Intellectual Character

This past summer I just completed a master's course that investigated how teachers can change or examine their own teaching culture and methods to see if intellectual character is part of their classroom.  Some of the dispositions of thinking from author Ron Ritchhart would be:

• To be open-minded - "being flexible, willing to consider and try out new ideas, generating alternative options and explanations, and looking beyond the given and expected"
• To be curious - "explore our world, to ask questions about it, and to wonder at it"
• To be metacognitive - "thinking about one's thinking"
• To be seeking truth and understanding - "weighing the evidence, considering its validity, looking for links between bits of evidence to build up a theory and then testing the theory by looking at counterevidence and alternative explanations"
• To be strategic - "planful, anticipatory, methodical, and careful in our thinking"
• To be skeptical - "probing below the surface of things, looking for proof and evidence, and not accepting things at face value"

I definitely want to develop a learning community that includes learning experiences that help my students develop these dispositions of thinking.  I will be posting this upcoming school year ideas such as teaching strategies, methods, and activities that I plan to use or used to implement these ways to think.  (If you are interested in reading more about intellectual character, read Intellectual Character by Ron Ritchhart.

Promoting and Modeling Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

"Promoting and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility" is the focus of National Educational Technology Standard #4 which boils down to this question: How do we as educators facilitate appropriate technology use? Currently, many school districts have the following to meet this standard such as: technology policies, staff, parents and students technology agreements, and software which blocks inappropriate Internet sites. However, is this enough to truly promote responsible digital citizenship? Or do we need more? As I searched the Internet for information on this topic, I found an interesting article which is part of Leading and Learning with Technology, Volume 32, Number 1, created by Mike S. Ribble, Gerald D. Bailey, and Tweed W. Ross titled simply, "Digital Citizenship." The article defines digital citizenship as "the norms of behavior with regard to technology use." Sounds simple enough, but what are the norms? Again the article lists nine areas of behavior of digital citizenship which include:

• "Etiquette - electronic standards of conduct and procedure,


• Communication - electronic exchange of information,


• Education - the process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology,


• Access - full electronic participation in society,


• Commerce - electronic buying and selling of goods,


• Responsibility - electronic responsibility for actions and deeds,


• Rights - those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world,


• Safety - physical well-being in a digital technology world, and


• Security (self-protection) - electronic precautions to guarantee safety."

The article continues with examples and strategies for each norm for behavior. This made me think as an educator am I doing enough to facilitate my students becoming responsible digital citizens? This question prompted another search for digital citizenship lesson plans--ReadWriteThink to the rescue. This online lesson plan resource, which displays plans focused on meeting standards as well as teachers' needs, had several lessons for teaching different aspects of digital citizenship. (Check it out.)

As of now, this investigation of digital citizenship continues...

Distance Learning Experience - Webinars

Have you ever thought about participating in a seminar on the Internet? If the answer was yes then webinars are for you. There are many available for educators who are trying to "model digital-age work and learning" which is the National Educational Technology Standard #3. One great website which offers webinars and more is Discovery Education. If your district subscribes to the educational resource for educators, then you may attend one-hour webinars on a variety of topics dealing with the concepts covered as part of this site.

Many school districts subscribe to the Discovery Education streaming which offers a variety of video clips to use in the classroom for all subjects. However, this is just part of the wealth of resources that this website offers. Recently participating in a webinar titled "Introduction to Discovery Education Science," I learned that districts may also subscribe to an entire curriculum on science which includes interactive activities, lesson plans, video clips, assessments, and more. The webinar used teleconferencing and the computer to support the Discovery Education host in his interactive presentation on how to use the online science curriculum. The one-hour session just "wets your whistle," but the host happily gave his email address for support when the educator goes "solo." If your district doesn't have a subscription, a 30-day trial subscription is available.

Next webinar experience...wikispaces.

Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

In today's technology-driven world, educators as well as parents are immersed in activities that required the use of technology. Our students (children) effortlessly learn to use any and all technology that is available to them; however, they seldom think about the issues that are part of using technology such as safety, legal, and ethical responsibilities. Therefore, educators need to examine and apply the National Educational Technology Standard 4 for Teachers--Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility. As most school districts these days require all staff and students to sign some type of technology responsibility agreement at the beginning of each school year, students will undoubtedly explore technology without a second thought to the agreement they signed. This could result in safety, legal, and ethical issues. Bottom line...teachers must facilitate and model guidelines and procedures for technology use in their classrooms and even outside of the classroom. One way to complete this is when students begin to use new technologies, establish appropriate guidelines, procedures, and agreements. For example as part of a sixth grade literature group collaboration, students will enrich and expand their ability to collaborate by using a wiki space through wikispaces.com. Each student and parent will be required to read and sign a technology responsibility agreement. (The agreement will be available for parents and students to download from my school web page under "Language Arts -- Downloads".) In addition, the teacher will model appropriate use of the collaborative space.

Model Digital-Age Work and Learning

The question for today's blog is: How do teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society? This question was created from the National Education Technology Standard 3 (NETS) and reveals the importance of having 21st century skills as an educator. Currently, most school districts have some digital tools, simple to elaborate, that teachers may use to communicate with students, parents, and the community. In the Lebanon City School District, students, parents, and community member may collaborate and communicate with students, parents, and teachers through the district website. The website gives information about teachers, assignments, school calendar, educational resources, etc.

If you are an educator that is without a supplied media tool, you can still create your own. Google is a website where you can create a "free" account to use for a variety of digital sources. With an account on Google you may access a Google web page, Google reader, Google calendar, as well as Google word processing. Using this website can expand your ability to communicate with co-workers, parents, students, and community.

Learning and Assessments Continued...

As one of many educators who are responsible for instruction for more than one subject, you are always looking for a balance in learning, teaching, and assessment. Furthermore, with high stake testing driving what instruction should be, it's nice to find technology that engages students and can even assist with assessment. As part of the National Educational Technology Standards--specifically NETS-T2, part b. (Develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning and assessing their own progress.), teachers need to partner technology with learning and student-monitored assessment. An interesting website that is worth investigating if you are required to teach life sciences is cellsalive.com. This website has wonderful interactive illustrations and photographs as well as assessment which students may take and "assess their progress."



In addition, to this new instructional finding for life sciences, the wikispace still seems like a great instructional tool for any subject for students to be able to monitor their progress. The search is continuing for some type of rubric website for students to use as part of the wikispace.

Designing and Developing Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

As you and your students are constantly being bombarded with the 21st century technology, you as an educator must also think about how you can develop technology within the class which will develop in you and your students those 21st century skills. Upon examining National Educational Technology Standards--standard two which focuses on: designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments seems to be a guiding point to examine. As you dissect the parts of this standard--part b. may be a very valuable to examine more closely: develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning and assessing their own progress.

How can this environment be created? For language arts, written communication is vital so the technology implemented needs to be a good fit for such in-class media resources as literature group novels, class novels, nonfiction text, magazines, newspapers, etc. So far, a wikispace seems to be a possible technology tool that students could use to "manage their own learning and assess their own progress." There is currently a wikispace that is being set-up for a sixth grade team so that students can record their path on the literature group cycle any time and it's never missed placed or lost--hopefully. As students become acustom to using the space for this assignment, additional pages on the site may be set up for other assignments. A teacher could possibly embed some type of blog which the teacher could use for a daily recap of concepts covered.

However, there is still a piece missing--assessment. However, do students get or create a digital assessment? As you investigate the technology of Internet you may find sites such as rubistar which has the technology to help a teacher create individual rubrics for any subject or topic. Further investigation of this assessment site is required to see if may be even students could some how use this site for individually-created rubrics for student-created assessment projects.