Discovery!

Why do children come to school when they can learn anything they need to from home? Well some do stay home and learn, and that is ok. Children need to be in an environment with their peers and discover things with them. They need to learn from each other (yes, children their own age) and from other adults. They need variety, a safe place to grow, and a nurturing environment. In my first grade classroom we will be using a lot of technology to discover new and exciting things. I will hopefully open my student's minds up to the world of learning around them. I want to incorporate the engaging principles of technology as I do so. Inquiry learning to me means that children want to know something, so I give them guidelines and tools and they discover it.

 As I think about my mini-lessons I am little overwhelmed. I do know that technology will be in every lesson. For one of the lessons I will definitely have my students using the curated list of plagiarism tools. I would also like to do an activity where they are putting together their own inquiry-based curated list of information, but maybe have a Wordle-type thing to tie it all in together. They could do a project on something science related, like seasons. We study those early on in first grade. The third project could be related to social studies when they study where they are on the map. It could be a lesson on culture where they have to look up information on Galileo for kids. Then they could use a Web 2.0 tool to create a presentation to show what they found. I'm sure that my ideas will change five times before I finally finish the mini-lessons, but that's the life of a teacher, right? :)

Revisiting Learning Goals

At the beginning of my class, I set a few learning goals. They were how to effectively use research-based practices when it comes to digital tools, how to implement and immerse my students in technology-enhanced learning experiences, and how to develop a daily use of online and blended learning networks with other professionals. I honestly feel like I am accomplishing them pretty well. I feel like I have a growth mindset of online resources. I have been learning how learn different Web 2.0 tools such as Blendspace, easel.ly, Blogger, Netvibes, and otheres. Having to be immersed in them myself for this class has given me a desire to have them in my classroom. I find myself checking different tools now without being given an assignment. I also think that using Twitter and developing a blog and professional learning network has helped me reach another goal that I had. I am connected to other professionals via learning networks. I also find myself using them daily as well. Overall I am really happy with my growth and my achievement of the goals that I set. I plan to continue on and keep growing in my experience. 

Letting Go

A recent article that I read really got me thinking. The article talked about learning and the two lessons that we can learn from learning. When I walk into my classroom, I do not want my students to only walk away with the knowledge of what I have taught them that day, but I also want them to walk away with how to apply that knowledge in the outside world. I do not want them to learn how to use a protractor on a piece of paper to draw angles, I also want them to be able to take the protractor that they know how to use and use it to help build a chair with the knowledge of how to appropriately measure the angles. (I recently helped build an Adirondack chair and had to remember how to use a protractor.) I want my students to TRANSFER their knowledge. This is taking all that you have learned and applying it to a situation. When a student gets to a test and has to talk about angles, I do not want them to only be able to do problems similar to the ones that we did in class. That is too scripted. I want them to be able to think about the problem, what they know, and say "hey, I think I can take this and apply it here and it will work out." That is transferring knowledge. Sometimes we as teachers are too scripted. We expect to teach by the book and expect our students to respond like the book says they will respond. In reality that happens 0.8 percent of the time. We need to be teaching our students how to live in the everyday world with the knowledge that we are giving them. We do not need to them to freeze-up when a situation arises because it was not exactly the way we taught it. They need to be flexible and we need to be flexible. We need to let it go. I need to let it go. I need to allow my students be creative and use the skills they have in a variety of ways. This ties into inquiry-learning. They decide what they want to know, we hold their hand for a little while to get them steady on the right road, and then we let them go. This ties into instructional technology. I can guarantee their brains are more high-tech than mine. They will be able to do far greater things than I will ever be able to do with technology. I will help them for a little while, and then I will let them go. They will have the skills they need to be able to soar. This makes for great teaching (or at least I hope it does). I will give them the skill set they need to be able to do what they want to do, and I will let them go and watch as they flourish. First, I need to let it go though.

Reflective Searching

I am ashamed, but it is true, to say that I have similar characteristics of the Google Generation. They say we are all the Google Generation now though. When I need or want to know something then I pull out my smartphone, iPad, or laptop and Google it. Even if I am looking for scholarly information I Google it, but I make sure to get the information from a reputable site because it makes me feel better and more credible. I am careful when I am searching on the internet, because I know there is a lot of nonsense out there that can get me in trouble. There is a ton of information, but is it all true? No, of course not, and I know that. That is why when I do a search I am extremely careful to pay attention to what I am doing, where my information is coming from, and to cross-reference my information. I was reading the article, The Information Behavior of Researcher of the Future, and I was cringing the whole time. That was partly due to the fact that my birth year almost makes me a literal Google Generationer (I made that word up because it sounds cool) and partly because it totally describes me. I love to open a book and smell the pages, but I only love to open a book to smell the pages. I would much rather do research on Google and read books on my Kindle. I don't even like other search engines at all. I will occasionally use GoogleScholar, but again that is only to get reputable information and because it is a branch of Google (yep, Google Generationer here). I guess what I need to do to keep myself open to the world outside of Google (is there even one?!) is to open my filter bubble. AHH, that sounds scary! I need to start using the virtual libraries available to me, to strengthen my knowledge about scholarly sites, and to just get out of my comfort zone in order to learn more about the growing technology around me. 

Information Fluency

I have been thinking a lot about what this whole "information fluency" thing is about. If you're like me you are probably wondering what I mean by that, or maybe you already have a good idea about this new term. What I have come to find out is that information/digital fluency is something that everyone involved in the digital world is already working on. You might surf Facebook and/or Twitter, subscribe to a few blogs, or have your favorite Pinterest boards that you follow. That is all part of your information fluency. You log onto these websites because you have an inquiring mind and want to know more. We are all already seeking, sifting, sorting, and sometimes sharing what we find to be interesting, helpful, and inspirational in our digital world. I was recently reading a few articles that I tied together about how to build my own information/digital fluency and apply it in a classroom setting, which just so happens to match my learning goals I set for my class. Being fluent means that you can not only speak the language but you also think in that language; in this case, I mean the "digital language." I believe this happens when we completely immerse ourselves in the digital world and allow ourselves to really find what works best for us. What I have learned is that I need to be flexible with how I control what my students are doing in their own digital world. I can teach them to be digitally fluent, but I can do it by giving them parameters that allows them to still be individuals. I can also pique their curiosity in a topic by giving them something they would enjoy doing online that is related to that topic. They are still learning their objective, but that are also increasing their digital fluency. The digital world is constantly expanding at an exponential rate. We have to live in it if we want to allow ourselves to stay up to date on the latest news and ideas. We also have to teach our students how to be smart about how they live in the digital world, because I can guarantee they are immersing themselves in it already. 

I am also linking a YouTube video sent by my professor that paints a visual picture of the growing world of technology. Find it here.

First Ever Blog Post

I am a recent graduate of Armstrong Atlantic State University with a degree in Early Childhood Education. I enrolled in a master's program at Georgia Southern University in order to expand my education into the world of Instructional Technology and School Library Media. I am currently enrolled in a class about information fluency and inquiry learning. I have set a few learning goals for this class: how to effectively use research-based practices when it comes to digital tools, how to implement and immerse my students in technology-enhanced learning experiences, and how to develop a daily use of online and blended learning networks with other professionals. I am excited to jump into this semi-foreign world of the latest technology!