Online Learning Modules

online learning on Prezi

Reflection

The Differentiation Station social network has provided a good basis for something I would like to see in my own school/district.  We spend so much time in professional development that seems to be professional development in name only.  It would be nice to have an online forum that colleagues and I could use to share ideas.  This would eliminate the need to meet in person (a system that seems to only breed gossip and procrastination) and encourage the use of technolgy, which would be a plus.

One of the daunting things about moving my classroom towards UDL and DI is that it is largely uncharted territory.  It is nice to have a resource to go to where others are going through the same thing.  Even more helpful is that I do not have to spend a lot of time looking for resources.  I can see what people have already used and what they thought of it.  I think this sort of educational community is the future of teaching, and I feel I got more value out of it than in any meeting I have had so far this year.

In the past, I have taken "technology integration" to mean that students will be working more with technology.  Essentially that is true, but I realized that in many cases they were working with technology simply to work with technology.  There was no basis for students working with a particular tool other than their own personal preference.  While interest is part of differentiation, it definitely is not the only part. 

In the immediate future, I would like to place more emphasis on customizing technology instruction for each student.  It was really helpful to learn about UDL as the basis for differentiation.  This helps me see student strengths instead of weaknesses.  I plan on using surveys to gauge student interest and ability levels to begin with and proceeding from there.  It is a simple first step towards UDL/DI but it is one that I have skipped in the past, believing I would be able to tell what was best for the students just by knowing them.  That has worked in some cases, but surveys will help me refine the practice.

Reflection

I enjoyed the GAME plan process.  It would have been nice to have been working on this during the school year so I could have received more immediate feedback, but I suppose there is something to be said for having some time to plan ahead.

I think all of my GAME plan goals are within reach and very soon I will be acting on them.  This has been the most excitement I have had going into a school year, and the opportunity to try out some of the things I learned in the course is a big reason for that.

I would like to continue to learn about new technologies, but I have started to see that new technologies don't create better students on their own.  It is essential to learn effective ways to implement these new tools and to be certain that the student's best interest is always at the core of everything new that I try.

The biggest adjustment I will make in my teaching is making technology more of a focus by addressing some of the NETS standards.  If I've learned anything, it's that the assumption that this generation of students is technologically savvy is pretty absurd.  They have access to all of the tools, which gives them a leg up on past generations, but, like anything else that needs to be learned, students are unfamiliar with how to use the technology effectively.  I plan on taking things slower and making sure that all students have a firm grasp on the technologies we are using and what they are capable of.

Student Game Planning

Getting students involved in the GAME planning process make a focus of the importance of helping students to establish clear, attainable goals that have measurable progress.  All teachers have experienced frustrated students, and while the easy route may be to assume that they simply don't like the subject matter or think it's too hard, it's often more a problem of figuring out the process of learning.

The GAME plan seems to be a bit different than this, though, in that the teacher progresses with the students.  I feel like my GAME plan looks good on paper, and that I have come up with several good ideas, but I also feel like a big part of the equation is missing since I'm still on summer vacation.  Students are really who this GAME plan is meant for, and it is important that there is emphasis placed on meshing the two game plans--teachers and students.  The standards seem to be concurrent with one another.  The teacher is charged with creating scenarios in which the students can learn and the students are responsible for taking ownership of their own learning.

I like how goal-setting is part of the process for students and teachers.  I feel like this is something that I often overlook as a teacher--of course they're setting goals!  They want to succeed!  That is definitely not always the case, and many students do not understand how to set paths to attaining their goals.

Revising the GAME Plan

In the past few applications, I've learned that one of my NETS goals--designing or adapting relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources--has been somewhat limited in my scope.  I've viewed it more as finding new resources for students to use.  The applications have helped me refocus on creating learning experiences for the students, i.e. designing lessons that help them use their new skills.

I've also tried to grow more familiar with NETS, so I have some new goals and standards I would like to focus on:

1) I've seen that reflection is important as we explore new learning tools, so I'm going to incorporate reflections into lessons when we work on digital skills.

2) When I've used blogs in the past, I've learned that getting everyone on the same page prior to starting is beneficial.  Therefore, I'd like to focus on communication with students, parents, and colleagues about new technologies that we use or will be using.

3) Something that I always overlook, in part because I probably don't think it's up to me but, in reality, it partly is, is promoting responsibility with digital tools.  I often assume students know how to use these tools and what rules follow along with them.  It definitely wouldn't hurt to clarify what the rules are and what my expectations are as well.

I think I learn pretty well with new technologies, and I think the key to that is having an open mind.  I'm lucky to have grown up with many of these tools coming into their own, so it really seems like second nature to me.  I think it is very important to spend time with the tools before you get an idea of how they might work in the classroom.  It would be nice to have been teaching a class while I was in this one so that I could have tried out some of my new ideas.

Game Plan Part 4

Not much has changed in a week.  I continue to progress and work with what I laid out last week.  I have heard from a few former students and they have agreed to help.  What I'll have them do is look at some things I'm considering using and class and have them give me feedback.  I try to keep in mind that I need to put myself in the shoes of the students, but even with that mentality it can be hard to do, so their perspective gives me some ideas on how to tinker with the process.

I'm still set to give a professional development workshop on one of our professional development days prior to the start of school.  I haven't heard any of the logistics, though.  It would be nice to know what room I'll be in and what materials I'll need to have prepared.  It shouldn't be too hard to do once I know the parameters.  I'm going to show them how to set up a blog and a Google Reader and how they might want to use it in class.  A friend of mine is doing one on all sorts of web applications.  Hopefully this brings some new converts to the technology side of things.

Game Plan Part 3

Thanks to summer, I've had some time to put a lot of effort into my game plan.  I've been able to find what I need so far, though I wish some of the educational technology blogs I read would update more frequently!

I subscribed to a few new technology blogs on my Google Reader and they have given me some new insight into what tools are available.  I've spent a bit of time brainstorming how I could use applications like Twitter in the classroom.  I read how one group was performing Romeo & Juliet through Twitter.  It was interesting to see how they didn't necessarily use the dialogue but focused on the emotions.  This could be a good activity with my students.  I have one like-minded colleague at school that I see often over the summer.  We bounce ideas off of each other and I've made a point of steering our conversations to technology and the classroom.

As of now, I wouldn't modify the overall framework of my plan, but I would add a few things to it.  For example, in order to hit the ground running this fall, I would like to contact some former or future students and have pilot my ideas to see if they are feasible.  In the past I've had students launch into new technologies and there are always hiccups along the way.  It would be nice to get those worked out beforehand.

Looking forward, I'd like to get a feel of how any new technologies in the classroom will be received.  For example, last year, I had my students working with blogs all year and found them blocked at school in mid-May, making it very difficult for students without computers at home to get their work done.  It would be nice to have an idea of what will be available at school before we get started.  This will involve contacting some administrators.

Game Plan Part Two

I will need to address my plan in different steps for each part.

In order to implement some changes in using social media in my classroom, I will have to seek out examples of classrooms in which social media has been used and worked and find research that supports its inclusion in the classroom.  Not only will this help me determine if this is a worthwhile endeavor, it will also prevent me from wasting my time if social media is something that has yet to make a significant impact in the classroom.

To become more active in the professional development arena, I will have to seek out opportunities to share my new skills.  Much of what I have learned has been here in my coursework or on my own, so it would be ideal to find some further professional development opportunities on my own.  I already have plans to present a blogging workshop during our professional development days prior to the school year, so I've made one step to achieving that goal.  I am anxious to see how it goes and if any of my colleagues will offer any criticism or begin to use blogs in their classrooms.  I know there are a few like-minded teachers in my building, so it would be good to have a core of teachers interested in technology to bounce ideas off of and get more technology into my lessons.

Implementing social media seems to take a bit more time.  There are already some ideas I have about using it in the classroom (further use of blogs, Google Wave) but it's difficult to get a feel for what the next step is until I have had a chance to try out these ideas with some students.

NETS

On the whole, I feel that I am pretty strong in meeting these standards.  Since I started my coursework at Walden, I have been familiar with the NETS-T standards and have strived to include them with my state benchmarks.

There are two, though, that I think I can improve upon.  The first is "Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments".  I try to give students a lot of exposure to different tools they can use for their projects.  One of the sub-standards is what catches my eye: "a. design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity."  Social media is becoming the biggest revolution in world since the Industrial Revolution, yet many schools simply block these sites and pretend they don't exist.  I envision my students working in a world where digital networking is one of the cornerstones of their careers.  If we are turning a blind eye to it in schools, where are they ever going to learn it?  It is easy enough to say that they will be able to learn it on their own, but that, in my opinion, is asking an awful lot of teenagers who rarely think of the rules in school let alone when they are online.  I think that it is my responsibility as an educator to find ways to work social media into my curriculum.  This will probably require meeting with the principal and some other higher-ups to get access, but I think it can be done if, of course, the goals are educational.  Evaluating success could be difficult because social media is sort of uncharted water in the classroom, so my goal would be to get some social media into the curriculum and have it stick.

The other NETS-T standard I would like to improve on is "Engaging in Professional Growth and Leadership."  My curriculum at Walden and my interest in technology has put me ahead of many of my colleagues.  I would love to continue learning about new tools and try to keep up with all of the changes.  I feel that I need to take on a leadership role in my school/department to promote the use of technology in the classroom.  I would like to offer some professional development courses in my school to give people the basics on how they can integrate technology into their courses and become an available resource for anyone who wants to learn more.  In addition to keeping up with new technology tools, I can also explore other content areas to determine how technology could be used.

Reflection

The most striking revelation I had during this course came when I was working on Application 4.  As I looked through the website “Britain For Americans”, I quickly noticed something was off.  I thought it was humorous, but in terms of being good for research on the culture of Great Britain, it terribly wrong.  The big revelation came when I typed in the website to Google and it was the first result that came up.

This was such a big revelation because I could see myself very easily falling victim to it.  My tendency has become, thanks to the internet, to finding information as quickly as possible.  “Nearly good” is better than “best” provided that it is found quickly.  I know that my students search the same way.  The big lesson for me in this course was that I need to rethink both how I search and how I teach students to find information.

There is great value in modeling good research techniques.  On top of taking it slowly, a lot can be gained by taking time to explore sources in depth rather than skimming the first few websites that are found. 

Next fall, the first unit in my AP Language class is a literary criticism research paper.  I plan on spending as much time on the process with students as I will on their finished product.  This summer, I would like to explore some websites they could use to search for information on literary criticism so I will be able to point them in the right direction this fall.

Reflection

I wouldn't say that my overall personal theory of learning has changed.  If anything, it has only been reinforced in my mind that technology needs to have a stronger presence in my classroom.

A past professor I had at Walden suggested to us that we not use technology simply because it is there but rather because it makes learning easier or better.  I try to keep this in mind as I consider what different technology tools I could bring into the classroom.  This leaves me with two goals as I move forward with changing my teaching practices to include more technology:

1) Become a paperless classroom


As the world becomes more and more based on a paperless model, I think it is important that my classroom begins to reflect this.  My desire to go paperless is not linked to any pro-environment ideas but rather the fact that in my experience, students get more out of technology based assignments and are required to do more independent thinking with them as well.  The best ways I have seen so far to get students to produce original, creative work is to give them projects that have a strong basis in technology.  As I go forward, I would like to increase this.

2) Explore assessment options with technology


I feel that the standard multiple choice exam is slowly turning into a relic of a past era.  It will require a lot of brainstorming on my part, but I would like to see projects become better assessments of student learning in my classroom.  This is definitely a long-term goal and I am still in the beginning stages of just developing this idea.  I would like to collaborate with like-minded teachers to hear what has worked for them.

I plan on continuing to use web-based programs like Animoto, bubbl.us, GoAnimate.com, and Voice Thread to implement these goals.  One program I would like to utilize with my students is Google Wave.  Once this gets out of beta, I plan on piloting it with one of my classes on collaborative projects and essays.  Hopefully the feedback from the students will give me more ideas on how to use it.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.



http://voicethread.com/share/899857/

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Voice Thread: Making the Switch to Electronic Textbooks

Here's my VoiceThread for this week's application.

It's not so much a problem as it is a goal: when do we make the switch to electronic textbooks?

Cooperative Learning

I believe that cooperative learning is going to be the central focus of education in the future, and that may be as soon as the next few years.  The depth and availability of tools to learn in this manner is amazing, and the number of careers that are becoming based on collaboration makes it necessary for students to learn these skills early on.  It's not enough to simply have students count off by number and work together on a worksheet.  Group projects must be in-depth and push for a process that requires students to work through the tasks as a team--brainstorming, editing, finalizing, presenting, etc.

What I really enjoyed about this chapter was that so many of the tools are easily accessible and applicable to the classroom.  Google Calendar, for instance, can keep students up-to-date on classroom events.  Shared bookmarking allows students to recommend websites that they think are valuable to their peers.  Website creation offers the opportunity to express creativity and potentially critique the work of their classmates.  Multiplayer games offer a chance at relaxation, but also at learning.

These tools might not form the basis of a class, but they all assist in enhancing the experience for students.

Testing Hypotheses

The fundamental idea behind the fantastic book Made to Stick  is how we make our ideas sticky.  In other words, why do we remember some silly radio jingle but not the capital of Vermont?  One seems to be inherently more important, but the other just stays with us.  One strategy that the authors give to make ideas stick is to make them mysterious.

I thought that this was relevant as I read through this week's material.  After reading Made to Stick in November, I started trying to frame my lectures as more of an investigation.  For example, as Tiger Woods was being shamed we were also talking about the Harding Administration in American History.  Rather than title the lecture "The Harding Administration," I wrote "How did Nan Britton ruin Tiger Woods' life?" on the board.  The students were as engaged as I have ever had them in a lecture, and given the content we were discussing, I never would have expected them to be hooked.  But they listened all hour, either curious to hear the outcome or curious to see if I could actually pull off the connection (Nan Britton wrote the first "tell all" book, about her alleged affair with the President, thus opening the door for all of Tiger's lady friends to get rich off of their text messages).

I didn't find too much in this week's text that I myself could apply in the classroom.  Hypotheses don't really lend themselves to history, at least not at this stage, when students are trying to retain information as opposed to exploring in-depth research.  That said, I think that the idea behind using a hypothesis in the classroom is a good one, especially after I tried using mysteries to make the lessons stick.

I do think that it would be fun to have students develop their own hypotheses and explore them in historical research, but that would require extensive direction on my part.  I plan on doing several mini-assignments using sources online to see how this could work, such as the American Memory at the Library of Congress website, which offers a massive primary source collection.

I believe that the key in using hypotheses in the classroom lies in getting the students excited about exploring something new on their own.  The best way to do this is to relate it to experiences they have had or events they are familiar with.  My hope is that through those, hypothesizing can become more useful in my classroom.

Cognitivism

I found several strategies this week in the reading that would support cognitive learning in the classroom.  As I read through the resources, I found that many of these strategies would be effective in my classroom.  I've always liked this approach to teaching because I myself get bored with teaching in one particular way. To me, cognitivism is all about delivering information and obtaining information in a variety of ways.  Some of the organizational techniques, such as concept mapping, or the organizational software, such as Inspiration, would be good to share with students who struggle to understand the big picture.  I always found when I was a student that having visuals helped me learn and retain new information.

I find that multimedia breaks the monotony of a school day for students and most at least claim to remember more when I show them films or clips.  I've made use of many of websites found in Chapter 4 of the textbook.  Using images or film clips helps plant an image in a student's mind rather than attempting to deal with a concept abstractly.

I was pleased to see that blogs were mentioned in Chapter 6 as a method of reciprocal teaching.  I think blogs are a great cognitive tool because they can allow the student to wear many different "hats" as a learner, especially if they have access to each other's blogs and take advantage of the commenting sections.

Behaviorism in Practice

I found two strategies that I felt could work very well in my classroom from the reading and correlate with the principles of behaviorist learning.

The first comes from the chapter on reinforcing effort.  The suggestion is that students keep an effort spreadsheet to track their own effort.  In the beginning of the chapter, it was suggested that effort was the one step to success that is most often overlooked.  Based on my personal experience, I tend to agree with this.  I think back to the times I struggled with math and simply found it easier to give up.  This is unfortunate because effort seems to be the one key to success that can trump all of the others.  An effort spreadsheet would be an effective use of technology because it would let students keep track of their effort and give them visualizations of how they are perceiving their effort.  I feel that the graphs are the key to this strategy, as they allow students to visualize their effort instead of attempting to interpret numbers.  I feel that the survey suggestion from this chapter could be utilized in the same manner.  Though this strategy would be effective, I lack the necessary technology in the classroom to visit this daily.

The second strategy is one I definitely plan on using in my classroom.  In chapter 10, the suggestion for using communication software like Google Docs and Writeboard was made.  I feel that this would be an effective use of behaviorist theory and technology because it would allow students to positively (or negatively) reinforce one another.  A program that would make this even better is the new Google Wave, which allows for real-time document editing.  A great assignment would be a collaborative essay in which students went through the writing process together, sharing ideas and suggestions throughout.