Tuesday, March 11, 2014

C4T Rotating Weekly Assignments #1-4

My first teacher assignment was to post to Kathleen Morris who is a teacher in Victoria, Australia. She is currently on maternity leave, but is continuing to make blog posts.
This is my initial response to her post about being on maternity leave, but still continuing to blog and encouraging others to post comments about the upcoming new year:

Hello,
I am Angel Wilson, Media Specialist at Meadowlane Elementary School in Phenix City, AL (NOT Phoenix, like in Arizona). Currently, I am finishing my certification in Educational Media and am taking a course which involves learning how to create blogs. I have been assigned to you by my professor. Your links to tips for starting blogging really are great tools, especially since I’m relatively new at the experience. I look forward to following your posts, and thank you for including some helpful tips I will be able to share with the teachers and students in my school.


Mrs Kathleen Morris says:
February 7, 2014 at 10:49 am
Hi Angel,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I’m glad my tips were helpful for you. Good luck with the rest of your course!
Kathleen



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The blog I was assigned to this week is Teach Intersect authored by Bill Genereaux.
Click here to view the Teach Intersect blog.


The post (Dated Nov. 22, 2013) to which I made a comment was about a video entitled Victoria's Story: A Vision for the Future of Learning . Bill Genereaux, the blog's author, entreated readers to view the video. After I watched the video, I honestly did not know if I was watching a sci-fi movie, or if I was seeing technology which will become a reality in the near future. The idea behind the technology presented in the video was to provide each student with a handheld device which is attuned to the needs of the learner, makes the use of holograms, and also provides intuitive remediation based on a student's method of answering questions. You have to watch the video to truly understand what I'm talking about. At any rate, I felt the technology and the concept behind it was actually a brilliant tool for helping students learn, however, I was not in agreement with how personal information about a student (such as personal schedules after school) could be accessed immediately by a student's teachers, tutors, etc. It seemed a bit intrusive on a young person's privacy. If something like this ever became available, I would be be remiss to not wonder if the availability of such technology would only be accessed by students whose families could afford it, or by students in a school system wealthy enough to provide it. Here are my exact comments below:

I’m not quite sure what to think of this video yet. There are some amazing concepts for customizing student learning, but the personal information (such as knowing a student’s after-school schedule) seems invasive.

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"Everything You Need to Know About Common Core" was the blog post to which I commented this week. Teacher Tom writes about a speech educational historian Diane Ravitch gave denouncing the aims of Common Core. At first an advocate of creating standards which would help students moving from one school district to another achieve the same goals, Ravitch pulled away from assisting with pushing the standards forward primarily because she feels the movement became more of a corporate push than an educational reform. Her full speech can be found http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/01/18/everything-you-need-to-know-about-common-core-ravitch/. It's a worthy read. Teacher Tom's comments to her speech can be found here. My comments to both the speech and Teacher Tom's post are found below:

After reading your post and the speech by Dianne Ravitch, I found myself nodding enthusiastically as I read, acknowledging the changes I have witnessed in our district over the last 10 years, and ones we are experiencing currently with the implementation of Common Core. I am a LMS in the highest poverty K-5 elementary school in our district. This is my second full year in this school, but 20th total year in the same district. The frustrations I dealt with as a teacher throughout the NCLB years, and now with RTTT, and the unreasonable testing goals which could never be feasibly attained to the prescribed percentages, placed and continue to place an overwhelming burden upon teachers and students. Teachers in my building are restricted by scripted lessons and time schedules which nearly completely eliminate teachable moments or veering off topic to discover something new for fear a standard won't be covered in a set amount of time. The overall morale of teachers in the time of my tenure has dropped dramatically, and while there are other contributing factors including major budget cuts and lack of student motivation, the onus of standards, computerized tests, interpreting test results, and data meetings have had significant impact on the attitude of today's teacher in public education.

I appreciate you taking the time to post your findings on such a very important topic. How does CCSS impact you and your students, or will it have any impact for you at all?


6:35 PM

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