My Pecha Kucha: Connections

We've probably all had "that student" that you just can't seem to connect with,  It make me think...how can I reach this student? What else can I do? I'll reach out, make extra effort through interest activities. I will work hard to make a connection with each and every student. As I sit and ponder about my why, I begin to question myself? What is happening when students aren't engaged? Why aren't they performing better" Is there a disconnect? This leads me to my next thought...."When does learning happen best?"
I believe learning happens best when there is a connection between teacher, student, and family. As a teacher of Multilingual Learners(MLLs), connecting with students is easier than connecting with parents. There could be many reasons for this: working multiple jobs, language barrier...I need to dig deeper for the answer. As I recall watching a Ted Talk from Mike Wesch, I'm reminded of the animation story he created about the hero. This leads me to think. "how can I model this ability to see "the hero" in all my students? I know just how to do this. Make connections, build relationships, and talk but listen too!
Making students feel good about themselves will build confidence. This will lead to success. If I can help students realize...there is a purpose in learning and that learning IS worth it, then I truly believe that they will move from the "I can't" to the "I can" mentality. They WILL climb those steps...all because it's worth it!
To build relationships there has to be trust. I believe in letting my students know...I'm still learning, just like them! One of my favorite phrases to teach my students is "Nobody's perfect, we ALL make mistakes...even Mrs. Connole!"
As long as we try to learn from our mistakes...that's what's important.
To establish trust with my students, I will try to be as honest as possible with them in Social Emotional Learning time. I will invite students to join me for lunch bunch. I'll listen and let them know "I believe in you!" This leads me to my platform that I'll be using this year...Classdojo!
Classdojo is a free app for your phone and digital tool four desktop. This will help keep families in the know...all year long! I will post important notices and events, along with homework assignments! Classdojo also has a "Big Ideas" series of video clips and accompanying activities. These videos teach the importance of having a "Growth mindset" as opposed to a fixed mindset.
These videos and activities help students learn how to manage their emotions. They learn the power of positive thinking, perseverance, and respect, to name a few. My plan is to show 1 video per week and complete the activity. I would also like to write...or maybe even blog about a time when they showed or saw these traits. I believe that the writing and/or blogging piece will also help students see they are not  alone in some of their worries or concerns. This will also help to build community within our classroom. A safe place where we can offer support to those may not be there "YET"! When classmates, teachers and families collaborate and support each other, by climbing that mountain...together...all the way to the top, students will realize real learning is actually fun, so let's keep doing it! This helps build on perseverance. I encourage my students to self talk, keep trying and say, "I think I can, I think I can..." and someday you WILL!
I'm always looking for more ways to excite/engage my students. I'm known as that teacher in the building who loves to try something new. Classdojo is not new to me, but the tool within it that I will begin using this year is! It is Digital Portfolio. I believe this will help not only parents and families see more work samples but students too! Students will be able to hold on to these pieces all year because they are digital. Together, with their family, they will be able to look back and see their academic growth over the year. With some autonomy, students may choose the work they want to showcase. I will ask for at least one work piece per content area each quarter! I, the teacher, must approve each piece before it is uploaded to their portfolio. Only students and their family are able to view their work. Students are given a choice of "how" to show what they know. They can video record, write, take a photo, or draw. Multimodal opportunities are excellent scaffolds for all learners. Although I've been using Classdojo for about three years now, I have only used it as a communication piece between parents, myself as a Facebook, if you will, for our classroom. I feel this helps build some classroom community both in and outside of school. So between all of these modes on dojo, there should be plenty of talking points to connect us  all to what we are learning. As I just mentioned, Classdojo can provide talking points for us all. Here are some examples of what I share. Throughout Distance Learning(DL), I recorded myself reading Wonder, chapter by chapter. During DL Spirit Week, I put up pictures of students participating on Hat Day! A bunny appeared in my garden so I took a picture and students wrote their own creative stories about it. I also post pictures of students that win awards or get recognized for doing something. These students came to school every day for a month,"Perfect Attendance". Here are a few more examples of collaboration happening in school. This is where the energy comes from. A classroom should be alive and full of voice, laughter, and excitement. To me, that means some real fun learning is happening. We are playing with toys during indoor recess (technology not allowed) I guess I am forcing face to face time, like Turkle recommends. We had a gumdrop challenge where students worked in small groups to construct the tallest gumdrop structure. The third collage is the whole fourth grade, in the cafeteria, constructing a model of the eye. So much excitement here!
Yes, I use Classdojo as a communication tool. I don't want to dismiss the importance of face-to-face communication, as Turkle reminds us of its' importance. I have been assigned busroom at dismissal for the last two years. I'm going to try to request walkers so I can work m ore on my connections with families. Fingers crossed. The big picture here is creating a child who believes in themselves. Building that bridge and walking across it at the onset of school will be time and effort well spent. Not only should you talk to your students BUT you should listen when they respond. In closing, I am what Prensky refers to as a Techno traditionalist. I'm hoping this change I'm creating within my classroom does two things. First, It pushes me to the next level of Techno constructivist and second, while also pushing my students to change their approach to learning thru the use of this Digital Portfolio.

Sugata Mitra A School in the Cloud

How does this Ted Talk make you think about your role with young people in an online environment?

They say..."Timing is Everything!" This is maybe a few months shy but so, so relevant to our current situation. Basically, Sugata Mitra saw potential through a wall leading to the slum. So, he thought why are all the rich people having all these amazingly brilliant children, what about the poor people who don't have access to technology?
The future of learning, schools are obsolete/outdated! What will education/learning look like? In 9 months a group of children left alone with a computer, in any language, will reach the same standard as an office secretary in the west. Sugata started thinking..."Could it be that we don't need to go to school at all?" He draws the conclusion that it's all about letting learning happen. H repeated this experiment all around the country and got the same results....every time. Encouragement seems to be the key. This is my whole basis of my "why". I feel if you give a child some encouragement, some positive words, they will roll with this! When you take the time to make that connection, build that bridge, show you care, they will perform for you as if they were a rock star. Children want to please, it's an innate quality.
Another point made was that of Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLE). This is exactly what we just experience through Distance Learning on March 13-June 2020.
               

SOLE is based on broadband + collaboration + encouragement
Sugata Mitra's wish is...that we design the future of learning! We can do this! Starting this fall. By supporting children all over the world. We can tap into their wonders & abilities to work together. I think we just did this on a smaller scale. If one person can collect all the data ⇨ send it to "A School in the Cloud"
                                

Turkle & Wesch: Allies or Opponents?

What is the relationship between Turkle and Wesch? Do you see them as allies or opponents in this discussion of new media and technology?

I see Turkle and Wesch as allies in this discussion of new media and technology. However, they have different perspectives on how to address the situation.  Turkle feels that students are "alone together" in both The Flight From Conversation and her Ted Talk. Technology enabled, we are able to be with each other and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be.  We are together, sharing common spaces, yet alone in our own thought bubbles of technology, touch screens, and keyboards. Technology allows us to present the self we want to be, by editing and deleting. Human relationships/conversations don't allow for editing or deleting. Once you say something, it's out there. No chance of deleting. You can send a text to apologize or reiterate something spoken. The loss of face to face conversation is a scary notion. Turkle makes reference to a sixteen year old that states, "Someday, someday, but certainly not right now, I'd like to learn how to have a conversation." Turkle fears that technology will replace human relationships. They will be taken over by robots. This is not who we are, who we were, nor should it be who we become. If we replace the human with any form of technology, we will lose that sense of touch, comfort and being together.
Wesch believes we, as educators should guide students into recognizing their own importance in helping shape the future of this increasingly global, interconnected society. This is not something that can be taught or simply told. Wesch talks about his "World Simulation" where his students work together to figure out how the world works. His job becomes less about teaching, and more about encouraging students to join me on this journey. Wesch actually refers to his role as a cultural anthropologist is something that he might call "anti-teaching." He feels that by using technology to help drive/further our learning/education together, we become co-creators of our world, and the future is up to us. Our goal as educators is to teach students to become active lifelong learners with critical thinking skills, Therefore, together we can answer the question, "What do we need to know for this test?"

Disney's Moana

How does it feel to think about Disney through the critical lenses posed by Christensen and my slides? How did these frameworks help you think about Moana?

I have always enjoyed watching Disney movies, so I was excited to watch Moana. I think the reason I enjoy watching Disney movies so much is because I don't have to "think deeply" to enjoy them. They are purely for entertainment purposes. Now, when asked to watch this movie through these critical lenses posed by Christensen and Professor Bogad's slide deck, that changes everything. Moana does not fit into the traditional female main character.  She is not a princess, she is neither weak nor white, not a damsel in distress waiting to be saved by her knight in shining armor.  What she does portray is kindness, at home with animals, and beautiful. She knows there is something about the water "that calls to her" throughout the entire movie. Her parents are constantly stopping her from interacting with the water. We find out why this is so important to them. Not only is water viewed as a danger to children, but her dad had a horrible accident "beyond the reef" and refuses to allow Moana to go there. He is protecting her from the unknown. He is just performing his role as father figure, big and strong. Her grandmother is a believer in Moana. She has a connection to the water and saw when the water chose Moana as a toddler. She pushes Moana to follow her calling. Moana is drawn to the water but has no idea why. Moana is in search of her "why" just as you are pushing us to figure out our "why". She must save her people and her island. Moana has been trained to be a leader her whole young life. Now, following her calling to become a master wayfinder, she says goodbye to her beloved grandmother and goes on an adventure, beyond the reef, to find Maui and convince him to fix his wrong doing. Maui does not think Moana can do anything in the beginning but that all changes and together she finds herself, saves her village and her island. That is the "happily ever after", not your typical princess riding off into the sunset with her hero!

Kami Tutorial

I chose Kami as my digital tool because it is a game changer.  If you didn’t use this in Distance Learning already, you will definitely want to use it this fall.  It was the perfect tool to transition from in school to at home online work. However we start school this year, I will continue to use this amazing tool.

What is Kami?

Kami is your digital classroom game changer! According to the website,

Kami is the leading digital classroom app built to transform any existing

document into an interactive learning experience.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMcQ1Qs7zU8

Learning made easy:

• More student interaction
• Instantly change PDFs into editable documents
• Easily grade and return student work
• Students can mark up a text easily with the  pen and paper tools

Where do I begin?

You and the students can follow these simple instructions:

1. Open Chrome

2. Click :chrome extension to add to browser

3. Search for Kami

4. Choose “Add to Chrome” on the right of the App

5. Use your Providence google account to sign on (students too)

How do I upload PDF files to Kami?

***Important when creating an assignment***               

      

1. Go to extension bar and click on the Kami icon

2. Click on “OPEN FROM COMPUTER”

3. You probably already have files on your computer 

• teacher pay teacher documents, 
• books that are on line
• worksheets that you’ve made in the past 

***remember, we are not reinventing the wheel!***

You might have to make an old fashioned worksheet digital

Here’s how: 

Seventeen, Self-Image, and Stereotypes by Bakari Chavanu

In "Seventeen, Self-Image and Stereotypes" by Bakari Chavanu, he walks us through a seven week media literacy unit on advertising in his 11th grade class. Similar to what we learned in class yesterday from Brittany. The purpose of this unit was to help students look at the role and influence of media, specifically advertising, and how it influences their decisions, values and ideas that maintain sexist, racist and pro-capitalists points of view.  The unit began with skit performances on a product and television commercial critiquing. At this point in the unit, students were still reluctant to think that advertising media had any influence on "them" as a consumer or their values.
The next focus was on "Images of Women" beginning with a showing of Jean Kilbourne's classic Killing Us Softly 4:  Advertising's Images of Women, an analysis of how images and ads shape our values. After discussing the presentation, students worked in small groups on tearing out ads in magazines that portrayed Kilbourne's arguments made in her presentation. They began to see for themselves how women and men are sexualized in ads to sell products.
The next activity had students analyze a Seventeen magazine. This was very relevant to many of his students who subscribed to the magazine. This ended up being a very enlightening activity. Many came to the conclusion that the media stereotypes groups of people as well as influences the consumers buying habits.
Chavanu's goal was to teach his students to be critically conscious citizens rather than manipulated consumers.

The Golden Circle Samuel Sinek

What do you make of Sinek’s theory of The Golden Circle? How does this resonate with the work you have been doing about your own beliefs? Do you have a WHY?

Sinek's theory believes in the what, the how, and the why. When we start with the "what" and move to the "why" we don't grasp the meaning as much! Sinek states that, "People don't buy what you do", they buy "why you do it". When we start with our "what" and end at the "why" we lose the drive/feeling. Our beliefs and purpose of teaching should be our "why" that drive "what" we do....teach! As a teacher of young children, they know the difference between a teacher who starts with their "why" and ends at the "what". When a teacher is enthusiastic on a day to day basis, children become more interested and then take on the learning for themselves. I think it models "why" I teach which helps the students take on a love of learning. It's about fostering an atmosphere that helps you create the love of learning in your classroom. I try my best to go in every day with a smile on my face, so happy to be with my students/teach them.

The Golden Circle theory is so relevant to teaching. How many teachers go to work because it's their job? They are starting with the "what" and will not be as successful in their career. I believe in starting with the "why", making those connections with your students to show them you care. Once they know and understand this, their learning will become innate. They will want to show you what they can/can't do and will come to you for support in their learning. And because you started with your "why", your will take the time to reteach or assess them through a different mode.