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.