Reflection of Experience in TEP519

The last post...for now!

And now for something completely different...

How hard is to stay current on issues....

One of the biggest challenge for teachers (and for any professional in their area of expertise), is to stay current on issues pertaining to education. One option in the past was to subscribe to magazines dedicated exclusively to the topic of interest, in our case education. But subscribing to education magazines is expensive in the long term, and we could end up accumulating high quantities of magazines in our store room or in the garage.

As more people had access to the Internet, pages related to the topic of interest started appearing offering accurate information that barely was monitored or certified. Then the government agencies started publishing their web pages and many companies did the same too. All of them were publishing sites and software related to education available to everyone (free or would charge a fee for their services).

Nowadays, I use Social Media like Facebook and Twitter to keep me informed about topics of my interest. Many users of Facebook have created pages for all kind of topics, and it only takes a click for accessing them or leave them when it stopped to be of interest.

Twitter and Facebook have news feed, which lets me read what it is happening in real time with the pages and groups that I'm subscribed or following. For my Twitter account, I am the follower of newspapers, education and tech institutions, as well as actors, artist, music singers, groups and celebrities. It is really useful to have Twitter open in my browser and check and refresh it periodically.

To follow or friend someone in a social network, it would have to be someone who I admire and has something really important to say. There are not many out there who fall neatly in that category, and sometimes we follow persons that we admire or that have something good to say, for the main purpose of entertainment. For example, one person who is famous in youTube is Geriatric1929, the alias of Peter, an old Brit man who dos video blogging, has a lot to share and a lot of followers. Check the next video about an interview made to him in 2006.

Now the advantages of participating in a Community of Peers is that we can contact people who are in our field and share experiences and knowledge. Being in a CoP builds a sense of community and we can experiment a feedback of information that could be useful for our careers and students. On the other hand, a great disadvantage is to find a CoP where there is a self proclaimed leader who moderates the discussions and believes that is the “holder of universal truth”. When that happens, we could end up being victims of cyberbulling. If that happens, we have to be intelligent to recognize them and put distance for our well being.

Students and Education towards the future.

This time, Sean Mendoza from Antioch University gave me, as an assignment, to read the following articles:

http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/email-use-teens_n_820121.html

The first article is about the “National Education Technology Plan” presented by the Education Department in 2010. The plan is a model of learning powered by technology, with goals and recommendations in five essential areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. This plan is an answer to the demands of the global economy that is telling what people needs to know and who needs to learn.

The plan presented by the Education Department looks to change and update the education system. The plan requires to bring the best and the latest technology available inside the classroom. This plan is for all the country and the investment should be huge. Millions of dollars will be invested and the money won’t be enough, because the teachers have to be train in the use of the same technology that they’ll be using in the classroom. Realistically, one of the purposes of this plan is to make students more accustomed in the use of technologies and reduce the future cost of training. In the long term, it will be cheaper to let students learn through technology, save time and minimize the distance for those students that will have to do long-distance studies. The benefits are many and it will be cheaper for companies in the future, because the will not have to pay extra training for skills that the kids will be able to get in the classroom.

On the other hand, the article published in the Huffington Post show that teenagers are not using e-mail services frequently. Teenagers have opted to use social media like Facebook and Twitter, and the use of these applications increased when they added connectivity through the cell phones. For them using those services are cheap and quite new and attractive. Is the latest and they have to use them in order to be “in” among the classmates and friends. But this statistic does reflect the actual state of the use of applications among the teenagers of today. The teenagers of today will be adults in a couple of years and when they join the employment sector, they will have to use the tools of that age. We are living in the age of social media, but the next age of tomorrow will bring another technology. A technology that will be on fashion among the future teenagers. When I was a boy, I used to play games in the Atari, Sega and Nintendo consoles. But as I was getting older, the new games and new consoles became more complex and the demands of the daily life were getting numerous. I quit video games, and now that I see them, they are more realistic and at the same time, more violent. Those games are not for me anymore. But as an adult, I have other things and technologies that catch my attention.

Facebook groups.

Here are some Facebook groups where I participate constantly:

German Kalifornia Style

Antioch University Los Angeles - Teachers & Educational Leaders for Change (Pending approval)

See you soon!

JJ

Educators and Blogs

Professor Sean Mendoza recommended a some blogs. Those blogs are related to Education and / or some authors are teachers or work in the educational field. I believe that the main purpose of checking them out is to have some different perspectives about blogging for education. Sean asked us to visit the following blogs:

1. Natalie Munroe Article
2. http://www.henryjenkins.org/
3. http://stager.tv/blog/
4. http://www.ed.gov/blog/

Blogs are public spaces for publishing our thoughts. Since the Internet became widely used, we have only to make click on a button in order to express our opinions and feelings. Because of this, blogs are public and accessible to students, parents and the school districts. As users of blogs and social media, we have to define limits to the people that connect with us and not use them as platforms for complaining about the educational system and disclose information about our students and what happens inside the classroom.

I'll do my best to answer the following questions for my class TEP519:

1.- What responsibilities do Educators have when they blog?

The Educators need to have very clear their personal purpose of using social media, who connects with them. Blogs are open forum to express ideas. Blogs could be a very useful tool to share those ideas and even teach something to the people that reads them. A blog used to offend or complain about the meaning of life is not useful and could create unnecessary conflict.

2.- What differences are there between Dr.Jenkins and Dr. Stagger? Which perspectives do I agree with?

The blog of Dr. Jenkings has many interesting articles about social problems where education is involved, and personal articles about stuff he wants to share. His blog is very personal and it is written in a friendly way. The blog of Dr. Stagger writes articles that criticizes the Educational system, but he writes in a intelligent way and ask the right questions.

Both authors of blogs uses many resources like videos and audios, which is cool, but takes forever for the browsers to load the content of the pages. Both of them abuse posting videos and audios, which leaves users without desire of coming back to their blogs, which it is a shame, because both of them offer good articles and their opinions are well educated. Both author question the educational system in their own style and they show a good way to do it.

3.- Are the Department of Education blogs useful or informative? If not, what topics would you like to suggest?

Seems like the blog of the Department of Education is used for posting inside news, which I find them very informative but not useful. I would like to see more articles about education, tools and books for educators and articles about education from the rest of the world.

Well. That is everything for today. See you in the next post.

What I'm looking for in my TEP519 Class...

When I read that the class TEP519 was about, I got a little confused about what to expect from it. There are two key words: Technology and Education. The class is supposed to be about those two and how they are supposed to work together.

I have a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. I worked at the "Universidad Panamericana", an educational institution in Mexico too. I used to work with databases and programming languages. I worked with MOODLE, which is a open source learning system with administrative tools. I have a good idea of how Education and Computers work together.And I learned that there are two kinds of final users for educational systems: The teacher and the Student.

The teachers want reliable tools where they can create test and that allows them to keep records of students grades. The students want tools that lets them learn quickly and easy in a friendly and easy interface.

During my last quarter of the M.A. in Education at Antioch University, I learned that there are more tools for teachers to use in educating students. Social networks and sites with a lot of tools and resources available and ready to be downloaded and used.

During the years I have heard the eternal debacle about the validity of using those tools, specially the arguments that come from people that are defenders of the the traditional way of teaching and believers of the damage that computers do to kids brains. I sincerely believe that technology is a great resource to education that is in constant development and that students can get great benefits from the use of technology in their education.

From this course I expect to learn more about those tools. Learn about those tools that I haven't heard about yet. Learn more about the ones that I have heard about. Learn even more about the ones I already know. I want to learn more about long Distance Education and what other resources are used for on-line programs. I want to learn where to find them, who designs them, who approves them. I want to learn about the technical specifications about some tools. I want to learn which companies are non-profit, who are open-source and who is making a profit from creating tools for education.

Also I want to learn which tools are the best for students and why. I want to learn who approves them and the regulations, and guidelines that must to be followed to design and implement them.

I hope that in the future, joining all the knowledge that I have accumulated, I will be able to create tools for Education. I have pretty confidence that having a good knowledge about technology and learning how to be a better educator, I will be able to design and create tools for students here in California and in Mexico.

Beginning the 2012 blogging

Just starting a blog...more details soon!

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Juan Jose Colin Arciniega

Student of MA in Education, Antioch University, Los Angeles

Computer Engineer, UNAM Mexico City

Web Site ( A Cup of JJ): http://www.acupofjj.com/