Thursday 30 October 2014

Drowning, not waving!

Tomorrow, Connected Educator Month draws to a close and the Unconnected Educator is a little more connected.  To be honest, I haven't been able to keep up with the starter kete, try as I might.  With a new job to prepare for (in a school which seems to be more connected than the one I'm leaving), a shift of city to organise, three classes of boys to prepare for NCEA - yes, they're all just excuses.

So what progress have I made on my 7 embarrassing admissions from the start of the month?
1. The Nokia brick is gone.  My students have asked if we can throw it from our first floor window to see what sustains more damage: the phone or the concrete below.  I've bought an iPhone and I'm in serious 'like' (my husband tells me it's wrong to 'love' a phone).  I've used it in class.  Now that the boys are over the fact the brick is dead, we can actually use the phone as a tool.  Today we checked out the veracity of a facebook claim by referencing it against news websites, I've recorded speeches for moderation and I can get my work emails courtesy of an app.  I don't miss the brick.
2 and 3. My school issued laptop has been well-used to work through the #cenz14 starter kete tasks.  I've been into the land of the google doc, visited lots of edublogs, tweeted, sat in on a webinar.  Next, I'm going to try and take a dip in the POND.
4. Interactive whiteboard has been used - but only for re-visiting films in preparation for NCEA visual text exam.  Oops.
5. I've stopped playing Candy Crush on the iPad.  Now that I've got a decent phone, my two boys have taken over the iPad.  Oh, and I've got Candy Crush on the phone.  And Pet Rescue Saga.  And a Smurf Village.  
6. My work environment is still not a vision of 21st century learning - but that was hardly going to change during #cenz14 when I seemed to be the only person at school who a) knew about it or b) was zealous about it.  A couple of my students found me on twitter and have started following - apparently I'm boring because every tweet is to do with #cenz14.
7. I now have a bit of understanding about web 2.0 and I'm determined to become a connected educator.

Back to my metaphor from my first post - am I still the teaching equivalent of a Nokia brick?  Reliable but with limited capablities?  No.  I'm now an iPhone (probably a really early model - like a 3 - definitely not a 4, 5 or 6!), fresh out of the box, with so much capability to be explored.  Just like an iPhone, I won't be able to do everything at once.  I'll need to download things, connect, sign up for things.  And just like an iPhone is no good unless someone learns how to use all that it can offer, I also will need to learn all that this connected education world can offer. 

No comments:

Post a Comment