IT Preparatory Academy

On November 15th, I was able to attend a workshop by Alan November titled “Teaching Zack to Think.” The workshop was very eye-opening. What stood out the most in my mind was the fact that I am teaching my students to search the web for information in a way that is not very resourceful. I teach students to use google.com and other search engines without really understanding how it works. Alan November explained that the words typed into the search pull up links that are connected to those exact words. He also showed us that many people can not even tell who the website owner is. I realized that I do not even know how to find information that is completely reliable when he went to a Martin Luther King organization website and showed us how to find out who owns a website. The website owners ended up being a white supremacist group. Knowing now that there are different ways to search more efficiently for information, I must lead my students in the right direction. The workshop was great, and I recommend Alan November’s workshops to everyone!

The conference that I attended on 11.15.06 at Alemany High School was both interesting and informative. Alan November is an excellent speaker. He discussed three aspects about the integration of technology in education. They were the following: global communication, ethical use of websites, and blogging. 

Global communication is a tool that can be used not only in the classroom, but at home as well.  Computers that can communicate orally with other people in the country free of charge is an amazing fete.  With current technology running in our classrooms, this concept can be fascinating for students.

Ethical use of websites is an aspect of technology that I feel is very important. I find it difficult to find out who the author of a website is at times. Alan November showed us a great site to visit so that students can correctly identify the author of a given website.

Lastly, blogging was another aspect of technology that he discussed. He suggests that all teachers have a blog account and use it actively in their classroom. He stated several times that blogging improves student writing, however no concrete evidence was shown that proves this.

Overall, the conference was interesting to listen to.  Alan November has some wonderful ideas on how to incorporate technology into the curriculum.

I was reading Jo McLeay’s blog, and I found her posting on social learning principles very refreshing.  She pulls the principles from Going With the Flow: How to Engage Boys and Girls in Their Literacy Learning by Jeffrey Wihelm and Michael Smith.  In college, I became very familiar with these principles and decided my classroom would be focused on these learning principles.  Now that I am in my first classroom, and I’m teaching for the first time, I find myself getting overwhelmed and I find myself losing sight of my personal goals for teaching strategies.  Reading her blog refreshed my focus and reminded me that I need to re-visit these principles.

I was reading an interesting blog  that discussed the integration of wikipedia, cell phones, myspace, etc. in the classroom. The author discussed how some teachers were hesitant in the use of these tools in the classroom. I would not be hesitant in using these tools in the classroom, but what scares me is the amount of time that it would take for me to plan a “good, strong” lesson plan that encompasses these. I already have piles of papers to grade and other work-related issues to take care of. So, when do I do this? I know for a fact that students would be more engaged in using electronics instead of pen/paper. Instead of complaining about the time, should I just sit down and do it? Perhaps…….