Posts Tagged "Skills"
Switched On and Connected…
I am a Geek… I don’t hide it… I like my Sci-Fi, I like my computer games, I like my online community and I hate to say it but I have more virtual friends than I do real friends. I like being switched on and connected.
As a mother I am raising 3 Geeks – my children also like Sci-Fi, computer games and being switched on and connected. This morning as I switched on and read my email one of my online communities had a survey about Social Media which included a video about how to prepare your Tween for Technology.
Now I don’t agree with everything Mia Freedman says however for the first time in a long time I felt that someone was giving SOME good advice about online communities and Social Media. Everywhere else you look the solution for Teens and Tweens is to block Twitter, Facebook and anything else that the kids are using. Lets face it. Our Schools all seem to block Social Media. But maybe we need to rethink Social Media. I know that I get most of my information from Twitter. I couldn’t live without my Twitter feed helping me to sift through sites, articles and information. And If I need something that is usually the first place I head to find what I want. So why are we stopping students from accessing a legitimate source of information. Crowd sourcing is becoming more a part of life – how else do we sift through the millions of google responses to our search query. So why are we not teaching them how to use it correctly and safely?
Recently I read an article titled What Schools are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media where S. Craig Watkins discussed the issue of schools and social media. I have to agree with him if someone told me that I have to switch off and stop communicating with my virtual networks I think I would be lost and lonely. My learning wouldn’t stop as I have a natural curiosity about the world and would find other ways to find the information but for our students when all they have ever known is the Internet and being switched on and connected I think it would stop them from investigating.
Mr Watkins went on to outline …
By blocking social media schools are also blocking the opportunity:
1) to teach students about the inventive and powerful ways communities around the world are using social media
2) for students and teachers to experience the educational potential of social media together
3) for students to distribute their work with the larger world
4) for students to reimagine their creative and civic identities in the age of networked media
I think that we need to embrace Social Media in schools, we need to teach students how to use it to find information, to connect with experts and to encourage students to learn for themselves. We also need to teach them how to stay safe and to verify the information that they find.
Related articles
- What Schools are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media (dmlcentral.net)
- Twitter – my virtual staffroom (maggiehosmcgrane.com)
How do you Organise YOUR Life?
I like organisation. This is no big surprise for those who know me well. In fact I like organisation so much I’m often asked for advice on organisational skills. I personally use Microsoft Outlook in order to keep my life in order. This is partly because I’ve always used Outlook and partly because this is what I use at work. I like to organise every minute of the day. I like to categorise every part of my day. I feel like I am in control when my life is colour coded and organised. Some people would suggest that this would mean I am OCD and perhaps I am.
Lately I have felt that my organisational skills have been failing me as I’ve been bogged down in email and my to-do list has been getting ever longer and not shorter. So after doing some thinking and some reading I thought I would share some of my thoughts and findings…
- Read emails 3 times a day (first thing in the morning, around lunch time and at the end of the day)
- Read the subject line and first few lines of the email and decide to…
- Delete it
- Deal with it
- Flag for Follow up
- Make it a Task
- Spend a set amount of time dealing with the emails you Flagged for Follow up – make it a task or appointment in your calendar
- Reduce your email to zero or as close to zero as you can (sometimes you are waiting on other people to give a response)
Tasks
- Make big tasks into lots of little tasks
- Categorise your tasks
- Order the tasks based on importance and urgency
- Realise that some days you won’t get through as many tasks as you would like
Calendar
- Colour Code it by importance
- Make Appointments out of tasks
- Over Guestimate the time it will take
- Take the time to plan out the day
Would love to hear your tips on how you keep your life organised and your inbox close to zero.
The Past or The Future…
My sister and I enjoy a long run every second weekend and afterwards we enjoy a good catchup over coffee and a walk. Today’s conversation was about how my children were going at school and we started talking about the assessment my daughter in Grade Seven is currently working on. The conversation then moved to our schooling and the things which we did at the same age. Now my sister and I are really NOT that old (we are in our early 30s). I know life after school has changed since the late 90s and the skills students need now and into the future have definetly changed. I mean when we were at school the internet was *new*. Both of us remember spending time in the State Library labouring over books to find the information we needed to complete the assignments that more often than not were hand written. And *THESE* days my daughter finds nearly all of her information on the NET. Now we both know that the skills involved in searching the internet compared with searching the library are completely different. And we realise that in the age of the Internet everyone is an expert in everything. Cause lets face it if you don’t know the answer you can look it up and become an expert yourself. Or find someone who can help.
This led to our thoughts of what education is going to be like when our youngest children (who are currently 2) get there… Maybe exams will be a thing of the past… Or maybe more will be open book… Maybe students will make their own curriculum… Or maybe the government will still decide when and where student learn…
Skills change over time… I’m not sure where education is heading… All I hope is that students in the future learn the skills they need to be successful in life.
Education needs to make sure it keeps up…
What Exactly is the Purpose of Education?
This week I have spent my time in primary school planning meetings. Each of these has started the same way with the teachers being given a copy of the draft National Australian Curriculum. Each of these meetings has then gone in a very different direction depending on the combination of teachers. One thing that did stand out is that the teaching staff got caught up with the content of the Australian Curriculum and how the content was different from what they currently taught.
Something which has stood out to me is the severe lack of skills being taught in the National Australian Curriculum. And the swift way in which teachers (myself included) seemed to throw the thought of teaching students skills out the window.
I was reading Digital Literacy Across the Curriculum tonight and it got me thinking about what exactly the purpose of school and education is? What do we take from school into the big bad world when we leave the gate at the end of year 12? What do we take from school into university? And then our degrees into our job? So as I always do when I start thinking I ask Twitterland!
What is your clearest memory of primary school? High school? University?
My clearest memory of primary school was as a whole class (year 3) being praised for being proactive and going into the classroom after first break everyday and reading while we waited for the teachers to return from their morning tea meeting. Then on the sixth day of doing this scoring a lunchtime rubbish clean up (the whole class did) for going into a classroom without a staff member.
For High School the memory is of me making a fool of myself dancing to Rip Rip Woodchip by John Williamson in Year 8 to explain the meaning of logging. (I doubt I got the meaning across but it was fun even if it was embarrassing!)
Meanwhile in University my memories are of me trying to get my readings complete with one or two children hanging off me.
None of this was about the content or even the skills I learnt at school.
So I asked my twitter friends. And their responses were the same. They were about fights, arguments, results, excursions, bullying, parties, punishments and handing the last piece of assessment in. Nothing about content or skills.
So WHY as teachers do we get so hung up on the content? Reality is none of us really remember it later in life.
We should be teaching skills. Lets throw the content out that window instead.
Who’s joining me?
Read MoreTime to Pop the Bubble Wrap
I was reading a blog post tonight about what is the best age to teach Social Networking. Royan makes many good points. The main one I agree with is
Everywhere I turn I see a lot of time and money being consumed warning parents, children, and teachers about the dangers on the Internet. It’s getting to the point of absurdity. The problem with most of these initiatives and campaigns is they usually implicitly suggest that proverbial abstinence is the best policy. -The Spicy Learning Blog
I think that cybersafety has finally gone too far. Blocking kids from the Internet, chat, social networking and web 2.0 does not help them later in life from the big bad world. We need to teach kids to be smart from the start. Teach them how to protect their privacy. Teach them to talk to you as a parent or teacher. Teach them to make their own mind up about right and wrong. Encourage kids to use technology in open areas.
We used to teach kids (when I was a kid!) about stranger danger, we offered safe houses for kids walking home from school. Perhaps we should transfer this to the Internet.
Lets stop wrapping our children up in bubble wrap and teach them to be safe.
Read MoreBasic ICT Skills – Doesn't Everyone Have Them?
I had the opportunity yesterday to assist at a PD session on the use of Word, PowerPoint, and Audacity. Things that I’m sure a majority of teachers take advantage of everyday sometimes to the detriment of learning. Now this was a session for those who felt they had a beginner level. I was surprised. I have been spoilt working at a school with a high level of technology. Now I know that not all schools offer the PD that is required to keep up to date with the latest technology but surely at least everyone can use Word and PowerPoint. I was proved wrong yesterday. And was wondering if this was a major mistake of those of us in education – the assumption that everyone can use Word and PowerPoint. Do we ever really teach our staff or students for that matter the correct way to use these tools?
Basic skills such as inserting WordArt, Pictures, Symbols or manipulating these to display the way you want them to. Adding transitions and sounds to slides to make them viewable without the teacher. Just using these basic skills to make nicely displayed worksheets with lots of colour or using PowerPoint to create flashcards.
Perhaps our failure to our students is not making sure that our teachers have the basic ICT skills to create the resources which keep them engaged in learning.
Read MoreJoin the Group
