Post 3 - Week 3

A Vision of K-12 Students Today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8&NR=1
As a follow up to the college student perspective on their educational needs, here is a K-12 perspective. The author had a bibliography at the end of the video which I found different. It was good to see how the writer/producer, B. Nelson, gave credit for the subject matter. A good lesson for me!
These younger students follow the same technology use as college students with iPods, texting with phones, blogs. They seem to yearn for the same, engaging assignments which use technology. To truly make it meaningful education is important to the children. There was additional statistics on the teacher's ability to use technology and their need for further training. This summary of the inability of the teaching staff to use and be comfortable with technology is what I figured it would be from my own experience. Since I've had this job with PBS, and found out all of the educational resources through technology, I've been on a mission of getting out this information to teachers because I know I didn't receive it while teaching. I am going to follow my goal of validating the use of technology in the classroom as well as what are the roadblocks for teachers with these new tools.

The bibliography has given me further sources to check out for this blog. If anyone has tips on searching the library research sources, let me know!

Post 2 - Week 3

A Vision of Students Today
mwesch, 10/12/2007, retrieved March 26, 2009
Professor Michael Wesch & students of the Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Class of Spring 2007 Kansas State University CC Some Rights Reserved.
Digital ethnography @Kansas State University

This video was the most searing condemnation of business as usual in education for me. I am a "50 something" with 30 years experience in education - I was brought up short with the magnitude of change in a student's world. Not only are the students doing so many more interactions through technology, but they are aware of more of the world around them. They see the discrepancies between their lives and lives of people across the globe or across their city. It has spurred me on to gain more knowledge of the technology to use with students and educators. What do you think?

Post 1 - Week 3 Blog

This will take you to an article that will be published in Education Week March 26, 2009. They allowed folks to view ahead of publishing date online. The author goes over the frustrations of surfing the net for teacher lesson plans and offers several resources to check out. I really liked the 4 tips that were offered. If teachers build social networks for the purpose of sharing their web/technology implementation, a large body of resources can be established. They mentioned some free and some subscription sites that can offer teachers standards based lesson plans. (No mention of PBS:(
The author also mentions that a social network might help to form a "consumer's review" of technology that is worth purchasing.
It was a good source for resources, but not actually research based.

Post 2 - 3

http://www.ceoforum.org/downloads/report3.pdf
This report is an interesting collaboration between business and education. With education's goal of preparing the employees of tomorrow, I think it's best practices to be collaborating with business. Plus, legislators pay more attention to business leaders than educators, so it's another positive link.
Section III, p. 14+, concerns digital content in education. I really liked the get down to it 3 steps the CEO Forum came up with,
"Steps
1. Identify Educational Goals and Link
Digital Content to Those Objectives
2. Select the Student Outcomes and
Performance Standards That Will Be
Achieved by Digital Content
3. Measure and Evaluate Outcomes Against
Standards and Adjust Accordingly" (p.14)
On p. 18-20, the CEO Forum covers 2 goals for educational systems to work for. The great thing is that PBS is already working on Step #1, Complete a digital inventory of assets. In PBS' case, that includes a ton of science/engineering topics and literacy for preschoolers - 12th grade. PBS is working on a system they call EDCAR which they hope will be one huge repository of digital media for educators to access.
Step #2, the CEO Forum recommends education spends 100% of their instructional materials monies for digital media.
One other great resource is the Appendix C list of Internet links to integrate digital content. Pretty cool! Pam


summary of rec., curriculum connections
p.30 Huge internet resources! Appendix C

Post 2 - 2

http://books.google.com/books?id=5c95CHIrni4C&pg=PA954&lpg=PA954&dq=Mann,+Shakeshaft,+Becker,+and+Kottkamp,+1999&source=bl&ots=eyF1gIQFrH&sig=j92oCD6BVG6w1Ok32eH8mp6kKug&hl=en&ei=bODGSbiGMYnFtgeMseHEAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA965,M1
Yea! I finally figured out how to activate my link! Well, I went back into my last post article and looked for research sources that would further my knowledge of the efficacy of using multimedia lesson plans with students. Pages 959 - 966 were especially appropriate as some of the research of subjects went back to the 1950's & 1960's. There were studies mentioned which looked at various combinations of audio or visual or combined stimuli and memory. One strange thing is that not all pages were included in the online copy. They announce and tell you that it's missing, but I'm not sure why they exclude some pages. I hope this research will assist me in my blog goal of assertaining whether PBS educational multimedia resources are valid resources in the classroom.

Posting2 - 1

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/pdf/545_CICReportLearningwithTechnology.pdf
A white paper prepared
for Cable in the Classroom
James M. Marshall, Ph.D.
San Diego State University
May 2002
Until now, I had not found articles which used research to make the point that media in the classroom does indeed impact the learner positively. My favorite quote is:
"The ability of media to engage the learner,
activate emotional states, initiate interest in a
topic, and allow for absorption and processing
of information shares a direct relationship to
the potential that learning will occur."(Marshall, p.4)
The PBS philosophy of media literacy was to present students a theme of instruction which included View - Do - Read. I'm glad to find that my "company line" is validated by others not associated with PBS.

Prosumer in the Classroom

I was also searching for more all-encompassing coverage of educational classroom structuring when I ran across this article about "prosumers". It is an idea that seems very similar to this week's assignment to design a product. In the blog, Bob Sprankle explains how business is involving the consumer in redesign and then explains how this could apply in a classroom. In my years as a special ed teacher and all the lip service to "individualize instruction", let me be honest and say it didn't happen - without the technology and this open idea sharing, I had no idea of how to truly individualize. The other huge impact of this classroom technique, from a teacher's point of view, is that I wouldn't have CONTROL!!! Let's be honest again and say that it would take a very talented and secure teacher to follow up with this prosumer technique. And I think I'm there! How are less experienced teachers feeling about this idea?

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/mediainfusion/2008/06/4_weeks_to_a_flatter_us.html#more

Visual images in classrooms

My interest is in confirming the usage of PBS resources as valid educational materials and finding the best way to use them based on educational best practices. I was interested in this blog entry about using PBS programming in social studies and science. The blogger, Steve Kluge,mentioned his use of video from PBS & BBC "provide visually engaging, content-rich experiences that draw and hold students’ attention."
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/mediainfusion/science_technology/
It seems to agree with the learning theory in Brain and Mind. Just like the rat study, the enriched learning environment causes learning to occur, new brain wiring achieved. Now, if you could also have kids get active around science and social studies, you'd have a winning combination of learning and activity. The activity allowed with a smart board might allow a bit of that. Also, the GPS devices add activity and learning in a sweet combination. I'm going to check those resources out next.

Preschool Educators

I've absolutely been berserk with work loads leading up to an educational conference for 500 preschool educators at the Reitz Union, last Saturday, March 14th. I had been trying to read about learning theories before the event in order to complete our PowerPoint assignment, but found it impossible. Today, with that huge stressor out of the way (and the conference highly acclaimed!) I was able to process our readings for this week. That led me to checking out the impact of stress based on brain based learning and my own preferential learning style of reflective processing(I have coined the phrase "gestational thinking" to describe the birth of ideation for me!).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080311182434.htm

University of California - Irvine (2008, March 13). Short-term Stress Can Affect Learning And Memory. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 15, 2009.

I was aware of the high level of cortisol measured in infants who are under stress, but not the, " acute stress activated selective molecules called corticotropin releasing hormones, which disrupted the process by which the brain collects and stores memories." That was definitely happening to me last week. Which leads me to more awareness of what a child under stress must be going through in a school situation. I believe many maladies of our brain chemistry will be discovered and cures found in the near future!
Pam

Interview with John Palfrey

PBS Teachers' February webinar, "Teaching and Learning with Digital Natives", (with guest John Palfrey) archive link is now available: http://www.pbs.org/teachers/webinar/archive.html

This was EME5404 choice, too!

In February there was a free for all contest to submit a film based on a short prompt. This submission reminds me of the choice I and many other educators made by taking EME5404. Watch and enjoy!

http://filmonthefly.ning.com/video/film-on-the-fly-matrix-style

New Journey

Well, here goes. Brave new way of traveling and connecting on March 4, 2009. My first blog entry!
I'd like to explore the PBS possibilities that are offered to educators and also fellow community members. I gave my first workshop to teachers at the Genesis Prepatory school in Gainesville today. I'd love to find out how they are using the information I covered today. Basically, it was on the 14 free resouces available through PBS. http://www.wuft.tv/teachers/decnewsletter.pdf

I'd also love to connect my communtiy outreach grant opportunities to groups that would want to partner with WUFT. Here's an example of a grant from a documentary on water infrastructure in the USA and WUFT: http://www.wuft.tv/liquidassets/

I'll post pictures from the springs/river clean-up next Monday!