As I look back over the last eight weeks, I realize that I have made more growth through this class than any other class during this Master’s program. Was it the class or was it the classroom situation I found myself in this semester? Doesn’t matter… the course work and the situation worked together to force growth for me. Having a blind student for the first time caused me to delve deeper into the principles of UDL. Delving deeper lead to growth for me and for all of my students, not just the blind one. I think, in a short eight weeks, that I have changed my mindset. I now look at the curriculum and content first and try to modify it, rather than find a variety of ways to demonstrate learning by my students. I now believe that content first, and making changes to it first, will lead to more growth for my students. Differentiated Instruction has not been moved to the back burner, by any means; but I am starting DI from a different angle.
The social network that was set up on Ning will become a valuable resource to pull from. By including a brief summary of what the various sites have to offer, research time to find what I want has been reduced. That leaves more time to focus on actual planning rather than research. Yes, good planning takes lots of time, but there are only so many minutes in the day and it is a reward to have a few spare ones. Cutting research time is one way to find a few spare ones. I intend to visit Ning frequently and post new sites that I come across; I hope my Ning members will do the same.
One immediate adjustment that has been made to my instructional practice is the way I plan. I spend more time on the content and finding ways to make it accessible. UDL philosophies account for this change. Other changes that I have made include showing our Special Education department the tools that are available on our computers already. Text to voice readers for MSWord has proved valuable. It opens doors for our blind student who was using her voice reader on her computer, locked away in a resource room. Now, the simple act of copy and pasting the content of a website into a word document so that it can be read without advertisements and sidebars has created another least restrictive environment for her. I just hope that our Special Education department will remember and apply these tools for other students. Having a clientele of Native American students who are predominately visual learners has taught me to make my lessons as visual as possible to expand learning. Having a blind student placed in my classroom has forced me to think differently about visual learning. How do I make the pictures available for her? How do I make the visual content that we spend so much time talking about available to her? How do I use the tools out there to “read” the pictures? I am still working on that one…
I have learned that technology integration does not mean putting a worksheet on a Smartboard. It does not mean adding a ton of pictures to a presentation. It does not mean allowing students to use the word processor and spell check. It means finding the best way to get the content to the student. Make the technology the background, not the foreground just because it is available. Make the needs of the student fit the technology available; don’t just make the technology available because it is sitting there. Follow Rick Wormeli’s philosophies. If the state mandated test is a writing prompt, then the summative assessment must be based on that prompt. This means that it is ok to use paper and pencil and leave the technology out when appropriate. But it is not ok to do only paper and pencil tasks if you want to bring your students into the 21st Century. Classrooms have to blend pedagogies, have to differentiate the content for the students, the need for the outcome, the task for the purpose.
Resources:
Wormeli, R. Busting myths about differentiated instruction. www.phsd.k12.pa.us/pdf/MythsDiff.pdf Retrieved 2/8/2010.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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