Reflection

My plate tectonics lesson plan demonstrates my learning from this course because it takes advantage of the video game culture present in today’s students and uses it to teach. This course has introduced or further explained many different technologies that today’s students will more than likely be using in tomorrow’s workplace.

Adjustments for new and emerging technologies are fairly easy for me at the moment since I’m still in my 20s. However, as natural as it is for me now to use most of the same technologies that my students use, the future could be quite different. Unless I am committed to learning each new emergent technology as it arrives, I could easily find myself outdated and out of touch. In an effort to avoid this I will continue to push for more technology in my classroom and search for grant money to procure technology for my students. The digital divide is growing wider, not shrinking with time.

Online Learning

I created a podcast to discuss the advantages and possible problems in using online learning. It's chopped into three parts, but I'm traveling and my phone will only let me email 2 minutes of audio at a time.

If you click on the podcast link it will bring you to my school's Moodle page. You have to click on "log in as guest" then "7th grade" and then "Mr. Harreld's Science Class." The podcast links will be at the top of the page. Sorry about the overly complicated process.

Podcast



Part 2



Part 3

Reflection

The resources from the differentiation stations will be a useful tool for me as I seek to implement UDL and DI in my classroom. I think the way I will end up using it is basically as a reference tool for implementation. As I seek to align my classroom practices with the principles of UDL/DI, the resources summarized and referenced on the social networking page will be an invaluable aid as I adjust my teaching stragtegies and integrate new ideas.

As much as I would love to immediately make more use of technology to differentiate my current instruction, it is not really possible. We have two computer labs at my school and one of them has computer classes taught in it and the other one is booked most of the day for Study Island for reading and math classes. So I think where I really need to spend my time is looking for, begging for, or stealing new technology for my classroom and school. I am already in the process of applying for two different technology grants, but even if those are approved they will not be immediately available.

Student Plans

My idea is at the beginning of each year for each student to make their own GAME plan. I will have to simplify it somewhat to make it more maneagable for them, but it would be very similar in the end to what I have done. I will turn the GAME plan outline into a worksheet that each student will have to complete. When they are done the students will have some goals to work towards and we will check their progress at various points throughout the year. At the end of each quarter we will check our progress and the students will be able to re-evaluate and adjust their plans as neccessary. Doing this should give the students a better idea of the skills and knowledge they should be developing as the year goes along.

Still Going

How's it going?

Well, over the time this course has been going I have basically come to the conclusion that if I am going to integrate technology into my classroom I am going to have to acquire my own technology for the students to use. I have a list of websites with educational grants to look through and am going to have to learn how to write a good grant. My students need to learn to use computers to do more than just Study Island and Facebook. To this end I am going to start ecaluating grants to see what I can qualify for and what sort of resources are available. My goals I suppose have changed from integrating technology, to aqcuiring technology so I can then integrate it into my classroom.

Grants Needed

How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals?
Not very. I am still unable to do much with technology due to the limited availablity to technology at my school.

What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?
I am learning that I am not the only one in this situation and that other people are trying to answer the same questions and solve the same problems. It seems as though the solution is grant writing. There is money out there to be had and I have to find it.

What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?
I need to figure out what technology grants are available and what I need to do to apply for them. I need to learn how to write a good grant and what resources to go to for information.

How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?
It seems as though my plan is going to have to become less about actually integrating technology and more about acquiring the technology to use. I have to learn where to find grants and how to effectively write them so my students can gain access to technology despite the community's indifference to the resources availabel to their children.

Progress?

Are you finding the resources you need?
No. At school the resources I need to further integrate tehcnology into my classroom are not available. What I do have (a projector), I make extensive use of, but new technology is difficult to come by in a district that hasn't passed a school levy since 1992, and is facing large budget cuts due to the failure of the most recent levy.

Do you need to modify your action plan?
Possibly. One of the steps my action plan required was the acquistion of new technology. I have been denied one grant and the grant my school was approved for gave teachers projectors, which I already have. I may have to change my plan to take into account the fact that my students may not be able to use computers in school during science class.

What have you learned so far?
That many teachers, even some of the younger ones are not comfortable with, or do not even know how to use technology in basic ways. Of the five other science teachers in my department at school, I would say that three of them have very limited ability to use computers beyond email and word processing, one of them is adequately computer literate, and the other one is very computer literate. So my second goal of teaching other teachers to use technology is a definite need in my particular school.

What new questions have arisen?
How do I deal with trying to integrate technology into my curriculum when I have no access to computers? We have two computer labs in my school that are blocked out for use by the important classes (math and reading) and never available for use to my students. I could get a couple classes in during the course of a week, but there are some periods where the labs are literally never available when my students would be in my class. Do I just say some is better than none and forget the kids that are in the wrong period?

Enacting the Plan

What resources do I need?
In order to accomplish the goals outlined in my gameplan I am going to need more computers to start. Getting computer lab time as a science teacher is basically impossible at my school so one step I need to take is getting some sort of computer access for my students.

What info do I need?
Once I have access to computers I will need ideas. I have a few already, but in order to "seamlessly integrate" technology into my instruction I will need more and more ideas for how to use the technologly and not let it get stale. If you do anything enough the students will get tired of it.

What steps have I been able to take so far?
So far I am in the process of acquiring ideas. This course has made me think about different scenarios and ways that technology can be used in the classroom. I have also filled out a grant and am supposed to be getting a new classroom projector and possibly a SmartBoard, which is great, but it is student access to technology that I am really struggling for.

GAME Plan

Goals
~To be able to integrate technology more fully into my teaching
~To be able to teach other teachers how to use technology effectively in their own classrooms

Actions
~I need to acquire more and newer technology for my own and other teachers' use
~I need to learn new strategies and techniques for using my school's current technology more effectively
~The possible formation of a committee or work group needs to be discussed for teacher who are interested in learning how to effectively use technology

Monitor
To monitor my progress towards these goals I will set up periodic peer evaluations from my collegues. Their feedback will provide me with information on my progress towards these goals. I will also give a student feedback survey at the halfway point and end of the year to ask how the use of technology has impacted their learning.

Evaluate
At the end of the year we receive the students' scores from their state achievement tests. Now obviously these tests are not the be all and end all of student evaluation, but a positive performance trend after a year of introducing new technology into the curriculum would be a nice indicator of success. Not to mention the fact that my school is evaluated basically only by performance on these tests.

Reflections

Changes in Personal Learning Theory:
I don't think my theory about learning has changed very much. What has changed is how well I understand the theories that are out there. The more I read and learned about the different learning theories the more the information reinforced what I have already learned from my experiences with students. I would still say that I could best be described as a cognitive-constructionist, but that I understand more about what that means.

Adjustments and New Tools:
The immediate adjustment that I think I have to make is simply to make it a priority to get my students access to computers and technology. At my school it is a hassle (and sometimes impossible) to get access to the computer lab, but if I am going to effectively integrate technology into my teaching I'm going to have to go the extra mile to get in there.

The first new technology I'd like to make use of is wikis. I think this would really enhance the students' learning experience by putting them in charge of a website and making them responsible for the content of that site. Having them create their own resource to find information about what they are studying would be a great way to put them in control of their own learning. The second technology I'd like to have them use is a podcast. I think a podcast could be a good alternative to having the students do an oral report in front of the class. It would allow students that really don't like to talk in front of people an option they might be more comfortable with as well as teach them valuable technology skills.

Technology Goals:
~My first goal is to get my students into the computer lab twice a month.
My strategy for achieving this goal is pretty simple. I need to make it a priority and work with the other teachers that have school sanctioned computer time to get my students access to the lab. Right now I am probably only in the computer lab a bout 5 days a year and that is mostly doing research. Getting the students in there twice a month using various different tools would add spice to my class and increase the students abilities with technology.

~My second technology goal is to make sure the students are using the technology to learn and its not only being used to teach.
My strategy to implement this goal is to make sure that at least one in three uses of technology of any kind asks the students to use the technology to create or discover something, not to simply look up information. I will periodically look back at my lesson plans and see if this goal is being met.

Voice Thread

One issue facing teachers today is the importance of standardized testing. Teachers, in general, feel there is too much importance placed on testing to the detriment of certain areas of education (the arts, critical thought, etc.). My voice thread deals with that.

http://voicethread.com/share/530818/

Facebook Learning

The idea behind social learning is that the students construct meaning not only from the information they are getting, but who they are getting the information from and how they receive the information. So in this week's resources there were several ideas presented on how to reach students this way.

Kids love playing on MySpace and Facebook type sites and do much of their communication with each other outside of school with these type of social networking sites. To take advantage of that fact the idea is to use similar technologies (like web quests or multiplayer simulation games) to teach them. These teaching strategies go right along with the priniples of social learing because the students are learning from their peers in a social setting, not simply absorbing information being presented by the teacher.

Technology and Hypotheses

I think the most important thing about the different strategies and technologies mentioned in this weeks resources is that the new technologies "allow students to spend more time interpreting the data rather than gathering the data." Students still need to be a part of the data gathering process, but the more important part of the process (especially from a constructivist point of view)is the problem solving/invention/etc. portion. The suggested strategies of spreadsheets, data collection tools, and data websites are only useful as they accomplish the generating and testing of a chosen hypothesis.

So the ways that these technologies correspond with constructionist learning theories is the way that they make the student think and work while connecting what they are doing with prior knowledge and the situation in which they are learning the material.

Cognitivism

One of the ideas behind cognitivism is that the process the mind goes through to learn can be changed and improved. The learning techniques suggested in the reading this week address this idea. The use of various different advance organizers provides a mental layout for students to follow in their learning. At first they are guided and shown exactly how to draw and fill in the graphic organizer. Eventually though the graphic organizer provides a pattern that the students can fill out on their own to help them organize their thoughts, or maybe some students don't even need the physical organizer anymore but the form has enabled them to organize their thoughts in a logical manner. The same idea applies for the many different summarizing and note taking strategies. You start out with a pattern for the student to copy so that when the pattern is taken away the mind has been trained to process information in an organized manner.

Behaviorism in Practice

I really liked the idea of tracking effort from this weeks reading. Showing students that effort equals success in a concrete manner like that would seem to be a very effective teaching strategy. It is also a very behaviorist strategy. It is showing students that this behavior leads to this result. Good grades result (for most students) in rewards and poor grades result in consequences. The author suggests setting up a spreadsheet to track this, which I guess you could do, but it seems like just trying to shoehorn technology into the process. I guess if you have a class set of computers that you have easy access to that would work well, but for how much time getting a class to the computer lab takes use a sheet of paper would be just as effective.

The strategies suggested in the next chapter are more project-based ideas. The use of word processing, spreadsheets, multimedia software, etc fits better into the constructivist theory since the students would be associating the learning with the way that they learned it, not just the stimulus-response pattern of behaviorist theory.

Reflection

In what ways has this course helped you to develop your own technology skills as a professional teacher?

During this course I have learned how to create several technologies that I have only made use of from the user end. I have frequently used podcasts, blogs, Wikipedia, etc, but this course taught me how to make those things and knowing how to create them makes them far more effective teaching tools.

In what ways have you deepened your knowledge of the teaching and learning process?

The biggest way is by changing the way I view my students. I knew that they grew up on technology, but the concept of them as digital natives is an interesting one because it changes how the students learn and, as a result, it should change how a teacher teaches.

In what ways have you changed your perspective from being teacher-centered to learner-centered?

I don’t know that I have changed from being teacher-centered, because I think I always have been learner-centered. The way you teach has to be based on the way your students learn if you are going to be a really effective teacher and I have always tried to be that way.

In what ways can you continue to expand your knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology with the aim of increasing student achievement?

Well, obviously I am going to continue my course work with Walden which will expand my knowledge in this area. I am also going to continue learning technology by using it myself. The way that I have gained much of my technical knowledge is by giving it a try and seeing what I like and what I don’t like.

Set two long-term goals (within two years) for transforming your classroom environment by which you may have to overcome institutional or systemic obstacles in order to achieve them. How do you plan to accomplish these goals?

1. Students will spend at least one day every two weeks in the computer lab.

- Seeing as I have very little access to computers with my students I plan on writing a grant for a wireless computer lab that I and my students can make use of.

2. Students will complete two projects per year that require them to make extensive use of technology to complete.

- I know for certain that there will be one project due right before Christmas break that will require the students to create a wiki. The other project I would like to have due at the end of the year and while I am not certain on the specifics I think it is going to be designing an earthquake proof building and then somehow virtually testing it.

Pod-tastic

Enjoy my first foray into the world of podcasting...

http://www.gcast.com/u/b_harreld/main

P21

The P21 website is fairly interesting in the way that it clearly lays out a plan and policy for learning 21st century technology skills. The importance of students knowing these skills is clearly emphasized. There are a lot of different tools and standards to explore. In particular the tools and resources link contains everything from online tools, to relevant articles, to information on professional development.

The part of the website that surprised me the most was the backing this organization has received from many big businesses. Apple, Adobe, Dell, and many others are companies that are signing up to back this program. I guess it goes shows that those companies are trying to help train their future workforce and realize the importance of students gaining the new skills that they need.

I agree with the organizations goal of students gaining a deep understanding of material rather than shallow knowledge. There is too much emphasis on students knowing the bare facts necessary to pass achievement tests and little time left over for teaching skills like critical thinking, or maybe even some art or music.

The implications for educators and students are that there seems to be a growing sentiment out there that achievement tests are not the be all and end all of student learning. There has to be a balance between skills and knowledge. This organization and these companies seem to think that and are trying to help educators learn to help their students survive in the rapidly changing digital world.

Blog Idea

Currently as an opportunity for extra credit I have my students turn in a science related article from a newspaper or magazine with a summary. It can be done every Friday to help their grade out a little.

I was thinking with this I could post a link to an article or a video and have the students write their response in the comments section. This could be done in place of the science article extra credit.
______________________________________________________________________

I teach 7th grade science. I feel that a blog would be a great tool to enrich and supplement the topics I am covering at school. I would feel hesitant to make it a requirement because I teach in a district where many students cannot afford and do not have computers at home. I do believe it can be an effective teaching tool though, because students love using the internet and many would check the blog just for something to do. Hopefully, while they are doing it they will be learning in a manner that is different than what they are presented in class.

because I like USA soccer and I wanted to post something...