Saturday, February 28, 2009
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.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
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!
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!
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