Michelle+Christianson

Michelle Christianson's Page

Reflection of Sir Ken's Robinson's Video In the two days of the Wiki class, I have pondered this question...what will education and the impact of technology look like in the future? No one knows the answer. I do know that things will continue to change at a rapid pace. As I think back to my first years of teaching, the only technology I had was a tape recorder, a microscope, and an overhead projector. In most respects, I am ecstatic that things have changed from my first years. I have tried to keep up with all of the educational and technological changes by taking classes and applying these techniques to my teaching, students, and classroom environment. The most difficult part is keeping up with all of the changes. It almost becomes maddening thinking of all of the endless possibilities. Sir Ken Robinson's main point is that our educational system has not changed with our current 21st century world and that students are losing their capacity for original ideas as they are manufactured through this system. This is tragic. One small part of this change in 21st century skills is a wiki. Getting my students to utilize my classroom wiki to communicate, collaborate, critically think, divergently think, and create is my main goal. I will begin with creative forms of book talks, questioning, and writing. Students that are fully engaged, motivated, and challenged love to learn and participate. I believe this is what will happen when my students utilize my wiki. The possibilities in this small component of 21st century skills are endless. Here's to creativity!

http://soar2newheights.wikispaces.com/Home

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End-of-Class Responses


 * 3 insights/things that I learned today about Web 2.0 tools in teaching/learning
 * The time flew by today and I learned a lot!
 * I learned a lot about a Web 2.0 guru named Will Richardson. He is an excellent resource that I will follow as I continue to use technology in my classroom. His knowledge, insight, and views will provide me with a base in 21st Century Technology skills and Read / Write Web. I had never heard of this term before today.
 * Another resource I found to be valuable to students and adults is Kathy Schrock. She provides straight-forward steps to evaluating a website. I will utilize her lessons in my class and pass along information to content area teachers in my building.
 * Finally, I learned the beginnings of managing a Wiki on wikispaces. There are so many settings and ways you can design and post information. As a reading teacher, I know the text structure is important to reading and I want my Wiki to be as reader friendly and organized as possible for my studens and their parents.
 * Questions/Concerns I have about using Web 2.0 in the classroom
 * I have seen other teachers' use wikispaces, but I always had concerns in the past about students using or posting to this site. I am glad to know that student use will be answered in tomorrow's class. One of the first things I plan on having my students do is post their book talks to my wiki.

The great thing about following someone like Will Richardson who is a great resource himself, is that he will lead you to other knowledgeable people - there is so much out there and it can be difficult to sift through. It helps to "ride along" with some experts and follow who they follow. I like the idea of having students post their book talks - the wiki is a collaborative space well suited to making students the writers and collaborators. [] is a link to a class that collaborated with an author (I think it was HS, but you may get some ideas). Let'd talk more about this.

Good work yesterday! Emmy

Notes from video: Wikis in plain English. Three online sources for Wikis
 * [|www.pbwiki.com]
 * [|www.wetpaint.com]
 * www.wikispaces.com

Frontline Digital Nation is a documentary on the effects of the digital age on our nation. It's about one hour. It looks quite interesting and will view it at a later time.

Great graphic from World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others []

Who is Will Richardson?
 * Watched video part 1 changing paradigm from Web 2.0 or reading and taking in to Read/Write Web
 * Watched video part 2 where he discusses the FUTURE of the school sytem changing...What will it look like 15-20 years from now? I think about this constantly and am excited yet anxious about what is to come. Here is what Will thinks about the future. It will be a collaborative transparent system that may have its own organizational literacy. Information will be faster, flexible, saved online with not much paper. "Classrooms should be media spaces of the world." At many leadership meetings, discussions have focused on many of the topics shared by Will, yet no one has ever brought up his name...not that I recall. More to come.
 * He is the authur of edublog and books on Wikis, Blogs, ..changing to a new website..
 * Just read his [] comments about uncommon core. Reminder...share with literacy team and department as thought-provoking exercise when working on the Common Core for ELA.

21st Century Literacy Map for English from NCTE: [] Great map that shows performance objectives for 21st Century Literacy. I will have to compare this to the Common Core for ELA.

Wikipedia in the Classroom About a week ago, I was listening to a morning radio station during a morning walk and the DJs were discussing the US Open Championship (golf) that had occurred over the weekend. The winner was a young lad, maybe 22 or 23, named Rory Mc Ilroy. They may have discussed his background, but I didn't hear his background during my walk. But the DJs were debating his "greatness" based on the golf course and comparing him to other great golfers. I had no idea who this lad was so later that day, after checking my email, I looked him on on Wikipedia. It was just as the Wikipedia articles suggested, a good starting point for researching a wide range of topics. The information was current and up-to-date. His winning the US Open Championship the previous day was already posted on Wikipedia. I like the idea of having students research information on Wikipedia and then check other resources to verify if it is true.

The ABC's of Web Site Evaluation presented by Kathy Schrock Yeah! I am going to pass this along to the social studies and science teachers that I work with at SMMS. One problem that we have is that students believe everything on the Internet is true. Kathy provides great information and lessons to evaluation information presented on a website in five steps.

Claudia - Michelle I also often think about the future...what will be the expectations of teachers and just how much of the school day will be devoted to activities using technology. I also worry about parents and their ability to keep up with the child's digital world and the expectations we have of parents at home as they discuss and follow up with activities completed in class. We are always working to build vocabulary and the more I work with technology in my classroom, I see the greater increase in knowledge gained in a shorter time as well as vocabulary. I am excited about the progress being made, but I am also concerned about the greater distance it will also bring between the members of our families and those students wnho are less fortunate...attending schools where the equipment and well trained teachers are not present.