The Great Technological Divide

"We might question whether students are really as techno-savvy as popular media often portrays or whether they merely have a positive attitude toward technology systems and a broad knowledge of various basic technologies rather than in-depth knowledge of niche applications," (Christine Greenhow, Who are Today's Learners?).

The above quote should be kept in mind when deciding to use or not use technology in the classroom. It is an obvious fact that not all students will have equal access to technology at home, but I don't think that should stop the integration of technology in the classroom. As a high school teacher, it is my job not only to teach my students my subject, but to also prepare them for their future careers and technology is a part of that. The lack of computer access at home is no reason to not use computers in my lessons. Do you think rocket scientists have the technology they use at work readily available at their homes? No. The classroom is no different.

Not using technology in my classroom would be doing my students a great disservice. As stated earlier, part of my job is to prepare them for their jobs. "In 1992, the U.S. Department of Labor’s SCANS report noted that at least 80% of all jobs in the next two decades would require workers to be technologically fluent," (Colleen Swain and David Edyburn, Social Justice: Choice or Necessity?). That was in 1992 - we are now in 2010 and technology is developing faster than ever before. While my students may encounter various forms of technology outside of my classroom without my prompting, I, at the very least, need to make sure that they understand how to use it appropriately. Further, just as my students will gain the knowledge at various paces, I may be able to share something with them another teacher or peer won't.

Since many students won't have access to computers or technology at home, or have only limited access, I would be sure to incorporate class time in my school's computer lab. Homework assignments that require the use of a computer will also be given class time and I would encourage my students to use the school and local library resources. As Swain and Edyburn suggest, the Digital Equity Portal would be a good place to start to perhaps get some personal computers in my classroom that my students can use during my prep periods or after school.

The fact of the matter is technology is not going away. Never again will students rely solely on printed text, a pack of pencils and a spiral notebook. In the same vain, the career force will also never again rely on sending client correspondence or federal filings via US post. Just as the students have to adapt to an ever changing world, as teachers, we do, too.

"Miss Kinnee, can you hold on a minute? My cell phone is ringing."

Point: "No true best practice has started out with, 'Have students bring their cell phones to class,'" (Josh Allen, Should Cell Phones be Banned from Class, 2008) Counterpoint: "What better way to connect students’ classroom learning with their everyday lives than a tool they already enjoy using?" (Liz Kolb, Should Cell Phones be Banned from Class, 2008). In the words of Hamlet, "Aye, there's the rub!"

As Josh Allen points out, the use of cell phones in the classroom has never been at the forefront of the discussion on the best classroom practices. Long gone are the days when students bravely pass notes in class; now they can discretely do that via text messaging. Not only is that more efficient, but it's also more fun. Liz Kolb touches on just that - the fun-ness of using a cell phone. As educators, isn't one of our main goals to connect to students' interests to make learning a positive and enjoyable experience for them? I must admit, when reading Josh Allen's argument, the voice in my head was shouting, "Yeah! You're right! You go, Josh Allen!" So you can imagine my battle of the wills as I read Liz Kolb's arguments and that same voice started to say, "Er, yeah, Liz, you are totally on to something here. Uhm, go ... Liz?" Instead of being on one side or the other, I am somewhere in the middle. As the adage goes, "there's a place and time for everything." I will amend that saying and add, "...even for cell phones in the classroom."

Liz Kolb makes a strong point when she says, "Teachers who are concerned that cell phones will be distracting inside the classroom can set up a social contract with their students defining the structure and rules around cell phone use in the classroom." It's easy to forget that as teachers, we are the rulers of the universe that is our classroom. Why not implement cell phones into the daily dialogue but follow it with rules? Before reading this article, I have always imagined myself requiring my students to check-in their cell phones at the beginning of class. I think I will still do that, but as Liz Kolb suggests, I can hand them back when they are needed. Her idea of using them on field trips to take pictures and post them to Flikr is brilliant. Josh Allen asserts that "the goal of an educational setting should be to give students the proper tools to succeed once they step into society." Aren't cell phones an integral part of that society? In case you're confused, the answer is "yes." As a teacher preparing my students not only for college (should they choose to go) but also for how to be a functioning member of society, I should also set examples for my students on the etiquette of cell phone use - just as I will do the same with the use of internet. Should my students not follow my rules, well, they will be banished from the privilege and sent back to the dark ages of Encyclopedias and hand written notes.

At this moment, I must digress for a second because what about students that cannot afford cell phones or the data plans they would require to purchase in order to use the tool in the classroom? Enter Hamlet once more: "Aye, there's the rub ..." again. If not every student in my classroom could afford such technology, that is when I would turn to the tried and true buddy system. Not only could I teach them how to use their cell phones, but I could then integrate those lessons with lessons on working together and how to collaborate with their peers. Zing!

So now that I have blabbed on about why I think it might actually be good to have cell phones in the classroom, I find myself asking myself how the heck I would use the tool in my classroom. I want to teach language arts, the base of which is books ... and writing ... and analyzing with personal opinion. How can I use a cell phone to point out the greatness of Shakespeare or further the understanding of prose? At this point, I am not entirely sure. You must remember that until this post, I was against the use of cell phones in the classroom so when fantasizing about all of the great and amazing lessons I may teach, cell phones never played a role. I suppose that now they will, though. It would seem a bit trite not to at least consider the possibilities. But wait a minute - in From Toy to Tool, Liz Kolb suggests using cell phone for audioblogging. She suggests having language arts students conduct interviews with local authors - genius. Or, what about having my students give oral reflections on class readings? Or record themselves reading poetry followed by their analysis? Perhaps I could take such recordings and make a comprehensive class podcast at the end of the term that they can use as a study guide for finals and tests ... perhaps finding ways to use a cell phone in my classroom won't be as hard as I imagined.

Bullying the Cyber Way

Cyberbullying is not something that has always been a part of my vernacular. After reading the assigned articles for this post, my roommate, Cheri, came into the room and we began discussing cyberbullying and how it was not a notion we ever even considered. To our generation, the novelty of text messaging and chatting online was just that - a novelty. We never thought of using those outlets as a means for harming another person. Perhaps that is because we were never malicious to begin with, but I believe it was more that our generation was just excited about all of these new venues of communication.

Cyberbullying, at it's core, is bullying another group or person by the use of cell phones and Internet, namely, blogs and social media websites. As if bullies weren't cowards enough, now they get to hide behind avatars and fake identities. Schools are in an especially difficult situation; it's hard enough to prove physical bullying and now they have to not only prove who the person is behind cyberbullying, but they are not able to do anything about it unless it essentially causes the school to internally malfunction and erupt. Because of free speech and the students' rights to it, the school can do very little if the bullying only affects a single person and does not disrupt others at the school. Doesn't seem very fair, does it? So pretty much, someone out there determined that the functionality of the school as a exponentially more important than that of an individual student. This is about where I cock my head to the side and ask, "What?!" and also where I start to think about what I, as a teacher, can do.

Since the only way cyberbullying can really be disciplined by school officials is if the bullying took place at school, it is up to the teachers and other staff to pay extra attention to the attitudes of their students. Just as we area already trained to do, we should keep a look out for changes in behavior and peer relationships, as well as on-site bullying. Most likely if there is a face-to-face altercation, it will end up online in some form. If a teacher notices anything, I believe that the best step to take would be to talk to the student who is being bullied and go from there.

As a high school teacher, my students will already have ingrained online etiquette that I will be hard pressed to change - as most things, the rights and wrongs of Internet usage will take place when they are younger. However, this shouldn't stop me from letting them know how they should and shouldn't act if an issue were to come up. With the growth of the "www" world, tools on the Internet will become the standard in the classroom - as this class is confirming. My approach to my students should be preemptive and reactive. For example, if my students use a class blog to submit assignments, as we are now, there would be rules about what kind of content is allowed in both the posts and comments - any deviation to those rules would have consequences. Hopefully my school will also have similar rules and they will back me up if I ever have to discipline a student for acting inappropriately. But, this rises another question: Let's say I assign my students a blog entry on the day's reading and they each also have to comment on two other student blogs - keep in mind that this is homework, done at home, not at school. What if a student's comment is derogatory and harmful? Am I able to punish them even though the cyberbullying took place at home? Does it matter that it was done on a class blog or not? Where do we draw the line?

While the schools cannot do much if the daily activities at the school are not being interrupted, I think that they should be able to. What kind of example are we setting if we tell our students that we care about their lives and that we're there for them, but then we turn our backs when something happens outside of class that greatly affects their personal class experience? A 15-year-old is not going to come to school if the night before someone sent out a malicious blast on Facebook about them. I suppose for now, though, "when incidents of cyberbullying or other harassment rise to the level of a true threat (e.g., the speech involved shows a genuine intent to inflict harm), school leaders have a duty to take some action and should look to law enforcement officials for help" (Cyberbullying: Is There Anything Schools Can Do? 2008). But what if waiting to determine if the speech would inflict real harm is too late?

You Want to Know More About Me? Just Ask Google!

Since the creation of Google (and other search engines), people have been happily and creepily stalking new acquaintances the minute they get home. Admit it, you've done it, too. And while we're at it, you can also go ahead and admit that you've also Googled yourself (insert tune to "You're So Vain" here). I am right there with you! I have always felt pretty secure in my online identity since there are not many "Crystel Kinnees" in the world, let alone "Crystels." However, I firmly believe that within the last few months, Google took some stalker steroids. While my name would produce merely my Facebook and Myspace accounts, it now displays pages of everything I have ever written on said websites. What the what?!

I give you Exhibit A:


Oh goodness. It's like looking back at hours of procrastination in one simple screen shot.

Luckily, I don't see anything that I would regret as a teacher. Facebook and Myspace (and other social outlets) became immensely popular around my sophomore year of college, in 2004. While in college, I was a member of a sorority and with the popularity of Facebook (pet name: Stalkerbook), came new rules to protect our sorority's image. Everything on our profiles had to be set to private, we were not aloud to use damaging language and we were also encouraged to screen the photographs that were posted - private or otherwise. Thankfully, I followed these rules and as it turns out, this may have saved me many hours of cleaning up after my young adult self.

While one may argue that Facebook and Myspace are tools in which one can use free speech, that only goes so far. Just recently, a school district employee was fired from his job for posting derogatory comments on his Facebook profile (and go figure that Google has failed me and I cannot seem to find the article to link it here). It is a fact that our students will try to find us online and they will try to be our online friends. While I do not believe it is appropriate to have online friendships between students and teachers, and while my profile is very private, it is extremely apparent that students will still be able to dig up some dirt on dear 'ol Miss Kinnee. If the wrong student finds something incriminating, I could lose my job. I think I would rather screen myself online than take that risk.

In the article "Have You Googled Your Teacher Lately?" I found it interesting that teachers actually use social networking sites to communicate with their students "beyond the four walls of the classroom." Further, I am a little shocked to learn that 40% of Myspace users are over the age of 35. As I stated earlier, I do not think it would be appropriate to be online friends with my students. I think there are other venues in which to form relationships with them that are not as risky as social networking. The statistic that 40% of Myspace users are over the age of 35 further supports the amount of online predators and adult cyber-bullies. I want to protect myself and my students as much as I can and I don't think having outrageous social networking profiles and being friends with all my students on them will help.

There is a certain amount of respect in the classroom that a teacher expects in order to successfully manage her students. While it is important to be authoritative, it is also important to create friendships with students, but there is definitely a line to be drawn. For example, a student that is friends with a teacher on Facebook may feel that he has more liberties in her classroom because they are online friends - almost as if he has more rights than those that do not. What happens if said student acts out and the teacher has to then assert her authority? Wouldn't it be easy for the student to get upset, take things off of the teacher's profile and put them out of context? I say, "No, thank you."

I will admit that I am as much of a Facebook junkie as the next 25-year-old, but I do know where to draw the line. I enjoy keeping my personal life and my public life separate - something I will continue to do once I become a teacher.

Happy Social Networking!

Cell Phones and Google and Wiki, Oh My!

We've all heard our grandparents and parents say it: "Back in my day..." and it it usually followed by an explanation of some task that took much more grit and pure strength than the same task would require us young folk to exert. But really, is it easier for us that grew up with technology than it was for past generations? Marc Prensky would most likely call me a "Digital Native," being that I grew up with technology such as video games, computers and the internet, and my grandparents would be "Digital Immigrants," having not grown up with as much technology. While I might not have to go to a library to gather information on my research papers, I most definitely have to use good judgment and fact checking intuition before I trust my "www" resources. Prensky writes in his essay "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" (2001) that "we can say with certainty that [students'] thinking patterns have changed" as a result of the digital world. He goes on to explain that "Digital Immigrants don't believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music, because they (the Immigrants) can't." Well stated, Prensky. The old cliché "my way or the highway" is more irrelevant now than it has been in quite some time.

Growing up on the cusp of a technology boom made my high school experience almost frustrating. I was in high school 1999 - 2003, literally in the explosion of cell phones and comprehensive online resources. Families across America began purchasing home computers in the late 80's and early 90's, so by the time I was in my formative early teens, most people I knew owned a computer. The gap between my peers and teachers was astonishing. We had classes in high school that were taught by the librarian and were supposed to show us how to use search engines and online encyclopedias. Yawn. This was very step-by-step instruction that I believe was lost on most of us - especially since many of us had figured it out on our own time using trial and error. Pransky believes the best way to teach the Digital Natives is by "going faster, less step-by step, more in parallel, with more random access" - I agree. Teachers need to stop boring their students because they feel they need to fit in every single step of a lesson and instead, go about it in such a way that makes sense to their skill level and learning style.

I had a college professor tell me that professors are not teachers; they are instructors who show us how to find the information we need to know. Prensky would have liked this particular professor very much since they both agreed that students learn better when essentially left to their own devices. I think I may be joining them in their figurative Independent Learning Club. I enjoyed being given the tools I needed to learn and the opportunity to supplement that learning on my own. As a Digital Native, I could easily complete any assignment without my professor holding my hand each step of the way. I think one of the best ways to learn is through accountability - not only does completing an assignment feel more like an accomplishment, but the selfesteem boost for a good grade on something I did almost entirely by myself is one of the most rewarding feelings I have experienced. "Yeah, that's right. I taught myself all of that and I understand it enough to write a twenty page paper about it." Sweet victory.

Prensky is onto something with his articles on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. It is easy to say I am a Digital Native and that I will be able to totally relate to my students and understand the technological tools they have at their fingertips - however, this is absolutely false. Technology is developing at an alarming rate and I am sure by the time I have been teaching for twenty years, I will feel the same way as the Digital Immigrants feel today. Prensky puts it best when he states that "it's just dumb (and lazy) of educators - not to mention ineffective - to presume that (despite their traditions) the Digital Immigrant way is the only way." That is one line I should keep in the part of my brain that stores everything about educational theory. As an educator, it is extremely important for me educate not only my students about my subject, but also to educate myself about their digital language.

Introduction

Hello there! My name is Crystel (pronounced "Crys-Tell," not like the champagne, thank you) Kinnee and I am working on getting my MAT in secondary education with a focus on high school language arts - perhaps I will work on an endorsement on social studies as well. It sure wouldn't hurt anything, would it?

Growing up, my favorite animal was always a pig. What is not to love? They are pink, kind of fuzzy and are delightfully wrinkly when they are piglets. Every year I would get little pig figurines for birthdays and Christmases. They get me with their smooshy noses every time. *boop!*

Until the next post!

- Crystel