The Educator's PLN

The Educator's PLN (or personal learning network) is a great resource to help educators connect on the web. In order to join this site, you must first sign up and then be approved by the administrators. When creating your account, you can also link other accounts into the network, such as your twitter, diigo, and linkedin profiles.

There are a lot of helpful resources on The Educator's PLN, including a chat forum for teachers to discuss their struggles and successes in the classroom, links to teacher podcasts and education blogs, and various advice articles related to teaching.

As someone who is new to twitter, I found one particular resource useful. Under the Resources tab, there is a list of twitter hashtags related to education!  I am sure that I will make use of this list to help me get the most out of twitter in my professional future.  There are also plenty of articles being shared by teachers in this network every day, which means that I can go to this site whenever a question arises in my classroom--since someone else is bound to have experienced the same problem!
While I haven't exhausted the possibilities that The Educators PLN has to offer to teachers as of yet, as I haven't been fully approved by the admins, I can already see how helpful this site will be--not only for connecting specifically on this website but also for intertwining the networks of all the accounts I have set up for this class so far.

Checking out ePals

This week I spent some time exploring the ePals website, a site that helps teachers guide their students in global connection making through interactive culture or language projects.

The current global cultural challenge featured on the website, for example, helps students learn about and take on the role of a folklorist. Students can read about the work of professional folklorists, do research projects of their own by documenting local traditions, and submit their final project to the website. I think this project is a wonderful opportunity to study community, journalistic style writing, and cultural differences. I also like this project because it gives students a major goal to work toward in their study--having them produce a final piece that will be submitted for something outside of my classroom. This could really motivate students to work hard and create a final piece that interests them and that they can be proud of.
Another cool thing about the ePals website is how customizable it is. As a teacher searching to make connections with other classrooms, I can narrow down my search by type of desired collaboration (cultural, language, or subject area,) age range of students, languages spoken, and country of origin.
Based on the fact that the Folklorist Challenge is labeled with the year 2016, I assume that there willl be a new challenge on this website each year. I am excited to see what challenges come up in the future and I will definitely consider having my class participate in them someday.

These Learners Today...

Today’s learner is like a bundle of nerves—perhaps on more than one level, considering how much stress and anxiety young people tend to internalize these days. But on a more academic front, the process of learning is very different than it once was. In a video titled The Changing Nature of Knowledge discussing modern day learning, George Siemens addresses how the process of learning has shifted toward community style information sharing, saying, "Today because of the complex environment that we're in, learning isn't something that's exclusively limited or occurs exclusively within an individual’s mind," rather, as he notes in another video titled The Impact of Social Software on Learning, "Our learning today is one of forming networks with each other."   

The idea of networks instantly made me think of the nervous system. 

Each bundle of nerves within our body is connected to others in the same system and continually receives information in a circuit. The nerves may then use the information to cause the body to take action in some way. Similarly, the modern learner is connected to others who share similar interests or fields of study. Just as in a body,  new information is entering the circuit and shifting the structure of our field all the time! In his seminal article on this topic, titled Connectivity: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, Siemens confirms this analogy, noting that, "Connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired." While the nerves may not always cause the body to react to new stimuli, the learner also has the choice to simply stay up-to-date on what is happening in his or her area rather than acting--or, as Siemens puts it, "staying current." 

Gathering and Organizing Info Online

This week I used two different sites to gather information, including ideas and supportive professional texts online: Pinterest and Diigo. 

I found that Pinterest is incredibly helpful for gathering small amounts of information, such as plans for in-classroom activities. This is because Pinterest utilizes an image as a link to further reading, which gives people the chance to gather much of the central information at first glance. Pinterest also has the ability to create various "Boards" where you can save these image links--like creating a virtual collage board!
 This site is bright, colorful, and easily comprehensible to new users due to its visual nature. I personally love Pinterest and have been using it for many years to organize my preexisting thoughts and ideas, as well as search for new ideas in areas that I am already interested in. The latter is especially easy to do because Pinterest offers suggestions for related pictures and articles, so a related idea is just a scroll away! Multiple users can also collaborate using Pinterest, as more than one person can be allowed to add Pins (picture links) to a Board.

Diigo is a site that allows you to bookmark other websites, organize them into various lists, and access them through any server. You can also highlight text in a website and save it for review on Diigo, as well as taking notes on the site. I think that this is a good tool for people who read and sift through huge amounts of information on a regular basis. For example, when doing research for a term paper, Diigo would be a helpful site to organize references and focus on the important parts of all that you read.
You can also work collaboratively on Diigo by forming a Group where saved websites with relating tags will be shared.

While both of these site can be effectively used to save and organize information found online for future uses, I think that they serve different purposes: Pinterest being for quick ideas and Diigo for research and further reading. Being that I am a visual learner, Pinterest is something that I will definitely continue to use. Diigo, however, is not as engaging to look at and--in its essence--requires a lot of reading to digest information. It is unlikely that I will use Diigo all that much in the future--simply because I don't revisit too many websites.

Teaching in "The Present Future"

My boyfriend and I are two very different people. I am content to relish in what is and what has been, with only mild excitement about what is to come (where society and technology are concerned.) He, on the other hand, has frequent episodes of extreme excitement and anticipation about what he calls, "The Present Future," meaning things happening now that will directly affect the trajectory of our future world/society.

Today, I watched video called Shift Happens. I found it hard to watch actually: a slightly-too-fast-paced slide slow of "Did You Know?" facts about how the world is not the same as it was a few years ago, set to very distracting music. The video focused on the population changes and technological changes that have happened recently--just the sort of things that would spark my boyfriend's interest.

For me though, the most interesting fact presented by the video was this: "There are over 12 billion Google searches performed each month." The video then followed up this fact with a question that really struck me:

"To whom were these questions addressed before Google???" 

As an aspiring educator, I can't help but think that many of these questions were previously asked of teachers before the internet age! This idea made me feel sad and at a loss for how I can impact students in a relevant way when Google seems to have a corner on my job.

But then I watched another video, this one called A Vision of 21st Century Teachers. This is a very encouraging video for any teacher who is feeling dwarfed by technology. The simple video style and friendly faces calmed me down at once, reminding me that yes, technology has a huge impact on us all nowadays, but teachers still have a big role to play!

Teachers can use tech in the classroom in so many different ways--which means that no creativity is lost on our part! It's up to us to not only utilize technology as a learning tool to teach other materials, but in doing so we may also shape how students view and use technology throughout the rest of their lives.

So whether you're the type of person who relishes at the thought of change or someone who is a little less ready to jump into a new world, rest assured that as a teacher you will always have a massively important job to do.

Personal and Collaborative: Two ideas for blog use.

Having read Blogging in Language Learning and Seven Reasons Teachers Should Blog, I can clearly see how making use of a blog can be both useful to the teacher--professionally--as well as to her students' learning process. There seem to be two main ways to utilize a "Teacher Blog." First, the teacher can use her blog as somewhat of a diary, reflecting on her classes and what she learns about teaching as she practices her craft. For example, I might use this method to work through the problems I have encountered in my lessons and brainstorm how to fix them for the next time the lesson will be used. I can also seek out a network of other teachers and welcome their ideas of how to fix these problems by inviting them to comment on my post.

Second, the teacher can use the blog as a venue for student interactive activities. For example, I have Halloween on the brain as many of the small businesses I support are beginning to release Fall/Halloween themed items, so I thought of a Halloween themed ESL activity. According to the NYS Standards for intermediate ESL learners, students should be able to compare and contrast oral traditions, myths, folktales, and literature from different national and international regions and cultures, including the students' own, identifying similarities and differences and universal cultural themes (ESL.C.9-12.5.1.5.)

As the teacher, I would initiate the activity by posting a brief Halloween myth, such as that of the Headless Horseman, including the vocabulary and grammar points from the unit. We would read my post together and discuss it in class. Then students would be asked to create a short post in English about a myth or creature from their own culture as a homework assignment. The next class could be spent scrolling through the posts and orally comparing and contrasting the myths (ESL.I.5-8.3), while having a simple Halloween themed "party" with decorations and treats.  This activity would hopefully be a fun and challenging way for students to share about their cultures in relation to American Halloween, practice their reading, writing, and speaking skills (specifically using descriptive and comparing/contrasting language structures,) and enjoy a holiday party!