Technology and Teaching

EDUC 6711 Reflection

2010-02-28T17:51:00.002-06:00

My personal learning theory from Week 1 was that students learn by working cooperatively and by using hands-on activities to gain knowledge and to show the knowledge they have learned. After learning about the different learning theories and instructional learning tools, I have decided that I am keeping my personal learning theory from Week 1 and also adding that students learn from doing inquiry-based projects. Students in today's digital age do not learn best by sitting in their chair all day completing worksheets and reading incessantly from a textbook. They learn by searching the Internet to find answers to their questions, by building artifacts to demonstrate how much they have learned, by playing educational computer games, and by socially interacting with other students in the classroom and in other classrooms. The immediate change I will make to my teaching practice will be to implement more inquiry-based learning projects using Web 2.0 learning tools. Two technology tools that I enjoyed using in this class were Voice Thread and concept maps. I plan on using Voice Thread with my students when they get ready to learn about famous Missourians. They will work in partners to find information and photos about their person and then record what they learned into a Voice Thread to present to the class. I have already used concept maps to assess their knowledge of Lincoln's assassination after we took a virtual field trip to Ford's Theater. I thought my students did an outstanding job of creating the maps to show their knowledge. I would love to use these again to assess their knowledge of the three branches of government. One long-term goal I would like to make would be to integrate more social networking sites, such as wikis and blogs, for the children to interact outside of school. I have a blog site set up for my class and used it every week during the first half of the school year. However, since Christmas, I haven't been diligent enough in setting up the questions or replying to comments made. Next year, I plan to have questions set up each week for the blog and require a due date for submitting answers. I would love to implement a wiki into the classroom for use on cooperative group projects. The students would be able to talk via the wiki outside of class to help prepare their project or answer any questions they may have about the project. Another long-term goal I would like to make would be to have my students use powerpoint and Voice Thread more often. I would like to have my students complete at least one powerpoint or Voice Thread each month about the topic we are studying. The first half of the year is spent visiting the regions of the United States. After each region is completed, my students could create a powerpoint or Voice Thread demonstrating their knowledge of that region, instead of taking a quiz on the region. After Christmas, we study Missouri so for each topic the students can research the topic and create a powerpoint or Voice Thread about it to present to the class.

Classroom Need Voice Thread

2010-02-07T10:12:00.004-06:00

Click on the title to be taken to my Voice Thread.

Connectivism and social learning in practice

2010-02-03T21:40:00.002-06:00

Connectivism is defined as when learning is the act of forming networks and navigating networks of knowledge. Social learning is when students are actively engaged in constructing artifacts while conversing with others. In Chapter 7 of our book, they mention several cooperative learning activities that the students can complete. All of these activities are connectivism or social learning in practice. Any kind of multimedia project is definitely creating an artifact and bringing constructionism into the classroom; however, when you group the students up and have them research the content together, collaborate on what their artifact will look like, and then create the artifact as a team, you get social learning. Another activity was Keypals. This is communication and collaboration with students from another school, state, or even country. This isn't just social learning, it's global social learning. Being able to create a project with another student far away from you is challenging as well as exciting. Not only can students practice social learning, but there are several sites and ways that teachers can collaborate with each other. There are social bookmarking sites, such as delicious.com, that allow others to see what you have bookmarked. Something you thought was important may end up being a help to another person. Finally, there are web-enabled multiplayer simulation games that allow the students to play against classmates or other people around the world in educational games of strategy or construction.

Constructivism in Practice

2010-01-27T20:28:00.002-06:00

Constructivism is when a student actively constructs his/her own meaning about a concept or idea. Constructionism is when students learn best by building or constructing something. Constructionism is what teachers call "hands-on" projects or activities. In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, they talk about three main practices of generating and testing hypotheses. One way is by using a spreadsheet software. A teacher can create an interactive spreadsheet for the students to use when completing the project. This spreadsheet will allow the students to insert numbers and not have to worry about entering the formulas for the information. This allows the students to focus more on the connection between the numbers and answers instead of thinking of a formula. This way is constructivism because the students are constructing their own meaning about the concept by analyzing the connection between the data. The second way is data collection tools. These tools could be digital probes or microscopes and the Internet. This way is constructionism because the students are using tools to create new artifacts or to help build on to what they already had constructed. Once they have gathered data, the students can use the Internet to analyze and synthesize their data. The third way is web resources and gaming software. This way is constructionism because the students build or create an artifact in the game that helps them learn more about the concept. It could also be constructivism because the students are playing a game that may have different scenarios, which means the students are constructing their own meaning of the concept. Next week, my students will be playing an online game about the gold rush. They get to create their own path to success in gold mining. First, they have to pick a character and build up their wealth, mining skills, and health. Once they have a certain amount of points in each category, they can choose to mine for gold, buy restaurants, or own hotels. If they do not succeed in gaining points in their categories, then their character dies. This game helps the students understand the struggles and successes that came with the westward movement and gold rush.

Cognitivism in Practice

2010-01-20T21:04:00.002-06:00

Cognitivism in Practice...

Cognitivism is a three step information processing program that your brain goes through. The first step is sensory input of information that goes to the second step, which is short-term memory, where the information is hopefully stored in the step three, long-term memory. Dr. Orey sums it up when he said that integrating multiple senses in presentations improves learning. Another part of cognitive learning theory is Paivio's dual coding hypothesis. I like this hypothesis because it says that information is stored better when a person has the opportunity to put an image with the text. I do this a lot in my vocabulary powerpoints each week. I will give the text definition of the words and use them in a sentence; then, I also show three pictures that connect to the word and have the students deduce why the picture and the word are connected. They really remember the vocabulary words better and often use the pictures they saw to help them remember the definition for the test. Elaboration is another part of cognitivism and this is the primary mechanism for storing information in long-term memory. We make many connections to the information. Sometimes we forget what we learned and Dr. Orey said that we didn't lose the information, we just lost the connection to the information. Eventually, something else will trigger the connection and we will remember it again, at least until the next time we forget it!!!

Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

In this chapter of the book, they talk about different technology applications that can be used to enhance cognitive learning. One application was to use a word processing program to make graphic organizers. Dr. Orey talked about concept maps, which is what a graphic organizer is. Graphic organizers allow the students to build numerous connections to the information when they connect subtopics to the main topic. Another application is the Excel spreadsheet. Math is a great subject to use spreadsheets in because they are a mathematical concept map. They allow the students to find declarative information and then use procedural information to put the facts into the spreadsheet and figure out the formula to get the final answer. Lastly, a powerpoint slide show was used to show the Great Depression. This application correlated to Paivio's dual coding hypothesis because the images from the slide show help the students retain the factual text better.

Summarizing and Note-Taking

In this chapter, the author discusses different techniques for helping students summarize and take notes. One technique for summarizing is by tracking all changes in Microsoft Word. When a student is able to see the changes they made to their paper, it helps them understand the concept of summarizing and makes it easier for them to grasp the concept...dual coding. Summary frames are an example of using concept maps to help the students learn how to summarize and what is needed in a summary. The teacher creates the summary frames by filling in the subtopics and the students will answer the subtopics with what they know. A technique for note taking is to have teachers teach their students a variety of techniques on note taking. Using graphic organizers and Microsoft Word outlines are good examples as to how the students can visualize the ideas and connections between the ideas.

Behaviorism in Practice

2010-01-13T18:17:00.002-06:00

There are lots of instructional practices in classrooms today that use the behaviorist learning theory. Internet websites are also becoming behavioristic as they are using the rote and memorization techniques to help students learn math facts, social studies dates, and science facts. The internet is also used for spelling rote memorization. In our book resource, we learned about Reinforcing Effort and Homework and Practice methods and how technology is integrated into these methods. The Homework and Practice section of the book gave examples of how tutorials are used in lessons to help students learn the parts of a lever and the three types of levers. According to Dr. Orey, tutorials are a prime example of behaviorist learning theory put to work in technology. Another huge part of the behaviorist theory is classroom management, which is the reinforcement of a desired behavior and the punishment of an undesired behavior. This part of the behaviorist theory correlates with the Reinforcing Effort section. The book resource gives examples of how technology can be used to track effort and behavior. Some classes use spreadsheets or rubrics to analyze their effort on a specific assignment or behavior. Other classes use online surveys to determine how well they behaved or how well they worked on an assignment. These two technological strategies allow students to see their growth in behavior and effort in a visual manner. The students are able to see growth or decline and figure out what works to make their "scores" increase or what they do that makes their "scores" decrease. Behaviorism is still needed in classrooms today. Even though every student learns differently, they still need reinforcement and punishment in order to function in society. There are also students who do well with rote memorization in learning their facts and technology is a great way for them to achieve their learning.

EDUC 6712 Reflection

2009-11-01T09:10:00.002-06:00

The most striking revelation I had about teaching new literacy skills to my students is that there are actually a lot of resources on the web and in books to help teachers with these skills. I think there are teachers who feel that nobody wants to help them teach the new literacy skills so they don't even try to give this experience to their students. Our class resource book, Reading the Web, gave tons of ideas to help teachers give their students great literacy skills lessons. I especially liked the handouts at the back of each chapter because it makes my life even easier since the handouts are already made for me. The knowledge that I have gained from this course will really help me teach the new literacy skills to my students. I have learned how to help my students safely and efficiently search the Internet for information. I have found useful techniques in our resource book that allows the students to develop integral skills for the rest of their educational career. I plan on teaching my inquiry based unit to my students after Christmas. I really feel that the knowledge I have gained on how to teach internet inquiry will help my students gain knowledge on using the strategies to help them with their internet inquiry. One professional development goal that I have is I would like to use more 21st century skills, like wikis, blogs, and podcasts, with my students. I have already started using the blogs in my classroom. I made sure that I used a website that was specifically for my students and no other person on the Internet could access their writings. I feel that the mistakes made with not having the students and parents sign a separate permission form to use the blog and by letting the students chat about non-subject material have helped me understand the things that can go wrong with 21st century inquiry projects. I have fixed these mistakes and now the blog is running more smoothly. Next, I would like to attend a conference on how to incorporate wikis and podcasts into the classroom. It's hard for a teacher who has limited access to technology to incorporate these tools into their lessons, but I am determined to try and succeed. I am planning to incorporate my inquiry based famous Missourian wiki into the classroom. If that succeeds, I would like to use more wikis and have the students have partners with other children in a different classroom as them. This would allow for the true use of the wiki, which is group projects with people who are not located in your vicinity. Podcasts are a bit harder for me to implement because my school does not carry headphones with attached microphones. In order to fix this problem, I would like to requisition for a class set of headphone/microphone combinations for next year. I feel that this start can really expand the possibilities of 21st century skills that can be taught in my classroom next year.

Reflection

2009-06-27T23:33:00.002-05:00

I have to say that this has been my favorite course so far at Walden. I have learned a lot about different kinds of Web 2.0 technology that I can use in my classroom. Before this course, I had heard of blogging, but did not know its impact in the classroom. I had never heard of a wiki or a podcast, much less know what a useful tool it could be in the classroom. Before this course, I felt like I was technologically sound as an everyday person. As a teacher, I rarely used technology to enhance my curriculum. I was using technology for doing something differently, as Dr. Thornburg would say. Now that this course is at its end, I feel that I have learned how to effectively integrate Web 2.0 applications into my curriculum for next year. I have learned what a valuable asset blogs and wikis can be for the classroom and for my students. I realized that my students are different from my generation. They have grown up in a completely digitalized age with technology around every corner. My students learn differently than I did. They need constant stimuli and entertainment to learn. Education truly has to be fun for them or they will shut down when entering the school property. Instead of lecturing and giving textbook-based tests, I am now required to teach curriculum using student-centered questions, research, and several forms of technology. My students are capable of creating questions they would like to know the answer of, researching the question using a search engine on the Internet, and then creating a wiki explaining the answer to the question or blogging about the question in the class blog. Teachers are now the motivator for their students' success in learning instead of being the main knowledge bank. After I receive my degree from Walden, I plan to continue taking technology courses so that I can stay abreast of the current forms of technology taking place in the classroom. Technology does not take a break from expanding and developing, so I, as a teacher, should not take a break from learning about the new forms of technology being produced. I would love to take a technology director or specialist role for a district and help teachers integrate technology into their classroom to help their students learn and achieve greater success from the traditional ways of teaching. Two long-term goals that I have for my classroom are to at least have a 1:2 ratio of computers to students in my room and to have a curriculum where 90% of it involves the latest technology methods to help my students learn. My district does not have enough money to supply computers for every student in each classroom. My room only has 2 computers, one of which runs on Windows 98. I would love to have a 1:1 classroom, but reality does not allow for that. To compensate for the inadequate funding, my district likes to apply for our state's EMINTS grant every year. This year, if the district is accepted, all the fifth grade rooms will have 1 computer for every 2 students, a Smartboard, projector, and teacher laptop. Our state government was talking about cutting funding from the EMINTS program and I'm not quite sure if that was actually done. If it wasn't, then the district will apply for the EMINTS grant for the 2010-2011 school year for a 1:2 computer ratio and all the added bonus for all fourth grade classrooms. This would mean that I would get a classroom that would have access to new technology and my students would not have to go to the computer lab to work on projects. They could be done in the classroom with my supervision in a friendlier environment than the hot, crowded lab. My other goal involves creating a curriculum where at least 90% of the material learned and created by students is done using technology. Next year, I will be integrating blogs and wikis into my social studies curriculum. I have also convinced the science teacher to incorporate blogging into her curriculum so that the students have to use it for 2 different subjects. If this is a success like I think it will be, then for the year after that, I will try and incorporate podcasting and other Web 2.0 applications that I learn about. I want my curriculum to be student-centered and project-based learning. I don't want to use the textbook as the main material, but as a reference only that the students can look in to find answers that may help them solve their problem. Most textbooks are not current and only tell one side of a story. I want my students to be well-rounded in learning the material and being able to find information using technological tools. My answers to the self-assessment checklist from Week 1 have definitely changed. I am now proud to move the checks to the "often" category. Next year, I will be a teacher who develops curriculum to support 21st century skills. I will be the teacher who uses Web 2.0 technology to enhance the curriculum to support my "digital natives." I will be the teacher who takes her knowledge of these new technologies and incorporates them into her classroom, but also encourages other teachers to incorporate them into their classroom. Finally, I will be the teacher who seeks out other teachers to help her lobby the district for more technology funding.

Technology podcast

2009-06-21T20:59:00.003-05:00

This podcast was created for my technology course. I created a questionnaire for my fourth grade students about what kinds of technology they have been exposed to at home and at school. I also asked them to tell me what kinds of technology they were interested in and had experience using at school. The title will take you directly to my podcast link, but here is the actual link also. http://podcastmachine.com/podcasts/1140/episodes/4928

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

2009-05-31T12:31:00.002-05:00

After visiting the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website, http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php, I feel even more compelled to incorporate technology into my curriculum. I was very impressed with how dedicated the board members and staff were to increasing the amount of technology used in classrooms around the United States. What's even more impressive is how there are already states that are using the initiatives set by this website and incorporating them into their educational standards and school buildings. Dr. Thornburg listed all of the 21st century skills and dispositions in the video this week. He also mentioned STEM skills and how students going into the workforce today and in the future will need to have these essential skills. The Partnership further emphasized these skills and stated "all students must have STEM education to acquire 21st century skills." It doesn't matter if a student is going into technical or non-technical occupations; STEM skills help students possess problem solving and analytical thinking skills. Something surprising to me was that there are only ten states that have adopted the site's initiative to incorporate 21st century skills into their educational standards. I would have expected more states to incorporate these skills, especially with NCLB in effect. When your students are supposed to perform on grade level, I would think that getting them any kind of assistance would be the number one priority. This past year, my school was below AYP expectance in regard to the NCLB standards on our state assessment. Now, we are on "probation" for 2 years and the state has given us $40,000 to spend over the 2 years on programs that could help our students achieve AYP and increase their state assessment scores. Why is this money only given when schools fail? It should be given every year, no matter if a school failed or prospered. I was reading some of the articles on the website and found an article about the West Virginia state superintendent and how he "revamped the state's content standards and objectives to emphasize these skills" found on the website. He then created new jobs across the state's school districts so that they had a technology coordinator/instructor for each district who could instruct the teachers in how to use the new technology they were given in the classroom. I wish that every state had a person like him who was dedicated to getting their students the best (technological) education available, no matter what the cost. He is now hoping to put a technology instructor in each school building. I wish that Missouri would adopt the initiative and take action like ten other states have already done. The implication for myself, as a contemporary educator, is to teach my students as many 21st century skills that I can. I will never allow myself to be pulled into teaching only the original way of teaching (worksheets, lectures, and note taking). Granted, there are times when time runs out and we have to use these methods; however, present times call for present and future ways of teaching. Our students are not going to be writing notes in their jobs. They will be typing up PowerPoint presentations and giving speeches to their colleagues over video teleconferencing. If they don't learn how to do this now, then they will never learn how to do it and will end up losing the top job to a person whose school took the time to incorporate these essential skills. The implication for my students is that they get a teacher who wants to incorporate 21st century skills into his/her curriculum so that the students can get a well rounded education that truly does help them develop into model citizens and future employees.

First time

2009-05-04T20:26:00.001-05:00

This is my first time blogging and I am doing this for a Master class. This will be very interesting to see how this works. Thanks for visiting my blog. Enjoy!

Blogging in the Classroom

2009-05-03T11:01:00.002-05:00

Ever since this class started, I have been very intrigued with the idea of incorporating blogging in my fourth grade classroom. Next year, the three fourth grade teachers are going to departmentalize math, science, and social studies. I am the teacher who will be taking social studies for all the classes. I really want to incorporate blogging into the curriculum so that all three classes can communicate on a specific question or topic that we talk about. I have thought about what I could do and I decided that I would create a blog site for my students. Every two weeks, I would post a question about the topic that we are discussing and the students would be responsible for posting their answer and responding to other's comments. Not all of my students have internet access, so those that have access could do this at home and those that don't could complete this at school in their classrooms when they have free time. Using a blog would enhance my lessons and curriculum by allowing the students to use higher depth of knowledge thinking skills to answer the question and also to learn skills in responding to others in a mature manner. I can't wait to try this out next year. If anyone else has other ideas that I could use for blogging in a social studies curriculum for fourth grade, I would appreciate your input.