Assignment #1: First Blog Post-Intro & POV on 21st C Education

Aloha and Welcome

This is how I roll...on my BlogSpot! Come on in as I begin sharing all the things I will be learning in my EDCS 480 course!

Assignment #1:

• Read: http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/P21_Framework_Definitions.pdf

• Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTIBDR4Dn2g          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yie4q8LscBs

• Blog Post: Introduce yourself and your views of 21st century education and how technology might be used in the classroom based on what you read, watched and your own experience.

Aloha. I am Molly Satta-Ellis. I have been an educator for nearly my entire adult life. After graduating from the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a B.Ed. with emphasis in Social Studies and Sociology in 1998, I was blessed with the opportunity to teach at my alma mater, Konawaena High School, soon after. I have taught ELL english, math, and health, CSAP science & math, Yearbook, Guidance, and Social Studies since then. In between raising four sons (who are multi-sport athletes with multi-extracurricular interests), coaching sports with my husband, and teaching, I always found time to dabble with technology. Whether if it was to research ways to maximize my time efficiently in teaching or in life or to learn ways to improve instruction or coaching, I have always tried to keep abreast with technology. I truly believe that my efforts and my passion to stay up-to-date with the latest has helped me remain sane.

My philosophy on 21st century education is reflective of my experiences and drive to maximize learning. It may sound as if my desires to integrate technology in instruction is solely driven to maximize my personal efficiency, however, as a proud alumni, I have always had the dream to (what I call) "level up" the experience for all my students here at Konawaena. It is my sincerest wish and desire to change the old adage of, "Sorry, Konawaena das why", as if graduating from this school becomes one's excuse to not be able to perform. According to the Edutopia article, Technology Intergration Research Review by Vega, she cites, there is currently limited rigorous research on the specific features of technology integration that improve learning. This is something I have been running into ever since my quest to integrate technology into the classroom. I have had to rely on my own experience of what works.

My experiences of what "works" mirrored what unfolded in the video, Teaching in the 21st Century, I learned that what many of us as teachers were providing our students (facts, dates, content, etc.) was obsolete. Students can access information at their fingertips instantaneously, teachers are no longer the main source of information, we are the filter. In order to reach the the 21st century learner, we as a school decided to focus in on higher-level questioning a few years ago. This skill of developing higher-level questioning to increase the rigor in our classroom helped us change the culture in the classrooms. This skill, implemented across curriculum not only increased engagement, it also leads to what the video mentioned in terms of skills for the 21st century. This ability to think and create at a higher level lends itself to tech skills of blogging, podcasting, animating, planning, recording, designing, and programming. With such a foundation and culture, I hope to build upon such with our intention to increase access to technology.

It is quite apparent that increasing engagement with the use of technology is ideal, however, here, at this school, we are faced with access to technology for all students. It is easy to assume that our students are adept in using technology with their iPhones and iPods in hand. However, despite their abilities to hashtag, snapchat and instagram, many of our students are not able to use technology effectively. From my experience, students can simply, "hop-on" a Prezi and PowerPoint and entertain us with their keen sense of presentation and entertainment, but they lack content and connection with the content. This year, I will be getting a class set of Google Chromebooks and it is my intention to get all of our freshmen a gmail account and implement Google Apps in meaningful ways. I will be using the Partnership for 21st Century Skills: Framework for 21st Century Learning to guide us through a productive and successful integration.