Watertown 1 to 1

I was at an Apple training seminar yesterday in Sioux Falls and for a moment my interest waned and I went online to check my my school email and my favorite blogs. And the first thing I came across was this entry at Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed. (Oh, and yes, I was multi-tasking!)

Because I figured it was worth thinking about, I shared it with the WHS staff. I said, “If I haven’t said anything lately to make you grumble, maybe this will do it.” This morning, when I checked my school mail, I had 10 responses. I would like to share excerpts of some here:

Actually I have decided to go to all-cell phone performances. I no longer lecture, I just put all my class into a conference call, then text message the information they need. It deals with the millennium learning styles and saves me lots of work time - text messaging id far more efficient than speaking over the phone. Hopefully I will literally be “phoning in” my work day soon.

Why the revolution of the child now - why after centuries of saying “your new ways are not better” have good thinkers now acquiesced? Would Richardson have said in the 60’s-70’s that the kids are correct, expanded consciousness is the key to learning be cause they all want to get high? Why is what my dad called not paying attention, now called multi-tasking? I’m not sure that kids are that much different - they are just winning the war of spin. Did I, the TV generation, get all my formal lessons given on TV to “match my learning style,” or did responsible adults recognize that TV will rot my brain and limit my access to it and make me develop my weaknesses?

Saying what “is” must only be the first step; we must also ask if it is “right.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” I read that on a Google quote page, so it must be true.

SO

And . . .

I don’t just sit at my desk and wait for your emails to appear as it may now appear - but WOW that article was thought-provoking !!

SO just think - if we would focus less on teaching what is at everyone’s fingertips and focus more on HOW to ACCESS and SAFELY use what is now available - what a different purpose we would have - still the purpose to educate in our areas - but educate so much more effectively??

Some will appropriately argue that we still need the basics to be able to access this info - TRUE - and then there are those who can’t AFFORD this “at your fingertips info” -PERHAPS - but here our students CAN - hence the laptops -

You know - that comes back to a theory that we have thrown around for some time now in education - isn’t it the LEARNING how to LEARN that is so important rather than JUST FINDING THE Right ANSWER - not choosing A or B, but understanding WHY? Goes back to the importance of PROCESS, I believe - learning a process and doing it well - here - the process of USING what is now available to us to access more quickly - learning what is REAL in this WIDE WORLD OF INFORMATION AVAILABILITY and WHAT is just BULL that we need to ignore - CHOICES - ah - still making choices and decisions - still solving problems - just using a gazillion more resources - can that be bad if we are still teaching our youngsters - just teaching them the PROCESS of HOW to safely sift through the garbage and find the answer - ??

Our we trying to teach our children everything WE know or how to find what THEY need to know? Hmmm. . .?

AB

And . . .

I love this because it is my philosophy. Use your resources!!!!! I don’t learn how to create from teachers anymore. I google. I tutorialize myself. I refer to blogs. And yes. I call my guru friend who is a behind the seen programmer for a major SQL company.

Just because I didn’t learn it from a teacher or a text book doesn’t mean I didn’t learn. In fact, I am tired of learning things that don’t apply to what I am doing. If teachers can’t teach me what I want to learn I will learn it my way.

CF

Or . . .

Did you see this in the posts?. . .
“On monitoring, I would just say watch all the teachers listening to a presentation in a computer lab room and tell me how many aren’t checking their email. But it is possible for a well-designed assignment to keep students (and teachers) sufficiently on task so that monitoring wouldn’t be necessary.”

Interesting isn’t it - that we expect silence in our rooms - no one is to be working on anything except listening to us chatter on - YET in the in-service just yesterday - laptops were aglow and conversations aplenty as you and Mike were presenting!

Kind of different topic:
One young lady sincerely asked me the other day - “why can’t we email or use facebook in classes?” I didn’t really have much of an answer other than - “because then you are distracted and you won’t be listening to me or doing the work for this class” - GREAT ANSWER, TEACH!! NOT!! Her response was this - and I have been thinking about it A LOT lately - ” I am a great multi-tasker; I work best when I am doing several things at once! That is how I do my homework when I am not in school and it is easier for me and more fun!” And I thought to myself - very true, very true - I do it myself all the time - my two girls do it successfully at home - type a paper or research something while chatting, working on facebook, talking to me, reading text from a book - ALL AT THE SAME TIME and they are getting 4.0’s!!!!!! So my GREAT response after this student’s response was “I don’t know - we will have to work on it” - That was a mind blowing response - bravo, Mrs. Bach!!
But since then I have been so TEMPTED to let the kids email and work on facebook and be NORMAL in my room - because I know that they can! Granted - there are those who just are not responsible enough to handle that - but couldn’t we use that as a reward?? Suitable grades = you get the privilege of multi-tasking while doing your work in my classroom. Think of how our 90 minute BLOCKs of time would then be broken up by the individuals themselves - even some of my lowest level kids would LOVE this and I think would truly work to keep the privilege available - I don’t know - I just see so many possibilies - I feel we often keep our brightest possibilities dimmed because we are afraid of what a few of our less responsibles will do ????

I really believe our kids can handle the multi-tasking - MOST of them anyway - I am not sure the rest of us can or may even want to??? Maybe for a day - I will throw caution to the wind and let the kids run wild on their laptops while working in my class - and then I will run down and UNLOCK all the hall doorways!! That will be the day right after I win the lottery and no longer need my paycheck! :)�

Another one from AB

And finally (for now)

And another thing…

Why continue to promote the consumer mentality of these children? Why make them see themselves as only “users” of resources (and I consider internet information a resource)? Why not make US students the producers? If all I ever do is use, how will I create? The child in the article only consumed another child’s work/answer. The other student I see as a producer of knowledge - he made something and was paid for it. Of course as “customers” students SHOULD look for the best deal in achieving any end. They didn’t call themselves “customers” we did that.

All this ties into my biggest objection of “this generation,” they are lazy. They have a poor work ethic. The idea of just getting someone else to do what needs to be done, not internalization of responsibility, will be the end of society. I don’t even say that as hyperbole to make a point; I believe it.

Now I’m all wound up again.

SO