Quote - Page 54. "Blogs are a medium for learning, but they do not teach. Rather, they generate the space for a collective to emerge." I choose this quote because while blogs and forums provide a digital collective for students to collaborate using technology, they do not replace the value of face-to-face interactions that we provide in the classroom. Giving students access to an online blog is just one aspect of creating a new culture of learning in our classrooms. This online space for our students forces them to really think about what they are putting out there because everyone will be able to view it, and provide feedback, not just their teacher.
Question: When creating this collective, such as an online blog, for a high school class, do you open this blog up to the public or keep it a closed community? I know that having multiple views and opening it up to the public is beneficial but are there risks for opening it up to the public? Do the benefits outweigh the possible negatives?
Connection: I definitely see a connection with this book and all the classes that we have taken so far at CSUSM. We have had many opportunities to comment and receive comments from our peers through our own personal blogs, Edmodo (for science methods) and through class specific Cougar Courses online forum. Through these sites I have received a lot of feedback from my peers and professors, most all of it has helped me grow and mature as a science educator. I am very appreciative of the time that each of my classmates and professors takes to respond to one of my posts and I see this interaction as an extension of our "regular" class day and therefore continues my learning beyond the CSUSM campus.
Epiphany/Aha: After reading this chapter I am even more motivated to create a blog on my website for my students so extend and expand their learning in my chemistry call through. I want my students to have that same excitement that I have had in the past receiving feedback on my own posts. I want to create a learning experience for my students where they can authentically learn from one another using a medium other than traditional paper assignments that only I review.
Chapter 5
Quote: Page 57. "Collectives are not simply new forms of public spaces. They are built and structured around participation and therefore carry a different sense of investment for those who engage in them." I choose this quote because simply creating an online blog or forum is not enough, it needs to have participation and activity for it to be both useful and meaningful to our students and their learning.
Question: Do you agree with that authors when they say, "almost every difficult issue we face today is a collective, rather than a personal problem?" Why or why not?
Connection: I definitely see a connection with this chapter and my class work at CSUSM. Many times throughout the semester we have been placed in groups to complete projects, IEP Meeting, ITU Website, just to name a few. There is no question that collectively the product is better than what I could have done individually. While completing these projects we were collaborating and communicating all of our ideas and thoughts into a product that usually far surpasses what I had expected the outcome to look. I agree with this chapters message that collectively we work better than individually.
Epiphany/Aha: It is very true when we were told as children that learning never ends. I believe this concept to be even more true today with the power of the internet and online forums/blogs where people can come together and learn from one another. This online or virtual collective world does not replace that face-to-face interaction. But one thing these online collective have provided us is a common place where people can learn what they want, how they want to at whatever time is best for their lives and this is the power of the internet.
Chapter 6
Quote - Page 77 "It's not about being taught knowledge; it is about absorbing it. Memorizing facts is just that memorizing, if this information goes unused it will be forgotten in as little as a day or two. If we as educators shift our classroom from memorizing to application of the knowledge so it is meaningful to each of our students we can help each of them to absorb it. This transferring of knowledge from teacher to student is not how they learn. Students learn by doing. They learn from their mistakes and failures much more than their successes.
Question: How do I know if I'm balancing my classroom with both explicit and tacit knowledge for my students to understand and absorb the chemistry content?
Connection: I know the directions are to make a connection with our classes at CSUSM and although I could easily do that but after reading this chapter I could not help to think of my children, especially my youngest. She is so set in her ways, she wants what she wants now! That I totally had to reconstruct my parenting around her learning style (which is much different than my older child) which simply stated, she needs to try it for herself and create an authentic experience that is related to her. For example. Whatever my husband and I are eating my 2 year old wants to eat. My husband and I like very spicy food. About a year ago my two year old insisted that she wanted to eat our spicy food after many times of telling her it is spicy and will burn her mouth. She was basically throwing a fit, so I gave her some...try it for yourself and you will see. Sure enough she did not like it, but she needed to determine that on her own. Me simply telling her it was spicy was not enough for her. She needed her own experience to create a spicy or not spicy conclusion. After all she was only about 1 at the time and probably had no idea what the word "spicy" meant.
Epiphany/Aha: I never thought of my connection as me as a parent I was passing along my prior knowledge to my daughter about the food being spicy. The problem is my 2 year old had not yet experience what spicy means, I was trying to transfer my experiences onto her...which did not work for her, she was not at all happy with that. It wasn't until she tried the spicy food herself that she then determined for herself (not because I told her) that she did not like the food because it was too spicy. She created her own experience and now has something to pull from. This exact same situation applies to our students, they need to experience the academic content themselves to really learn their own meaning and understanding...just exactly like my 2 year old.