To Netbook or not to Netbook? That is the question.

In the fourth chapter of their book Brooks-Young talks about Netbooks.  If you are unfamiliar with these devices a netbook is a small-size, lightweight mobile computing device designed to easily access the Internet using a built in wireless capability.  This technology was introduced about 3 or 4 years ago and they were a hot item, mostly because of it's small price tag and portability.  The original concept was so that computers would be accessible and made durable enough for children to use.  The simplicity and smallness of the design made children a perfect consumer group for this product, but it quickly turned into an item that adults were interested in as well.  These computers are designed to do simple word processing and internet browsing.  Some of the complaints that have come up by older consumers were the fact that the screen is too small and that the keyboard is not large enough so typing can be difficult.

Thinking to classroom use, while I like the idea that the size and price make them great for elementary school students, I am not convinced that they are reliable enough to be worth the fee you pay initially.  I wonder if there limited capabilities may not be worth the one-to-one computing abilities.  Being able to load software onto a computer helps to make it more conducive to learning and enrich the learning of your students.  Depending on your environment the netbooks might be a great resource especially if you were in a poorer country overseas, that kind of technology could be more than they would have access to otherwise.  But if I was given the choice I would prefer that my students have access to some sort of tablet in the classroom.  A tablet such as an iPad allows the teacher or student to download applications that could be very helpful in enriching learning and also allow for internet browsing.  It is not necessarily the most efficient for typing or doing reports, but there are ways to work around that.  Simply having a system that is efficient even when not connected to the internet because of the applications that are on it, far outweighs the netbook which is to be used simply for internet browsing and word processing.

MP3 are you for me?

This chapter in Brooks-Young book deals with the use of MP3 players in the classroom.  I would like to address some of the pros and cons to using MP3 players in the classroom.  One of the cons of using this is in your classroom is that you can't always control what students have on their personal MP3 players and you may run into students who don't have MP3 players.  Also in terms of technological capabilities most other forms of technology can do all the same things that MP3 players to do, so if you were looking into buying a classroom set of something you might not want to invest in something like this.  But thinking about the way that MP3 players could be useful in the classroom one must consider the portability of something like an MP3 player.  They are easy to cary around and their cost makes them a very realistic option for most classrooms.  Also there is a variety of applications that can now be added to many MP3 players that allow them to be tied into classroom actions very easily.  If a teacher wanted to create an audio file and send it out to the students the MP3 player would be a great way to do that.  You could even include a lesson in your class that allows you to record a set of directions and then have your students listen to the directions and complete actions depending on what they hear.

In trying to explore the existing file links in the book I found that quite a few of them were not very helpful because the site had moved or the link had changed.  Also some of them were a little harder to navigate than others such as the wikimedia commons site had a lot of information, but it could be a little overwhelming at times because you did have so much information to look through. I found that podcasts on itunes were the easiest ones to look through.  The information is pretty easy to go through and it is well organized.

I really liked the idea that they had about using MP3 players and podcasts in your classrooms to help students learn a language.  I think this a great application because it allows the students to listen to a native speaker and then repeat what they have just heard.  It allows them to go at their own pace and review the things that they need to review and move past the things that they don't necessarily need to focus on.

In terms of how much i'll use the information from this chapter in my future classroom, I think I will definitely use podcasts as an educational addition.  If you know where to look you can find author interviews or explanations of certain issues that you may be discussing in your classroom.  Also since I may be teaching in an ESL classroom I think it would be great to use to bring language to your students in a real way since you can't be with each student individually at the same time.  It will allow to have authentic language when you can't model it for them.  Also I think it would be a great way to bring different cultural experiences into your classroom and help your students to have a more global mindedness.  I'm not necessarily sold on the idea of MP3 players in the classroom, but I do really like the audio aspect that it adds into your classroom.

Cell Phones Friend or Foe?

In chapter 2 of our book it talks about cell phones and if they have a place in the classroom.  One of the statistics that I found the most surprising was the one that said only 23% of students believe that their schools are doing a good job of preparing them for today's workplace (page 19).  Less than 1/4 of the students that leave our schools feel prepared for the world ahead of them, not only that, but the workplaces feel as if the recent graduates are prepared for the demands of the workplace as well.  Both of those are hard pills to swallow especially when I am one of those people who is getting ready to enter the workplace.  This fact brings up concern that maybe I am not ready for what is ahead of me.  But as I sit here and type this blog I am surrounded by a group of high school students who in the last two minutes have talked about something they saw on Facebook and have tried desperately to find phone service so they can send a text message or two.  We live in a world where we have endless technology available at our fingertips and it seems like it would be unwise of us to use this resource that we have been given.
Now all these resources must be used responsibly and we must be in charge of teaching our students how to use them in an appropriate it way.  One sentence in particular says, "educators recognize the need to lay some ground rules before launching activities supported by cell phone use.  They also understand that doing this preliminary work teaches valuable workplace skills in digital literacy and etiquette," (page 18).  And i think that statement helps me to put the use of cellphones in the classroom into perspective.  As with anything you do in your classroom making sure you teach your students how to use the resources responsibly and that they know there are appropriate and inappropriate uses for the technology that they are working with.  If you never express your expectations of use to your students how can they live up to them?
Cell phones have gotten a bad reputation at schools, but I think that given the right setting they can be helpful tools inside of a classroom.  The idea that I really appreciated from this chapter was having the students use their cell phone cameras on a field trip to document different parts of it and then to upload those pictures onto a flickr or some type of other online photo album where the whole class can have their photos in one spot.  Including cell phones in the classroom is a subject that springs a lot of debate, but I think as the years go on it will become more common in the classroom.

We Are Living in a Material World, but am I a 21st Century Girl?

In chapter one Brooks-Young says "Being confident that educators can prepare students for this new world is based on the assumption that they have some idea of what to prepare them for," (page 5).  Stop.  Sit.  Think about that for a second.  Educators have a lot of pressure put onto them to prepare children for the world which they will encounter, but educators can only educate their students to the extent to which they themselves have been educated.  This requires that teachers be continual learners.

As teachers it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that your students may sometimes be smarter than you.  And knowing that a second seven year old can navigate their way around an iPhone better than I can is not always the best way to boost your confidence in your ability to use technology, but that is the reality of the world in which we live.  Our world is changing and we are becoming more and more dependent on technology to make us more efficient and connected to one another.  The skills needed to survive in this ever-evolving technology savvy world are referred to as 21st century skills.  As teachers we need to not be afraid of the changes that technology will bring into our classroom and we need to remember that as teachers we have made a commitment to be life long learners.

I will admit that sometimes the dependency we have on technology makes me nervous, because despite the endless doors it opens, it also constricts us.  By that I mean that we become so dependent on technology that when it is taken away we don't know how to function.  And while 21st century skills are so important for our students and ourselves it can be scary to commit fully to them.  I love the idea of using Skype to connect with classrooms around the world and the wealth of information that is at your fingertips.  But I fear what happens when the internet at your school crashes and you have to change a whole lesson in the blink of an eye.  In this 21st century world the key is balance, and knowing how to use the old with the new.  It's being able to incorporate a youtube video into your lesson about volcanoes or using a social network forum for your students to post questions about homework or that day's lesson. The 21st century skills that we will implement in our classrooms will change the classroom into one unlike the classrooms we once sat in, but it will allow us to better meet the needs of our students and to help them be better prepared to communicate in the world in which they live.