What we can learn from our students’ digital craze

This week’s readings were pretty enlightening for me because they totally shifted the way I perceive the recent obsession with social media. When I thought of the word Face book in my personal life, thoughts of glorious stalking sessions (is he really dating her) and catching up with old friends (hey…happy birthday  person I would never be saying happy birthday to if it wasn’t for technology…) came to mind. When I thought about social media in relation to teaching, I got stressed and thoughts of my students’ obsession with the digital world and secretly sneaking on Facebook during my lessons popped into my head.

These readings for the week totally changed my perceptions. Well, for the teacher bit. As for me, I still definitely associate Facebook with lurking and creeping. But as a teacher, I now conceptualize social media in a much more positive light. I love the idea of learning from the way kids so naturally interact with one another using social network venues. The kind of communication, collaboration and discourse that buzzes about social networking sites could be put to use in the classroom context to encourage students to deeply engage with one another in an academic realm.  

Opening up to the world of digital literacies as a teacher will encourage my students to shape and redefine the participatory cultures of the digital places in which they communicate.  Participating in online places and having digital identities is becoming the overarching norm, and teachers such as myself must relinquish their traditional teaching models in an effort to best attend to the needs of our students. In this fast –paced world, students need to engage in social media and online communities because navigating successfully in digital spaces opens doors to professional and social opportunities. Schools may be the only places some students will have the opportunity to access these spaces, so it is our duty as teachers to explore digital literacies with our students.

I am so happy that the readings made me realize that there is so much more to learn from social media than how to stalk your ex- boyfriend. On the contrary, every day, students are using these spaces to collaborate and negotiate. Instead of fearing online spaces, I want to embrace them and take the skills many students already have when it comes to communicating online, and hone them in to create a rich learning experience for all.

Hello! Welcome to my blog! I will use this space to reflect on my teaching journey- past and present! I would like to dedicate this first post to a little self introduction!

I am from Chicago and I graduated from undergrad in 2010. My major was Elementary Education, and my dad was super pleased to have me graduated and ready to settle down in "a nice suburban school district." But I had different plans!! I had my heart on adventures abroad ever since I volunteered in the deep Amazonian jungles of Ecuador for a month during my Junior year. Nothing makes you fall in love with hopping borders more than accidentally eating bullets that are still stuck in your tapir meat. But seriously! I fell in love with the new sights and smells and experiences of foreign lands. Not to mention, I loved teaching children from other cultures! At this point, I had loads to learn. For example, I learned the hard way that it is not the best idea to let 30 children in an open-air classroom play hide and seek when their school is situated in the middle of dense jungle. There will be a lot more hiding than seeking and it will not... I repeat... will NOT turn out in your favor. But at the end of the day, I finally found more than just children deviously hiding behind bushels of bananas. I found myself. I realized that I have a passion for ESL education and traveling the world. I am so beyond lucky that my two passions are more meant to be together than Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. (Sigh secret Twilight love... revealed)

After graduating from undergrad, I spent a year teaching in Korea. I am not sure if I fell more in love with Kimchi or my teaching experience. They were both pretty incredible but I have to admit changing lives is slightly more rewarding than nomming on fermented cabbage. Because of this, I will definitely devote later blogs to teaching tales from Korea! (And will most likely further divulge my love for kimchi as well)

Following Korea, I taught for a summer in a Vietnamese international school! This was a really rewarding opportunity to work with some extremely devoted and passionate teachers from all over the world. You have an excessive amount of time to ponder things when sitting on a plane for 14 million (or so) hours back to Chicago. Somewhere over the Pacific, I came to the realization that I want to pursue ESL education specifically in International Schools around the world! I immediately began applying, and realized that most schools required higher degrees. In fact, the only letter back that seemed somewhat promising read "Dear Erica, our country is in a state of civil war, please try back later. Love, some international school in Libya." OK, maybe not so promising. Sigh.. I realized, it was time to pursue education again in order to best qualify myself for my dream job... International School ESL teacher in X faraway awesome land.

So here I am! I am currently completing my final semester at Penn and I could not be happier for my decision to attend this school. I am learning so much and I am so excited to implement the strategies and philosophies I have gained here to benefit my future students. Putting myself out here in this digital space is pretty intimidating, so thank you for being patient with me as I take up this cyber challenge! And if my blog gets really lame, please read while indulging in kimchi.. it makes everything way more delicious! 

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This is a test run to see if my new blog is ready for business!