Education Pioneers Info Session at TC

If you are coming across my blog you might be interested in k-12 education. Last summer, I participated in a program called Education Pioneers - it is a fellowship for graduate students interested in k-12 urban education reform. During the fellowship, students are placed with "Partner organizations" such as the NYC DOE, charter schools, non-profits, etc. There is an information session in November at TC for anyone interested in participating next summer:

Interested in learning how to apply your passion and skills to transform urban public education? Need help navigating your post-graduate school career plans? Education Pioneers Fellows Program is a full-time, ten-week summer program where talented graduate students in business, education, law, policy, and other disciplines intern with effective schools, districts, and education organizations and train under existing education leaders. Over the course of the summer, Fellows work on challenging projects for Partners to gain practical experience and convene as a cohort for five training sessions, two retreats, and regular networking events. Through the Fellows Program, Education Pioneers provides high-achieving graduate students with a transformational summer experience in education reform that enables them to build a professional network, study key leverage areas in education reform from a multi-disciplinary perspective, and apply their skills to drive systemic change. Education Pioneers currently runs the Fellows program in the Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington D.C.

An information session about the Education Pioneers Fellows Program will be held Tuesday Novermber 13^th from 4:00 – 5:00 PM at 543 Grace Dodge Hall.

More info about Education Pioneers can be found at: www.educationpioneers.org

Finally narrowing down my research question

After doing a great deal of research in e-journals to try to find literature that answers, or contributes to the questions that I stated below, I am redirecting my literature review from focusing on k-12 students to focusing on k-12 teachers. There is a great deal of research out there on online teacher communities, and teacher professional development that I find really interesting. I'm going to focus on teachers' perceptions of online collaboration and learning communities, and how that might impact their attitudes toward using interactive technology with their own students.

For my article presentation this week, I am going to critique...
Ikpeze, C. (2007) Small group collaboration in peer-led electronic discourse: an analysis of group dynamics and interactions involving preservice and inservice teachers. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education. 15(3), pp. 383-407.

Further refining research questions... and a point of disagreement...

A few weeks ago, we were asked to reflect on a part of the readings that we disagreed with. Since I did not write about a point of disagreement then, I'll do that this week. In Jankowski's chapter, he discusses the nature of online communities and how they differ from geographically local communities. Jankowski quotes Stone (1991) in defining virtual communities as "incontrovertibly social spaces in which people still meet face-to-face, but under new definitions of both 'meet' and 'face'..." (p. 62). I disagree with the notion that virtual communities are redefining 'meet' and 'face.' I think of communities as having varying degrees of locality, and varying degrees of commitment from members. Neither of these characteristics (locality and commitment) are binary - meaning a community does not have to be either local or virtual, it could be both. However, I think a community's location on the spectrum helps to define it. Many communities have a mixed structure of face to face interactions and virtual interactions. I do not think virtual communities redefine "face." Even though virtual spaces have provided new ways for people to connect across geographies while still having a presence, there is still a unique quality of face to face interactions that cannot be replicated on virtual spaces. Just my opinion. Even though we have amazing communication tools, people still value face to face interactions. It's just not the same face online.


I'm still working on my research question for the final paper. This week I have explored articles using key words such as: social schools classroom education technology laptop handhelds.... you can see where I am going. Reading such a variety of research has helped me to see what is out there for my lit review. I'm going to continue exploring and I am hoping to pick an article tonight.

Findings.....
Bielaczyc, K. (2006) Designing social infrastructure: critical issues in creating learning environments. The Journal of Learning Sciences. 15(3)

Levin, T. Listening to students' voices on learning with IT in a rich technology-based classroom. Journal of Educational Computing Research. 34(3)

Parks, Huot, Hammers, and Lennonier. (2003) Crossing boundaries: Multimedia technology and pedagogical innovation in a high school class. Language, Learning and Technology. 7(1)

Emerging themes

This week's blog assignment is slightly different- we are starting to focus more on emerging themes in our blog reflections and our research question(s).

Sarah asked: (1) What are some of the themes that seem to be emerging from your thoughts? In other words, are there topics/ideas that keep popping up in what you're writing?

As I look back through my blog, a few themes are apparent:

• teacher identity online
• student identity online
• internet safety
• social networking sites
  
• affordances of new media
• impact on learning
• impact on community & social relationships
• interactive and individualized learning experiences
  
• community
• online vs. offline

(2) Based on this, have your questions changed at all from the ones you listed in the first blog post?

Here are my current 3 questions:

1. How can I as an ed. tech. work with teachers to reveal the affordances of various new technologies?
2. How can the flexibility of time and space afforded by CMC positively impact learning experiences for children?
3. How does technology impact the social arrangements of a classroom or school?

Looking at these themes and my original questions, I have a few new thoughts about my research questions. First, there seems to be an emerging theme of affordances, and the interaction of technology, and environment. I need to think some more about the elements of environment that I wish to explore. Second, the concept of "community" is prevalent throughout my reflections. Perhaps I need to think some more about what makes communities different from each other, and how that might impact how technology is used within the community. Third, I think I am struggling with how to relate the broad topics we have discussed in class my specific interest - the role of technology in k-12 schools.

One of my original questions was "How does technology impact the social arrangements of a classroom or school?" Sarah and I discussed ways that I could refine this question to support a literature review. I need to think about how I want to define "social arrangements" in schools - for example, student/teacher heirarchy, ways and means of communication, or professional relationships among teachers. An additional way to refine my question would be to focus on one technology and how it impacts social structure of schools. Lots to think about....

Identity

As I explored the topic for this week, I wondered about the relationship between online persona and real life identities. Thomas compares the computer screen to a mirror - claiming that girls strongly identified with their avatars and created an online presence that represented their own fantasies and desires. I really liked this metaphor and it strongly influenced my perception of the other readings for this week.

I have had the amazing opportunity this semester to work in an all-girls independent school in Manhattan. This morning, I attended an Internet Safety information session for parents. There was a huge turnout. Most of the conversation was about how to ensure that their daughters had a healthy online presence - that they understood the connection between how they represented themselves online and their real life identity, and that they appropriately balanced the time they spent online and off. One parent said that she has not yet allowed her middle school daughter to use IM because it distracts from her homework, but she has heard that this is how the girls meet boys in the nyc independent school community. Ah-HA - The exchange of IM names is their version of exchanging phone numbers, except the act of IMing is much different than talking on the phone from a parent's perspective. Hmmm... This made me think about these girls identity development. Since much of an adolescent's development is tied to how she experiments with peer relationships, ICT has become an important (crucial?) medium for identity development within this community of adolescents.

One of my original research questions was "how does technology impact the social arrangements of a classroom or school?". I had another ah-ha moment related to this question and identity when I read this blog post from Konrad Glogowski last week. As a teacher, Konrad has decided to keep a personal blog to share with his students that will not be related to coursework. Insead, he will share his ideas about current events, books, and his own interests. I think this is a wonderful approach to share his identity with his students but also model how he shares this identity online.



Thomas, A. (2004). Digital Literacies of the Cybergirl. E-Learning, Volume 1, No. 3.