It was a pretty overwhelming experience being here in person with a group of students I have only collaborated with via Skype. The most surprising part of the day was that the students rather quickly accepted me as their teacher. I was able to talk with Garth, teach the students and carry on as though I was in my classroom. As the day went on even some 8th graders that recognized me came in to say hello. The whole experience of the day really helped to remind me of the great experience Garth and I are providing for these students. It was also a "life coming full-circle" moment for myself since this was the first week I came to Garth's room as a student-teacher 6 years ago. In a few weeks, when Garth visits my classroom, he will post what his day was like.
While my school is on winter break, Garth and I thought it would be cool for me to spend the day in his classroom, physically not virtually. The way our school schedules run, Garth will be able to come and visit my students the first week we are back in school. Today my job was to introduce students to the Middle Ages Webquest that both schools will be collaborating on for the next 6-9 weeks. This was the first time Garth's students have ever seen me in person.
It was a pretty overwhelming experience being here in person with a group of students I have only collaborated with via Skype. The most surprising part of the day was that the students rather quickly accepted me as their teacher. I was able to talk with Garth, teach the students and carry on as though I was in my classroom. As the day went on even some 8th graders that recognized me came in to say hello. The whole experience of the day really helped to remind me of the great experience Garth and I are providing for these students. It was also a "life coming full-circle" moment for myself since this was the first week I came to Garth's room as a student-teacher 6 years ago. In a few weeks, when Garth visits my classroom, he will post what his day was like.
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You have heard Garth and myself, along with countless others in the world of education speak to the truth that filters need to be removed from school district internet access. Schools are the place that students should be learning about good digital citizenship and leaving positive digital footprints. The world is not filtered, so what message (other than lack of trust) do school filters really send. I have heard the excuse that money is attached to filtering certain content, or that ignorance to digital media causes a knee-jerk reaction to block & ban everything and people have even told me that kids can't handle an unfiltered environment. Today I arrived at school to find that, as promised in an email Friday, YouTube and GoogleDocs are now unblocked in my school district. The number of happy teachers far outnumbers the nay-sayers so far. Two teachers have already started using movie clips and GoogleDocs in their classes today! Instead of allowing students to discover these new tools on their own, and risk them thinking they have stumbled upon a secret, I used this as a great opportunity to talk (again) about appropriate internet use. I showed the students a few examples from the historyteachers to show some of the content-rich material available via YouTube. The science department is very excited to finally be able to access some great videos concerning real-world science. I am proud to say that several teachers in my building have slowly been emailing and urging the people in charge to take a serious look at our filtering system. It is also nice to see my district act in a progress way and trust faculty and students to use these new tools for academic endeavors. This is really a case of "one man can make a difference" actually happening. My next challenge is to decide how to help acclimate staff with these new sites. Students will be students and the next two weeks until winter break will see students going on YouTube for other than academic reasons; at least that is the stereotypical thing to say. It is my gut feeling that if we engage students in conversation concerning YouTube and GoogleDocs, then it will be a great assess to their learning. I was thinking about addressing each grade level during advisory to talk about digital citizenship and leaving positive digital footprints. What are your thoughts? How should we react when students are surfing the web? Please leave a comment or suggestion. |
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