Reflections on a Technical Breakdown

In class on Wednesday I suffered (and I mean that quite literally) a breakdown of the technology that I am supposed to be teaching about.  I couldn’t get the Google Docs presentation that I had carefully prepared and that worked just fine at home, to work right.  The presentation mode wouldn’t present and the links only opened blank pages.  From my point of view it was a total disaster.  In the old days when I went out to do a workshop or presentation I carried my computer and a raft of adapters to fit every conceivable projection device AND I printed transparencies of my talk so that if all else failed I could use an overhead projector which every school and office had at that time.  It’s been several years since I’ve printed transparencies and cables have been standardized to the point where I can be assured that all I need is a VGA adaptor for my Mac.

Yesterday brought back near disasters of the past… not only did the presentation and demonstrations not work but, I felt that I didn’t have an adequate backup plan… nothing analogous to those transparencies I used to carry.  I talked and suggested things to do with the computers everyone had in front of them but it was not the same as the screencasts I had prepared and the YouTube videos I’d planned to show.  I was embarrassed, to say the least.

Right or wrong I owned up to the situation and said I was embarrassed.  It would have been better of course if I had a ‘plan B’ ready to implement but I didn’t.  As I reflect on the situation I am still struggling to decide what I could have or should have done.  Even with 40 plus years of teaching and presenting experience behind me I was flustered and fumbling.  Should I always have a ‘plan B’?  Should I have dismissed class with a lame excuse that an “emergency had arisen”?  Was fumbling through with only verbal instructions and not enough content to fill the time available the right or only thing to do?  I still don’t know… I’ve got to process some more.

What this means to you as a prospective teacher is: there will always be days or classes that don’t go as they should and you can’t be prepared with a ‘plan B’ for all situations.  However, you can be mentally and psychologically prepared for your own goofs and the glitches that are bound to occur.  If you kind of expect that someday the projector bulb will burn out or that the test copies you were sure were in your bag disappear without a trace you will not totally panic.   Further, you may be prepared to do some self-evaluation to decide what, if anything, you can do to avoid encountering the same situation again.  Also, and most importantly, be prepared to cut yourself a break and put the situation behind you… we all fail from time to time it’s called “Being Human”.

I think this post falls under the heading, “Experience Speaks”.  File it whereever it fits in your schema of teaching advice.

15 Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Silly | Copyblogger

I don't want to be a nag but I can't overemphasize the importance of correct spelling and grammar in what you write at school.  This 'poster' and article helps you (and your students) avoid the most common grammatical transgressions.  This is a keeper.

15 Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Silly | Copyblogger:

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Confession:  I have always struggled with spelling and grammar myself so I am super-vigilant about my own shortcomings... and my wife is the spelling and grammar nazi.

The Many Hats of a Teacher

Jillian Bradley (ED Tech 2100) found this site... her search inspired, I hope, by my reference to the many hats teachers wear.  This author is so much more elegant in his praise of the multifaceted nature of teaching than I am.  Notice that 'computer expert' is the only reference to technology that I've found.


School of Education at Johns Hopkins University-The Many Hats of a Teacher:

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Urban Legends Reference Pages

I think most people know about Snopes.com but just in case here's the link.  This is a reliable link to those annoying emails that you suspect are not really true but could be.  The folks at Snopes do the research to trace the history of the legends and give them a true/not true rating or sometime a unverifiable rating.  As a teacher you may hear an urban legend from your kids and this is place to trace its veracity.

snopes.com: Urban Legends Reference Pages:

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FInternet 4 Classrooms

List of sites that offer teacher tools... sift and sort, find the most useful.  I found this one by using the  Bing search engine.

Free Internet Tools for Teachers at Internet 4 Classrooms:

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Free tools in the classroom

Here's a Microsoft site that offer free tools for teachers... some for instruction, some for teacher use.  Take a look to see if anything looks useful.

Free tools in the classroom:

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Ten Tips for Classroom Management | Edutopia

Edutopia is a trusted site for Education tips and information... here's an example:

Ten Tips for Classroom Management | Edutopia:

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How YouTube Can Enhance Young Children’s Learning

This post is mostly for EDUC 2300 students but your 2100ers can check it out tool.  I did a Google search with this phrase "what young children learn on youtube" to find this link.  The article links to other sites and discusses the power of multimedia in teaching young children.  Watch the video and add some interesting buttons to your Symbaloo from the links you find.

How YouTube Can Enhance Young Children’s Learning | Socyberty:

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Don't forget to comment on this post.

Old but Still Funny

It just occurred to me that all of you are probably about as old as the internet, at least the popular, available internet.  You may have seen this cartoon drawn by Peter Steiner and published in the New Yorker in 1993*.  It's sort of a corollary to what I say about 'nothing you say on the internet is ever erased'.  In this case, 'what and who you see on the internet is not necessarily what or who you really get'.  What this means for teachers is that contrary to older traditional sources of information (text books, encyclopedias, references books) current sources are not limited to trusted and supposedly well vetted sources.  Today the internet is a vast sea of information, much of which is fresh and well reasoned but at least an equal amount of information is bogus and misleading.

The question becomes how do we as individuals and as teachers discern the wheat from the chaff?  For our students how do we help them sift the good stuff from the not so good stuff without snuffing their quest for knowledge?  In a previous post I asked you to posit the role of the teacher in the post-information age.  Perhaps this is a hint of the new set of responsibilities for teachers.  I'd like to know your thoughts on this riff on 'No one knows you are a dog...'.  Comment here or do a twofer on your blog. 

Just in case you are wondering: This is a blog prompt.

*The above cartoon by Peter Steiner has been reproduced from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker, (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20)only for academic discussion, evaluation, research and complies with the copyright law of the United States as defined and stipulated under Title 17 U. S. Code.

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I've enjoyed reading your comments on my blog posts.  The comments that seem most common are the ones responding to what I said about teachers not having all the answers and teachers being co-learners with their students.  Got lots of agreement on these points and even more support from those of you who wrote about what you learned from your favorite teachers.  This set me to thinking about other roles of the teacher, other than being a co-learner with students and not acting like your know all the answers.  We all know that teaching is a multifaceted profession... a job of many hats.  I'd like to know your thoughts on what the teacher brings to the business of teaching an learning, specifically in classroom interaction with kids. 

Right now I'm thinking about teaching from the perspective of 'big picture', the view from 30,000 feet rather than from the trenches.  My response to this inquire might be something like this: "The teacher is the organizer-in-chief, blah, blah, blah."  The 'blah's being the explanation of what I mean by 'organizer-in-chief' and some examples.  Since this course is ED Tech try to incorporate how technology might be incorporated in the teacher's role.  

This is a blog prompt for the third class meeting, that is, respond in your own blog before our next meeting.  Just comment to this post by entering your name as a comment, thus accomplishing a twofer.

Tools for Teachers

As prospective teachers you should be interested in the Ohio Deparment of Education because the ODE sets curriculum standards, teacher education standards, teachers evaluation standards, and offers learning opportunities for teachers of all stripes.  Why not add this button to your Symbaloo?

Tools for Teachers:

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You may want to comment on this issue of Tools for Teachers, feel free.

Link to other websites - Blogger Help

Learn to insert links to other websites in your blog (without showing a huge and distracting URL in your post).  Show me that you can do it in your next post.

Link to other websites - Blogger Help:

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Bread Crumbs and the Sands of Time

Symbaloo and other places to scatter bread crumbs on the internet. 


What the heck does 'bread crumbs on the internet' mean anyway?  Ever get a phrase caught in your mind... like a song lyric, or a motto, or a piece of headline, or a fragment of movie dialogue?  Happens to me all the time and I will probably infect you with my mind clogging disease, at least expose you to the germ, this semester.  The other night I was thinking about the dynamic nature of the internet and technology in general and how this state of flux impacts teaching and learning.  It came to me in a dream (well not exactly a dream, that sounds too spiritual), more like a thought balloon in a cartoon.  Hansel and Gretel, the fairy tale about kids who marked their path through the woods with bread crumbs only to have their escape route wiped out by a bunch of hungry birds (or was that Angry Birds) has come into the language as a metaphor for something temporary and not to be relied upon.  Symbaloo, and indeed all of the internet, is a vast collection of bread crumb trails that are constantly being either wiped out or scattered to the four winds.


Does this mean that places to store links to useful sites are meaningless?  I don't think so.  It means that our bookmarks and links need constant tending to remain current, to be useful, to not prove  to be dead ends that discourage usage by our students.  So, finally point number 1.  As a teacher or prospective teacher tend your Symbaloo garden by checking the validity of your links.  Some of my links right now are acting a bit funky... the link to my blog takes me to a place that wants me to sign on to Google+ and I'm not sure that's where it takes you.  I've got to check that out.

Point number 2.  In the bigger picture of teaching and learning what does 'remain current' mean?  Certainly it means being up-to-date in your knowledge of subject matter, but beyond that what is currency?  To me it means learning from students what they know an honoring this knowledge by implementing elements of their world in lessons and teaching techniques.  Kids of all ages know a lot of stuff, some of it is a jumble of hearsay, TV talk, parent misinformation, and real wisdom.  One of the really big jobs of a teacher is to provide a method of filtering and categorizing kid information into reliable and testable cubbies where the information can be called on to make sense of the world of school.  For example, a child may come to school having observed certain insect behaviors... bees make honey, ants invade kitchens.  A good teacher will help a child place this knowledge into a cubby that includes social behavior of certain insects and further, the value of cooperative effort.

One of the characteristics I saw in a teaching career was the opportunity to be spontaneous and to follow the flow of ideas that come out of each day in the classroom.  It is possible to ignore this flow and to have a career in teaching but can you truly call this 'teaching'?

Well, I've strayed from Symbaloo and bread crumbs but the idea is that as teachers we must tend our own garden of ideas daily and respect and nurture what grows in the gardens of our students.  Blindly attempting to follow an old trail of bread crumbs probably will not result in a true teaching career.

We'll look at some other ways to drop internet bread crumbs knowing that the crumbs we drop are but temporary footprints on the sands of time.

I'd like to know your thoughts on teaching as a career... please comment.