Tidbits of Information

In January, I attended a session by Hall Davidson at FETC titled "Revenge of the Digital Immigrant ". After 3 months, I remember th examples of how Davidson demonstrated that the new generation learns with shorter and shorter clips/segments of information. In order to get their point across, commercials decades ago used to be several minutes. Nowadays they only need to be a few seconds long. As teachers we also know that students will retain information better and for longer periods of time, if it administered in small doses and frequently, rather than in one chunk and in one sitting.

Recently, I have discovered Worldview for my iPhone

WORLDview for iPhone lists facts about countries around the world. Categorized by continent, view all countries or pick a random country. Find data such as the capital, continent, coordinates, basic history, important phone numbers and more.

I make it a point of reading about a random country each day. Just a quick check where it is located in the world, what its capital is and a little background information. Did you know that Sierra Leone’s capital is Freetown and is a neighboring country of Liberia in Africa? Those quick tidbits seem to be sticking well for me. I still can locate the Glorioso islands off the coast of Madagascar and Guadaloupe is an island-country not "too" far from Florida, even days after!!

Maybe we need to take more advantage of quick tidbit moments for our students and in our own learning. Maybe that is part of the power of Twitter: Short bits of information. @lbilak on Twitter has started a Spanish Tweet of the Day, which I think is a SUPER idea.

I will make it a point to post some random quick tidbits about languages and global awareness on my blog every once in a while, maybe that information will stick with someone?

Here is my first one- agotada – exhausted or feeling drained

Unwilling to Make the Effort to Learn

Nothing makes me sadder than a student who is turned off by learning. Nothing makes me madder than a capable person who is “wasting” their mind on drugs. And nothing irritates me more than a teacher who makes no effort in continuing to learn.

I understand that everyone has strengths and weaknesses in different areas. One person cannot continue to learn in ALL areas. One has to pick, choose and specialize. As an adult with a college degree, we have the liberty of the choice to never having to look at Calculus or Biology again if we chose to. I am talking about the attitude and unwillingness of some to simply refuse or not making a minimal effort to learn anything new. Even in their area of “specialty” that they chose and are teaching.

I came across Karl Fish’s blog post “Is it ok to be a technology illiterate teacher?”

If a teacher today is not technologically literate – and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more – it’s equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn’t know how to read and write.

I understand that change is hard for many people. The irony is though that there are actually teachers who are willing to put in a lot of effort and work in avoiding any change? To answer Karl Fish’s question of Is it ok to be a technology illiterate teacher?

NO, no, no, no, no. OF course it is not ok.

In order to continue learning in our age and world, you have to be able to access, evaluate, communicate, collaborate… We have to model for our students life long learning, along with the flexibility of un-learning and re-learning coupled with re-mixing by connecting our knowledge to each other (our own previous knowledge and collective global knowledge).

I am stunend when I see/feel/witness the blatant unwillingness of making an effort to learn from a TEACHER!!! A professional, who is in the business of learning and teaching others, should not be allowed to exhibit such trait.

Andrea Hernandez on EdTechWorkshop recently wrote:

Can you imagine going to a doctor or dentist who advertised themselves proudly as “doing things the same way I’ve done them for 30 years. I don’t need to use any of that state of the art equipment, no sir!” Who would go to this person? It is only in the field of education that people use this crazy line of reasoning.

Meme: Passion Quilt

Pam Shoemaker from Yes Tech! and Kevin Jarrett from NCS-Tech tagged me for this new meme, ” Passion Quilt” created by Miguel Guhlin. I am to find or create an image that captures what I am most passionate for kids to learn about.

Participating in this meme is yet another way to be challenged and to express myself in a different media. Another learning opportunity, which process I can try to transfer to my students.

Global Awareness: Different points of view and backgrounds

3 Simple Meme Rules:

• Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
• Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
• Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

I would like to know what YOU are passionate about:

• Andrea Hernandez from EdTechWorkshop
  
• Melanie Holtsman from Once Upon a Teacher
• Naomi Szoychen from Jewlearn-it
• Nancy von Wahlde from Digital Media Kids
• Chrissy from TeachingSagittarian