New Teacher?! Read these articles for helpful hints!!

I recently read two articles:

"9 great reasons why teachers should use Twitter"
"Don't eat lunch alone"

they are so practical and useful for us teachers in training!

I thought 9 great reasons...was wonderful; each reason is explained in one or two paragraphs so its nice and concise yet very informative.  Not yet have I made connections that I feel comfortable using for my teaching benefit so I think that using Twitter to get honest feedback from collegues is amazing!!! I have not done student teaching yet although I am participating in a local high school several times a week, doing observations and helping out in the afterschool program, so I need all of the advice I can get.  Networking in this manner, where the character number is limited, provides honest (hopefully!) and direct feedback to whatever question I may pose.  I really look forward to using Twitter as an idea's workshop like Laura Walker suggested.  Having access to other teachers' ideas about lessons can only assist me to broaden how I perceive and present lessons once I have a classroom of my own.

While I enjoyed Laura Walker's blog, it did not provide information about how to go about finding teachers to follow; this is where Richard Byrne's article comes in.  He actually posted two power points to his blog which include practical advice, almost step by step, to follow teachers! This is the type of information I need since I for some reason am not very computer savvy.  (Although, I must say that I am beginning to feel like a pro with blogging!!)  The focus of this article was developing a personal learning network which I think is an amazing idea.  How better to settle into teaching than with support of people who are already doing it?! It takes me a bit to open up to people enough to ask for help with certain things, I feel that this tool would work amazingly well for me, especially while I am trying to gain some confidence in a school as a new teacher.

Encouraging Childhood Literacy-->a phenomenal tool discovered through Gooogle Reader!!

There is an International Children's Digital Library!! I learned about this wonderful tool on Google Reader; the post is called Read Free Online Books at the International Children's Digital Library.  The author is Wesley Fryer and his blog is Moving at the Speed of Creativity.  Countless digital books with beautiful pictures are available to read.  I think this could prove to be an excellent tool for the ESL classroom if technology is availble since there are books in a variety of languages.  Literacy in one's first language encourages literacy in the second and if this tool can help we as educators should embrace the opportunity. 
Not only does this website offer opportunities for literacy, it also provides students with choices to encourage independence and confidence.  Languages, content, length and pictures are just a few decisions the students will be able to make independently while still reinforcing the importance of language and reading.

Ning.com--who knew?!

So, when I realized that one of the objectives for this week was to go to Ning.com and search groups to join I was unable to see the benefits of this task.  Not even one.  Well, I was completely wrong!  I did have some difficulty navigating the site initially; prompts were repeatedly popping up whenever I wanted to view something.  Finally, I simply clicked on links for individual networks after perusing an extensive and long list.  Some that I viewed are the following: Classroom 2.0,  EFL Classroom 2.0, Teachers Using Message Boards or Blogging, Professional Development

I was apprehensive about following the link to the EFL classroom simply because I am interested in ESL and while there are similarities, I was concerned about the numerous differences.  If anyone else is feeling this way, ignore it! This group is fantasic--so here is the link again.  EFL Classroom 2.0 

Professionals in the ESL & EFL fields actively participate in discussions and post links to relevant issues.  Along the side there are options to view daily lessons, "lessons in a can," an English tutor (how helpful is that for ESL students?!) and even study music!!  We as ESL educators can gradully introduce our students to this technology; they can access all of these tools and blog about any issues they may be facing during the second language acquisition process or any thoughts they may have.  I highly reccommed this site despite my initial hesitancy.  If nothing else, sign up to the network and see what I'm talking about first hand.

A learner is like being a switchboard operator!

A learner today is like being a switchboard operator of the 20th century.  Switchboard operators continuously made and forged connections between people, ideas and therefore networks.  In the 21st century, students are relentlessly making connections between their previous experiences and new ones; alterations of schema is a result.  The wires that would be plugged into the switchboard can be the equivalent of relationships between humans and others as well as their surroundings; conversations are representations of the transmission of knowledge.

The changing nature of knowledge is based upon the basis of connectivism in the learning environment; the man discussing the topic is Siemens, the developer of the connectivism theory.  In this YouTube excerpt, Siemens actually states that "the learners themselves, the connections they form with each other, the connections that they form with databases, other sources of knowledge, is really the primary point of learning so in essence the network becomes the learning."  In his article explaining the differences between connectivism and other prominent, yet according to Siemens,outdated, theories evident proof exists to support my notion of a learner equaling a switchboard operator.  Click here to read the article in full.

"Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing" (Siemens, 2005).  I believe that the network referred to is actually the interconnections that exist between humans and all of their surroundings.  It appears to be the case that Siemens has actually integrated some of the sociocultural theory into his connectivism theory in that Vygotsky claimed that humans learn through all interactions between the self and the environment.