Reflection for EDUC 6713

Looking back over the last seven weeks at how unsuccessful I have been at accomplishing my original GAME plan, I would have to consider that I have failed miserably. But have I? Really? No. Insight into my own orange personality has shown me how difficult it is going to be for my ADHD students to set goals and reach them. That is why I have adjusted the GAME plan to meet the needs of my students by starting small with a predetermined goal of turning assignments in. Big successes such as NETS-S must be preceded by little ones.

I could not stay focused on my GAME plan. Maybe I did not choose well… I did choose my weakest areas to improve, but meeting the needs of my Special Education students through the use of assistive technologies came first. Was I wrong to set aside my personal goals to meet the needs of my students? No. The last student I put onto a voice recognition program told his Special Education teacher that Writing is now his favorite subject. Why? I can only surmise that my 6-Traits philosophy placed his spelling issues into an appropriate context. He has learned that he has good Ideas and strong Organization traits. He has become more willing to work on his spelling issues.

Was abandoning my personal GAME plan the right choice? Yes. I will work on strengthening my use of a wider variety of softwares and tools as the need arises. I am still the digital native to my poverty-stricken students. When that changes, I will continue to adapt.

Resources:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Culham, R. (2003) 6 + 1 traits of writing: The complete guide grades 3 and up. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

True Colors International. (2009). http://www.true-colors.com/.

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2007Standards/NETS_for_Students_2007_Standards.pdf

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards?NETS_T_Standards_Final

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx

GAME for Increasing Student Use of Technology in the Classroom

Dr. Peggy Etrmer states that for teachers to integrate technology effectively we must have knowledge of basic technology skills, be confident when using technology, have solid beliefs that learning goes beyond knowing the facts, and be surrounded by people supporting us as we try new technologies in the classroom (Laureate, 2009). I kept that in mind as I looked at the NETS to discover my weaknesses. I continue to keep that in mind as I evaluate how to best help my students improve their technology skills.

Where to start? I know people are tired of hearing me say that my students don’t have any background in technology and that I am the digital native in the classroom. In this day and age, that is difficult for people to believe when they look at how long I have already been in the classroom and the junior high students that I teach. How can this be true? It is true because of the poverty level of the county in which I teach. It is true because the remedial nature of my classes tends to put my students at a severe disadvantage on the poverty scale. All I can do is expose them to as much technology as I can throughout the semester they are with me. At least that is what I used to think. Exposure isn’t enough. The exposure to technology must become more purposeful, more deliberate, more planned. Here it comes! The GAME plan for my students (Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P., 2010)! The next decision must be am I going to set their goals, knowing this may not be the best choice or am I going to let the students set their own goals through discussion of NETS-S (http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2007Standards/NETS_for_Students_2007_Standards.pdf )? Probably both. I will set student goals based on what I intend to make sure they master but I will also let students develop their own GAME plans, knowing in advance they will choose goals based on what will be “fun.” The hidden benefit here is that more standards will be covered!

Goals
My students are not goal setters; setting goals will be difficult for them. I am not sure that I should jump in right away with the technology. Maybe the first goal should be to complete the assignments and turn them in. Once they have been successful doing that, I can move them to the technology goals. I see my first goal for my students being strand two: Communication and Collaboration. Then I would choose strand five: Digital Citizenship because it is so closely related to writing and documenting resources. They will get this strand in so many different ways that it should be an easy goal for them to achieve. What I predict my students will set as their goals is strand one: creativity and Innovation.

Action
How am I going to do this? Start small and take baby steps. I will start with setting an easily attainable goal for them and have them track their progress toward it. By gradually increasing their involvement, I hope to have them setting their own goals within a month. That will leave time during the rest of the semester for us to work together on the technology goals.

Monitor
By starting small, monitoring will be easy. It will be a simple yes/no; did I get all my work turned in? Then I will add a reflection piece by asking students to indicate how they felt about accomplishing the goal. As we set new goals, this checklist will expand. By the time we reach the technology goals, students will be familiar with the GAME process and actively participating in planning their next goal.

Evaluate and Extend
This part of GAME will be the hardest part, for me and my students. We will do a lot of discussing what we want next. I will use this time to remind them of their successes as we look forward to tackling a larger goal.


Resources:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2007Standards/NETS_for_Students_2007_Standards.pdf

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Program three. Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences with Technology, Part 1 [Motion picture]. Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.

Assistive Technology and Problem-solving

Assistive technology, specifically, voice recognition programs have become the goal I set my heart on. There has been no progress toward my goal this week. My doctor has me confined to my home; he said that I am not to go to work until Monday. I cannot even explore how the program works on my own computer because I have no voice! So now what? I will explore problem-based learning and how social collaboration fits into it.

The next lesson in my unit will tie into wikis. I want to create a wiki for my students to use. Since they have never been exposed to this type of learning, I will create pages based on different types of energy. From there, the students will create the content to put on those pages. That’s all I have for this week…

New Plan!

My original game plan for podcasts and Voicethread has definitely been scrapped for a new plan revolving around assistive technology. Specifically, voice recognition software. I have identified another student already enrolled in my class that would benefit from this technology. When I look at his writing and apply the AIMS (Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards) rubrics to score his work, he always does well in Ideas and Organization. Even Voice and Word Choice, when he chooses the right topic, is strong. His weakest traits are Sentence Fluency and Conventions. Especially Conventions! I have been reading student writing for sixteen years and I still have trouble deciphering his writing. Telling his story orally would enhance Sentence Fluency and definitely Conventions. I have spoken to his aide about this technology and she is supportive. Now, we just have to get it into his IEP. Our Special Education Department may not take to this, since spelling sight words correctly is one of his goals. I prefer that his creativity not be stifled by his spelling issues. After all, as he grows as a writer, his AIMS scores will improve enough that his Conventions shouldn’t hold him back. His voice recognition will begin as soon as the current project is finished. His aide will help me. We will use the software built into MS Operating systems since it will be available on every computer. Then, we will be able to determine if students have to train one computer or if, once trained, the program is applicable to whatever computer they log into since our system is networked…

Progress for next semester’s student remains slow. Rather than try the voice recognition program that is already on our computers, the Special Education department is looking at commercial software. I don’t understand why, but they do work with the student more than I do. Maybe there are issues with the text being too difficult on MS Operating systems… Maybe the commercial software allows reading levels to be set to student levels… The software they are looking at can be found on this website: http://www.wordq.com/. I can see advantages to wordq for many of my students, but if the Special Education department purchases it, I won’t be able to use it for every student. Right now, I am waiting to see what Special Education does for this student in particular. I am going to speak to the district administrator of Special Education tomorrow morning on our drive to work and offer my viewpoint about these technologies and why the district should begin exploring assistive technology as a way to support student learning. We’re moving forward again, just not at the pace I would like to see it done. Isn’t that typical for most teachers? We can’t get what we want fast enough!

Advancing the GAME plan

Looking at my GAME plan, I have to admit that there has been no advancement toward the integration of my student into next semester. She continues to come to me during CAP time, choosing my room over a longer lunch period. However, since there are other students that I am working one on one with, I am unable to get her on a computer to begin speech recognition training. I have discovered another problem to implementing speech recognition with her. Training usually involves a brief period of reading a script that allows necessary corrections to be made, much the same as setting a volume level on a microphone for a recording session. She cannot read. The Special Education teacher has been busy this week with IEP’s on her high school case load. She also has not been able to begin training a computer for this student to work with. Everything is on hold with the short week due to Thanksgiving break. Hopefully, next will prove more productive. I have begun the process of preparing my ELL students for the addition of this student into the classroom. They seem receptive enough. This has been a frustrating week; I am sure next week will be better.

Monitoring the GAME Plan

After this week’s experiences in the classroom and reviewing the goals I established last week, I have to conclude that the goals I set are on hold for a little while. But only until next semester! Before I can implement goals with Voicethread or Photostory, I must first learn as much as I can about speech recognition programs so that one student does not get left behind. So, in order to reach the original goals in my game plan, I have to set another goal and it has to take precedence.

Voice recognition is a possibility. I will start with the voice recognition program that is installed in the OS system of our school computers. This may not be sufficient, but we will try. The student I am working with does have speech issues. If the installed program on MS Word does not work around her speech issues, we may have to move to an outside program. I have asked her current Special Education teacher to begin her training on a computer in that room. We have yet to ask her speech therapist to help us. That will be the next step.

I need to research the speech recognition programs available on the open market. I am having trouble finding outside source reviews of different programs. Every thing so far has been commercial reviews stating how good each program is… Can anyone out there help me find an independent site? Does any one out there have personal experience with more than one voice recognition program that they would be willing to share?

Other options for this student are dictation to someone who will read her story for her, or use the text to voice program available through MSWord and the OS. The problem with text to voice is that she would have to dictate to someone as grammar and spelling issues would interfere with translation from text to voice, in much the same way that voice recognition training may not help her feel successful. I am trying to avoid the dictation process because I think the challenge of creating by herself will be more fulfilling than someone doing it for her. She does like to feel as independent as possible. 

Resources:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards?NETS_T_Standards_Final

GAME Plan

Dr. Peggy Etmer states that for teachers to integrate technology effectively we must have knowledge of basic technology skills, be confident when using technology, have solid beliefs that learning goes beyond knowing the facts, and be surrounded by people supporting us as we try new technologies in the classroom (Laureate, 2009). I kept that in mind as I looked at the NETS to discover my weaknesses.

After reviewing NETS for teachers, I have determined that my technology skills have improved over the last fifteen months. However, there is still room for much more improvement! Careful examination of NETS and evaluating my own weaknesses has led me to determine that my foundation in technology still has holes. The NETS that I have chosen to work on first is standard two: Design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments. I love to design effective lessons... Of the four objectives in this standard, I am weakest with b and c. Both objectives deal with creating technology enriched environments and individualized learning (NETS). Improving these two areas will help create self-directed learners who think creatively, are more involved in the content, and increase their awareness of how technology will become an integral part of their futures (Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P., 2010).

As a teacher, I have to do some intricate planning to help me reach my full potential, even before I can help my students reach theirs. Our text offers a plan to follow to help me. The GAME plan (Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P., 2010). So, with creating technology enriched environments in mind and expanding my differentiated instruction to provide students with more learning opportunities, I need to begin by setting goals for myself.

Goals:
I want to be able to use more podcasts and voicethreads in my class.

To prepare myself for the use of podcasts and voicethreads, I need more practice. I need to choose a lesson and create a podcast and a voicethread to make myself more comfortable with the technology. I also need to appeal to our technology department and convince them that these two skills are necessary for the futures of our students so that they will let me access the software online and download it. This could be identified as my biggest obstacle.

I will know that I have been successful when I feel comfortable bringing this technology into the classroom. I will know I have been successful when I can upload my own documents to the World Wide Web without any glitches. I will know I have been successful when the IT people install the software on my class computers.

Action:
I need information and videos on how to create a podcast and a voicethread. It would be best if this information was interactive.

The voicethread site already has a self-explanatory tutorial on how to create a voicethread. It can be found at: http://voicethread.com?#home. In addition, several tutorials for podcasting can be found on www.youtube.com.

Any additional resources needed can be researched and evaluated online. Computer labs will have to be reserved when I am ready to implement in the classroom.

For me to learn this information, I will have to take a hands on approach, along with reading and highlighting key points. In addition, if I get stuck with a piece of information I cannot figure out on my own, I have personal resources in the form of IT people and classmates on which I can rely.

Monitor:
Monitoring my progress will happen on http://delicious.com. as I bookmark the sites that prove to be most helpful. The drawback to this monitoring system is that it cannot be accessed at work.

Evaluate and extend:
This will occur at a later date.


Resources:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

http://www.iste.org/Content?NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards?NETS_T_Standards_Final

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Program three. Enriching content area learning experiences wit technology, part 1 [Motion picture]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

New Literacies in the Classroom

This week's article, "Teaching Two Literacies," by Joanne Rooney would have been just as effective as an introduction to our class as it was a conclusion to our class. It might have been more helpful for me to have this information in the beginning than at t he end; the article provides a sense of focus for teaching students to become literate - no matter what the content is. What I enjoyed most about the article, and this class, is the focus on teaching students literacy skills, rather than using technology to create engaging lessons - just because it is available.
As I look back over the last eight weeks, the most striking revelation that I had involves how much sooner our students are expected to learn higher level literacy skills. I remember not being exposed to the concept of propaganda and biases until high school. We cannot afford to wait that long today! Yet, many of the Language Arts teachers I know only briefly touch on propaganda. If we would strengthen the concepts of propaganda at a much younger age, K-2 even, through exposure to cereal advertisements, then noticing biases, while not necessarily second nature, would be less difficult for my students. Another surprise for me was to discover that I am more technologically literate than my students. For most teachers my age and having never even seen a computer until the late 1980's, I expected it to be the other way around. Many teachers my age are stereotyped into the computer illiterate group; I need to avid stereotyping my students as being computer literate; just because technology is their future doesn't mean they have the financial means or educational inclination to embrace technology and the New Literacies.
What I enjoyed the most about this class was that literacy skills were more important than the technology being used. Every teacher in my district has a SmartBoard in his or her room; so much is possible on one. Yet, in many rooms, it is utilized as a glorified worksheet with one student at the board demonstrating his or her recall skills. "Oh, but I'm using the technology," is what I hear teachers saying... The philosophy of literacy first and technology second is what I intend to take to my classroom. Having two different processes to teach my students, QUEST and REAL, provides an avenue for scaffolding student learning with strong, relevant strategies that will serve them outside of my classroom. I am looking forward to exploring Boolean search strategies with my students; I will not longer assume they know as much, or more, than me just because this is supposed to be their world.
One goal that I need to start looking into is how to ask relevant question. This could be as simple as requesting a mentor from my district, if possible. Often the mentors are assigned to "new" teachers. I feel this is valuable, but if the district wants to develop better staff, then these mentors should not be limited to only the new teachers. Even though I have been teaching for 16 years, I can still recognize the need for improvement. A mentor would be a good choice for helping me develop better questioning skills and passing these skills onto my students. Guess it is time to go talk to my principal ans see what she says...

Personal Theory of Learning Reflection:

When I think back on my personal theory of learning, I realize that it is a blend of all the different theories. I do feel that I need less behaviorism; I need to find a quick way to cover rules and procedures so that I will have more time to move toward the social learning theory. I am weakest on each end of the learning continuum. A blending of theories is still the best way to meet the needs of all my students as they come to me at varying levels and abilities.

The most immediate change that I am going to make is to recreate the effort rubric on page 157 of our text (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007). It will be stored in a central server so that each student will have access. I will ask them to resave it onto their individual servers. As we work with this document, they will save it back to the central server into a folder that I create for each of them. Each week, they will re-evaluate themselves and save it by the date. After the second week, we will start discussing how to transfer this information into a chart or bar graph so they can view their progress (or lack of). I expect to have charts completed and printed in time for parent teacher conferences in October.

The second change I make is for me because if I improve my planning, then the students will improve their learning. I intend to make use of the four planning questions on page 10. While my lessons are long and detailed well enough that anyone can walk into my room and take over (district requirement), I feel that detailing my strategies will create more learning opportunities for my students (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007).

The long-term goal that I am setting for myself is to bring more opportunities for social learning into my classroom using voice thread and virtual tours. After time spent exploring different virtual tours, I would like my ELL students to create a virtual tour of their own. I want them to see what they have to offer to the world through their own culture.

This course has reinforced many of the theories and strategies that I already use in my room. However, it also made me painfully aware of the opportunities to use technology of which I am not taking advantage.

Resources:

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Voice thread issues

Is anyone having trouble leaving comments on their own voice thread the second time around? I left a voice comment for Travis, but there is no sound when I access the thread. There was plenty of sound when it played back the first time I recorded it. After I hit save and replayed the thread, it was still working. When I accessed it again a couple hours later, my comment to Travis on slide 2 would not play. What am I missing?

Another Voice Thread

This voice thread comes from the tech teacher at the same junior high where I teach. We are going through this Master's Program together. I think it is amazing that she chose the same problem that I did, but took a different approach to it. Her thread is much more creative. Keep in mind, she is the tech teacher, and is able to teach an online class, but still cannot do many of the collaborative things that we should be doing. All because of bandwidth issues...

Won't you be my neighbor?

“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor…” Do you think that Mr. Rogers envisioned just how big the neighborhood would be when he wrote the lyrics to Won’t You be My Neighbor? back in 1967? Yet, his words still ring true.

It begins in the classroom. We strive to create a learning environment that is safe enough for even the most unwilling student to feel welcome and part of a group. It expands as we create lessons that use technology to enable our students to communicate with a classroom across town. It grows as we link our students to different cultures within our country. It explodes as we leap across rivers, mountain ranges, and oceans to meet people from countries we may never physically visit. This is learning; this is being connected and networked to the world. This is our students’ future.

However, their future will start with Behaviorism. After a foundation is laid with Behaviorism, we, as teachers, will expose them to Cognitivism, Constructionism and a new theory, Social Learning. To be successful, our students must learn to work together. To see similarities and differences as a good thing. One way to reach this goal is through the use of cooperative learning. Cooperative learning can lay the foundation for a strong neighborhood in the classroom. Once students are working together in the classroom, teachers can open additional communities for students to explore. As barriers break down, learning increases.

I cannot learn without my neighbors. “Won’t you be my neighbor?”


Resources:

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Rogers, Fred M. Won’t you be my neighbor? Lyrics. 1967. Retrieved from: http://pbskids.org/rogers/songlist/song1_ra.html 2009.

Acceptable Use Policy

Here is a link to my voice thread. I really could use some advice and suggestions. Thanks!

Constructionism and Hypotheses, how do they fit together?

Constructionism relies on students to learn by following a process and creating an artifact. When I think of generating and testing a hypothesis, I automatically think Science. However, in our reading for this week, I have explored hypotheses outside of a Science classroom. Many skills are used when testing hypotheses, with research being one of the biggest skills. Gathering data may be “tedious and error prone” as our text suggests, but as a building block to higher-level skills, I believe teaching students to do the research is productive. It may fit into the behaviorist learning strategy more than the constructionist learning strategy, but it is still a valuable skill, especially for students interested in Science, Math or History based careers.

With that opinion out of the way, let’s focus on constructionism and how it ties into generating and testing hypotheses. Testing hypotheses opens up a technology rich environment for our students to engage in. Through the use of a wide variety of technologies, we are furthering our students’ knowledge and preparing them for the 21st Century. In addition, we are teaching them a process. The more our students are exposed to process learning, the easier it will be for them to assimilate or accommodate new information. Use of the software allows students to focus on generating more solutions in a shorter period of time. It makes the end product more attainable. Hypothesizing allows students to formulate more choices. Any time choice is an option for students, more learning occurs because of the disequilibration that Dr. Orey describes. Once that disequilibration disappears, we as facilitators, have to recreate situations to throw our students out of equilibration and back into disequilibration so that they are making choices to accommodate or assimilate new learning. A good hypothesis where students are required to test what they have learned will do just that.


Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program five. Classroom management to promote student learning. Baltimore: Dr. Michael Orey.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Virtual Tours and Concept Mapping Online

Are virtual tours the same as streaming video? If so, I will have difficulty downloading and using the programs. Our Acceptable Use Policy strictly forbids streaming video during class hours. I would run the risk of having my computers pulled from my room, including the teacher computer.

Concept mapping online would be a great addition to the virtual tools but the sites I've looked at require accounts to be set up. Again, this is in violation of the AUP. I have talked to tech services and they are going to investigate several concept mapping sites for me this summer and find one that they will allow through the filters for the students to set up accounts in... Maybe.

Do any other teachers have these problems trying to bring new uses for technology into their districts?

Cognitivism in Practice

From my reading this week, I see technology being used to do the same thing in a different way. However, the virtual field trips do offer a way to do things differently (Thornburg, 2008). I want to do things differently. I want my ELL students to create their own virtual field trip about reservation life next year. Let’s see if I can pull it off.

Now, back to what I am supposed to be writing about. There were several good strategies that I intend to implement next year. As I explore the cognitive learning that takes place in my room, I have to admit that area of teaching is not as strong as I thought it was. But, I am growing. As Dr. Orey says, “Integrating multiple senses in presentations improves learning, but only if the images are relevant.” (Laureate, 2008). We used many pictures this year, some chosen by me, others by my students. We discovered Photo Story 3 and explored all that it has to offer. Now, it is time to take their learning to a deeper level by adding an advance organizer. The perfect one can be found in our text and I will recreate it in Inspiration. I have a unit on Child Labor in which I ask the students to create a photo story as the final project. A problem/solution template would have expanded their thought processes and helped them see the connections to child labor as it exists today. All of my students made the historical connections, but only a few realized that the problem continues today, with very little change from the past. Using a concept mapping tool, either on paper or on the computer, would have allowed my students to elaborate their thought processes, thus moving more information with stronger connections to their long term memory.

One question remains from all of my reading this week. Isn’t an advanced organizer, as defined by our text to include video and pictures, just another way of addressing Madeline Hunter’s anticipatory set?


Hunter, Madeline. Mastery Teaching. Tip Publications: University of California. 2008.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program five. Classroom management to promote student learning. Baltimore: Dr. Michael Orey.

Thornburg, D. (2008). Emergence of Educational Technology. Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society. Laureate Education, Inc.

Behaviorism in Practice

Behaviorism has developed unwarranted negative connotations in the education field over the last few years (Orey, 2008). But as I explore the theory behind behaviorism, I realize that it has always had a place in my classroom. I personally may not have been aware of the practice of behaviorism in my classroom, but it has been there in the form of teacher-student conferences about writing, providing immediate feedback about inappropriate behavior, and the computer tutorials that are sometimes used.

My next move toward behaviorism will be evident as I implement the Effort Rubric found in our textbook. If there is negative fallout from the rubric, it will occur because of student choices, not because of me. I see this rubric as a way for students to begin to accept responsibility for their actions, rather than hearing that all too common refrain, “The teacher doesn’t like me.” Another use for charting student effort is it can be used to provide feedback to parents when they ask, “How is my child doing in your class?” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007). Having just conducted this type of meeting with a parent whose child will probably not leave the junior high this year, the rubric has hit close to home. Even with the students doing their own charting and receiving immediate feedback to help change their behaviors, I do see this becoming a valuable piece of documentation for teachers.

The working philosophy behind behaviorism is the immediate feedback, hopefully more positive than negative. The sooner we can let our students know what they are doing incorrectly, the sooner they can alter their own learning. That is what makes peer revision, and even teacher-student revision, so valuable when teaching the writing process. Another way to make behaviorism more effective is for the teacher to write with his/her students and ask for feedback from the students. They get to “reward” the teacher while practicing some very basic skills, if
the teacher plans her writing that way… :P

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program four. Behaviorist learning theory [Motion picture]. Behaviorist learning theory. Baltimore: Dr. Michael Orey.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology

Welcome old and new friends! I hope we share and exchange lots of ideas during the next 8 weeks. I think I have everyone added...

Virginia White

WELCOME!

Welcome Smart Day Participants! Hope you are enjoying the activities that we have planned for you. Did you enjoy creating your first blog? Please leave a comment for us so that we know how much you are enjoying your day.

Reflecting Upon Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society (EDUC - 6710I - 16)

I began this course with a reasonable knowledge of how to do things differently with technology, as explained by Dr. Thornburg (2008). I have always been frustrated with doing things differently and now I know why. I inherently understood that what I was doing was not putting the technology in my classroom to its fullest use. Now I have some ideas for expanding what can be done; now, I am looking for different things to do.

When I think about the new forms of technology that I have experimented with the last eight weeks, I have to nominate Skype, by far, as the most helpful. Without direct, immediate contact with my classmates, many assignments would have become too difficult to complete on my own. Skype allowed me to make contact when I needed help without having to wait for classmates to check their email and respond. The second most useful tool on the web for me has proven to be my blog. I continue to edit, check and post to my blog beyond classroom requirements. As my skills improve, I am looking forward to creating one for my classrooms to use. That will happen shortly as we begin a unit on exploring the accuracy of web sites, an idea gleaned from ‘The New Literacies” (Miners & Pascopella, 2007). But, I have to admit that podcasts created the highest level of growth. I learned new software in Audacity and how to upload files (beyond pictures) to the Internet. Moving from podcasts, my students created PowerPoints that I converted to movies and will upload to http://www.teachertube.com/ as soon as I find the time. The downfall to my learning? I have to do the converting and uploading at home or after hours at school due to the restrictions on the district filters. So, the students do not reap the most benefit because all they had to do was create the PowerPoint.

My knowledge base has expanded as I find more options available. The battlefield is changing from replacing my color printer when it dies to fighting the filters so students can explore their global world. I have to improve my cooperative learning skills so students can learn to work with others rather than in isolation. I think I am going to add Wikipedia to my personal narrative unit by finding a “safe” topic and showing the students the discussion pages. What better way to provide students with evidence of peer editing?!

Perspectives shift as student growth does. I have always initiated the task by explaining the final product and providing students multiple topics to get there. From that point forward, the classroom operates as a writing workshop. Maybe I need to enhance the workshop philosophy by providing students a list of genres that must be completed by the end of the semester and allowing them to work at their own pace. Of course, there would have to be a half way requirement as well because of the nine-week grading period. The only difference between scenario one and scenario two would be that I set the pace and product order, which provides the students with a safety net so that they cannot fail. Scenario two would leave much more of the responsibility to students and create a higher risk of failure as they learn to manage their time along with every thing else. It would also allow for the highest level of creativity, as they decide how to feature the genre through MSWord, blogs, wikis or podcasts. Either way, I would still have to remove us from the workshop twice a semester to conduct a practice test comparable to the state mandated writing test, since my class is basically the test prep class.
I feel my knowledge base can be better expanded to benefit students more by exploring and modeling 21st Century Skills. The 21st Century Skills incorporate technology, but not to the exclusion of core subjects. Using technology just so that I can report to my principal that the technology in my room is not lying dormant is not reason enough. Use of technology by students needs to serve a real purpose, not just to do something differently. Focusing on 21st Century Skills first will allow me to avoid the pitfalls of technology “just because.”

Within the next two years, I would like to see podcasts become a viable part of my curriculum. I would like to see my students allowed to set up accounts and learn the 21st Century skills used to work from start to finish when creating a podcast. I do not want to take the learning away from my students by uploading their work to my account. That will be an uphill battle, as it will require my students to have email accounts on our system. That will have to be overcome first. Once that is overcome, technology use for my students will make a strong move into the 21st Century. The second goal will be to get my technology service group to allow me to download programs such as Audacity so that my students can begin to work with multiple medias. With all the restrictions on our servers, we are not allowed to use outside software. This is the greatest disservice my district does to my students. My students can do all the creating they want within our system. Exposing their creations to a wider audience on the World Wide Web will be the ultimate challenge.

When I look back at the survey I completed the first week of this course, I can see my growth. My students are using more multimedia to present their learning. I am also working more collaborative tasks into my classroom. This is extremely difficult for my ELL students, but we are working on it. One area that has not improved is the way I design my learning experiences. Intel requires me to work backwards and I have been successful doing this, so I haven’t worked on improving this. All in all, technology use for me personally has grown tremendously. Now, to pass it on to my students.


Miners, Z., & Pascopella, A. (2007). The new literacies. District Administration, 43(10), 26–34.


Thornburg, D. (2008). Emergence of Educational Technology. Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society. Laureate Education, Inc.

Technology Interviews

I enjoyed interviewing my students. Even more, I enjoy sharing them with you. When I think of all the people out there talking about how this generation are all digital natives, I can't help but think how narrow that view is. So, to help dispel that view, I talked to my ELL students. I know that their technology demographics do not match the rest of the school's population. But, I am equally sure that there is a contingency of students in every school that will be digital immigrants, even in this generation.

I apologize for the poor quality of the sound track. I haven't figured out how to do fine sound editing. With all the trouble I had with Vista being set to default all sound recording to Windows Media Player and Audacity set to not violate copyrights, it is a wonder I got anything up. THANK YOU RAYMOND for all you do to help us. I wouldn't be up and running without you!

Just some late night mussings

How bad is this going to get? I don't think we have even started on how bad it is going to get! States have used their income unwisely, leaving themselves with huge deficits. So what is the first thing they want to cut to balance their budgets? Education. Teachers were laid off at Christmas time because school districts couldn't handle the financial cuts being made by their state legislatures. I thought I was in a fairly stable situation, being a teacher; but then again, maybe I should switch careers and become a member of the state legislature. Now that is a secure job! They may have wised up and won't vote themselves a pay raise for the next couple of years but I bet they don't worry about layoffs either!

My district is pretty stable. We stay within our budgets every year. Yet our budgets do rely heavily on funding from state and federal resources. Right now, the talk is to begin rifts by not filling the positions of teachers that retire or choose to leave. Any district that does that will find that their class sizes increase... In my district, leadership believes in smaller class sizes, yet that is being sacraficed to keep teachers on staff. It is a catch 22. I worry about having so many students, which will make it harder to reach them. Yet, I appreciate that my district is trying to keep as many of us as they can. It just seems disheartening that education is already being hit by tough economic times. I was hoping the value of having educated children to lead us in the future would be a factor in keeping teaching more stable.

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

I found the website to be informative and not as commercialized as I expected. I would have like to see some printable charts containing the 21st Century skills available for posting in the classroom. Intel’s Teach Program: Thinking with Technology has those charts, but only on half pages. I will have to recreate them to post them in my room. Another thing I would have liked to see is links to lessons that exhibit these skills. There are activities and lessons, but I would like to see a seperate link in which all of the lessons are together. It would make the site more user friendly, in my opinion.

I was surprised to see that, while the site does not have a blog, it does have a place to submit articles for publication, if you sign up to become a member. Another thing that surprised me was that I could not find any information about Costa and Kallick’s 16 Habits of Mind. With Intel being a big supporter of this type of thinking and being a member of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, I expected to find the 16 Habits of Mind in more detail.

After visiting this site, the implications for my students and myself did not change from what the implications were from reading the print resources in our Walden course. The implications remain: 1) Our students are falling behind in the technology work force. 2) We have to find ways to increase technology use in our classrooms. 3) We have to teach our students to think globally, problem-solve and collaborate.

APP2WhiteV

I am enjoying using my blog as a tool to seek information from other teachers and as an outlet for my own writing. I am still planning a blog for my classroom. Right now, the direction for my blog is unclear. I would like the students to showcase their personal narratives but, as of yet, have not resolved the issue of safety. Personal narratives are fraught with safety issues as students tend to use real names. We may have to edit names out of their stories. I prefer the thought of putting their stories into blogs in the form of a final draft over using a wiki. In a wiki, student work can be edited by anyone, which could ultimately change the voice. That is not desirable. In a blog, any feedback received by the students would be in the form of comments. This would allow students to make a revising decision rather than having it done for them. Knowing that their personal narrative will be available for the world to see will cause students to raise their expectations for themselves and strive for a better final product. Any suggestions out there? My grade level is junior high and my subject is Basic Writing. My students need to be publishing to a wider community and blogs could become an avenue for publishing.

Blooms Taxonomy

How do you teach younger students to work within Bloom's Taxonomy and understand the verbs? Someone in my Intel class tonight suggested pictures for each of the levels and some of the common verbs for the standards. Would this enable the students to realize what level they are working at?

HELP!!!

I am sitting in my blogging class learning how to do this, eating sugar and laughing. Not getting anything done though!! :)

Eyes

my eyes

watching me crushed against the wall
phone clutched tightly to my breast
fingers splayed against the fake wood paneling
screaming
tears streaming

as knees meet chin

gasping for breath

as I lay stranded,

abandoned on the floor.



My best friend is dead
Light fades away


as I

journey

into

grief

Cooperative Learning

I have located four basic tenets for cooperative learning. Let's find out if I understand what I am trying to teach my students... I have never had any training myself in how to use cooperative groups and I am not happy with just putting students into a foursome and saying work together; it has not been as productive as I would like. I would appreciate any help that I can get from the education community.

1. Students must be trained for cooperative learning to work.
But, so must teachers and that is what I am looking for. Training for students does not stop at the "Here's your group. Here's your task; get it done," philosophy that seems to be the norm. I need to teach my students how to respond to each other, how to encourage each other, and how to help the reluctant student participate. How do I do that? Where can I develop these skills so that I can help my students?

2. Cooperative learning activities must require participation of all members in the group in order to accomplish the task.
Here is the biggest area of teacher responsibility. Planning must be so detailed that problems are anticipated and prevented. That should ensure that all students are able to participate and even want to participate. Yet, it doesn't fall only on the teacher. Students must be trained to accept responsibility for their level of participation.

3. Students must be monitored to ensure equal access to participation.
Upon first reading this, I assumed that the teacher would be doing all of the monitoring. Yet, the more I think about it, the more I realize that is only part of it. I have to teach students to monitor their own progress, the group to monitor group progress and ability to stay on task, and then, I monitor each group, offer encouragement, and let the class know when a group or individual is participating above expectations. In addition, I have to monitor progress as a class for meeting deadlines. I am working on teaching students to monitor their level of participation as individuals right now. This can be done even if they are working independently, away from a group.

4. Students must know what is expected of them.
While this seems obviously, my students and I have been talking about this one the most. It is closely tied to #2. Without exceptional planning, students may not know what is expected of them. And, depending on the task at hand, the expectations may be different. Each task must have its own set of rules, underneath the expectations of cooperative learning. My students grasp that concept. Where we fall short is in student responsibility again. How do I teach students to take responsibility for their choices? When do they start asking for help or clarification if they don't understand what is expected of them?

Once again, I am asking for help. Please clarify any misconceptions that I may have about cooperative learning. Offer suggestions to help me solve my problems. Provide me websites that will help me plan better, offer good cooperative learning tasks to train my students with, and just talk to me. I hope for this site to become a powerful learning tool for myself. If I'm learning, my students are improving.