There are many similar examples in the text, and the point the authors are trying to make is that the way our students and ourselves interact and learn are different from the way we may have learned before the advent and the accessibility of the internet. It is not a cause for dismay, only a call for redesign. As I questioned in my previous post how can we harness all this peer production and online communities to benefit our students, or are they already benefiting and are we unaware of their worlds?

This thought provoking video really hit me when I watched it yesterday. Is the university really behind? How can we catch up? What do students think of this? I posted this video in my online course and I hope my students do write some interesting comments. Is school really homogenizing students? How do we make them creative, critical thinkers? The peer production concept and harnessing collective intelligence can take us to another dimension in all fields. Personally I don’t think we are harnessing our collective intelligence. I believe that as an educator I am a facilitator to share my knowledge with my students. Each of us has something to share on all topics, but the internet has given us access across geographical areas which is phenomenal but how can our students benefit from this and increase their intelligence in ways that fit their learning styles? This is still a question I ponder on and hope to fully master in time.

“Every year, some one million students leave before earning a high school degree. Many drop out because they struggle academically. But large numbers say they dropped out because they felt their classes were not interesting, and that high school was unrelentingly boring. In other words, they didn’t believe high school was relevant, or providing a pathway to achieving their dreams. This crisis has been likened to a ‘silent epidemic’ that is undermining the very future of America.” (p.10)

The report goes on to discuss how giving students the opportunity to job shadow, engage in apprenticeships, internships, etc. can help both employers and students alike. We know this to be true but it discusses many models in central and northern Europe, specifically Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Students in these countries beginning in about 9th or 10th grade take a combination of classroom and vocational learning. They graduate with a diploma or certificate which they can use to obtain work or go on for higher education. The thrust of the report focuses on  Career and Technical Education in the US and using international successful educational models to support this theory.

I  found the article to be extremely relevant to me. While in college I traveled to Denmark and studied English Literature at the University of Arhus for a semester. By interacting with the Danes I learned about vocational learning and tracking systems. While studying abroad, I did not agree with a vocational track and I thought the US educational system of offering college for all was the best solution. In the report it highlights that many of these European countries give students and parents the ability to choose their path.  In retrospect, I would have liked to combine my education with work based learning. I think it would have given me encouragement and support in both my academic and professional pursuits. I may have chosen a completely different career….

My experience working with secondary school teachers and community college professors has been that students do not always see the purpose of specific courses and cannot connect their learning with employment. It is our responsibility to show them these connections by actually placing them in the workplace while they are studying. In fact that is what I wrote when I submitted the Perkins IV grant proposal last year. We wanted to place students in internships to document their learning and connect the academic with the professional. We are still exploring the possibilities but I still believe that this is the way students will get direct experience working in the fields they are studying in. Many students as the report discusses have jobs that are completely unrelated to their academic studies. I think co-ops, internships, job shadowing, apprenticeships can help students make informed decisions about the vocational pathways that they are interested in pursuing. It is also our responsibility to show them how to get to the ultimate goal they hope to achieve.

As I have seen in the Building Bridges program, employers are willing to help the students in the local area. Schools and employers need to work together to create the jobs needed in regional areas. Students want to use their time well to learn from professionals. Building a bridge between schools, colleges and employers are essential tools for our young workers. My daughter who is 6 years old contemplates the many professions she may have and changes her mind monthly, but what is important is that she fully understands and experiences the types of vocational paths. Many times students are exposed to what vocations that exist in their personal network or their parental aspirations. It is limiting and the vocations available are expansive. I believe as the report promotes that Career and Technical Education may be the answer to our declining graduation rates in schools and colleges.

Here are the few videos I created to help students write their biographies and enable their privacy rights in WordPress.

Inserting your Bio into WordPress

WordPress Privacy

I still need to insert captions for our students and I want to upgrade the videos to an HD version so it looks better. Thanks for watching!

I am particularly intrigued by Professor Wesch’s latest call to all students to submit videos from their viewpoint. Specifically about what students see in the media-centric environment they live in.

It is an intriguing concept and I applaud him for conducting his research in this fashion. As an instructor it will teach me a lot of what students are experiencing and expecting.

Networking, the author discusses, works for both people involved. Both parties need to get something from the relationship, so we need to offer something in return for a job lead to the other person. Asking indirect questions was also an excellent point. I am always struggling with how to network and do it well and the author gives some excellent examples of questions to ask when looking for work. In my brief perusal this book seems like it has a lot to offer. I will write more as I read more….

Creating an ePortfolio is not a one day event, it takes time, weeks, months, depending on what you find and what you want to write about. With that in mind I think it would be best to give the teachers time to create it on their own, have an initial session and then a second session a month or two later with the intention that the teachers will be working on their portfolios in the interim. I think this also gets the teachers thinking about the reflective process involved in ePortfolios for themselves and their students.

Overall the teachers were enthusiastic about the concept of eportfolios with regard to career planning and personal branding. They liked the concept of student work being online to market to employers. There were some issues discussed about privacy in WordPress but I think I figured out a work around. If WordPress is installed or hosted for the institution there are some additional privacy options that can be implemented. I have been happy with WordPress and the teachers enjoyed using it as well.