Project Based Learning

     I honestly cannot remember the last book that I read that used the word water. I can't.  Yet, I remember precisely the last time I went swimming, I remember who i was with, how long I swam, what I wore, even the time of day. I find it curious that we don't have more projects in school. I looked at the "My Healthy Self" project, which is a project based learning project for the first graders at Duke School in Durham, NC; this project follows a method of learning that maintains retention for long periods of time with incredible depth. I chose this project to read about because it was so well organized by the staff overseeing it, and was so well supported by the guests that were assisting the class. The teachers and guests outlined many solid aspects of health that were still a part of the original question posed. I liked it so much because a first grade teacher gave a broad question and then gave the students the tools to give a complex answer.
     The process of moving from knowledge to application (synthesis) was done in such an efficient manner, the kids may not know that imitating the doctors gives them insight into how their bodies work. Once the young ones learned why and how their bodies stay healthy, and what a doctor does to help that process along, the kids could effectively mimic the job of the doctor. What is mimicry besides a derogatory term for retention? That could be argued, but hey, it is my blog.
     The project did not get to the judgment level of high thought processes. I really wish the kids themselves could have come up with a hierarchy of healthy activities or something to that effect.

For when you don't know.

     Please humor my foray into alliteration. Dr. Dave and Dr. Dee are blog post based Dr. Drews. For those of you who don't listen to Loveline as frequently as I do, you should. I have found that many young people, and plenty old for that matter, love having someone to go to whenever something is amiss with their bodies. Having that go to place is comforting, even if it is not used. WebMD could be a useful tool if it had a more personal touch, and if it would stop guessing caner. These experts have tons and tons of articles about life, family, and sex problems that many people encounter. It may be your job as a teacher to become a mentor and teacher in some of the areas where you have not been formally trained. When a life-changing situation occurs in your students lives, it could be in your best interest to refer them to people who are trained in dealing with the delicate human psyche. In the medical field, there are just too many things that you will never learn, but luckily, there are experts out there who can be reached with just one email.
     In the course of encouraging young people to be articulate, independent adults, we may find it necessary to have a trusted source for things not associated with social sciences. For the students, this is you, the educator. I don't like to think of myself as a professional student because a lot of people see it as derogatory, but I have seen that the people I trusted a lot of my personal feelings with were teachers. To a lot of people, going to your chemistry teacher for advice with women seems crazy, especially if he has had a couple of divorces. The point of all this is that if you want to teach, you have to be prepared to not just teach the humanities, but to teach humanity. You shouldn't treat yourself as a board-certified psychiatrist or anything, but there are far too many young people without trustworthy adults to help guide them. As I have found in my line of business, (I have worked in elementary schools for about five years), people love to see their kids connect with people with experience.
     Experience is the key here, when I tutored as a second job for a summer I told the parents that I could teach their kid anything. I meant it too, anything that was in my brain, I have learned to embark upon young people. I think some teachers are cool because they have that sense of youth in them that can easily translate into teachable moments. I may not know everything-although I frequently claim otherwise-I know where to safely redirect for the kids I work with. In an educational environment where class sizes are rising faster than we can take funding from them, our ability to be "just a teacher" will be greatly reduced. Finding and using these secondary teaching methods could prove to make you a great teacher.

My technology past, present, and future

   Due to the time in which I was growing up, technology became a huge staple in education. From an early age I knew that these computers that were being hauled into the school were a big deal. I didn't really understand why everyone made such a fuss over it, but at the time, computers had little control over our language. The transition from first to second grade showed me that the world of computers was much, much more than a fancy video game. Soon I was learning how to type, how to print papers, and at the tender age of seven, I was surfing the web. It is a fond memory of mine seeing for the first time, that Netscape lighthouse taking me to the Nickelodeon website. To think that ten years ago I would see the internet for one hour a week, and now I cannot get out of bed without booting my laptop up. The early stages of my interactions with technology were mostly from school, and even at the time they felt like experiments.
     My experimentation was furthered in middle school, which had a whole hour a day devoted to learning how to type, and despite their years of effort, I still refuse to take my eyes off the keyboard. We never got far past word processing, typing, and spreadsheets; but with Fridays to ourselves in the computer lab, I truly learned how massive this internet is. It had the answers to everything, it knew the secrets to every video game I owned, it contained movies, television, and even comics. In middle school, I think the most important thing I learned is that the internet is massive, outrageously massive. Cell phones became more and more common, and much to my surprise, internet cell phones!
     With high school came another step in technology. Modern computing came in a matter of months. Flash drives, Apple devices, wireless internet, but no jetpacks. It was an intriguing world that I had now learned to live in, and become accustomed to in such a short amount of time. "My phone is also a television" was something that would have been laughed off one year, and shrugged off the next. For my education, every class seemed to employ some sort of technology, even weightlifting class had us wear electronic monitors from time to time. I could see where classes like math and chemistry needed a couple of days here and there in a computer lab, but there were many days in art where I was adding shadowing to a font not on paper and charcoal, but on my own laptop. Communication had evolved into a form more suitable for a world that had compressed itself under technology. A new, smaller world where .docx files replaced papers, and beautiful presentations about Macedonian culture could be slapped together in an afternoon with a little help from Google images and Wikipedia. I have never found myself to be a lazy student, I just knew where I could find the information easiest.
    I do not feel like our education system and our technologies are complimenting each other. With the things available to the world today, why are we continuing to build our universities the same way they were built a hundred years ago? My exposure to the complexities of modern technology is going to mean that I learn, and will teach, from a different perspective. Looking at my first twelve years of education, I feel that people were paid a lot of money to put me in front of a computer monitor. Why is it suddenly now that my success depends upon my sense of connection between me and the subject being taught a hundred yards away?
     My future classroom should be a walking demonstration. It will not be fifty-minute sessions where three things are taught, homework is assigned, and everyone leaves. I expect that by the time I enter the classroom, students will be far beyond that of what I was at their age when it comes to computers. I was introduced to the computer at seven, some of these kids got cell phones at seven. My future classroom will rely somewhat on the young persons ability to process information when it is given in a clear, assessable format.
     Do you know what the worst thing about a textbook is? The worst thing about a textbook is that it has mass, is affected by gravity, takes up space, and must be carried in a bag attached to your spine. Doing away with textbooks should happen soon, in my opinion, not to say that all publishers will go out of business, but if I can carry one laptop instead of four books, I shouldn't have to force my students to do so.
     Of course, the biggest problem I face with a classroom filled with technology is the kids knowing how to use said technology. As a youngster I was the bane of teachers who didn't care to go home and just learn how to play with a computer. I can invert color schemes on Macs in one button combination, I can brute-force your wireless network, I can make it so your computer cannot type vowels. My worst fear is that I will be that old man who is bested because he couldn't keep up with the times.
      As for texting, which I know to be a problem and could only get worse, I will most likely employ a very large magnet, because no one likes to get their phone erased.

Avatars in Education

In education, I find that incentives are a powerful tool. With new advents in technology, I believe that a sense of self in the classroom is important for both teacher and student. There exists a certain vulnerability when it comes to expressing ones self. In the classroom that employs a technological approach, the use of avatars is a safe delivery method to discovering self. The clothes, the style, the background of the avatar can easily give a sense of security without having to be subjected to ridicule. My avatar for example, not a direct representation of my looks, but it is as close a representation I could muster in the six minutes. I could have been a big 'ol floppy eared dog, but is that what I wish to portray? In a classroom setting, a young learner may not want to be, or have for that matter, an avatar as straight laced and serious as mine. An avatar can allow community, and a little bit of pride.