Thing #1

I am a teacher who rarely uses technology any more complex than a powerpoint presentation (or rather a Prezi, but more on that later) in her classes.  This is not because of some belief that technology is the devil or a lack of skill with technology.  I am actually a strong proponent of technology in the classroom (anything to get the kids to put down their cell phones willingly, right!?) I have simply never taken the time to find the resources necessary to incorporate technology appropriately in my lessons.  Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be exploring a type of technology that has been entitled Web 2.0 via a self-guided online course at Austin Peay State University.  I have created this blog to track my progress, reflect, and, hopefully, share my experience with others. 

I’ve never created a blog before so this was the first step in my journey.  As it turns out, the process was not that difficult!  Thanks to the almighty Google, I created my blog with a few easy clicks of the mouse.  In fact, the most difficult part of the creation process was choosing a theme for my blog space, but have faith! Google makes this decision easy as well, reminding the user that they will be able to customize their blog later.  So after a few minutes, most of which were taken up creating a new gmail account as my old one has gone the way of my old yahoo account and is fated to become and forever-cluttered spam folder, here I am.  I have reached the peak of internet glory and reclassed myself from lay facebook-user to omnipotent blogger.  Okay, perhaps not omnipotent, but I at least feel as if I have leveled up my internet skill. Go me!  

The first item to explore is a presentation on slideshare called 7 ½ habits of lifelong learners.  This powerpoint-esque presentation is a perfectly appropriate way to begin the course as it forces us to think about one of the most important goals that teachers have—creating lifelong learners.  We do this by instilling these habits into our students, and praying that our students will get something, anything, from our classes that will stick for life.  The seven (and a half) habits are as follows:

1.      Begin with the end in mind.

2.      Accept responsibility for your own learning.

3.      View problems as challenges.

4.      Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner.

5.      Create your own learning toolbox.

6.      Use technology to your advantage.

7.      Teach/ mentor others.

7 ½. Play!

Some of these habits are clearly easier than others.  For me, for example, the easiest is number 4.  I have always been able to easily pinpoint which tasks I need to complete in order to learn effectively.  The hardest has often been accepting responsibility for my own learning.  If I am taking a class that requires me to learn something or there is some other requirement I am trying to meet, I have no trouble, but if, for example, I know that I need to learn more about technology, that task will stay on my to-do list until someone kicks me in the butt and forces me to it (ahem). 

Our students will have different difficulties with lifelong learning, but the biggest challenge we have will be reaching them so that we can teach them these habits.  Technology is key here.  It is the unfortunate fact that many of these students see the world through a viewfinder.  While I love the romantic idea of breaking that habit and creating a class of students who gladly throws their smartphones in the garbage, deletes their twitter accounts, and experiences life rather than instagramming it, I am a realist.  If we want to have any chance at all at communicating with these students, we have to learn their language.  If that means creating a class twitter account (cringe), then that is what I aim to do.  We can’t teach them if we can’t communicate with them effectively and we have not chance to create lifelong learners out of our students.