Thursday, November 17, 2011

Guru


Reverence for Guru (Sanskrit word for teacher) can be found in the  most ancient literature of the world: VEDAS, where it has been  observed: Mathrudevo Bhava, Pitrudevo Bhava, Acharyadevo Bhava (meaning: Mother is God, Father is God, Teacher is God). 

Why teachers were venerated so much by people of an ancient civilization? What's so special about this profession? Why has respect for this profession diminished over the time period?

We all have read and heard these trite remarks that teaching is a noble profession; teachers shape the future of a nation, they prepare engineers, doctors, architects, senators, lawyers, actors.......and so on. But let's look at present scenario!  This is a bitter fact that very few countries like Finland & Japan hold this profession in high esteem; otherwise the incidents of 'teacher bashing' are much more rampant. How can any society think of marching ahead by undermining its educators?  Negative, non stop criticism is bad. It kills the spirit of a person. Let me tell you about a strange practice. There are Solomon Islands in the South Pacific region of the world. The villagers over there practice an atypical way of cutting the huge trees. Few menfolk possessing special powers climb the designated tree early in the morning and scream at it, at the top of their voices. They do this every day. After thirty days the tree dies and falls over. It works all the time! The villagers believe that screaming kills the spirit of the tree. Imagine, if negativity can kill big trees, then how much harm is done to the teacher community by ceaseless criticism from all quarters. 

By writing all this I'm not claiming that all teachers are angels. Like any other profession, teaching profession also has few 'rotten apples' that must be weeded out. But for God sake stop treating all teachers in same fashion!  Recognize and appreciate the force of innumerable hardworking, dedicated teachers who treat their profession nothing less than a social service. Don't kill the zeal of passionate, sincere, progressive educators who want to make a difference in their society. Remember, teachers are human beings too. They are not magicians from Harry Potter books who by waving their magic wands can transform every learner into Beethoven or Frank Sinatra or Einstein or Neil Armstrong! They cannot make up for the poverty and inequality existing in the society. What they can do is make an enormous difference in the life of learners by guiding them to uncover their hidden potential. Teachers can facilitate the discovery of knowledge.

After reading all this, someone might think *@#*@# why do people decide to teach if they find it so difficult and unappreciative? Well good teachers teach because they CARE. They CARE for the children of their community, their nation and they are READY to become the foundation stone of a glorious monument. Please let them do their job! Don't penalize them for their selfless decision.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Power of storytelling in education

 Tell me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me a truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.
                                      - Indian proverb.

I must confess, as a child my special bonding with my grandparents was mainly due to their ability to weave wonderful tales. There were so many of them and were full of various characters like brave kings, princesses, demons, wise sages, evil landlord, hardworking peasants....... Though the storyline varied every time, yet they all never failed in captivating my attention. Besides that they taught me something significant at the end. I didn't realize their deep impact on me and their role in building up my personality until I grew up.

Everyone loves to listen to or read a story. They teach us and we don't mind to learn from them!  Stories are a form of oral history. They tell us about different cultures. If anyone wants to have a look at the richness of any language of the world, then stories are the perfect resource. The proverbs, idioms, metaphors add unique flavor to them.

Storytelling is an art.  The moment a teacher announces in her class that she will tell a story, silence falls right away signifying the hundred percent attention granted to that poor teacher who would otherwise be trying so many 'different methodologies' (that she learned in a workshop and must incorporate in her lesson ) to 'gain' the attention of her learners. Have a look at this short video and watch for yourself the power of storytelling:





To tell or write a story, one has to be creative. Storytelling demands from a person to be imaginative. Hence learners must not only listen, but also be encouraged to tell/write the stories in the class. Telling a story would make them think at a higher cognitive level and build up their vocabularies. The teachers' endeavor to inculcate creativity, writing and public speaking skills amongst them (especially the shy ones) will be fulfilled so simply.



Stories cast tremendous influence on the affective domain of the learner (which plays a vital role in learning experience). The personality of a learner is shaped largely by the way he/she makes some sense of his/her world. Stories are entertaining, motivating and inspiring & each learner constructs his/her own meaning from a story. 

Usually we all think that stories hold significance exclusively in elementary classes where they help in building language skills amongst the young ones. But this is not so; they have epochal role to play in higher education also. Have a look at another video which explains it better than I can.







References:
  • Koki.S, (1998) Storytelling: The Heart and Soul of Education. Retrieved November 11,2011 from http://www.prel.org/products/products/storytelling.pdf

  • Storytelling as a Teaching Strategy in Higher Education.[Video] Retrieved November 11,2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvj11DuppPA

  • The Power of Storytelling.[Video] Retrieved November 11,2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGsnz1eUK5I&feature=related
  • Quotation. Retrieved November 11,2011 from http://www.dailycelebrations.com/storytelling.htm

Monday, November 7, 2011

Web 2.0 Tool Tiki-Toki

As a part of my grad course, while I was reviewing some media sharing resources, I came across a wonderful web tool named Tiki-Toki.  Since this was totally new to me, I got curious and started exploring it. I found that Tiki-Toki is a web application that makes it easy for anyone to create interactive timelines in their browsers. Variety of  images, text and even videos from YouTube, Vimeo.... can be embedded in these timelines. We can share our timelines  too. If we sign up with their paid-for accounts, then we can embed our timelines on our own blog or websites.

I signed up for free account to explore it further and created one timeline on 'History of Indian Education System'.(Click on it to view it!) I used videos from YouTube, picked images from Flickr Creative Commons to go along with the text, chose a background image for my timeline and filled in the text details for each title. The sliding bar at the bottom allowed me to choose the date or year of the event.  After creating my timeline, I found few limitations with my account:

1. Free account provides full functionality  but we can create only one timeline.

2. We cannot embed it on our website or blog. (That's why I provided a link for mine)

3. We cannot activate 'group editing' that allows our friends and colleagues to add to our timelines.



So, in short, the free account is aimed primarily at giving people a  chance to try this software and its features with the hope that they will like it so much that they will want to upgrade their free accounts. There is also an Education Account ($100 a year) for individual school teachers and this account can be used only for educational purposes. The features of this particular account seem to be quite interesting. 

I think this tool has amazing potential for a classroom. Science teachers as well as learners can use it to make interactive timelines on topics such as evolution, extinction of variety of species,formation of earth, solar system, continental drift....... But the history teachers will find it more useful because the details which are found to be boring otherwise by the learners, can become fun with the usage of images, videos along with the text. I think this tool will help in making the history more lively subject. After all we educators have to keep this fact in our mind that our learners are Generation Z kids who love to create and want everything to be FUN!


Friday, November 4, 2011

My PLE


 Whether we realize it or not, we learn every day; in fact till our last breath. With each passing day there is an addition of skills, knowledge, outlook,competences.....We usually associate the word 'learning' with the one taking place only in formal environment. But this is not true, learning can take place in informal way also. In fact according to the Institute for Research on Learning,at most, formal training only accounts for 20 percent of how people learn their jobs. We learn by building up a learning environment around us and harnessing it. This environment is termed as Personal Learning Environment (PLE). According to the definition given in Wikipedia,  Personal Learning Environments are the system that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. PLE supports lifelong learning along with informal learning which forms a major chunk in gaining knowledge. Hence, the personal learning environment seeks to provide the necessary tools to accomplish lifelong learning.

PLE stresses this fact that we do not learn from one source only; there are multiple avenues for gaining information. Now a days, with the widespread use of technology, it has become much more easier to assemble the sources of learning. It has also been possible to use PLE to learn at one's own pace.

Apart from this ,we all have different learning styles. The latest pedagogy stresses this fact and tries to utilize all means to cater to different learning styles of the learners. Differentiated instructions, flexible learning.... all these are attempts to teach the learners in their own unique way. PLE comes to our rescue once more and ensures that we build our learning environment according to our own learning style.Thus, PLE has greater power to reach and teach maximum number of enthusiastic learners.

After reviewing and exploring the PLE/PLN diagrams on EdTech Post’s wiki I found that I could relate to couple of diagrams. They are the ones by Gabi Witthaus and Jaime Oyarzo. The diagram of Gabi shows 'what she wants to do in her PLE' and this diagram is very clear & simple to follow. Jaime's diagram shows her in the center and the web tools used to do various activities form the PLE around her. When I looked at the diagrams, I related to them immediately because most of the elements shown there are also used by me. Before joining this grad program, I had signed up for some of these networks but had no idea about their potential use in the field of education. For example, I thought Facebook was purely for sharing few pictures and staying in touch with friends all over the globe, but CI 484 provided me a totally new perspective of looking at it.

Although there are many more connections that I would have liked to add on to my PLE (like my community,various educational organizations...from where I get lot of information) but I think for the time being, these are enough to show as they are used more consistently by me now a days. I would like my PLE to expand more in due course of time because I understand that a strong PLE is a necessity to survive and thrive in future.

I created my PLE with the help of Prezi. I have seen most of my classmates using it extensively to present their work and wanted to use it, so I thought this is the right opportunity to use it! My PLE would fit under Use/Action Oriented as I’m using these web tools/networks to connect, reflect, curate, search..... I also use them to create, present and share my work.


My PLE diagram shows ‘me’ in the center and the networks/web tools used by me are around me. All these tools help me to stay informed and connected with the rest of the world. I wanted to keep my diagram simple so that it is easy to discern the different tools and their uses. The connections shown in my PLE are very much 'active'. I want to gain 'Digital Wisdom' by utilizing my PLE because I agree with what Marc Prensky stated in his article H.Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom that: Digital wisdom is a twofold concept, referring both to wisdom arising from the use of digital technology to access cognitive power beyond our innate capacity and to wisdom in the prudent use of technology to enhance our capabilities.