Blogging in the Blogosphere

The experience that I have had reading and commenting and also doing my personal posts in the blogosphere has really been an interesting and enjoyable one. To begin with, I was amazed at the posts of my colleagues; and I don't mean the ones that I have commented on alone. Infact I read many on which I did not comment but nonetheless I was truly enriched by them.Teachers and educators are really a talented bunch of people: they are improvisors, resourceful, compassionate, helpful and can inspire. I was inspired by all those posts and I think that our instructors will have a blessed and enriched experience reading all of our posts. Don't you think so colleagues. I have located a site where it speaks about all the qualities that are inherent in you.

http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/41772

Qualities of successful leading teachers

Successful leading teachers demonstrate the following qualities:

• empathy and self-awareness: a capacity to read other people's concerns and feelings with a knowledge of one's own feelings, strengths and weaknesses
• flexibility and creativity: a capacity to see where opportunities lie
• trust, openness and honesty: a capacity to enable confidence to grow and to tell things as they see them
• optimism, patience and consistency: a capacity to be hopeful even in adversity, to stick with a difficulty through to a successful outcome and to remain constant in the provision of advice and encouragement

God bless your efforts, your family and your charges.

Hope , hope, hope for the future

I was thinking about the next course that we have to do in the upcoming semester on leadership in reading. I was also of the opinion how timely and needed this course would be in light of the need for help like this for many teachers. Many of the blog posts I have read , my colleagues have lamented about having floundered in the deep for years not knowing how to give their students the kind of help that they needed. Even at present the Ministry has not renewed the contract of several reading teachers who were doing remedial work with our secondary school students. So for two terms now our students have been without the much needed intervention that they are in dire need of. I look forward to doing whatever is needed of this course to help teachers in my school.
However I pause to wonder again if after we've finished this programme, if we would be treated with the same scant courtesy that remedial teachers were treated. This in light of original plans that the MOE has for us. Remember that other scholarships that were offered in the past, the teachers received two days to attend classes and to do assignments and studies. I have not even been granted a halfday off by my principal. Every single half or whole day we take I'm sure that we have applied for. I shudder to think that somewhere along the line, after we have completed the Med, we'll be parked up in school having to balance our normal teaching time, normal duties and a reading portfolio that our principals and the Ministry would like us to execute all in a days work. Tell mih that yuh don't know how de ministry does operate nah!

Reflection

I pause here to reflect on the past few weeks on what I have learned from the ICT course. The course was intensive and the pace was hectic. With all the articles to be read, literacies to be learned, Web 2.0 paper to write and lessons to plan I wondered how I was going to get everything done. However I have survived so far and intend to do so for the remainder of the programme. What I enjoyed was the lab sessions where we actually learned the new technologies. Sometimes I was lost but I thank God for my kind colleagues as Delores and Trummane who assisted unrelentingly. They took the time to peer teach me what they knew. I realised that in my classes in which I plan to use some of this technology in the future I would need to utilise the swifter ones who are always on top of their game. I do not underestimate the importance of peer tutoring.
I am amazed at the availability of the technology which is at our fingertips. I particularly like the interactive nature of the wiki, and the ebooks.So here's to computing in the clouds.

Reading and Writing in the classroom

Research has shown that students generally do not like to write and when they do it is just a few lines to meet the criteria given by the teacher or to take notes.When they read it is because it is in their interest to do so.They are not motivated to read content area and basal texts. However there is 1.5 million of blog posts every day (Richardson,2009). Children connect everyday with their friends and peers about popular culture( movies, music, videos and so on). They are hardpressed to remove themselves from infront of the laptop or computer. They are the hyper text generation who does not think in the linear fashion like we do. As such we teachers are compelled to redesign our teaching strategies to reach this generation. We are mandated to motivate the ones who are disengaged in their reading and writing. Our task is not an easy one but the level of illiteracy in our land constrains us to be pro active and reach out with every bit of knowledge that we have gained thus far and make little ripples in our own small spaces.

The use of wikis in education

Parker and Chao (2007) enlightens us on the use of the Web 2.0 tool, the wiki, in the classroom. They aver that the wiki (from the Hawaiin word wiki wiki which means quick) is a collaborative tool that engenders group work and interaction. Some authors call it constructionism because learning is actively constructed. This falls into the constructivist theory which was advocated by Dewyey and others. This theory says that children who are learning do so naturally and actively make meaning while they are learning.(As an aside- I often watch my neice, nephew and other children at school on the computer and marvel at the facile with which they go about their business on the computer and the internet. My neice will be engaged in watching a movie, chatting with her friends online and be doing homework on the side. Sometimes she is doing the homework on the computer as well. So much for active construction of knowledge!)
Back to the wikis-Lamb (2004) said that the "most common pedagogical application of wikis is supporting writing instruction". He said that it can be used for reflection, reviewing, publishing and observing the whole picture as it unfolds for the teacher in terms of how the students are performing.I think that basically students will be in good stead for the world of work as computer literacy is needed in the workplace. We teachers will do well to continue to use the wiki tool and others to sharpen our skills. Even though the technologyis changing swiftly we will still have the experience on the computer to keep us from rusting.Some uf us may not have internet access in our schools but we should still keep up with the technology.

To my colleagues with love

Substitute these words for those in the song:
Those teachers' college days of chalk and talk and boring days are gone.
And in my mind I know the MOE doesn't want them to live on and on
But how do you change something that has taken you from SEA to University
It isn't easy but I'll try.
If you wanted to learn the new literacies, I'd write across your wiki, I'd scrawl
Invites you would see for me to write on your wall,
To my colleagues, with love.

These past few months have hurried by, why did they fly away?
Now it is so, children are growing up to be Web 2.0 people one day.
What takes the place of pen and paper?
It's computers and laptops in class and in the world outside.
What is there for you I can try?

We now live in a world in which technology is changing so fast
The things we learn today by no means will last
TO MY COLLEAGUES WITH LOVE.

To Sir With Love

Giving up your privacy for Rent

I read an article about digital literacies (2008)by William Kist called 'I gave up my space for lent-New teachers and social networking sites'. It discussed the participation of teachers in Web 2.0. The article addressed teacher's fear of involvement in theses literacies because they were afraid that students could post informaton about them that would prove detrimental to their careers and reputation .I must admit that I myself was afraid to join facebook at one time and put it off until recently when a friend sent me an email inviting me to do so. Students would meet me on the corridor and ask me-Hey miss, are you on facebook?- and I would be glad to tell them no because I was sure that they would be up to spoiling my reputation if I answered in the affirmative. I had reasons for saying so since administration was mentioned adversely there. However doing the ICT course loosened some of my inhibitions and I have all intentions of keeping abreast with some of the new literacies that I am presently learning.
Kist quoted one teacher who said that teachers should not be afraid to have genuine relationships with students as mentors and friends. One reason for maintaining profiles was to meet people with similar interests. I believe that we have to be selective in the use of the language, the friends we make and the photographs that we use.

Wikieducator Free Online Course

Well I have signed up for this free online course and from what I have seen so far it is a lot of online reading .They said 20 minutes maximum but since I have been reading their email and visiting different web pages for information, especially designed for those of us who need more help, I have taken a lot of time. I was surprised to see names of people who I know from our land(not my present colleagues) who have signed up to do the course. I encourage my reading colleagues to do it since it seems to be at your own pace. Their theme is collaboration, communication and committment(?).

From what I have read on wikis I think that it is an interesting tool that librarians, not only teachers can use. It might do us good to suggest to our administration that our librarians in schools plan to use this with the students since the libraries are fitted with computers and linked to the internet. I heard Mrs Jackson Woods mention that they are currently doing a course /training workshop with school librarians and I was glad to hear that since we teachers can now partner with our librarians to get students to begin to work with wikis. I am wondering about the computers that have been promised to our form one students and how our hopes for this will play out. I think that we can start with one class and move on from there.What do you think?

Web 2.0 Literacies by Jenny

This thing called blogging, communication in the blogosphere,
I can't see you, except you upload your photo,
Who are you ? Are you there?
Is that your real name, what land are you from?
Did you watch the football game, can you play the drum?

We,ve come a long way since 1989,
When Bernard Lee's grand vison seemed so sublime.
He wanted collaboration, a place where we could all meet,
Where boys and girls could chat and write, not on the village street.

This Web2.0 read/write technology,
It's making us technologically savvy.
Every student, teacher, person who has access,
Can contribute their ideas and expressions to the Internet.

What a global village, a meeting of varied intellect.
We surf for knowledge, entertainment and social connect.
We e-mail, post blogs, wikis and watch videos,
We write blooks on the blogospere, every one has their own say,
It's our space, your space but Myspace, personalised in different ways.

We comment on walls of facebook, there's much to read on millions of blogs.
Photos and audios are posted in the clouds everyday,
The course of business, politics, religion and education we sway.
This Web2.0 technology has quickly shifted the olden paradigm,
It's told us our modernity, is now post modern time.

The information we give and receive, is fast changing everyday,
We are amateur reporters writing the human story in our own way.
We publish, we access large audiences that are free
We collaborate and edit in the wiki community.

Here online we are the first to bring international coverage on global catastrophe,
We beat the New York Times and the famous BBC,
On news about the destructive Indian Ocean tsunami.
Check us here online for latest news and amateur video clips,
Our digital printing press supplies your photographic snips.

Teachers our students are connecting with audiences far from school,
They are educators, collaborators and publishers with Web2 tools
What must we do now ? To where do we go?
Old pedagogical skills alone is backward and too slow.
We must rethink our approach to content and to the curriculum.

I confess to my colleagues , it's hard for me to do.
ButI 've committed to this programme,you are committed too
There are the ones among us who find it a daunting task, while others yet have facile
In the clouds they're computing fast.
Here I quote the famous scripture, to my colleagues this I send,
The race is not for the swiftest, but those that endure to the end

Helpful site

I have discovered sometime ago an interesting site where we can find ideas on literacy and technology in the curriculum; for those who are interested it's as follows:
http://www.google.com/search?q=www.learner.org%2Fresources%2Fseries204.html&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
There is a position statement by the IRA on technology in the reading curriculum.
If the link does not work simply google the following:
www.learner.org/resources/series204.html

Speed Reading part 1 - Why to learn it?

Med student- choosing reading

My name is JP (I’m not too sure if we were supposed to use our correct names as we are on the internet). This is my third semester in the reading programme and I must admit that I’ve learned a lot. I have made several new friends and acquaintances. I have been richly blessed with the experiences and the knowledge that I have gained thus far. My lecturers have also been quite helpful and accommodating. I thought that returning to UWI would be a somewhat unpleasant experience for me but so far, although it has been hard work for all of us, thank the Lord above, it has been quite enriching.

I first heard about the Masters in Reading through my sister who encouraged me to apply for entry into the programme. I teach at a secondary school but not in the area of the language arts; however having worked in a primary school for a number of years and having done work in the area of teaching struggling readers, I decided to apply. Knowing that it was a scholarship which promises to broaden my prospects in the not too distant future made it all the more inviting (I hope).

I realise that presently, both regionally and in the wider world there is a marked problem in the area of reading and general underachievement (especially among boys). Amidst the recent rise in oil prices (more capital available) and general standard of living by which almost every child has access to a cell phone, the best pair of shoes, trendy clothes, trips abroad, free books, meals and so forth, many cannot function at instructional and independent levels where literacy is concerned. I thought it a good investment by the government to train and equip our teachers with the ability to move our nation forward in this area. I am glad that I was chosen as part of this initiative.