Janzen - Chapter 6 - Joining Forces in Purposeful Work: The Legacy of Student Contribution

Chapter 6 - Joining Forces in Purposeful Work: The Legacy of Student Contribution

I have to admit, I am kind of sad that this book is ending.  I feel like I have so many more things to research now.  Alan sure knows how to spark creativity and purpose. Perfect quality in a teacher.

I spent some time going over The Students’ History (http://dgh.wikispaces.com) and thought about how excited I would have been as a student to create a digital textbook.  How much more would I have learned and remembered. How much more would I have felt like I was making an actual contribution.

Also this chapter made me think about the concept of the “digital footprint.”  I think it often has a negative connotation, like “don’t put up inappropriate pictures because that is part of your digital footprint” or “be careful what you say to people because it is out there forever.”  While these are important lessons to learn, think about how amazing it would be to look at it through this lens.  “Remember to do your best work so that your legacy is this digital footprint.”  It makes it so you want to leave a footprint because it is your contribution.

Reflecting on your own school experience is important in this process.  I’m trying to think back at what I remember from high school.  I remember snippets of classes and lessons but what I remember most are the projects.  I remember creating a poster that described “Mi Vida” in Spanish class, creating a video of the Great Gatsby with friends where I was “run over” by my best friends Karmann Ghia, creating an ad for my English class where I had a stop-motion, toothpick battle between a piece of Wonder bread and a piece of wheat bread, and finally I remember researching and presenting my senior project on eating disorders.  One more thing, is I remember the history notebook that I put a lot of effort and time into even though it wasn’t really for the “grade” and my teacher asking if she could use it as a sample in years to come.  Other than that, most academic things fade away.  Those projects were all something that I was excited about and put extra time in. I of course wanted a good grade but knew that all the extra time and energy wouldn’t give me anything over the A that I probably would have received anyway.  It makes you want to think about the lessons we are giving students. Are we creating something memorable or just relying on memorization.  As a teacher, I did create some projects but I think I may have spent more time on things that aren’t really important.  Now as a coach, I have the ability to ask these questions to a wider audience. I hope that I can spark that kind of purpose in others.

Janzen: Chapter 5 - The Student as Global Communicator and Collaborator

Chapter 5 - The Student as Global Communicator and Collaborator

I love that the skill most valued in a global perspective is empathy (65).  I can’t stress how important it is for students to be able to respect other points of view.  However, there is very little time spent on this in the traditional school system.  

Based on the November’s suggestion to watch the Eli Pariser TED talk (66), I decided to check it out. It’s kind of sad.  Algorithmic editing of the web is extremely scary.  Why would google give you different search results depending on where you search?  There is no longer a standard google. What’s scary is I knew some of this was going on but I didn’t realize it was so widespread.  It shows us only what we want to see.  Shouldn’t we all have access to the same information? Why can’t we opt to have standard editing?  If you did not watch this, I highly recommend that you do.  The internet is dividing us in a lot of ways when it has so many capabilities to bring us together.

Here is one great way to do the latter.  The epals.com site made me think about how I can incorporate it into my work.  I have a few teachers who have expressed interest in connecting to other classes via skype/hangouts and I would like to introduce this idea to them.  It is also interesting to see all the prep work that could go into a skype call to make it more effective.  The more students plan and research ahead of time, the more they are invested in the call itself, and the more they get out of it.

I love that there are suggestions for running a skype call.  I will definitely be referring to those once we start getting ready.  I have a TK teacher at one of my sites who is super excited to try a skype session.  I feel fortunate to be involved in such a global experiment with 4 and 5 year olds.  I let you know how it goes....

More 4

"The link: command is one of many strategies for revealing this information. When you are on a website, you can click on its outgoing links to see what other sites it links to. Unless you use the link: command, however, you cannot see which websites are linking into the website you are visiting."
 (p. 57)

I never knew you could do this!  What a useful tool.

Also...   in reading about creating your own search engine through Google, I thought we might want to use that as a "Pro Tip" in one of the upcoming Ed Tech News issues.  I bet teachers would love to be able to specify a group of sites when their students are researching for a project.  I can see how that would be very useful in terms of letting them do their own research, but making sure it's coming from sites you deem reputable.


"If we only teach one skill to prepare our students to survive in a web-based world, it should be that of critical thinking in the analysis of online information."  (p. 62)

I completely agree with this.  SUCH an important skill.  I actually worked with a fourth grade class a few weeks ago, showing them how to analyze Google search results and eliminate the ones that aren't going to be helpful in regards to what they're looking for.

Chapter 4, cont'd

"We cannot anticipate every hidden message our students might encounter online, so we have to make sure they understand how to examine all information in order to determine its purpose." (p. 56)

I think this skill is so crucial, and so hard to teach to elementary school children.  I tried to teach this to my class every single year.  Some students get it, but it's an abstract skill that just eludes so many of them.

Chapter 4

This time, I'm going to remember to quote the passages that stand out to me, and add my thoughts....

"One of the most astonishing gaps in many students' educations is their inability to validate information on the Internet. And this is the generation many refer to as “digital natives”? Well, they may have been born after the web was invented, but that has nothing to do with their understanding of the architecture of information on the Internet. In fact, many students who use the Internet on a daily basis remain web-illiterate." (p. 51)

I notice this every day in working with classes at all three sites.  It doesn't matter if it's socio-economically challenged students with little or no tech at home, or students from affluent families that have their own laptops...   the playing field in terms of web literacy is pretty level.  They know some basics, but they don't really know how to do (or more importantly, how to figure out how to do) much beyond.

Who Owns The Learning?

We will be reading Who Owns the Learning by Alan November for the 1st trimester for 2015-2016.