Linda Loder's Posts - Classroom 2.02024-03-28T12:38:58ZLinda Loderhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/lloutbackhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1949882742?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=lloutback&xn_auth=noAnother Reason We NEED Our "Social" Toolstag:www.classroom20.com,2009-11-06:649749:BlogPost:4017032009-11-06T15:00:00.000ZLinda Loderhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/lloutback
I haven't written here in a long time, and I don't usually cross-post. But this time, it's different. Here goes:<br />
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Unless you live in a vacuum, you know what happened at Ft. Hood, Texas yesterday. Tragedy for those there, tragedy for all our military forces everywhere, as they are, truly, a band of brothers and sisters who normally trust each other with their very lives. Yesterday, that trust was betrayed.<br />
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News reports were as chaotic as the scene, as the networks struggled to fill the on-air…
I haven't written here in a long time, and I don't usually cross-post. But this time, it's different. Here goes:<br />
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Unless you live in a vacuum, you know what happened at Ft. Hood, Texas yesterday. Tragedy for those there, tragedy for all our military forces everywhere, as they are, truly, a band of brothers and sisters who normally trust each other with their very lives. Yesterday, that trust was betrayed.<br />
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News reports were as chaotic as the scene, as the networks struggled to fill the on-air time with every detail and rumor they thought confirmed. Telephone lines were jammed and cell phones could not get calls through. I tried to contact my family there and continually got the message, “No routes found,” spoken by a solemn robotic voice.<br />
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But the social networks did not fail. Twitter and Facebook lit up with messages, texting got through and the simple text, “ r u ok” was soon returned with a “yes”. Our daughter, our son-in-law soldier, their three children, all safe and accounted for. Our other family members, some also in the military far away, connected up and passed the news. Families across the country who were glued to the news and worried beyond understanding I am sure found the same thing – the Internet and the technologies that we sometimes condemn as being intrusive or not trustworthy, can provide us with the information we desperately need at the time we need it.<br />
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And so I have added another point to my growing list of reasons why I believe we have gone way overboard with our concerns on filtering, and are blocking our students and their parents from understanding exactly what is good and right about social communication tools. Sometimes, you just need to be able to go to the source and get the information you need, when you need it. It may be as simple as the response to the question, “r u ok”.A Lesson on Learningtag:www.classroom20.com,2009-02-12:649749:BlogPost:2905402009-02-12T15:23:02.000ZLinda Loderhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/lloutback
I have a grandson (actually, three grandsons and three granddaughters, but I digress already...) Grandson in the middle attends school in a large city district in another state. He called his Grandpa and me last Friday night on his own initiative; I don’t think his parents even know that he called us. He was just missing us, he said.<br />
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During the conversation, of course I had to ask how school was going. The boy just sighed. “It’s OK, but it’s getting hard. We’re practicing for the (____) test,…
I have a grandson (actually, three grandsons and three granddaughters, but I digress already...) Grandson in the middle attends school in a large city district in another state. He called his Grandpa and me last Friday night on his own initiative; I don’t think his parents even know that he called us. He was just missing us, he said.<br />
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During the conversation, of course I had to ask how school was going. The boy just sighed. “It’s OK, but it’s getting hard. We’re practicing for the (____) test, and after that we have to take this new (____) test and then the (____) test. It’s boring and it’s hard and I’m scared I won’t do so well and then I will not get to be in the (___) program anymore.” ** Of course we did the standard grandparent thing, reassuring him that of course he will do well and he shouldn’t let it worry him.<br />
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But the child is in the THIRD GRADE! Someone has already managed to scare half of the love of learning out of him already, at the age of eight. Someone has him worrying he’ll be taken out of the gifted program that he’s been in since he started school, because of the marks he may or may not receive on one of the many standardized tests his state administers every year.<br />
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The more I thought about this part of our conversation over the weekend, the madder I got! What are we doing to our children? What are we doing to our future?<br />
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We have got to stop scaring the love of learning out of our children. Children are born to learn. They don’t walk into our front doors at the age of four or five already scared to learn new things. We’ve managed to scare that out of our children ourselves.<br />
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Take a look at the spark the Pre-Ks and Ks come to school with in the fall, and then take a look at your school’s third graders. Do they have the same excitement, the love of something new? Or are they already running – or rather sitting there - scared? Listening to a teacher who is tense and scared him/herself because of the pressure of the testing program?<br />
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ENOUGH ALREADY! If I have one more teacher tell me they don’t have time to help their students stay happy and engaged because they have to teach to some test, I may have to run for the door before I say something that will get me fired. I want to be fired – fired-up about Real Learning and Real Engagement! If the kids - and maybe we educators - learned to love learning for learning’s sake, those tests would be nothing more than a slight inconvenience. Instead, we educators are allowing tests to become a deterrent to learning for both our students and ourselves. We need to quit feeling sorry for ourselves and start paying attention to Learning.<br />
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** Please excuse the (____) as the names of the tests and programs would tell you what state my grandson lives in. Fill in the name of your own local tests and gifted program – you’ll still understand what I’m talking about!I Read LOTS of Blocked Blogs! So Should YOU!tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-04-17:649749:BlogPost:1318882008-04-17T14:46:18.000ZLinda Loderhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/lloutback
The Internet world of many teachers I mentor at several different schools has been shaken up recently by the installation of “new and improved” school filtering systems. It is not the fault of these schools’ tech coordinators, who are struggling valiantly to unblock good resources and keep within the boundaries of policy and law while they are doing it. Rather, the schools have been sold services by vendors who seem to believe that the ‘read only’ web is easier to deal with in educational…
The Internet world of many teachers I mentor at several different schools has been shaken up recently by the installation of “new and improved” school filtering systems. It is not the fault of these schools’ tech coordinators, who are struggling valiantly to unblock good resources and keep within the boundaries of policy and law while they are doing it. Rather, the schools have been sold services by vendors who seem to believe that the ‘read only’ web is easier to deal with in educational settings and do not understand the learning power of Web 2.0. These new so-called 'safe and effective' filtering systems block everything related to the read/write web, leaving overworked tech support to make decisions about what to unblock, case-by-case. This takes time and many schools simply do not have enough tech support people on board to handle this. So teachers who had been using a blog site or a wiki, for instance, go to school one day with lesson plans in hand, only to find that what site worked last week is now blocked, and there may be a week or two lag time before the tech support person gets time to unblock the site. Meanwhile, student interest lags, teachers are pressured by time and curriculum, and a great project gives way to a more traditional learning environment of lecture and worksheets or paper/pen writing assignments.<br />
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Last night, trying to catch up on some blog reading of my own, I found there is a project that just recently started up to promote more informed use of school filtering systems. Using the slogan, “I Read Blocked Blogs”, a Wiki at: <a href="http://ad4dcss.wikispaces.com/I+read+blocked+blogs">http://ad4dcss.wikispaces.com/I+read+blocked+blogs</a>, and <b>“Word of Web 2.0 Tools”</b>, the word is spreading rapidly.<br />
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Think about getting involved with this yourself! I am a firm believer that over-use of a filtering system is an ineffective way to teach 21st Century Literacy Skills; skills our students and our teachers must have to be successful in today's world. We need to use the "Word of Web 2.0 Tools' effectively ourselves, and get the word out. There is power in information!Smile - You're 'Out of the Box!'tag:www.classroom20.com,2007-09-23:649749:BlogPost:518562007-09-23T16:24:53.000ZLinda Loderhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/lloutback
This note went out from a teacher at one of my project schools to another one this past Friday:<br></br><br></br>"To realize what happened with the kids during this project is awesome. Now I understand - the light has dawned. I did less work and kids did more work without complaining and learned more than I would have ever dreamed possible - on so many levels. Okay; now I am hooked - teach me how to use this stuff."<br></br><br></br>I was so lucky to see this unfold in her classes on Thursday. Students (Junior…
This note went out from a teacher at one of my project schools to another one this past Friday:<br/><br/>"To realize what happened with the kids during this project is awesome. Now I understand - the light has dawned. I did less work and kids did more work without complaining and learned more than I would have ever dreamed possible - on so many levels. Okay; now I am hooked - teach me how to use this stuff."<br/><br/>I was so lucky to see this unfold in her classes on Thursday. Students (Junior Classes) were presenting their projects, and while I was enjoying seeing their demonstrations of learning (which were quite phenomenal, BTW), what really made me excited was watching this teacher as she watched the students! You could see the light bulbs literally going off for her. She would nod to herself, smile a little, look between the students and the screen, and I just knew that she had it. Her first true "Out of the Box Experience". No stopping this teacher now. She has become a true believer in student-led, project-based, REAL Learning!<br/><br/>Nothing makes me smile more than this! I T - it's ALL about the LEARNING! <br/><br/>(Yep; this IS cross-posted from my other blog - I'm so excited I have to share it with everyone I can!)<br/>Situational Awarenesstag:www.classroom20.com,2007-05-04:649749:BlogPost:108582007-05-04T02:14:22.000ZLinda Loderhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/lloutback
My husband is a retired Air Force Master Sergeant, and even though we’re a few years out from living that wild, wonderful, crazy existence of being in the military, we have children in the military now and still try to follow what is going on in that world.<br></br><br></br>One thing that never changes is the use of Jargon. No one does it better than the United States Military. A recent quote in the newspaper, from a Major (whom we know personally) talking about a bombing error by a pilot that resulted…
My husband is a retired Air Force Master Sergeant, and even though we’re a few years out from living that wild, wonderful, crazy existence of being in the military, we have children in the military now and still try to follow what is going on in that world.<br/><br/>One thing that never changes is the use of Jargon. No one does it better than the United States Military. A recent quote in the newspaper, from a Major (whom we know personally) talking about a bombing error by a pilot that resulted in a B-52 dropping a payload of 500-pound (non-explosive) test bombs on a local reservoir, points this out vividly.<br/><br/>Instead of saying the pilot and crew of this mission made a huge mistake, the Major said the crew, “lost situational awareness.” He didn’t say SNAFUED this one – but that’s another jargon story…..<br/><br/>At any rate, this terminology, “lost situational awareness” struck me. Happens to me all the time! I get to reading something on the web, it leads me to something else, which gives me another idea, and I try something else, which takes me on to several other links and videos, and podcasts, and illustrations, and I get another brainstorm about what to do with another set of students, and on and on and on and time goes away before I know what happened! I think that, for better or worse, my brain likes hypertext mode.<br/><br/>I see this happening with our students all the time, and I see how their teachers struggle with it. We want students to pay attention to the subject, topic, question at hand, and they get off on a tangent, following one link, one topic, to another – flying around and making whatever sense they can out of the bits and pieces they find. It’s like one huge smorgasbord of information, pictures, video, sound, and you can just get so much and get off on a tangent so easily!<br/><br/>So tell me, when I lose ‘situational awareness’ and get off on one of those hypertext brain trips, am I not still learning?<br/><br/> <br/>KSDE Conferencetag:www.classroom20.com,2007-04-27:649749:BlogPost:83602007-04-27T02:07:36.000ZLinda Loderhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/lloutback
I'm spending today and tomorrow and the KSDE State Conference in Wichita. Wesley Fryer did a great session today revolving around web 2.0 issues - cyberbullying, blogging, social networking and the issues those present to schools.<br/>One comment he made that really sums up what we're trying to do if we are traching kids the 21st century skills they truly need: How do we teach kids to be their own filter? <br/>
I'm spending today and tomorrow and the KSDE State Conference in Wichita. Wesley Fryer did a great session today revolving around web 2.0 issues - cyberbullying, blogging, social networking and the issues those present to schools.<br/>One comment he made that really sums up what we're trying to do if we are traching kids the 21st century skills they truly need: How do we teach kids to be their own filter? <br/>Checking out the grouptag:www.classroom20.com,2007-04-18:649749:BlogPost:59542007-04-18T02:46:12.000ZLinda Loderhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/lloutback
OK, now that was fun. I just went through the members list and invited as 'friends' everyone I knew either from prior work experiences, or from reading their blogs quite religiously! <br/>Looking forward to the sharing and the learning!<br/><br/>
OK, now that was fun. I just went through the members list and invited as 'friends' everyone I knew either from prior work experiences, or from reading their blogs quite religiously! <br/>Looking forward to the sharing and the learning!<br/><br/>