Christine+Jackson

__Article: Possibilities for 21st Century Education__ Interesting to Note: The average 8-18 year old mainlines electronic media for 6 hours per day often multitasking by listening to music, surfing the web and texting friends. Students know how to access and utilize these tools, but only for entertainment purposes.

School buildings will become nerve centers. Teachers go from being information dispensers to orchestrators of learning.

Important things to keep in mind: First – we must maintain student interest by helping them see how what they are learning prepares them for life in the real world. Second – we must instill curiosity, which is fundamental to lifelong learning. Third – we must be flexible in how we teach. Fourth – we must excite learners to become even more resourceful so that they will continue to learn outside the formal school day.

I find a lot of this article very interesting because it requires one to entirely rethink the way we were taught to teach. Since kids today are so engrossed in electronic media, being able to use what stimulates and interests them will definitely make them more willing to take an active role in their own learnig. It really makes one realize that the "old way" of doing things is not going to work for today's student. I think the major challenge to embracing this way of teaching is convincing those educators who have done things the same way for decades that they really need to embrace technology and how it is rapidly changing. I see this as a major obstacle for several of the staff members in our school to overcome.

__ Article: Eight Ways to Use Wikis __

One of the major challenges a parochial school faces is cost. There is never enough money to go around. The fact that wikis are free to educators and offer unlimited storage space for all sorts of things makes it a winning proposition right there.

Decreased disruption of instructional time - being able to communicate all necessary information to the entire staff through one wiki is a major benefit and would improve communication within the building tremendously. Too often things are told to a few people, but never get to everyone that needs to here it. Posting information on a wiki and then having everyone initial that they have read it ensures the all members of the staff know what they need to.

Making Meetings More Efficient - Collaboration

I love the idea of being able to hash out ideas for all those extra things that need to be planned in a typical school year on a wiki. So much time is wasted in meetings trying to get everyone on the same page to plan things that being able to get everyone's ideas and feedback in one place ahead of time would save a lot of frustration.

I also love that you can collaborate on thematic units, share ideas on the same topics and coordinate what and how certain things are being taught. What a wonderful way to make sure that kids are getting all of the instruction they need without repeating the same things over and over.

Tree and Space Saver

What a greener world we would be if we could do away with the folders and binders full of handbooks, schedules, meeting notes, and other assorted documents that clutter our classrooms, school storage spaces and office shelves. In our school building storage space is at an absolute premium. There is no more room. To be able to eliminate the "paper trail" would free up valuable space that can be used in much more productive ways.

__ Article: World Without Walls __

For educators and the schools in which they teach, the challenges of this moment are significant. Our ability to learn whatever we want, whenever we want, from whomever we want is rendering the linear, age-grouped, teacher-guided curriculum less and less relevant. This is an important point to realize for schools everywhere. I teach in small parochial school that is facing major financial difficulties. Last year our staff was cut by two full time positions which forced students in grades 5-8 to be placed in multi-age groups for two subject areas. Our upper grades teachers are facing the challenge right now of not being able to just teach a fifth or sixth grade lesson to a fifth or sixth grade class, but now have the challenge of creating one lesson that can be taught to both grades at the same time. It is a very real possibility that this will also start occuring in our lower grades as well. Multiage classrooms are going to become the norm for schools facing enrollment and/or financial difficulties that make it impossible to keep class sizes at a low number. If one dares to imagine the wonders of all technology has to offer, this could quite possibly be the best thing to happen to education.

Teaching kids to collaborate in a classroom can be a challenge, but when you can expose them to collaborating with other kids just like them around the world who share their interests and passions, they will want to collaborate on a regular basis and will gain far more from the experience than just learning how to "work with a partner/group."

__Wikipedia__ __Article: Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning__ The first major point made in this article was that technology isn't just about teaching kids how to use electronic media, but rather giving them the critical thinking skills that they need to understand and evaluate the information they can obtain. A child who knows how to research a topic on the internet, but doesn't have the critical thinking ability to analyze, question it, and know how to decide if it is accurate or not really hasn't learned a thing.

The second major point is summed up here: "... the big change that’s coming is not technology — it’s relationships. Connecting people together is the big change." We have to understand that it is vitally important to teach kids how to build relationships and how to collaborate with one another. It was interesting that the article pointed out that we, as teachers, don't always recognize the value in the things that we do every day. We have to become better at putting our collective ideas and wisdom out there and sharing it with others to improve instruction and our own relationship building skills.

__Article: Using Wikepedia In the Classroom: A Good Place to Start__ I think this article made a valid point for using wikipedia in the classroom. Use it as a "launch pad" for up to the minute information. When using wikipedia you can do a quick search for information, but then you must evaluate it before you can decide whether you want to pursue the information or not. As was mentioned, a properly written article will have sources cited that can be checked. By checking and evalutating the sources before using the information, one is able to decide whether what they have read is valid or not. The caveat being: you must check the sources before you can use the information.

__Article: 21st Century Information Fluency__

I like that wikipedia has timely up to date topics that are not available in a traditional encyclopedia. It keeps up with social times and offers kids the opportunity to look up topics that are of interest to them. It is also interesting that the majority of the entries are just as accurate as those found in a standard encyclopedia.

"Hey, it’s only an encyclopedia! Basic references sources—whether Wikipedia or //World Book//—should be used to get a general overview of a topic or put a topic in context, not be used as a sole and final authoritative source." This is what we really need to teach kids, especially at the lower levels.

Reading these few articles gave me a different perspective on wikipedia. I do believe that I would allow kids to use it as a first resource. A chance to get a basic understanding of something, but would qualify it in the sense that sources must be checked, and if sources aren't cited for an article, they need to go elsewhere for their information.

__Article: Wikipedia and the Classroom__ He makes a very interesting point that a standard encyclopedia is outdated the moment it hits the shelf. Why make kids use a resource that is outdated immediately when there is free and easy access to a source that is far more current?