There are many cliched stories about teachers and how they influence their students. Mine may be classified as such, but it’s one that proves that with care, passion and knowledge a teacher can not only educate about significant world events, they can also help shape us as individuals. Individuals who strive for equality, liberty and prosperity.

Mrs. White’s passion for her subject matter and insight into the world and social relationships helped change my perspective on issues and  values that I was narrow-minded about. In turn, I could assist my close family and friends by presenting facts and both sides of the stories.

The most important perspective was my late Mum’s. Having lost her first love/husband during an air raid on Tripoli  by the Isreali governemnt/military, she was left with much bitterness and anger towards the nation and its people. When studying the Holocaust with Ms. White, I was not only able to understand how such conflicts arise, but also helped Mum understand that she was not alone and that the Jewish people had also suffered persecution. I was amazed at her willingness and empathetic approach to the issue. She said, “shu dakhal al alam? Ma hineh mitilnah. Kilna khserrna” Translation: “What do the people have to do with it? They are like us. We all lost.”

My ability to educate Mum about such issues resulted in her seeking broader horizons. It all started in a history classroom in Sydney’s south-west.

Ms. White you’re an asset not only in the classroom, but you have and will always continue to inspire me and others to see the world through the eyes of others. Your committment and passion made me want to teach. You have been amazing. You have become a part of history as I use you as an example in my classrooms for the rest of my teaching career. You go girl!!!

I don’t really agree. Being an History/English teacher, I’m granted the great liberties of teaching the social ‘greys’. Evidence and opinions from both sides of the argument are essential in studying any case study, however I don’t think this neccessarily means lack of passion in delivery. After all, if teachers are too detached from the subject matter, how can we expect our students to engage in the work? Isn’t it hard enough for a web.20 generation to study the essential cannonical texts when their world is far more elusive than the texts they study?

When teaching the Civil Rights Movement in the USA I cannot help but put all my passion in expressing  opinions about the atrocities committed. The same applies to the plight of our Indigenous population. I always leave room for debate and contest, but I think not getting emotionally involved is taken too literally. What say thee?

Instead I thought I could educate my other year 9 class on the history of African Americans and just how derogatory the term ‘nigger’ was and still is. It was agreat unit, but towards the end, kids were over the worksheets. It was time to hear and see the real thing. The above video is from teachertube about Rosa Parks. I’ve attached the worksheet I created, the lesson plan, and the listening task. It worked like a charm.

Please feel free to use it! 

This scenario has been repeated time and time gain in the classroom and beyond. It affects adults and adolescents alike. It seems great and no strings attached. All parties get to have a lot of fun. What’s problematic, is that you can never be sure who it is that you’re speaking to. Is their profile pic really theirs? Are they really who they say they are, or have they constituted so much false identity that they believe that their virtual identity is reality?

This is alarming, but for many teens the prospect of looking at such virtual spaces as being dangerous is a void matter. This is because, “profiles [on such sites] provide an opportunity to craft the extended intended expression through language, imagery and media.” (Boyd, 2006) What this means is that adolescent identity, through digital culture is a platform for social construction and identity.

An interesting way to engage students and still make them aware of the dangers is to create a wikispace for a character, then get the class to write a story that is played out on the wiki in the form of blogs, where students carry out a potentially hazardous story. In this, students are creating text, but at the same time are understanding how easy it is to mislead others and how some virtual spaces are just like their creation: mere fiction.

Any thoughts?

Reference (a great article that talks about identity and virtual spaces)

Boyd, D. (2006 February 19) “Identity production in a networked culture: why youth heart myspace.” American Association for the advancement of science. St. Louis, MO found at http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html.

‘Virtual’ space is the future and new category of social relationships. This may seem incomprehensible to most, but consider communication through the 20^th century and it seems a lot less scary. At first, we had letters and telegrams, then radio, telephones, then television, satellites, mobile phones, and now the internet.

Just as television was seen as a social evil that could corrupt and turn viewers into ‘idiots’ and passive receivers, I ask, how many people in Australia own television sets and continuously purchase bigger and better widescreen TVs? Many viewers have relationships with celebrities and feel as though they are connected to them in some way. Computers and the internet provide the same thing. The major distinction is higher interactivity through chatting and virtual spaces. For a teacher, “online learning communities provides wonderful opportunities for students to engage in global discussions, data sharing, and cooperative problem solving.” (Lamb & Johnson, 2006, p55)

Teachers can now develop e-pals and engage their classes in global debate and discussion, which in turn creates new social relationships. I’d love to hear from anyone who has done this, or hear about your thoughts on these new virtual relations.

Reference

Lamb, A., Johnson, L. (2006, October). ‘Want to be my “friend”? What you need to know about social relationships. Teacher librarian. Vol.34 issue 1. p55.

Stop there. Child protection- invasion of privacy-voyeurism. Was this student stalking me? I highly doubt it; I was simply related to a boy she was trying to get to ask her out. Maybe if she was nice to me, I’d put in a word? Facebook is “both noun and verb, the unchallenged colossus of adolescent communication that works like the telephone, the back fence, the class bulletin board…all rolled into one virtual mosh pit.” (Duffy, 2006, p50) It is an interesting medium conquered by both adults and adolescents where virtual communication is sacred and opens opportunities for connectedness beyond the imagination.

What struck me when this student asked me this was that student-teacher relations are undergoing a huge change, and we need to address the boundaries if any should be taken. As a teacher, can my authority be undermined or ridiculed if students access my facebook or even add me on? Does it cross any boundaries or violate any child protection laws? Facebook is counted as a social utility, could it be so bad if students and teachers were connected through this medium? In upcoming years, I believe it’s an important issue to be addressed by the government. Is this taking it too far?

Reference

Duffy, M. (2006, April 10). ‘A dad’s encounter with the vortex of facebook.’ In Time magazine. Text Pacific Publishing Australia. p.50.

When minutes later my brothers and cousins would destroy it, I would feel angry and frustrated that I couldn’t show it to Mum and Dad. There was no mobile phone to capture the image, nor a digital camera and usb to post my creation up on a website. It was gone forever.

Today however, students are able to construct, and share their experiences, providing a continuum of learning that only the age of digital power can provide. Harel continues to advise that, “ the net…offers a wide-open learning environment in which children can explore the world, express themselves, save their creations, revise and refine them over time and exchange ideas in ways that were simply not possible in the past” (Harel, 1996-2003). If we consider this, such a continuum is open to adults as well. The possibilities are endless.

What say thee?

Reference

Harel, I. Dr. (1996-2003). ‘Sand castles go digtal’ found http://www.mamamedia.com/areas/grownups/new/21_learning/sandcastlesgodigital

It is argued that Power Point is the kiss of death, and demotes discussion. In my experiences at university, it certainly did. But in teaching, I have discovered that it’s HOW you use technology that determines this. Amy Bruckman (2003) argues that “Power Point encourages presentation, not conversation. Students grow unaccustomed to being challenged. Ambiguity is not valued. A string presentation closes down debate rather than opening it because it conveys absolute authority.” (Bruckman, 2003, p23)

I strongly disagree. Using Power Point is an art, and can increase interactivity if the composer constructs it to be used in this way, and not an excuse for lazy work. The following is what I’ve found.

Here are some groovy Do’s and Don’ts

Do’s

• give out a worksheet based on the Power Point that has comprehension, debate activities and tasks, as well as slideshows and links to teachertube, etc.
• ALWAYS ask students to read the presentation to the class and ask others whether or not they agree
• allow a student to be the technology co-ordinator
• have points ascending so that students can discuss without feeling bombarded with text
•  keep bullets succinct and short
• use lots of visuals (this also helps students with special learning needs)

Don’t

• use too many coloured points

• distract students by using silly sounds, or too many animations

• write chunks of information

• read off the page and look at the board the whole time

• don’t talk to the presentation!

Hope this helps!

Reference

Bruckman, A. (ed). (2003, Summer). ‘Convergence’ in The journal of research into new media technologies. Volume 9, number 2. University of Luton Press.p23.

“Miss, I wanna go to America ‘coz its the best country on earth. It’s where all the video games, movies, music and hot people come from. They’re so smart. They even invented the internet.”

This is the exact quote stated by one of my year eight students when we did a unit on the internet. It’s a common attitude and belief among students that for all technology, we turn to the United States. For these students, progress is synonymous with the US, but ironically, the US themselves don’t believe that their education system, especially when it comes to technology, is doing justice by their students.

Time magazine is amazing in its journalism and is bringing such matters to the forefront. Claudia Wallis (2006) maintains that

“kids spend much of the day as their great grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed. A yawning chasm (with an emphasis on yawning) separates the world inside from the world outside.”

Needless to say, although some teachers still practice this kind of teaching here, most Australian students are ahead in terms of technology.

The Australian bureau of statistics http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/9C02232B6A45D55DCA2573A10019EAC2?opendocument, shows that most families with students have the internet and use it accordingly.

This means that students have information potentially with a click pf a button, making the research process easier, as well as for teachers. The outcome naturally, is more technologically savvy students with the potential for more interesting research and application if teachers allow this. America the leader? I don’t think so.

Reference

Wallis, C. (2006, December 10) ‘How to bring our schools out of the 20^th century’. Found at http://www.time.com/time/mgazine/article/0,9171,1568480,00.html accessed 11/07/2008.

I have to agree, my fellow colleagues (Mac http://djmastayoda.edublogs.org/ and Elyse http://elyse84.edublogs.org/) were spot on about the pencil fairy tale. Other than being a fantastic resource that I will show my students when writing fairy tales, it makes an amazing correlation between the advent of the pencil, the resistance to change, the phenomena of invention, the exclusivity of invention and the accessibility of new invention, as well as the resources need to apply invention.

I can still remember my high school commerce class in 1998, where my teacher said, “back when I was at school, my teacher made the bold prediction that in 20 years time, all students will have their very own calculator. We all laughed, and said, ‘yeah, sure.’”

I remember laughing and thinking that it was ludicrous to think that no one would have access to a calculator. After all, it was the only way I ever understood mathematics, and my sanity relied upon it.

The same thing is happening with ICT. Students now type faster than any secretary could, and live, eat and breathe the internet. Why is it then, that many teachers don’t embrace it and try to get training and encourage the school to invest in more ICT? Is it a matter of funding? Is it a matter of time?

What the moral of this fairy tale is, is that we need more teachers to be trained in terms of resources and application, so that a necessity like ICT can be incorporated and used the way it’s intended to.

In staffrooms, the complaint is that there is a lack of funding, and time to train teachers on how to use resources like smartboards, interactive whiteboards, power points, etc.

As teachers, should we sit around and wait for the schools to train us in digital technology, or should we go out there and get training and thank heavens for tax claims?