I have a tendency to avoid the actual question being addressed in forums if there's something else I'd rather talk about, so I don't always stay focused.

In particular, I haven't had a lot to say when it came to commenting on other people's posts. It was easier on the first section because more people had responded, whereas the second section didn't have as much information yet.