Spotlight on Emerging Technology: Online Learning in K-12 Schools

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7847831

EDUC 6714: Reflection

As a result of the course Reaching and Engaging All Students through Technology, I had the opportunity to network with many of my colleagues in a Differentiation Station social network, such as Facebook. We shared technology resources that will help me implement the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Differentiated Instruction (DI) in a variety of ways. Due to a plethora of outstanding resources posted by my group members, I created a checklist to help me view these resources and comment on how I can use them in my classroom instruction. For example, two resources from my checklist will provide Pathways to Careers 8th grade students Web tools that will help them fulfill career research project requirements. For instance, at http://www.filamentality.com/wired/fil/index.html
students can learn how to construct a WebQuest centered on careers of their choice, and at http://people.uncw.edu/ertzbergerj/ppt_games.html
students can build a game based on career exploration. These exciting tools will allow me to differentiate instruction and implement UDL because they allow students to demonstrate what they know in an assortment of ways and inspire interest and enthusiasm for learning. According to Tomlinson (Laureate Education, 2009), when students are given choices, they are more motivated and engaged in the learning process.

Regarding the use of technology integration to customize instruction, I will continue to focus on classroom management as this is a work in progress. I learned through experience that when students use technology in the classroom, they need clear and concise routines, goals or objectives, and guidelines for accomplishing the goals that they can visualize at any time. In addition, when students use technology, such as a computer and the Internet to research for a wiki, they are more successful at achieving their goals when they reflect on their progress each day. It also helps when I provide students with consistent and immediate feedback. Furthermore, students who follow a GAME-plan when working in a computer lab seem to do well because it helps them stay on task. GAME-plan stands for Set Goals, Take Action, Monitor Your Learning, and Evaluate and Extend Your Learning (Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, 2009).

References

http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA:Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Introduction to Differentiated Instruction[Motion Picture].Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Putting It All Together [Motion Picture]. Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009).What is Differentiated Instruction? [Motion Picture].Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

EDUC 6713: Final Reflection

Throughout this course, I learned that the GAME plan I developed and followed guided me towards establishing outstanding educational goals for my students and me. For example, I set out to learn more about current and emerging digital tools and took action by creating a checklist/”to do” list. Thanks to Walden, I experienced many of the digital tools earlier than planned, such as digital storytelling and social or educational networking. As a result of this experience and GAME plan, the educational technologist and I have already planned a digital storytelling unit for next school year. In addition, I worked with the administration so that our school is now connected to a social networking site that centers on problem-based learning. This will also take place next school year.

This spring, I had the opportunity to teach the GAME plan goal-setting methodology to a couple of my middle school classes (ESL and careers) and the students created their own GAME plans for a particular task. Overall, the students were receptive, motivated, and followed through. After this positive experience, I will continue to implement the GAME plan into my classes next year. Furthermore, I will continue to follow my GAME plan for learning more about current and emerging digital tools. I have many more tools to discover and check off of my list.

Finally, the immediate adjustment I will make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration in my content areas is to LOOK AT CONTENT FIRST then see what technology will support it! Grasping this idea has made technology integration less overwhelming and more exciting. I look forward to this being a number one priority in my teaching practice in order to facilitate students' creative thinking or overall self-directed learning.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences with Technology, Part 1 [Motion Picture]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

Week 7 Game-Plan Update

Digital storytelling is definitely on my checklist of “current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information,” and this week, I learned how to get this type of instruction started for next school year in all three of the classes that I teach (ESL, AVID, and careers). In addition, I talked to the educational technologist about my ideas, and he is happy to help. Also, I was able to get the other AVID teacher interested in his students collaborating with mine to create digital stories for elementary students. Over the past couple of years, my 8th grade AVID students wrote and illustrated hardcopy books to share with little ones, and this year's group of students was not very excited about the project. Perhaps next year's group will be enthusiastic about digital storytelling.

Finally, this week’s topic of digital storytelling reminded me to pay more attention to copyright laws. I learned from Dr. Arnie Abrams that it is fine to use other’s music, visuals, and video on projects that are posted to Intranet sites or private sites and say, “cease and desist.” Did I understand this correctly? Is the following letter via the link below one that someone could expect to receive if work is not cited?

http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/INTELLECTUALProperty/contract/cease.htm


References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Spotlight on Technology:Digital Storytelling, Part 1 [Motion Picture]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Spotlight on Technology: Digital Storytelling, Part 2 [Motion Picture]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

Week 6 GAME-Plan Update

This week I have been focusing on my checklist of technology tools that I would like to learn more about in order to “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information.” So far I have discovered that only a few of the social networking sites are NOT accessible from my school for students to use. For example, Ning, Twitter, and Voice Thread are not available due to them being blocked. However, there are many options that area available, such as Thinkquest, ePals, Moodle, and The Mixxer. In addition, I learned that the school principal can give our educational technologist the authority to unblock websites if the purpose is proven to be educational and safe. For instance, I was able to get my Walden blog unblocked at school, so now I have the opportunity to interact with it from work because it is based on professional development. Finally, I relearned that our school’s educational technologist has his own link to resources for teachers from our school’s Intranet Share Point site. He terms this link to technology resources “How to…” and these resources are tutorials he created about the different software available to faculty and students, such as Captivate, SMART Notebook, PhotoShop, Premiere, Dreamweaver, Excel, Inspiration, Zamzar, and Publisher. I definitely could learn more about a majority of them; especially, Captivate, Premiere, and Dreamweaver. After rediscovering these tutorials, I learned that Captivate is like Screentoaster where you can record a computer screen and talk at the same time while you navigate from this or that on the computer. Right now I am chanting… one at a time…one at a time….

My other NET-S T goal centers on assessment and I have a question about a particular assessment practice or strategy. I am wondering about peer assessment and what other teachers think about it. For the past year, I have been allowing my AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) 8th graders to peer evaluate each other’s binder organization, and the evaluation process is guided by a particular student and teacher created checklist. This occurs every two weeks and after the evaluation, the students reflect on their progress. Recently, our school’s AVID program was evaluated, and I was told by the evaluator in front of my peers and administration that this is an extremely horrible practice!

Week 5 Game-Plan Update

Since initiating my Game-Plan to learn more about assessments in general, I have learned to be more of help to my school's Continuous School Improvement (CSI) Assessment Committee. I have always been on the committee; however, I was not contributing new ideas until recently and thanks to Walden resources. Last week my school had a half day for CSI training and the Assessment Committee was tasked with brainstorming another school-wide summative assessment to take the place of the pen and pencil problem-based exemplar. I suggested a multimedia project as seen on page 156-157 of our course text. This type of assessment would be more interesting and meaningful to our students because it not only aligns with content standards but technology standards, as well. So far, the educational technologist and CSI chair are onboard with this idea, and we will begin discussing and developing a plan for this type of assessment at the beginning of next school year.

My action plans for modeling and facilitating effective use of current and emerging digital tools are currently progessing at a slow pace due to the time of year. Last week, I was able to discuss with the eductional technologist a meeting time for the beginning of next school year to talk about best practices for implementing many of the technology tools I have on my checklist. He emailed information for me to learn about digital storytelling and MovieMaker . In addition, my Walden colleagues have given me encouragement and motivation to start implementing both programs. Finally, I look forward to the summer when I can relax and take more time to investigate the tech tools I want to learn and also create a list of questions for the educational technologist when we meet after the break.

Reference

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Week 4 GAME-Plan Update

This week’s resources provided me with a tremendous amount of information about assessment. Dr. Ross discussed three steps for determining effective assessment, and this clearly outlined information helped a great deal. I learned that teachers need to identify learning objectives, determine teaching methods and lastly, choose technology to support both of the above in order to effectively determine what students learn. As a result of this information, I was able to identify the kind of assessment that works best with my student objectives and classroom instruction. Based on the fact that I instruct students to create projects, problem solve, and share their information, I learned from Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) that performance-based and project-based assessment are a great way for my students to demonstrate mastery.

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Assessing Student Learning with Technology [Motion Picture]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

Week 3 GAME-Plan Update

Last week I learned more about how I could monitor my progress by creating a checklist (Thanks, Amy G!) I found it interesting that I generate checklists and rubrics for my students quite often; however, I did not think about using one in my own NETS-T GAME plan.

This week’s resources helped me review summative and formative assessments, so I can check this off the list. However, I am going to need to draw some kind of concept map to align the assessments I do with content and technology standards. Basically, I need a graphic organizer to get a clear picture. I will definitely need to review chapter five of our course text in order to do this. (Yes, I am extremely visual!)

Currently I am in pursuit of a list of current and emerging digital tools that I would like to learn more about in order to inform and teach students. Specifically, I would like to learn about MovieMaker, so I can have my students create digital stories next school year.

Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas: Personal GAME Plan

My GOAL is to be more confident and proficient in the following two ISTE NETS-T standards:

Standard 2.d. states that teachers should “provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching.”

Standard 3.d. states that teachers should “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.”

My ACTION plan for meeting these standards is to break them down into steps and create a visual, so I can get a full picture of what I need to do. I will also review the difference between formative and summative assessments and discover multiple and varied forms of them via Walden resources, the Web, and getting feedback from colleagues. In addition, I will research current and emerging digital tools the same way. For example, in this week’s resources, Vicki Davis mentioned the Monster and Flat Earth projects, as well as Twitter, Classroom 2.0 and Classrooms without Borders. I may have heard of these; however, I have not tried using them to enrich students’ learning in the classroom.

I will MONITOR my actions by questioning whether or not I am finding the information I need and whether or not I need to modify my action plan as suggested by Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009).

Finally, I will EVALUATE and EXTEND my plan based on whether or not I have met my learning goals.

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences with Technology, Part 2 [Motion Picture]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

Reflection: Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom

The most striking revelation I had about the teaching of new literacy skills to my students was how unaware of them many of us are (yes, including myself.) Also, that new literacy skills are not the same as basic literacy skills, such as the ability to read and write. Jukes and MacDonald (2007) state that, “But if all learners do is learn the traditional literacies--to read, write, speak and calculate—they may be literate by 20th Century standards but certainly not by 21st Century standards” (p. 2). As a result, educators should teach students new skills and fluencies that will prepare them for success in the 21st Century. In addition to learning more about 21st Century skills, I learned a great deal about specifically teaching Web literacy skills, and this experience was also quite a revelation. Having the opportunity to implement M. Eagleton and E. Dobler’s QUEST Model of Internet Inquiry helped my students and I adopt a better understanding of Web literacy skills. M. Eagleton and E. Dobler state that, “QUEST also serves as an ideal metaphor for the active quest for information that characterizes our daily lives, whether at home, in school, or in the workplace” (p. 51, 2007). This is an important quote because new literacy skills are more beneficial to students when they are relevant and meaningful to their lives. Moreover, through the QUEST model, students can learn to visualize and apply how to effectively problem-solve using the Web.

The knowledge and experience gained in this course will influence my teaching practice from here forward. For example, prior to my students using the Internet to research information, I will ensure that they have an action plan for using the Web to retrieve information, such as the QUEST Model of Internet Inquiry. Furthermore, I will be more mindful of how I will assess students' understanding when they are conducting a guided inquiry by doing the following: observing students; collecting data on student perfomance from their journals and reflections; and providing students with rubrics and on-going feedback.

Finally, in order to build upon my learning in this course and develop my own technology skills, I would like to pursue two professional development goals. One is to inform my colleagues about the strategies I learned to teach students new literacy skills, and the second goal is to attend the Educational Technologist’s free classes that are offered to teachers throughout the school year. These classes are designed to help teachers learn more about the computer applications available to them, as well as the students. Lastly, when teachers know how to successfully use the computer programs, they can more willingly teach their students how to use and apply them to the students' projects or learning tasks.

References

Jukes, I. (2007). 21st century fluency skills: Attributes of a 21st century learner. Retrieved from http://www.committedsardine.com/handouts/twca.pdf

Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.