Organizing My Online Life

Last week, I discovered a teaching tool called Blendspace.  I got to play around with this integrative online lesson-planning application as part of a class assignment in which I got together with two of my classmates to share and explore the possibilities of three different technologies in the classroom.  So, I came to my group having researched and explored the possibilities of Blendspace.  My classmates had done the same with Google Drive and Evernote, respectively - two technologies I was already familiar with on a basic level, though had never used in the context of classroom learning.  As a technology skeptic, I was hesitant about being told how I could implement certain technologies into my classroom, let alone convincing others that they should consider implementing Blendspace into theirs.  But the experience was a positive one, and I would say I came away from our meeting with a mind more open and aware to the use of technology in the classroom.

Let me just say: this does not mean I am no longer a technology skeptic.  I am still wary of technology and the way it is transforming our world, and I still believe that its presence and role in the classroom should be limited, rather than overwhelming.  However, I am beginning to see the use of technology as a tool for teacher lesson planning and organization.  Google Drive, Evernote, and Blendspace all offer platforms for teachers to compile and organize lesson resources and classroom "paperwork."  I especially like how Blendspace does this: allowing users to login with a Google account (rather than having to create yet another new username and password) and to upload materials from their Google Drive and computers.  These features make it possible to keep nearly everything in one place, which I find especially useful because one of my frustrations with technology is that even though it is supposed to provide a platform for better organization, I tend to find it difficult to manage so many different folders, projects, accounts, tools, etc.

Something all three tools have in common, that I found to be incredibly interesting and indicative of how our education system may be changing, is a focus on collaboration.  Quite possibly the most useful aspect of each of these teaching technologies, certainly the most beneficial aspect of Google Drive, is how easy they make it to share documents, presentations, and resources with other teachers and students.  I hadn't even really thought about it until I started writing this post, but I think this emphasis on collaboration is really saying something about the direction education is heading in.  And despite my suspicions about technology, I do like that it provides the opportunity, especially in our competition-driven society that values out-doing others, for teachers and students alike to share ideas and engage in conversation.

                    

Gamification

I haven't thought much about video games in a while, until today in class when we talked about video games in relation to learning.  I was never much of a video game player myself, though there were a few that fixated me to the point of staring at a computer screen for hours, days, sometimes weeks at a time.  One such series of games was the Her Interactive Nancy Drew Mystery Series.  By the time I got the first game, I had already read the entire Nancy Drew series and was needing something to fulfill my craving for mystery.  Although now I don't consider Nancy Drew to be the most ideal female role model for girls, I do think that it is incredibly important to have video games with female protagonists.  I know one of the main reasons I loved the Nancy Drew games, aside from the fact that I relished mysteries, was that I felt empowered when playing the game, and not just when I solved a mystery, but actually even more so in the process of solving one.  This feeling of empowerment I attribute largely to the fact that I got to be Nancy, a girl detective.

Of course, the Nancy Drew games foster many skills in its players that other similar video games do - critical thinking and problem-solving, for instance.  The game requires its players to search for hard to find clues and make inferences and connections between them.  The game also throws lots of obstacles in Nancy's way that challenge players to think in obscure ways to determine how to go about finding the next clue to solve the mystery.  The tricky clue placement and barriers along the way not only foster  resilience and perseverance, but also a sense of self-confidence in its players.  The game assumes that "Nancy" is quick enough and smart enough to catch on, setting high expectations for its players by its level of difficulty.  In the role of Nancy, who is or becomes a role model for many of the girls who play this game, players begin to develop high expectations for themselves.

Furthermore, the game encourages risk-taking.  Each Nancy Drew game takes place in a different location, each of which involves exploring unfamiliar and dangerous situations.  Additionally, players have the opportunity to interact with other cultures.  There is one particular mystery, one that I have never played, only read about, that takes place in Japan and teaches players about origami, traditional Japanese tea ceremonies, and even how to write Japanese characters.  Several other mysteries take place in historically different time periods, allowing players to learn historical facts in a fun learning atmosphere.  They are learning sometimes without even realizing they are learning.

For all of these reasons, I imagine the Nancy Drew computer game series to be a productive learning tool for students, particularly female students.  As I mentioned, I do not think the traditional Nancy Drew character is the most ideal female role model, for reasons I won't get into right now.  However, I do think it is extremely important to expose girls to video games with smart, capable, and determined female protagonists whose perspective they get to play from.  According to testimony, several girls and women reflecting on what the Nancy Drew mystery games mean to them expressed that through the game they felt like they could be themselves.  Any game that allows one to develop and explore his or her identity is of value to me and my teaching.      

Thoughts about Technology in the Classroom

So it has been a few days now since my Teaching with Technology class and my thoughts have had some time to marinate.  Though, I can't say that I am feeling any better or more hopeful about our changing world and its implications in the classroom.  I hadn't realized what I was getting myself into when I officially signed up to enter into the teaching profession.  Maybe because I hadn't stepped foot into a secondary classroom in over four years, I didn't realize just quite how the surge of technology in our society has already begun to drastically transform classrooms.  Or, it could be because of my content area, English, that I have been so oblivious to these changes.  I would like to think that no matter how digitalized everything is becoming, the English classroom would remain the sacred space I always found it it be - filled with books and notebooks, language and meaning-making, and the smell of freshly-sharpened pencils still lingering from a time when mechanical pencils were non-existant.  Now I am starting to think that, in addition to these other possibilities, I have chosen to remain unaware, to hold onto the nirvana of what my favorite English classrooms have always been for me.

The activity we did in class on Wednesday was revealing of the skill set students need to have to "succeed" as a student today.  I put succeed in quotes because while it is computer-based standardized tests that determine what success is for students today, my version of student success could never be gauged by such means.  My mentor teacher for the summer at Scarlett Middle School, a 7th and 8th grade ELA instructor, broke my heart last week when he told me that he finds his job has become "more about teaching technology and less about English" and that "English these days really isn't about reading books anymore.  It's about learning how to copy and paste links and find credible websites."  The devastation still pains me and seriously makes me question why I am here and what my place is in this profession, which is terrifying because I know that education is where I want and need to be.

So now the question is: how will I come to terms with the fact that the experience of studying English as I envision it for my students is being pushed against by technology?  Truthfully, I am not sure that I ever will be able to come to terms with it.  I cannot accept that English "really isn't about reading books anymore."  I believe students in today's schools need to be reading books more than ever - to empathize, to explore, to understand what it really means to be human, to make sense of ourselves.  I do not like the way our world is evolving and I fear for the future.  My place in the classroom, I think, has to be to hold onto and savor those things - such as reading books and the feeling of intimacy between an individual and a piece of paper upon which they have brought to life with their words - that make us human.  A world in which these experiences are eliminated is a dangerous one.  

Reflecting on Dewey

John Dewey's "Pedagogic Creed" resonated quite deeply with my own beliefs about education.  It is fascinating to me that my I find my own thoughts and educational philosophy to be so in line with those of a man who existed in a time one hundred years before my own - at the brink of the industrial revolution, before cellphones and computers and the explosion of technologies, when women couldn't vote, and anyone who wasn't a white man was considered less than human.  Some of that has changed drastically, though not as much as we would like to think.

Dewey begins his creed with the line "I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race."  This struck me immediately.  I have never seen or heard anyone use the term social consciousness to describe the process of education, though it is exactly what I believe to be the purpose of education.  Cultivating social consciousness has to be the number one priority of our education system; for if it is not, are we not presenting students with a distorted image of our society and the world at large?  Largely, I do not think I was educated according to Dewey's constructivist philosophy until college, and even then I feel like my participation in the social consciousness of the human race was dependent on what I chose to study.  Had I not studied English and Women's Studies, I do not think I would have developed social consciousness as part of my education.

Dewey's approach to education is student-centered.  His creed is one in which students' real-life experiences are not simply valued, but regarded as necessary and the only meaningful way of educating students.  "To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself," writes Dewey.  His ideas are compatible with interdisciplinary curriculum, in which students must largely carry on out of their own independent initiative.  I fully agree with him that in order to leverage a child's learning, it absolutely must coincide with that child's interests.  There must be relevance and a sense of immediacy about what the child is learning in school in relation to his or her life outside of school.