I am ready, I am just waiting...

Now that I have learnt how to use this blog, it is appropriate that I should use it accordingly. I have just been reading a blog called "Moving at Speed" by Wesley Fryer. It is a great blog that has made me reflect once again, about engaging my students in this 21st century that we live in.

A recent post about "Don't hold your breath" really hit home. How many teachers are really embracing technology and what it can do for us and our students?

Now I would first like to take my hat off to primary school teachers – especially those who are the ones who have recently been teaching me how to improve my own teaching pedagogy. I am a secondary school teacher, and I think we have got a lot to learn. Too often, I think we hide behind the fact that we are bogged down with getting students ready for assessments and exams, we don’t have time to play around with “stuff.” I know I have done that's for sure.

Yes I agree, we shouldn’t just be playing around, but the future of our students is at stake here. They are the ones we are preparing for the future, and it is their future, not ours. (I am sure you have heard that before!!)

I have spent the holidays glued to my laptop, and enjoying every minute of it. Have I had a holiday – well if you could see the smile on my face as I rattle of the things I have been learning, then you would see that it has been a very fun, and exciting educational holiday sitting in the sunshine, kittens to my side, playing on the computer!!

I have been working on my wiki sites so that my students can use these in class and in their own time. I suppose it has been like creating a web quest or an intranet that is public?? But the thing for me, is that my own learning, knowledge, understanding etc etc has increased dramatically over the last two weeks.

We do not get the newspaper, or watch the news, or listen to the radio, so I would have to admit to being a teacher who (until this week) would have been completely oblivious to what was happening in the world and New Zealand. However, with the integration of RSS feeds throughout my wiki pages on relevant topics, I now know at least what the headlines are!!! And I even read the ones that interest me.

I suppose the greatest thing about these holidays has been the time to just sit back and surf what is around. I have been checking out other teachers and education sites to see what they are up to and see how they are overcoming the challenges that I know that I am going to face. My Geography knowledge has increased ten-fold as i have built a wiki based just on Geography, and this can surely only benefit the kids; as I find out more, and find the places that they can learn the best from, then they are going to get more out of it as well.

I now have wikis for my classes with links to the web, RSS feeds, podcasts from other teachers, relevant videos, self made cartoons. I have a blog for the kids to comment on things and publish their work, and I have blogs for their class notes, so what am I waiting for…?

Well I am stuck between the expectation of using what I have learnt to improve my teaching practice and the fact that the technology simply does not exist in my classroom or the school for that matter.

I have my laptop, two data projectors to be shared between 6 classrooms, and one computer room that is almost fully booked. But I have got to a point where I don’t want to take the kids to the computer room, I "just" need a computer for each group so that they can work through the work at their own speed, collaborating together as they go, arguing, reflecting, justifying, teaching each other things and then clarifying from me as they need to. I hear you asking - why not use text books - well yes, that would be okay if they were actaully up todate!! Books cost money and they are out of date even before they went to print. When the kids use the web, we need to teach them to verify information, and identify the bias that is presented. They have to remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and then create!! This is by far more powerful than a text book, which gets taken for truth, despite the fact that it may tell you that Pluto is a planet. (This of course is from a Geography and Social Studies perspective. English - YES I STILL THINK WE SHOULD READ NOVELS and so on!!)

So I am ready, I am just waiting!! I wonder how long I will have to wait? just to provide a platform that makes sense and is what is expected!!!!