IT'S THE FINAL COUNT DOWN!!!!

Foley and Willis both make some very good points about mindfulness within the classroom.

I find Foley's concept of Pastoral Care particularly relevant within the classroom environment. I am reminded of an incident in my gr.9 Accounting class where a learner was actually expelled for asking the teacher (a VERY old school unmarried woman close to, if not past retirement age) to show him a little compassion (granted he did shout at her).

A teacher is supposed to nurture the well-being of their learners in order to create an environment of open communication in which the concerns and worries of these learners can be heard. Most importantly, a teacher needs to have EMPATHY and UNDERSTANDING (yes we're talking to you maám).

Within my own classroom, I would like to make use of a birthday calendar of sorts, not those weird ones that we had in primary school where each month was a balloon, but a proper "grown up" calendar. I think that doing this would promote pro-social bonding in my classroom.

I would also make it a priority to aid learners in their academics by prioritizing learning objectives by highlighting key areas and by making sure that learners are actively engaged in the learning process in a time efficient way, before providing meaningful feedback.

Positive home and school relationships are obviously highly important. The idea of a whatsapp group was brought up in class yesterday, and I think that it's an awesome idea for enabling communication between school and home.

Willis has some great ideas for keeping order in an otherwise chaotic class (something which I think the people presenting the last glaskas lesson yesterday may have appreciated). By assigning particular desks or tasks to her learners, she helped establish participation. She was able to take an otherwise mundane task and transform  it into an exercise of mindful movement and peer cooperation.

I would like to think that I could incorporate some of these ideas into my own classroom one day, but right now it's definitely time for breakfast :)

Too tired to think of a witty title :)

What (if at all) is the potential of tech-mediated self-directed distance learning?
The Independent Project poses an interesting question; how do you know that you're doing something meaningful?

Public schools have been trying and failing for years to offer education to every kind of person so that they can learn together and engage in meaningful discussions and thought processes. But these teachers have been super uninspiring (droning on in that monotone, reading straight from the textbook - CONGRATULATIONS!!! you're a robot...).

Teachers should be teaching learners to take initiative, they should create conditions where learners will thrive, where they want to read and write because they're curious about how this wonderful world works! -sips tea and gathers thoughts-

The Independent Project is definitely on the right track in that they allow their learners to have a hands on interactive experience with their environments, as well as increasing the self-confidence of learners by not assessing their knowledge in ways that are not appropriate for that specific individual. Students are able to support each other and provide meaningful feedback without fear of judgement. Students are even teaching each other by drawing on their own individual strengths and then teaching others in a way that is easier for them to understand.

Learners are actually LEARNING; they are finding questions in everything and developing an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. They are learning how to teach, learn and work efficiently. What more do you want from your educational experience?

-sips tea-

Current educational standards are limiting the consciousness of learners. It is therefore important that people familiarize themselves with standards regarding Information and Communications Technology literacy. ICT literacy represents a major part of cultural and political oppression with which all students must become critically conscious. Organizations are promoting ICT literacy standards that are limited and therefore limiting in that they create a "culture of silence" regarding the possibilities of ICT literacy in education, as well as the capabilities of teachers and students engaged with technologies in the classroom.

The ICT standard of communication aims to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

Therefore, tech-mediated self-directed distance learning is something that has a lot of potential for our education system. By allowing learners to use technology to design their own education, we would create an environment similar to the Independent Project - and with those great results, who wouldn't say that it's a good idea?

Keep up with the times! (?)

I bet that when teachers long ago thought about where the education system would be in the future they never could have predicted that we would even be THINKING about incorporating social media into our classrooms, but why?

Why shouldn't we include something that is such a big part of everyday life? It's like Davis says:

• Social media can get someone hired, fired or forced to retire;
• It is the most likely source that college admissions offices and potential employers will use to "check you out" and;
• It can actually stand in the way of someone running for political office (not with that skeleton in the closet!)

It is for these reasons that I would most definitely incorporate the proper use of social media in my classroom. Take English for example: We are taught to write letters, memos and emails, so why shouldn't we be taught how to post to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.? 

I would take the idea of tweeting and use it to share where my class is in the curriculum (#shakespearetodayyesplease #othelloactfour #mindblown) so that we can connect with other classrooms and compare our progress. Once a week, each child will be given the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions regarding the lesson content, so that learners from other classrooms can comment and provide meaningful feedback (which is important in preparing them for the higher level of engagement required by universities).

Whereas in the past we had to write a dialogue and then perform it in front of the class, why not create a channel on YouTube where learners can upload videos? It would save so much valuable class time that could then be used to have meaningful discussions regarding the content area.

Social media is also useful for relationships between teachers, allowing them to communicate, share learning ideas, create projects, and provide meaningful feedback about or "moderate" each others work or the work of their learners.

HOWEVER, Provenzano's suggestion to use Remind doesn't exactly sit well with me. I acknowledge the fact that learning is a continuous process that can happen anywhere and at anytime, but should teachers and learners be constantly "bombarded" with ideas for learning and reminders about work? Don't we all deserve a break sometimes? Don't we need time to just "be"? 

So I say yes; social media should be incorporated into the curriculum, but it shouldn't result in an encroachment on the privacy or downtime of teachers or learners in any way. 

Lazy Teachers Make For Bored Students

I agree in part with the statement that Digital Pedagogy is largely misunderstood in higher education, but is it not simply understood and ignored? 

Pedagogy focuses on learning and how it is prompted or initiated, it has its own sense of time and mindfulness, with improvisation being encouraged. Why then, are so many educators turning into robots? If leadership constitutes the core of pedagogy, does this not mean that learning is not confined to the classroom? Surely educators should be able to incorporate this new digital pedagogy into their previous approaches? Educators should be educated in ways of incorporating the electronic elements that have become so important in our society, with ways of teaching that have proven to be successful.

It is extremely important that educators learn to identify and accommodate the various capabilities of their learners and to employ the appropriate teaching approaches. Digital Pedagogy plays a huge part in this because of its willingness to improvise and to respond to new environments and can be defined as "[t]he use of electronic elements to enhance or to change the experience of education."

Just because you teach online, doesn't give you the right to the title of "Digital Pedagogue". To have this honour bestowed upon you, you have to weigh up your options and invite learners to take an active role in networked learning. You need to help learners to engage with the world. How many of you have sat in a class where all the teacher has done is put slides up, or used a projector to display the answers to activities? How often have you had to sit in silence for 45min and copy these answers into your book without so much as an explanation? How can this be described as teaching? 

It's true that we need to "rethink power relations between students and teachers" - we never stop learning, we are "perpetual learners", so why should someone who's had more time to learn be given so much authority? Teachers should be on an almost equal footing with their students/learners, guiding them through the learning process (which actually depends on such collaboration for its success).

Giving it the Old College Try

I think like 90% of the PGCE 2016 class I have always shied away from things like blogs and twitter, I honestly never thought that the one thing that would drive me to the dark side would be the promise of marks (know that my blog obsessed cousin is rejoicing).

Engaging on the same intellectual level as my peers looks like it's going to be rather difficult (especially since many of you guys came through undergrad with me and I know how amazing your brains are), but hey! No pressure right? I just need to be smart and pithy, what could go wrong?

The whole concept of a "digital humanist" is honestly new to me (my mind was partially blown by the revelation that "digital" doesn't necessarily mean "electronic"), but I can sort of understand the concept.

From a progressive point of view, the rush to "technologize" education can actually be seen as beneficial in the sense that technology has come to play such a major role in today's society. If the whole point of education is to prepare learners for the "real world" and all its adventures, then shouldn't we ensure that learners are "proficient" in such areas?

HOWEVER from the point of view of a student, the total overuse of technology in lectures (there are only so many different ways of presenting bullet points people) can become extremely boring. I did not drag myself out of bed at 05:30 and spend an hour in traffic to watch a video that you could have posted online or to listen to you recite the key points of an article that I have already read. I did those heinous things to be educated, to listen to intense class discussions and get valuable insight on the different viewpoints out there.

By "unplugging" we can actually focus our attention on forms of analysis that explore various domains and the critical interpretations that accompany them - which is after all, why we are all here.

Okay, rant over :) How did I do?

I Love Mondays!

No really, I actually love Mondays this year! Late start (if you can call 09:00 late) and literally one class (even though it's a double) - which means that I can take a casual nap before trying to organize all 12 of my subjects, oh how I miss the 2 subjects of last semester... #studentlife