International Society for Technology in Education - a great professional development opportunity!

Summer is always the time to review your professional development options and to determine your plan for professional development for the upcoming school year. I thought this would be a great opportunity to share more about ISTE, yet another professional organization for technology-minded educators!

If you're not familiar with ISTE, take a few moments to browse their website at http://www.iste.org/. You'll find yourself immersed in the variety of information available to ISTE members. You might even take the leap and join! Membership is comparable in cost to other professional organizations for teachers.

My motto regarding professional development is that the benefits one reaps from membership in any professional organization far outweigh the cost. I frequently find myself in conversation with colleagues who have made the decision not to join or renew their membership in an organization because of the cost involved. As a result, I am often defending my decision to join or renew my membership because of the benefits, real and perceived, that I receive each and every year. Not only do I receive the publications and have the opportunity to attend awesome conferences and events, but I also find the networking and connections to like-minded educators to be exceptional and well worth my small membership dues investment. I look at professional organizations just like I look at technology and its application in the classroom--we must be equally, if not more, prepared than our students and organizations like ISTE help us to be the best we can possibly be.

Professional growth is priceless and staying in tune with technology and its application to education is invaluable. Those teachers who take that extra step to involve themselves in professional development in organizations like ISTE become innovators and leaders in our profession. Be a leader in your classroom and make a pact today to develop your professional development portfolio for the upcoming year!

Are young people today really prepared for the financial challenges that go along with a college education?

Being involved in administration at an institution of higher education, I frequently find myself observing just how unprepared or underprepared young people really are about the financial challenges that will face them when they head off to college.

Students often find themselves overborrowing on college loans and living off the excess funding they receive. In career college settings where the average student age is approximately 26 years old, students even go so far as using excess student loan funding as a source of income to pay living expenses and to take care of everyday needs. To make the picture even more bleak, these sames students see nothing wrong with overextending themselves financially and even hopping school to school to try and increase the availability of funding available to them. Is this really what these young people should be doing? What, if anything, did these young people learn about personal finance education in their younger years?

This is an all too common phenomenon occurring every day in colleges and universities across the country. As educators, we simply must do better to help students better understand the financial challenges ahead. Default rates on student loans are at an all-time high and starting salaries of recent graduates are less and less commensurate with the accumulation of debt with which many graduates embark on their new chosen careers.

With back to school time just around the corner, be sure you build your lesson plans for next school year to include lessons and activities that present college funding options, explain the cost of education, and also prepare young people to deal with the student loan payments that are sure to come upon graduation.

I hope everyone is having a terrific summer thus far and hope you are energizing yourself in preparation for a new year of learning in personal finance education and social media in the classroom!

A great resource for social media news!

On a lazy (and very hot) Sunday morning, I stumbled across a useful website, Social Media Club (Link: http://socialmediaclub.org/). Something that intrigued me about this website was the variety of information it offered. The site offers a blog, a journal, a user newsletter, tips on social media education, and you can even create a local chapter of the Social Media Club--what a great way to bring social media into the classroom!

This site got me thinking about another social media idea--a social media-oriented student organization. Students are already so immersed in the social media generation and having a local school club that offers them both added learning experiences and social interaction with their peers and teachers brings learning full circle into a real-world application. Our students today most likely will be involved in some form or fashion of social media in the course of their future careers. Why not offer them an outlet that helps them develop social media etiquette and develop social media campaigns?

I think there are some real possibilities with this idea! I'm curious what my educator followers have to say about such a club. Is this something that could be implemented fairly simply and be successful? Let me know your thoughts!

A great article discussing Facebook use in the classroom!

In my continuous quest for information about the use of social media in the classroom, I ran across a great article today about the use of Facebook as an educational tool. The article itself raised many questions I found to be critical if we, as educators, intend to make social media work in the classroom. (Link: http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/06/ultimate-guide-to-use-of-facebook-in.html). I will allow you to read on with this article, because today, I am taking a slightly different approach to my post.

One interesting point raised by the author was that little empirical research exists on the use of Facebook, or many other popular social media outlets, as an educational resource in the course of instruction. As a doctoral student and someone interested in furthering the field of educational research, this struck a chord with me. Why is it that we have volumes and volumes of research on other areas of educational interest; however, we so little research on an educational area that is burgeoning?

This is certainly something that we must correct if we are to have factual data to support the ongoing push for technology use and social media in the classroom. As such, I would love to explore some ways in which we can fill this void in the educational research arena. Share your thoughts with me regarding a social media idea that you believe has validity and can produce a reliable study--I would love to partner with one of my readers to conduct a study of this nature!

Let's kick this idea into gear and blow away the research community with a study that will help to validate the future of our profession! Without solid research, the field of education becomes stagnant and we lose the ability to change with the times, so to speak. Educators must unite, explore new social media outlets, and report factual details about the opinions, experiences, and future applicability of this technology as a resource for instruction. I look forward to hearing from you on this exciting topic!

Evaluating technology use in the classroom...an introspective point of view...

I came across a great article this morning from fellow Tweeter, Steven W. Anderson (@web20classroom). The article discussed the effectiveness of evaluating technology use in the classroom when conducting faculty observations (Link: http://www.thethinkingstick.com/evaluating-technology-use-in-the-classroom). Having been in the observer's role in the past, this sparked my interest, especially seeing as how technology has advanced significantly in the classroom in recent years. One of the most notable developments in classroom technology is the use of social media in the classroom as an instructional tool and learning resource.

After reading the article, I became interested in looking at the article's context from a more introspective point of view. I wonder how many of you out there have seen a new technology idea or product and immediately thought, "Wow, this will be great in the classroom with my students!," without effectively evaluating the technology and its applicability to your instructional style or to the lesson(s) to be taught. The article above's author, Jeff Utecht (@jutecht), asked some very pertinent questions in his approach to evaluating technology use in the classroom that I am twisting slightly in order to be used as a self-evaluation of technology:

1. Can the technology be used "Just because it is there?"
2. Does the technology allow teachers/students to do old things in old ways?
3. Does the technology allow teachers/students to do old things in new ways?
4. Does the technology create new and different learning experiences for the students?

Thanks, Jeff, for developing this new thought process for evaluation! These questions, with slight refinement, suit themselves perfectly for allowing teachers to conduct their own self-evaluation of technology before they mistakenly choose something that later turns out to be a dud.

Now, I know you are probably thinking, "Well how do these questions effectively evaluate technology use in the classroom?" I am glad you asked! Here are my thoughts:

1. If your chosen technology tool or idea is heavily weighted in the "Just because it is there" direction, you might think twice before using it in the classroom. "Just because it is there" is often a sign that there is little more value in the tool or idea than just passing novelty.
2. If your chosen technology tool or idea allows you or your students simply to do old things the same way you've always done them, again, think twice before implementing this tool or idea. After all, as educators, are we not trying to encourage our students to move beyond the mundane and repetitive ways of learning to think outside the box?
3. Now, if you have selected a technology tool or idea that allows you and your students to do old things in new ways, we are definitely getting warmer! Continue to explore the tool or idea and be sure you fully understand the technology, then give it a test run. You may have just found a new best friend in the classroom.
4. Finally, if the technology tool or idea you have become enamored with creates new and different learning experiences for your students, then you have a winner! Again, be sure you fully embrace the tool or idea before rolling it out in the classroom; however, tools and idea that produce this response and to which you are fully vested are most likely to produce results that you, your students, your school administrators, and even parents appreciate.

In addition to reviewing technology tools and ideas, this same, simple evaluation process can be employed to evaluate social media resources for their applicability to classroom instruction and learning.

I hope you each find this post to be a valuable addition to your evaluation arsenal! Be sure to let me know if you find a new technology or social media tool or idea that you have evaluated using this approach and share how you have subsequently use the selected tool or idea. I look forward to hearing some great ideas from you all!

Financial literacy and healthcare coverage...

A recent case of the shingles got me thinking about financial literacy and
understanding the importance of healthcare coverage and related healthcare costs. My shingles bout only cost me a $20 co-pay at a neighborhood urgent care center, a $20 co-pay for a follow-up visit to my family physician, and 19 dollars and some change for prescriptions. However, these prices were all thanks to having healthcare coverage provided by my employer, substantially mitigating the risk I could have had had I not been covered by health insurance.

Understanding healthcare coverage options and the risk associated with not having healthcare coverage are important financial literacy lessons for students of any age. Personal finance educators can prepare to teach these important financial literacy lessons on insurance through professional development opportunities offered by the Griffith Insurance Education Foundation (Link: http://www.griffithfoundation.org/k-12/rmi-education/). Through online curriculum resources and the ever-popular Insurance Education Institutes, K-12 teachers can develop themselves professionally in order to properly prepare their students with risk management and insurance lessons.

With ever-rising healthcare costs nationwide and more restrictive healthcare coverage options, Americans must be prepared with clear, concise, and understandable information in order to make appropriate decisions when choosing a healthcare plan for themselves or for their family. In offering comprehensive personal finance education programs, as educators, we must equip ourselves adequately in order to have up-to-date teaching resources for our classroom.

Be sure to check out this important content area within personal finance education and take advantage of the resources provided by organizations such as the Griffith Insurance Education Foundation and business education professsional organizations!

Personal finance education in college...

What preparation for financial decision-making do today's college students have? Are college students leaving high school with an understanding of financial literacy? Maybe this video will provide some insight into these questions...

After viewing this video back in February, I was concerned with the level of understanding these students had with fairly simple financial concepts that are quite important in college.

As a business educator and researcher in the area of personal finance education, I believe it is critical that colleges and universities begin to embrace personal finance education more realisitically. All college students should have access to financial literacy programs and certificate, diploma, and degree programs should include basic personal finance education coursework that is designed to facilitate lifelong learning. I am currently conducting doctoral level research in the area of personal finance education and am finding that while educators believe the American educational system is doing a better job of providing quality personal finance education, they also believe much more could be done to allow young Americans to better prepare themselves for effective lifeline financial decision-making.

What are your thoughts? Do you believe more needs to be done to help college students better prepare for financial decision-making they will do upon graduation? In what ways do you believe colleges and universities could include financial literacy programs and coursework without interferring with ontime graduation and financial outlay of students? Post your answers to these questions as well as any other thoughts on this subject as a comment to this post or tweet your thoughts to @MCWhiteOH.

I look forward to hearing what fellow educators have to say on this very timely topic!