Technology in Education: Notes from the Closet

This is a copy of my final reflection as a Columbia College T.E.A.M. Fellow: You Mean There is More?! I’ve been in education now for twenty years.  Rather uniquely, all twenty years at the same school,  May Community Academy .  This is my last year at “May”.  I use quotations because my school is being  shuttere d .  The building may remain but the faculty and name will change (if you are interested in hearing my thoughts about that I’ll be blogging about it another day  here ).  I spent my first fifteen years doing the same thing: teaching 4 th  grade.  Even though the general content remained the same every year I worked just as hard to learn new methods of madness that would hold my students’ interests and to stay current with best practices. After 4 th  grade I became the Lead Technology Teacher for May. This job was loaded; I was charged with helping teachers integrate technology, maintaining the building’s techn...

During the week of March 11, 2013 I had a chance to attend the DML2013 conference at the Sheraton in Chicago, Illinois.  This was my first time at this conference, thanks to my f ellowship with T.E.A.M . at Columbia.  It was different from any other conference I’ve attended.  Named “Digital Media and Learning” I had expectations of teachers speaking of digital projects.  No so.  The theme of this year’s DML was “ Democratic Futures : Mobilizing Voices, and Remixing Youth Participation ”.  It focused more on social justice and youth civics. It wasn’t necessarily a practitioner’s conference (at least in the sense I was used to).  It was refreshing to spend time in a forum like this.  My greatest “take-away” was that there are numerous organizations out there advocating for our youth.  As an educator this was inspiring as well as comforting.  Some of the organizations I learned about are listed below. ...

Image source:  http://schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us/oak/2013/01/27/survey/ Survey Says..... This week our voice will be heard!  Students have been asked to give their opinion for a couple of different projects this week (and part of last week and next week).  Here is the lowdown: May Community Academy Culture Survey Mr. Hetrick, our Dean of Students has asked that staff members and students take a school culture survey.  Almost all of the classrooms in grades 2-8 have participated.  If you have not done so yet you can get to the survey here .  If you are not a May school member please don't take the survey!  I'll report out the findings in a future blog post. My Voice-My Vote Survey Seventh graders in room 303 continue to work on their T.E.A.M . project with Krista .  Last week four of the students worked together to create a video that explained their infographic.  After viewing the video students were asked to take t...