Tammie Ciccarelli

I’m continuously impressed with the deep thoughts and relevance of the post made by the Student 2.0 bloggers.  Yesterday I read Amateur Education posted by Arthus, a deep thinker who is passionate about his subject.  In one post Arthus covers such topics as creating a love of learning, becoming self-learners, and breadth versus depth.  All of these are reoccurring themes brought up by passionate teachers here at my school.  He clearly and colorfully makes his point.  With my teaching experience being limited to 2^nd grade computer classes and 3 year olds I can’t debate the validity of study hall.  Although I have often wondered why young children absorb school like sponges, inquiring, questioning and pondering and seem to loose this innate desire as they grow older.  I think Arthus makes some good points.  Today I read What is Learning?  posted by Lindsea.  Lindsea focuses on the need to incorporate critical thinking skills and widen our focus to incorporate more than absorbing knowledge and rote memorization, again major educational topics.  The fact that via Student 2.0 these students have created the type of environment necessary to accomplish these major educational goals struck me the most.

Thrust into the Web 2.0 world last year I’ve found the amount of Internet change over the last few years shocking.  Since that time I’ve been trying to catch up and keep up in the Web 2.0 world.  Doing so has had a huge impact on my professional life.  On the positive side, I’ve begun using wikis to collaborate on projects and RSS to collect and organize content for personal learning and exploration.  I have a Google home page that I haven’t quite tapped the potential of.  So far it works nicely as a news feed from our website.  I struggle to keep up with my professional blog and sometimes agonize over what to write and how to say it.  I look forward to the day when everyone is comfortable with wikis and online documents knowing they both have the potential to reduce f2f meetings, email and phone tag.

I find it exciting that the tools that connect and engage students in their social lives are becoming much easier to use and integrate into education.  I find the idea of easily opening a classroom up virtually so that parents, grandparents and other classrooms can connect and participate awe-inspiring.  I believe the potential for cross grade level, school, country and continent collaboration will be one of the most powerful experiences for students and teachers.  Along with all of the remarkable possibilities I also see a critical need for those embarking into Web 2.0 to understand the Internet as a ‘whole new world’.  One in which you can find anything you look for.  For a look at this ‘new world’ checkout Growing Up Online.  As with most things balance is the key.  We can’t ignore this world we’re obligated to prepare for it and prepare our students for it.

I think it’s an excellent idea to start our online course by reminding us of the importance of lifelong learning.  As professionals I believe we all have a desire to grow in our fields but the day to day eats our time away.  I know I often get bogged down by to-dos.  I spend a lot of time making sure I accomplish everything on my to-do list.  Placing my focus on my to-do list causes things that aren’t immediate to get pushed to the bottom of or off of my list completely. I find myself investing time to meet the learning needs of the moment but miss the more exciting learning that comes from digging deeper and exploring new ideas.  Due to this pattern I believe that out of all of the 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learning, Habit 7 ½, Play, will be the most challenging as well as the most important habit for me to embrace.  I look forward to pursuing this habit knowing that doing so will bring a new dimension of excitement and joy to my professional life.  I view Habit 2, Accepting Responsibility for my own learning and Habit 3, Viewing problems as challenges as the easiest habits for me.  It may seem unusual but I just naturally accept responsibility.  And as for problems, I thrive on them; in fact sometimes I have to resist the urge to solve a problem that doesn’t belong to me.