Reaction to “The Socially Networked Classroom” Chapters Five and Six

Chapter Five

My initial reaction to the beginning of this chapter is excitement, mixed with worry. I would LOVE to use facebook in my classroom because it is so engrained in (most) of our lives that we are nearly constantly connected to it. As mentioned in the chapter, I do have a fear that my students would be more concerned with checking their own facebook profiles and others’ posts. However, I do think that once the novelty of getting to use facebook at school wore off, they would be more willing to cooperate and use facebook as directed in the class. It is a little disappointing because this level of freedom is not something I see in my near (or distant) future. A (modified) hybrid class seems more doable to me. It would allow the learner to extend lessons from the classroom, using a new technology, on their own time and in their own way. I, personally, don’t think this at home learning should be monitored by the teacher. The teacher should offer support to the student in how to use different technologies, or research different topics. Then, the teacher should offer guidance in the form of assignment instructions or guidelines. Once again, although this isn’t something that I could within my own classroom or school day, it is something I am interested in sharing with my students. It would really make learning fun for my students. I would offer projects like the ones previously mentioned in this book to my students as learning extensions.

Chapter Six

Chapter six answers a few unresolved questions that the teacher may have about the implementation of social networks in the classroom, but I feel as though many of these are beyond the teacher’s control. The first question, “Will social networking be used to free students or more tightly limit their freedoms?”, is something that I feel is completely beyond the teacher’s control, and in the hands of administration. I can only allow my students the freedoms that I am told I can allow them. While I might not necessarily agree with the restrictions placed on students, I must hold myself and my students to them. There are some aspects of education that teachers can influence that are discussed in this chapter. For example, the teacher can place important on new literacies, create time in his or her daily schedule for technology and networking, and by helping to set the atmosphere of the school as accepting of new literacies and how it can very useful to the student.

Reaction to “The Socially Networked Classroom” Chapters Three and Four

Chapter Three

This chapter caught my attention right at the beginning because the first topic it covers is keeping students safe online. This is something I have had experience with as a student (let’s be real, internet filters made research projects nearly IMPOSSIBLE in school!), and now worry about as a teacher. However, I do think the author makes a good point that our students are exposing themselves to the internet with or without adult supervision. I think it would be in the best interest of the child to let them navigate the internet with the guidance and supervision of a wise adult. We need to teach them how to interpret messages on the internet, and how to be safe in this digital environment. Next, we moved directly into a discussion of “fair use” and the internet. Once again, this is something we need to allow our students to see, and interact with before it becomes an issue later in their life (in an education setting, or a workplace). I’m, once again, thankful for the questions to consider that will help me guide my own classroom discussions over these topics, because it really seems like it might be somewhat over a fifth grader’s head. Finally, we move into more specific examples of ways to incorporate technology into our classrooms. I noticed immediately that these examples focused mainly on collaborative learning, such as the second chapter. This author really focuses on how to teach social network within the classroom community, as well as online or when using new media. I really love the idea of a class blog. It would improve my student’s writing abilities and allow them to encourage each other through the use of comments. It would allow for continuous growth in the students’ abilities. Lastly, in the interest of continuous growth, I absolutely adored making a portfolio for this class. It really allowed me to showcase my work, and take pride in it. This is also something that Mr. Kist suggests as a way to “connect the classroom”. I want to share this same pride with my students! This, again, seems very doable! The more I explore this text, the more hopeful I become for my technology limited class. I’m very curious to see what the next few chapters will bring.

Chapter Four

This chapter began with an important message that I fully believe in, and practice every day in my classroom: never ask your students to do something that you have not done. I feel to be an effective teacher and guide to your students, you must have done something yourself. As a teacher, I would create my own blog, and actively participate in this digital environment. I would introduce students to blogging by showing my own blog, comments, and responses. Then, I would introduce or refresh my students knowledge of internet safety, how to be a responsible digital citizen, and netiquette. Once blogging becomes familiar to the student, you can begin to incorporate other activities to keep it “fresh” for the student. These extensions can include inquiry projects, group work projects, and literature circles. These allow for the student to explore new literacies in a deeper manner than they have before. However, this does need the prior knowledge created by teaching the student to blog first, but once in place, offers nearly endless extension activities.

Reaction to “The Socially Networked Classroom” Chapters One and Two

Chapter One

The first chapter of this textbook holds a lot of promise for me because it informed me that it was going to show how to become a “networked classroom” in different classroom situations. As a teacher in a low-technology school, I have found it nearly impossible to integrate technology into my daily classroom life. We have a class website, and get to go to the computer lab once a week, but we don’t interact with technology any more than this. This is greatly disappointing to me. However, I am very excited to see what this textbook has to offer me in the first chapter, “Short”, which promises to show effective and engaging ways to implement new literacies in low technology classrooms. I am hoping that this book is just what I needed to inspire me to broaden my classroom horizons. Wish me luck, I am off and away into chapter two of this adventure!

Chapter Two

At the beginning of this chapter, I’m immediately immersed into a new literacies autobiography project. I absolutely adore this idea for my own fifth grade classroom. This is something I feel that I could assign as a project on the first week of school. We could brainstorm together on the first day, and then allow the students to go home and further brainstorm in a familiar setting with their family or friends. I would offer classroom technology time to allow the students to complete this project because technology resources are often limited for my students. However, I think this is a very manageable project. It is definitely something I would like to consider next year. The chapter continues on to offer suggestions to teach the difference between linear and non-linear reading styles, and reading response ideas. All of the suggestions seem very doable for my own fifth grade class. I really appreciate that the author included questions to consider as well, because it acts as guiding questions for me, as I am a first year teacher with limited experiences, and often struggle to facilitate meaningful classroom discussion. I really connected with this chapter because it showed me that there are multiple ways to respond when learning. I want to incorporate these different ways of responding to texts in my own classroom because no two students learn in the same way. I’m a very linguistic person. I enjoy responding in written forms, however, another learn may want to respond in the form of a PowerPoint. Is one better than the other? Should a teacher cater to one student’s strengths while ignoring another’s? I also really enjoyed the thought that networking can be wireless. If technology in severely limited in your classroom, you can still set up cooperative learning experiences, and allow the students to connect in collaborative working environments. After reading this chapter, I feel as though I need to be the teacher who “walks the walk”. I very much so identify with Cassie Neumann’s blog post that ends the chapter because I am also a first year teacher, without lesson plans that can be revamped, but I do think I can incorporate many of these “wireless” activities into my plans without much strain. However, I’m VERY excited about how I can continue to improve my lessons year after year.

Virtual Communities: Collaborating to Build a Better Classroom

Online message boards and virtual worlds have open the door to infinite possibilities in the field of education. It allows educators from all over the world to communicate and share lesson plans, ideas, thought, and tips for how to effective run a classroom. I find this to be especially helpful as a first year teacher. I've chosen to join two online communities to guide me through my first year of teaching, and the many years to come.

The first community I joined is Kappa Delta Pi Global. This is directly related to Education, but not necessarily technology integration. However, it offers a search function that allows you to search for technology or social media in education. I believe this community will be of high value to me because it is an organization of successful teachers that have a passion for their field. I cannot wait to see what I can learn from this community.

Kappa Delta Pi Global has already proved valuable and shared a website that I would like to pass along to my fellow classmate about integrating technology as a new teacher.

http://www.edutopia.org/article/new-teachers-technology-integration-resources


This led me to the second community I joined, Edutopia. This website has served a resource for me many times in my classroom. Once again, this isn't a technology or social media based, but based on education. However, I believe this will give me real insight to the integration of technology in the classroom. This resource allows you to follow topics such as social media, or technology. This keeps you up to date on the latest developments in this area of the education field. I believe this website will meet my needs and exceed my expectations tenfold. I'm excited to begin sharing with you what I learn on these sites.

I hope you consider joining me in my exploration of these resources! I think they will be useful to any teacher at any point in their career.

Enjoy, and happy learning!
Rachel

Blogs & Wikis

Hello again! In this post I am going to share some basic differences between blogs and wikis, as well as some similarities. I hope you enjoy!

- Rachel

Blogs

• Displays in a “dynamic” manner
• Contains a dashboard
• Stream-of-Consciousness format
• Shows a change in the writer’s thinking
• Sharing and access
• Critique and reflection
• Safety and freedom of expression

Wikis

• Displays in a “static” manner
• Does not contain a dashboard
• Clear, structured format
• Shows a change in the group’s knowledge
• Collaboration, Ownership, and provenance
• Collaboration, negotiation, teamwork
• Trust in others

Similarities

• Constructivist
• Writing skills
• Appropriate online behavior
• Higher-Order thinking skills
• Scaffolding student learning
• Clarifying expectations
• Integration of diverse expectations

Source: Poore, M. (2013) Using Social Media in the Classroom: A Best Practice Guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Assignment Two: Article Review

Article Review of “Fueling a Third Paradigm of Education: The Pedagogical Implications of Digital, Social and Mobile Media” by John Pavlik
Rachel Striedel
University of Houston-Victoria


Abstract: This document contains an article review of John Pavlik’s written work titled “Fueling a Third Paradigm of Education: The Pedagogical Implications of Digital, Social, and Mobile Media”. This document contains a summary of the written work, and my thoughts relating to it.  


Article Review of “Fueling a Third Paradigm of Education: The Pedagogical Implications of Digital, Social and Mobile Media” by John Pavlik

John Pavlik’s “Fueling a Third Paradigm of Education: The Pedagogical Implications of Digital, Social and Mobile Media” presents compelling research coherently sequenced to make the point that we are now on the cusp of a third paradigm change in education. My first mental note was to quickly rack my brain to figure out what the first two were. Mr. Pavlik very succinctly posted that they were first, Socratic mentoring, and second, large Industrial Revolution mass classes, so he had me from that point on (Pavlik 2015). His argument was fluid and at no point had me on the edge of my seat frothing at the obliqueness of the argument (Pavlik 2015). The fact that I have chosen education, and come from a long line of educators has embroiled me in many of the topical issues of education since I was old enough to understand. Nothing Mr. Pavlik contends do I find fault with, including his logic, his research, and his presentation. In fact I think he did a stellar job (Pavlik 2015).

His contention is that there will be a fundamental change in the who (with both students and educators affected), how (classes are taught, and engaged in by students), and when (any time that would work into the student’s life would be acceptable) of education soon in the future (Pavlik 2015). It will be brought about primarily by the need to be relevant to the lives of the students who will engage in it (Pavlik 2015). It will be possible due to an accelerated creation of many vital tools with which to engage 21st century students in 21st century learning (Pavlik 2015). The role of educators will still be very vital but, rightly so, extremely different from those who educated us (Pavlik 2015). The possibilities of this paradigm change are both daunting and exhilarating for the educators (Pavlik 2015). “It is defined by interconnectedness among students and teachers and features many-to-many communication and multidirectional mentorship (see Figure 1) (Pavlik 2015). The professor is no longer in the role of the grand master of knowledge. Instead, she or he is a mentor and guide, and students engage in a shared process of knowledge exploration and discovery” (Pavlik 2015).

One of the most interesting features of this essay is that the research used to support the thesis is both what would be considered “proper educational sources” and also it interacts with the more true to life commonly held phenomena that we encounter in our students lives (Pavlik 2015). I particularly liked the research into WoW (World of Warcraft) gamers and their use of the technology to teach each other and improve their skills. That is a perfect mesh of the educational world or “ivory tower research” and real world applications. This is, of course, what we are constantly encouraged to include in our lesson structure. Perhaps that was the point at which it snapped into focus for me. It is true and it makes sense to me now. It is not just the same methodology using more glitzy tools, it is fundamentally different. There is hope for my students, who at times seem so lost in the old school classes. It makes me feel like I can once again breathe.

In addition, it can bring the disenfranchised students in. “Networked, digital and mobile technologies also provide a window to better engage a diverse student population. In one of the author’s hybrid courses, a speech-impaired student was for first time able to fully participate as a peer with her classmates through online text-based discussion” (Pavlik 2015). For so long, these students have lobbied for equal treatment and gotten token inclusion (Pavlik 2015). This would allow them to join and immerse in the learning as any other student would (Pavlik 2015).
“In particular, human teachers should focus on three domains that can frame all knowledge: 1) ethics (a moral compass), 2) context (the interpretation of knowledge in historical or other context especially the broader stream of a discipline) and 3) critical questioning of assumptions (the fundamental beliefs that underlie any body of knowledge)” (de Valck, 2013; as cited by Pavlik 2015).
It frees the teacher to do what they do best, guide their student’s inquiry; and to abandon what is the most frustrating part of the job currently, forcing a one-size-fits-all education on all the students. Educators who are in the field properly will applaud Mr. Pavlik’s bold statement.

Resources
Pavlik, J. (2015). Fueling a Third Paradigm of Education: The Pedagogical Implications of Digital, Social and Mobile Media. Contemporary Educational Technology, 6(2), P113-125. Retrieved August 25, 2015, from Education Source.

EDUC 6311 Class Blog - First Post

This blog will contain a collection of posts made during the Fall 2015 semester for Professor Vafa's UHV EDUC 6311 class.

This post contains the first assignment for this class.

Assignment 1

Name: Rachel Striedel
Course: EDUC 6311


Search Term: “Social media in education”

Total number of results from the UHV library: 3,040,018

Total number of results from Google Scholar: About 3,510,000 results

Total number of results from ERIC: 8,448

Methods used to narrow the search:
• Placing social media in quotation marks
• Using more specific terminology such as “social media” in elementary education
• Limiting the date range of articles
• Limiting the source of articles

Method used to find more related articles:
• Using terminology in the search that relates to this subject (facebook, Instagram, etc)
• Using synonyms in search (social networking, media influenced learning, etc.)

List other resources that you could use for your search:
• Educational websites (.edu)
• Organization websites (.org)
• Government websites (.gov)
• Academic journals
• Local library resources (public library and university library)