Week 1- Blog Posting 2- Learning 2.0

Liz Dalton

Full Sail University

When I started teaching 12 years ago my mentor teacher's first piece of advice to me was "keep them busy". He went on to explain " with television and video games it is hard to compete with the amount of entertainment these students are experiencing, they get bored easy". Because of that advise, I kept waiting for the complaining and boredom and worried how I was going to combat this. It never came, my students seemed excited and engaged to be in my class. I didn't feel I was in competition with what they were doing outside school. Over the years, especially doing my master's degree in media design and technology, I have realized why. I teach Family and Consumer Science which includes: foods, clothing, child care, interior design, fashion, consumerism and personal finance. These classes are all taught by hands on method doing labs. Students are learning, understanding and then doing. Students want the doing part, they want to experience it for that is how they understand best. Students come to my class begging when are we going to cook, or sew, or have the pre-schoolers come? When they experience it, they make relevance of it and relate it to their life. Maybe they just learn that they don't like it, but isn't that good? Wouldn't you hate to be stuck in a job you hate for many years? When students are engaged in doing, there is less behavior problems because there is no boredom. In the Pay Attention Video (2007), children state that they are bored. That is true when there are 30-40 students in a class and the teacher is lecturing and maybe engaging one student at a time in a discussion. When all the students are doing, maybe they make mistakes, but I bet the next time they won't make the same mistake. We remember and learn from mistakes more than successes.

Learning 2.0 is using web 2.0 tools to engage students in their learning. Students have the opportunity to take what is being taught and reflect in a blog, create a project, collaborate with other class members or with other students from all over the world. Also when students are engaged in doing, they can relate it to their lives. This in turn could encourage them to dig deeper to learn more and gain a richer knowledge. I am taking a seminar by Jim Knight and he is one of four authors of Coaching Classroom Management(2006). Dr. Knight's son is doing work in Africa and Dr. Knight went to visit his son. Dr. Knight's son along with others were putting in water pumps because the water was filthy. They interviewed the villagers and the villagers said that they did not believe these people would really help them by putting in a pump until it was finished and they drank the water. People have a tendency to ignore or do the opposite of what you ask them to do or teach them unless they actually do and find out for themselves that what you are saying or teaching is right. Solomon and Schrum (2007) state "We use to talk about reading, writing, and arithmetic as the essential skills for literacy. To be literate today involves acquiring new skill, including those of using technology, understanding science, having global awareness, and most important, having the ability to keep learning, which involves gathering, processing, analyzing, synthesizing, and presenting information as well as communicating and collaborating. Free, online tools play a large roll in helping students acquire these skills". We, as educators, need to step up to the plate and help prepare students for the job market that will be in place when they are adults. The job market of jobs that require technology skills.

References

Knight, J. McKale, T, Reinke, W, Sprick R. (2006) Coaching Classroom Management.

Pacific Northwest Pulblishing.

Solomon G. & Schrum L. (2007). Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools,

International Society for Technology In Education.

teachertube (2007, November 01) Pay Attention Video (Video File). Video posted to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-336pDWoM