LAI 590

I had never heard of the concept of "Digital Natives" and "Digital Immigrants" until this module's readings. The second I started reading Marc Prensky's articles though, the whole idea clicked and actually made sense. Digital natives are those who have lived their whole lives surrounded by technology. Digital immigrants are those who have adopted technology and it's language later in their lives. I would consider myself a digital immigrant. I still remember growing up when my family got dial-up internet. My sister and I thought it was the coolest thing. I also remember having a MySpace profile, something that is completely irrelevant now. The first iPod that I got for Christmas--it was a brick compared to the iPod's children have today. All of these things may date me (even though I am only 23!) but I have adopted the new ways of technology and forced myself to learn them. Gee uses the word "practice" to explain how immigrants can learn th...

The concept of a flipped classroom seems scary. Students doing the "lecture" portion at home and homework portion at school seems crazy, but it works. John Graney perfectly describes a flipped classroom setting in his article, Flipping Your EL Classroom: A Primer . He says "Learners gain control over their learning." I am a firm believer in that statement. When I first heard about the idea of a flipped classroom, I too, thought it was crazy and could never work. Once I was able to observe a flipped classroom in action though, I realized that by allowing students to do the "more cognitively demanding activities in class", the teacher was able to reach all students where they needed help most. It should not be assumed that students can go home and complete homework in a proficient manner. Not all students will be proficient. In my class, that statistic is closer to 25% proficiency at the end of a lesson. With a large ELL population, my students require more....

The more I delve into the world of social media and technology, the more I realize how much it can improve my classroom and also me as a teacher. At first, the thought of live tweeting from my Kindergarten classroom seemed silly. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my students do amazing things throughout the day but often get no recognition for it. Twitter could serve as that form of recognition and also a way to share information about my classroom and our school. Alan November and Brian Mull perfectly define Twitter as being "an organizational structure that makes it an effective tool for connecting with students and others online". Both authors go on to discuss how the use of a hashtag has changed the world. Just the other day, I used twitter hashtags to find out more about an educational program my school is considering. I was greeted with several thousand tweets about the program, many of which contained articles attached. Not only was I able to...

I had never heard of ePals until this module. When I first explored the site, I was amazed. I had no idea that a site that allows educators to connect and students to complete global projects like this, existed. My current classroom population is very diverse. ePals would give my students an opportunity to connect with students from their native country and learn more about their culture. My favorite project that I learned about is the Pen Pal Exchange. Last year my students were pen pals with a soldier in Kuwait, but it became difficult to send and receive mail. The ePals program connects students with other students their age around the globe. I would use this project in collaboration with my Step Up To Writing Assignments. My students work on writing all year long but never have the opportunity to apply it something unique and different. It is always the same few district approved assignments. I like the idea that the Pen Pal Exchange program would not only meet the Step Up To W...

When I first thought about this analogy, I was lost. Today's learner is not typical. Today's learner is evolving and thinking in ways never possible before. The more I thought about my students in my classroom and myself as a graduate student now, a learner is like a flower. I chose to a flower because flowers are always growing and also dying and evolving into something new. In George Siemens article "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age" , Gonzalez says: "The 'half-life of knowledge' is the time span from when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago." I felt that this quote perfectly described today's society and also today's learner. We are constantly evolving and changing what we know and the way we learn so that we can keep current. For example, I just attended a training on using my Promethean Board last year. I just received an email that the software has ch...