Activity Reflection #1 - Treasure Hunt - Teacher Style

This week I set off into the ocean of information that is the Internet (a wily and unpredictable beast) in search of helpful, relevant and hopefully exciting educational resources for my future classrooms. The amount of sites available to me was certainly numerous, but wading through them – even with helpful directories and carefully-chosen keywords – proved to be a near Sisyphean task. And yes, I realize that in my area of Adult/Continuing/Training education, where my learners are not bright and eager 12-year-olds, the choices are automatically slimmer. However, education is education and many resources can be artfully used for older learners, so I should still be able to pull chunks of gold from the mountains of information available to me, right? Right?

EmTech Consulting – a repository of over 15,000 web-based resources for teachers, parents and students. I was mostly drawn to the categories of Brain-Based Learning and Learning Theories, as I frequently use these as way to help shape my instruction in a manner that keeps students on their toes and as far away from boredom as possible.

http://www.emtech.net/

“Brain & Behavior” at Serendip, a gathering place for information – both scholarly and everyday – to understand the complex systems of the human form, including forums and helpful websites. Serendip is based through Bryn-Mawr College and is an ever-growing database for those interested in understanding themselves and the world around them.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/

Even if lessons are not strictly science-based, giving insight into how the brain operates can bring learners from passive receptors of information into active participants in their own learning. It goes beyond the concept of “fact go in, knowledge come out” and becomes a more cooperative experience between teacher and student. Even the smallest morsel of insight from this website can be an invaluable tool for creating this kind of instructional environment. The “Education” section of the website provides not only two online forums for deep discussions, but also some fantastic articles on how teachers can understand the brain's actual role in learning and how they can best benefit from this style of theory and research.

The "Learning Theories" section of emTech provided a vast wealth of resources that teachers can draw upon for any lesson. I was particularly struck by the section on Cooperative Learning, since it had fantastic links available. However, I was really disappointed in the section on Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, since many of the links were no longer viable and some even led to non-reputable sites. This made my question the vetting process the resources contributed to emTech undergo. I was actually pleased, though, because it taught me to be pretty selective in what I actually use in a classroom.

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The Gateway to 21^st Century Skills is a website that contains invaluable tools for teachers, including lesson plans, assessments and even just interesting articles about education. The search features, as well as just browsing the popular tags and keywords, allowed me to zero-in on resources for Adult Education. However, this proved less helpful that I had previously believed.

http://www.thegateway.org/

The Educator's Reference Desk – Adult Continuing Education

http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/res.cgi/Educational_Levels/Adult_Continuing_Education

I was blown away by the selection of materials on this site. I was tempted to end my search here because I almost couldn't imagine another site with anything else to offer me. Lesson plans, names of online communities, archives of questions frequently asked by teachers on a variety of subjects and even professional organizations with information freely available; all this and more awaited me at the Educator's Reference Desk.

The only problem is that when I actually started searching through the links on the page, I hit wall after wall. Many of the links were no longer active. I couldn't find anywhere on the site an indication of when it was last updated, nor when these links were posted in the first place. The only resources that still worked were links to the professional organizations, and while this was nice, these were links I was already familiar with. From there, I explored the Adult Literacy section of the site, and found a couple of good links, and even more defunct or misleading pages. Whoever is in charge of these resources has very selective vigilance, and I was very frustrated. I understand that adult education is not the top priority in this country – after all, knowledgeable children help stem the need to re-educate adults – but the need is still there, so why was I having such difficulty in finding helpful resources?

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Education World – a fun and helpful collection of educational tools and links. Hopefully, if I couldn't find resources just for adult education, maybe I could use this for information on integrating technology into lessons, since I find that adult learners (like other learners) respond well to going beyond the old-school paper and pencil techniques.

http://www.educationworld.com/

Finally, relevant information! After careful browsing and trying a few different search, success! I found a couple of fantastic articles that really give some great tips. One is called, “Technology Training Programs That Work” that is ideal for working with adults of many skill levels.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech165.shtml

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Florida Department of Education – I, like all my colleagues, have been to this website at least once before, if only to explore the options for getting certified in our chosen focuses. However, I have never put the time into to really delve into the options and articles available to me. Honestly, I'm a little ashamed of myself, especially for all the complaining I've done about this state's educational status over the years. In all reality, no one is allowed to criticize their educational system unless they have made the effort to truly understand it and it's mechanisms.

http://www.fldoe.org/

Maybe it's because I'm not currently employed at school, but I was not aware that the State of Florida had a series of workshops for teachers entitled “What’s Working in Effective Teaching and Leadership”. According to FLDOE's site, these are “learning and listening workshops instituted by the Florida State Board of Education and supported by the Department of Education. The series provides all stakeholders an opportunity to interact and dialogue with national education leaders on specific topics that support effective teaching and school leadership.” These workshops are held all around the state, so a wide range of teachers from a variety of schools can attend and give their two-cents, which I find to be a wonderful idea.

http://www.fldoe.org/whatworks/default.asp

While it may not be the easiest website to browse through – side menus upon side menus – I was able to track down specific academic guidelines for Adult Education, including Curriculum Frameworks for Language Arts and Reading. The site also included some comprehensive guidelines for the changes in various course standards and worksheets on important skills for ESOL adults. Yes, this site is mostly a repository for government information that I could probably gain from a school I was employed at, this is actually a great resource for someone not currently teaching. With this information, I can craft lessons I know will comply with standards instead of hastily inserting or changing wording to meet them later.

http://www.fldoe.org/workforce/dwdframe/ad_frame.asp

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Exhausted and only mildly annoyed, I completed my search with a sigh. It was a rough start, and yes, I had finally found some good information and tools for future use, but I had also wasted a lot of my time. My only consolation is that I could use this post as a way to steer other teachers away from certain sites, as well as leading them to helpful pages and documents. Hours upon hours could be spent searching the vast depths of the internet, and I'm sure treasure could be scrounged up from the crevices, but I think that can wait for another day. For now, I think I'll just take what I have so far and use it as best I can.