Twitter

I'm finding myself sort of frustrated by twitter. i find it so overwhelming, and find myself regularl grasping for what to say. i want to contribute to the learning, but right now feel like i have nothing useful to say, like i can't add anything worthwhile to the group and that any normal comment i might leave, like some random comment about my play rehearsal is too worthless to bother adding to the discussion

perhaps i'm just obsessing too much, but i feel like my desire to be worthwhile, as well as my generally quiet personality might cripple me in terms of effectively using twitter as a PLN

Blocking

has anyone else found themselves frustrated by the amount of websites that are blocked by the filters at your job?

just as an example at my current place of employment some of the websites blocked include:
-all .mail sites
-youtube
-blogger
-all store sites
-all bank sites
-all game sites

i actually had to fight with them to get google documents unblocked since i use it for my classroom website, and am currently trying to get blogger unblocked.

i understand why much of this is blocked, some of it is to keep the kids from abusing the internet at school. some of it is because my district has a very "screw you you will do nothing but work for us" toward the staff. but much of it is just fear

and i feel that what is lost in this culture of fear and control is some of the potential that having the internet at the fingertips of our students includes.

heck, as we have been doing finals this week, and wrapping up the school year i have found myself only half able to use the class website as so many of the links are blocked at work.

google reader

wow. i am a pretty big googlephile. i use their documents, sites, picasa all to service my classroom, and yet somehow this nefty little tool has totally flown under my radar.

every day i peruse a list of sites, yahoo news, cnn.com, sciencedaily.com, howstuffworks.com

and rely on my history list to remind me of all the places i check. but having google reader not only aggregate them in one place, but also list what is newest for me is just sick.

my one complaint, and this might be me not quite sure how to use it is that on say CNN or yahoo, there does not appear to be a way to isolate say science news, or education news. but honestly that is just a nitpick.

personal learning networks

i never quite thought of online communities in terms of work i guess, i always thought of it as a way of keeping track of your friends.

the discussions of personal learning networks made me realize that much of the interaction within my department at work, and at my previous jobs would easily fit into that category. we have constant daily discussions about activities, meeting framework requirements, how to handle students new activities equipments etc... as well as to reflect on what we have done.

For me this extends into two realms, as i also collaborate like this with my compatriots in the english department since i also wear the hat of a theater teacher, and the collaboration there is very different but serves a very similar goal.

two things i have learned this week is how out of touch even i am, working with as many teachers as i do that do not like using technology much i had felt very technologically capable, yet i find myself daunted heavily by the overwhelming amount of information and possibilities available here

i also find myself daunted by my late joining of this group, trying to play two weeks worth of catch up while wrapping up the end of our school year has bee daunting, i feel like there is no way i can process all of this information fast enough.

Technology in the classroom

i think far too often, as has been said in many of the articles i have read as i have tried to catch up on this course, technology in the calssroom is all about the bells and whistles, or as one administrator once said to me, bright colors to distract the students since they like bright colors.

I also find that unfortunately far too often the use of technology is overregulated out of fear of abuse. at my school, every email program but the school email is blocked so the teachers can't waste school time on personal email. of course forget that students can't even email assignments to themselves or us. and no one but the three tech people in the building are allowed to install any software on the computer, not even say the test generator that comes with our textbook. it can be sad.

with that said i have always been a big proponent of technology use in the classroom, so an attempt to articulate my guiding principles to it's purpose.

1 - Today's students interact in a world where technology underscores much of their lives, in entertainment, social interaction, and communication to name a few. Every classroom, particularly the science classroom must meet them at this level of interaction and guide them through the education process using this medium

2 - Science as a discipline can be summed up as collecting and interpreting data, two activities that technology has had a profound influence on in history and continues to influence regularly. It shoudl eb our goal as science educators to teach students how to collect and interpret data through methods as technologically current as possible. Teaching how it was done, and ignoring how it is done creates a community of science learners who are already behind the times.

3 - Technology in general is a tool, something that facilitates the accomplishing of a separate goal. teaching the use of technology by itself is an almost useless process, teaching children how to apply the use of technology to different disciplines should be the overall goal of including technology in any classroom, using technology in the science classroom must keep this in mind