So I’m thinking about what in my externship has been a big Ah-ha and the answer is really nothing on the surface.  I’ve been studying Common Core for a couple of years so it was really no big surprise.  Instead what I found surprising was the explosion of Social Media use in classrooms and during staff development.  Sure I had a Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn account but honestly I mostly just used them to post pictures of my adorable child…seen here.  🙂

But since beginning to use my Twitter to post educational resources and explore resources offered by others it has kind of opened up an entirely new world.  In our district Social Media in the classroom was shunned by many.  “They’ll just use it for no good or to cheat on a test.  We CAN’T let them have their phones.”    I think once we really begin to utilize the power of Social Media for selling our brand (in this case our brand is Public Schools) we can harness it for the good.  Will there be teachers, parents, and students who abuse it?  Yes…just like anything else including paper and pencil!  Does that mean we ignore it?  No!  The good will far out weigh the bad.

So I say yes to the Social Media Revolution…not sure I would have said that a few years ago as a school administrator.  🙂  Let’s face it if we don’t get on board we will be left behind SMH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB99MjUz7YQ

I am positively positive about the affect Common Core and the Essential Standards are having on technology.  I think the question is actually somewhat moot because we have no choice but to embrace technology and make it not just a separate entity that we teach occasionally.

“Everyone get our your laptop. We are going to have a technology lesson.”

But something that is simply integrated into what we do.  Technology is already part of our children’s lives.  While some of it may be relatively new to us…our students have never known a world without it.  My two year old soon will never know a time when the world wasn’t at his fingertips.  Just the other day he asked me a question to which I replied I didn’t know the answer and he said, “Google It.”  It has become part of our lingo and our life style.

The new objectives challenge teachers to find new and innovative ways for students to communicate, produce, research, etc.  But the truth is to our students they aren’t that new!  They know about may of them before we do because they are immersed in technology.

The way I look at it, whether Common Core affects technology or not, we have no choice but to embrace the changing world we live in…because the constant change is now the norm.

My summer externship has probably been very different from most.  While not connected to an outside business…I’m actually connected to the Department of Public Instruction.  This has afforded me the opportunity to work with so many teachers that are excited about the possibilities of public instruction and the changes common core has brought to the table in literacy.  We have been forced to ask some pretty tough questions about instruction in our classrooms and by asking those questions and making adjustments to align with the three major shifts in Common Core we will begin to see an entirely new level of achievement from our students.

What are the three shifts?

• Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction and informational texts.  That doesn’t mean we forget about the rich literature that our students need to read…but that we make sure we incorporate just as much informational text.  Informational text is the language of our world…it’s found in text books, on college applications, in manuals, and in news articles.  The skills for reading informational text do vary from reading literature and so we must equip our students with those skills in order to make sure they are successful in our society.
• Reading and writing grounded in evidence from the text.  Writing…seems almost like a forgotten art form.  With the demands of high stakes testing it was inevitable that writing would take a back seat.  With Common Core we must embrace the importance of writing.  And we must make sure that writing is not a separate component.  It must be taught hand in hand with literacy.  Teachers must ask students questions that require them to return to the text.  They need to become used to proving their answers.  They will have to read the text closely to draw inferences.
• Regular practice with complex text and its academic vocabulary.  Teachers must also focus on the growing complexity of texts.  This is forcing teachers to reevaluate the level of the texts in their classroom and make sure they are appropriately challenging and then finding ways to scaffold instruction so that all students have access to that same challenging text.  This is also the shift that focuses on the need to teach vocabulary in a clear and systematic way.

So making connections between my externship and my curriculum will be a piece of pie!!!

Technology is a challenging on many fronts.  I experienced one of those challenges this week…connectivity.  When I went to compose my post I found that my trusty MiFi wasn’t being so trusty and I couldn’t connect to the Internet to create and submit my post.  This was also a challenge we faced during NCCAT.  When creating a classroom that is technology based or flipping the classroom one of the questions you must ask is “Can my children connect?”  While it seems unthinkable that anyone is out of touch these days having taught at and been the administrator at a high poverty school I know that there are families who do not have access to the Internet.  These families don’t have Smart phones…or even phones.  And while flipping the classroom is a great way to create an atmosphere of student responsibility for learning we still have to mindful of the students that are “out of touch” with us when they go home.  How can we make sure they have access?  One of our presenters actually discussed this very topic.  Since our district is one to one it is very possible for instructors to provide recording and assignments for students to take home without having internet access…but we must be careful what the assignments are composed of so we always include the students who do not have that access.

The other challenge I face instructing teachers is helping them to truly embrace technology as a teaching tool.  When our district first went one to one I saw some AMAZING things and I saw some classrooms where the laptop simply replaced the textbook and paper and pencil.  It was merely a tool for recording information and regurgitating it back.  It is so important that technology…whether a Smart device, laptop, etc. be used to its potential and not merely to provide a different forum for consuming lectures and notes.  I challenge my teachers to NOT use Powerpoint as a presentation tool.  I challenge them to include technology in their rubrics…not just for word processing..but for research, collaboration, and creation.

I’m sure in the near future connectivity will become less of a challenge…but it will be up to educators to embrace and instruct using new technology.  We owe that to our kids!