Open Access in Teaching and Learning Communities

     This week, I'm posting on another topic that I find incredibly important as a future educator. Creating online communities that promote open access to others are something that can be beneficial to us as consumers. They are also a place where we can benefit others by putting in our own input on topics and concepts. By participating in this culture of open access, we can become better educators and find ways to help our students to learn in the best way possible. The better we are at sharing our information, the better we can become at teaching.

     In order to capture the spirit of open, networked, and participatory communities in our learning environments, we need to teach students a multitude of things. Dr. Alec Couros provided a lecture in which he gave us a list of things to keep in mind when talking about open educational resources and online communities. The first concept is that we need to embrace and model connected literacies. In order to participate in social media and other outlets, we need to understand how these outlets really work. Being able to use the hashtag on Twitter can improve your experience with the website. Secondly, we need to critically select and analyze information that we find on the web. Next. we should connect, consume, create, remix, and share. By participating in each of these steps, we can create and participate in an online culture. We also need to be sure to help our students understand the online culture and their digital identity. The last major point Dr. Couros made in his lecture is that we all need to be active and socially conscious online. We are connecting to people and not to technology. I encourage you to follow Dr. Couros on Twitter in order to stay current on open networking and other education topics.

     Incorporating open access in the classroom should be a smooth transition. At the current moment, we need to continue to follow state standards for teaching while also adding online resources for education. Using learning communities can help better us as teachers, by giving us more resources for lesson plans. Students should also be taught about open educational resources and ways that they can improve upon their learning experience. Overall, I think that the more we incorporate technology in the classroom, the better reception we will have from students.

     My hope for the future is that OERs will be used in the classroom. The K-12 OER Collaborative is working towards developing open educational resources to be used in the classroom. This would include comprehensive instructional materials, assessments, and other online ways to improve comprehension for students. Websites like Open Educational Resources: Share, Remix, Learn have fantastic resources for teachers to use in the classroom. The website includes tutorials, interactive labs, and other resources that can be used to improve my teaching and hopefully aid in the students learning process.

     By having an interactive community that shares information, we can gain knowledge from anyone, anywhere, and anytime! We can Skype with people from another country. We can watch videos to gain insight on other cultures. We can look at Instagram to see pictures of people across the world. The internet makes learning opportunities endless. As long as we teach students how to properly use all of this technology, the future of learning is bright.

     I think that textbooks will be used much less, if they are used at all. I think some students prefer learning out of a textbook, so textbooks or online books should still be available for use. However, I think that the majority of students will comprehend information better when it isn't in the traditional textbook format.

     Let me hear your thoughts! As always, I'm open for discussion.

How Sharing can Improve Teaching and Learning

This week I’m reflecting on the importance of sharing my thoughts, opinions, and ideas with others. Teachers and leaders have many different outlets for sharing with others. Things like posting on others blogs, writing reviews, and commenting on posts are a small way that we can present our opinions and start a line of communication with others. We also can begin the sharing process by creating blogs, posts, and posting on social media websites.

    I think that when it comes to deciding what to share and not to share, there are a few rules to follow. First, it is important to make sure that when commenting on someone else’s post, you do not use any negative wording or hurt the person’s feelings. We can express our feelings without hurting someone else’s. Second, our posts and thoughts should portray ourselves in a positive, professional manner. Foul language and incorrect spelling/ grammar should be avoided. Lastly, we should try to educate our audience when posting.

We need to keep in mind that there are a few things to teach students “off stage” in order to prevent their failures being highlighted instead of their successes. We need to teach them to use proper writing and to check their facts before posting online. We also need to make sure students understand that things they post online can be seen by anyone. We should also promote a positive online culture. Negative or derogatory posts online should not be allowed.

    It’s important to keep in mind that sharing doesn’t always have to be online. We can share ideas face to face. Being face to face limits the number of people that you can share with, but it can still be effective. We can open up a line of conversation that can lead to new knowledge and thoughts on different topics.

    I personally feel that sharing “everything” isn’t always a positive thing. By oversharing, people may lose interest in your social media and unfollow you. We should try to share our successes and failures when it comes to teaching, but we don’t want to give every detail of our lives over social media.

    I hope that by sharing my thoughts online, I can create a personal learning network. By having other individuals to share my thoughts with and bounce around ideas, I have a larger chance of learning what works best in my classroom. Seeing what works for others and what doesn’t may help to improve my own lessons and teaching methods. By sharing what works for me and what doesn’t, I open a line of communication with others to positively comment and share their thoughts.

    Many individuals believe that all writing on the internet should be formal and error free. I understand the thought behind this statement, but I think that we need to really evaluate sources before believing what we read. As the reader, we have the responsibility to double check facts before passing them on. It is important to remember that everything that you read on the internet is not true. I do feel that when I am personally posting, it is important to be as formal and error free as possible.

    When posting online, we should try to promote transparency. Making sure others check their facts before posting and teaching our children how to properly check sources is very important. Also encouraging students to be transparent in their writing can be important in teaching future generations how best to post online. Students should be accountable for what they post on the internet, and they should be ready to communicate with others about their post.

    What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you feel that we have a responsibility to share with others? What are your favorite online platforms to share posts? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions with me.

Introduction to Myself and My Experience with Technology

Hi! My name is Kailey. I’m currently a Graduate student at The University of Akron. I am working on my Masters of Science in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Life Science and Earth Science. My goal is to become a Junior High/ High School Science teacher. I am passionate about science and I hope to pass my love of the field down to my future students. My background is in Exercise Science, so my teaching experience is limited. I am a very open-minded individual, and enjoy hearing others’ viewpoints on different topics. I enjoy meeting new people and having good conversation. As for my worldview, that is something that is constantly changing. I’m learning new information every single day. I haven’t traveled much outside of the United States, which is one of my major goals in life. I think by doing so, I can expand my view of the world that we live in even more.

I currently use Facebook and I have a LinkedIn account. I also recently joined Twitter as well. I try to represent myself as a young professional with my social media. I also use social media for picture sharing and for communication purposes. I think as a future educator, it is important to portray ourselves as professionals when using public social media.

I read two different articles in order to see how teenagers feel about social media in the classroom. The first, “My Favorite Teachers Use Social Media: A Student Perspective”, gives the perspective of a new high school Freshman. One major point he brings up is that social media and school are two completely separate topics. Students are very interested in social media, while not so interested in school. By combining the two, we can hopefully engage students more. By doing things such as posting homework assignments to Instagram, having students create a Facebook page for a character in a story, etc. we can attempt to make social media a part of students education.

The second article that I read, “A Teenager’s View on Social Media”, broadened my horizons on the technology used by the younger generation. If you aren’t familiar with all of the social media that is available these days, I would definitely recommend visiting the link given below to brush up on new technology available. Staying current on social media is important for me, as I hope to incorporate it into my classroom. Reading articles written by students and just talking to students about new social media can help us to stay current.

I think that technology, when used correctly, can be very useful in the classroom. Social media is something that almost all kids use nowadays. By connecting with them on social media, we can have a more open line of communication as well as open many doors for additional learning. I feel that kids feel more comfortable asking questions on social media than they do over e-mail. With the help of this blog, my goal is to learn additional ways to incorporate social media and technology into my classroom.

I hope to learn and also to help educate others by using this blog. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post or to e-mail me at kailey.kyser@gmail.com.