Friday, August 3, 2012

Realms of Possibility


I took two pages of notes today listening to the former MAC grads. These ranged from savory food for thought — the fact that students are accustomed to a world full of technology that offers them immediate results and to what extent that handicaps their ideas of how learning happens, why practice is important, and what they expect of themselves — to very specific ingredients to keep on hand, such Quia.com. One of my favorite of these was the “Inspirational Song of the Day,” or, using music to get students pumped up before a test.

The session also got me thinking about elements I should address in my classroom management plan, such as: What will be my policy on eReaders? In this way, hearing from practicing teachers is invaluable; they brought up things that might not occur to me. For example, one teacher talked about how she allows students to turn in papers by the end of the day, as opposed to their class periods, because she has learned from experience that some students don’t have printers at home and need the opportunity to get to the school’s computer lab. This is a very specific but helpful thing to know.

But if I tried to articulate a single lesson for the day, it would be this: I will do well to expand my notion of what a teaching job looks like. I could be wrong, but I think that not one of the teachers who spoke with us today works in a public school. They are teaching in charter schools, private schools, and, interestingly, a hybrid high school-college program. I don’t know why, but when I think about life after MAC, I imagine a public school. Hearing from these teachers has opened up whole new worlds.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Well, actually ...

This evening, my six year old got really frustrated with an online game and wanted to "post on facebook" that it was "stupid." Already thinking about how to encourage him to be a good digital citizen, I talked to him about why it might not be a good idea to express online really strong feelings that you have right now but might not have later on because putting things online makes them pretty much public "forever."

So he asked if there was a way to put it just on our computer — aside from the anger, I think he genuinely was looking for a way to remind himself (in case he forgot) that he'd tried this particular game, didn't like it, and he shouldn't waste his time again. Two weeks ago, I would have said no. Tonight, after learning recently about Diigo, I said, well, actually ...

(This isn't really an official class post, but I thought it too precious not to share.)