Week 8 Course Reflection

During this course I have been highly in engaged with my instructor and classmates using several new technology tools to enrich my lesson plans. The tools employed have allowed me to increase student’s active participation level, differentiate my instruction, and provide alternative assessment methods. As I was able to immediately put these tools to use in my classroom, I was able to have a clear impact on my instruction. I used VoiceThread to develop collaborative discussion groups, and incorporate problem based learning at the same time. I have also used digital storybooks to work on teaching story sequencing, fluency instruction, and collaborative skills.
With these new teaching and learning methods, I was challenged to create new and effective assessments methods. With student involvement we developed rubrics together that we used as a guide to monitor success in collaborative work and developing digital storybooks. We reviewed these rubrics together at the start of each project, and self-reflected on our progress along the way. This was an effect way to keep everyone in the group actively involved in the project.
As our class developed these new an exciting projects, they have gone to other classrooms and shared them. This has sparked interest from other teachers in using the tool, and my school district administration has agreed to paying for the fees involved. I look forward to future collaborative projects involving other classes and connecting our students globally.

Week 7 Application

I have been continuing to use ZooBurst this week in our literacy lessons. Our class has started a project to build a book about animals that we can take to other classrooms and share. The ideas is to work with the younger grades to chorus read to develop reading fluency. We also will have a science connection was we study animals and their habitat. Students are working in pairs, finding resources, and putting together interesting facts about an animal they have chosen. Each group will be responsiable for creating a page of the book sharing their learning.

Week 6 Application

I was able to attend a conference of fellow teachers in my county this week with the topic being that of technology in literacy. I learned how to use some great tools such as Moddle, Zooburst, and Smart board ideas. I used Zooburst today in class with a small group of students. For those who haven't seen this website you should take the opportunity. Zooburts is a very easy to use digital storybook that is some simple to use a primary student could be going on it in no time.

Week 5 Application--progress made

I made so progress this in my stated goal of, “provide with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology.”
We had presentations from our students to summarize the learning objectives of our social studies unit on Early European Colonies. Each student had a choice of presentation format that could include flip camera, Power Point, written essay, or poster board. I was very happy to see the varied and knowledge presentations, my students did a great job.

Progress so Far-Week 4 Application

Our new district website is up and running, and I my 5th grade colleague have added content to the 5th grade page. We included several ELA, history, and math links for students to support our classroom core content. I have more technology experience, but she has more experience teaching the content, so I am excited about present and future results of working on this as a grade level project. We began making Flip Videos of student presentations this week of the social studies project. I look forward to seeing the rest of the student presentations after Thanksgiving break.

Resources Needed to Reach My Goals

Goal 1: I plan to use technology tools to create scaffolds for my students as they explore their questions in inquiry based learning projects.
Hardware and software needs: Flip video camera, computers in computer lab, digital storybook programs.
Additional needs: Input from my technology and literacy committees on the integration of technology into our ELA curriculum. This group will also be a big help in designing assessment recommendations.
Additional steps: I have begun a project based social studies that connects with ELA goals. Students will have a choice in demonstrating learning by creating a Power Point, Flip video of a reader’s theater, written essay, or digital storybook.
Goal 2: To share student products with my grade level team as to tap into to their experience in the evaluation process.
This goal is aligned with district and building goals in an effort to create strong grade level teams that share ideas. We are focusing on creating a strong vertical and horizontal alignment in our curriculum, grading policies, and goal setting.
As my classmates are experiencing many of the same challenges as we implement technology lessons and share ideas with colleagues. I would like to hear some best practices in implementing and sharing these classroom experiences.

The Game Plan

As a teacher, and life long learner, I am constantly setting goals for my students and myself. I have found staying focused, taking action, monitoring my progress, and reflecting on my learning to be challenging. I have the type of personality that runs with every good idea I hear about as often as possible. This is always exciting for myself and my students, but is not always the most effective when it comes to using my time effectively to have the most impact possible on my lesson teaching and learning objectives. So as I read over the performance indicators, I value the focus they give to the self-directed learner that I am, and my instructional plans.
Standard 1:B states, “Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.” I believe it is vital to use real world issues to engage students in their learning. I would like to develop more ways to include technology in this process. Using tools like VoiceThread and Tweeter to engage students in discussions in which they ask the questions and find the answers together. I plan to use techology tools to create scaffolds for my students as they explore their questions in inquiry based learning projects. An example would be to set up a data base of important website links that they would find useful in class projects.
Standard 2:D states, “provide with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology”. The most important thing I do everyday in class is find out what my students need to learn, based on my informal and formal evaluation skills. Differential instruction is key to me being a successful teacher, but as teaching modalities vary, and student products vary with choice, I at times find it hard to assess learning. My plan is to share student products with my grade level team as to tap into to their experience in the evaluation process.

Reflecting on Technology Integration

With many diverse students learning styles represented in today’s classrooms, as teachers it is necessary to have a deep knowledge of all instructional strategies and learning theories. As I reflect on how I can incorporate technology into my current teaching style, I see support of several different instructional theories woven in my lesson plans as a result. I believe the most important aspect of each lesson is active learning, because it emphasizes high student engagement which is an essential aspect of not only achievement, but of creating a pro-social classroom environment.
Two technology tools that I can add easily to enhance my lesson objectives will use of Voice Thread technologies, and using Power Point to create a student artifact. It will be especially important to use these technology tools in a way that effectively reaches the desired learning outcome. I feel that as a result of taking this course, I have gained important knowledge that will help me in bridging learning theories with my classroom instruction, thus making my classroom even more stimulating for my students, which will in turn increase active participation and result in a higher level of student performance.
My long term goals will be to have students using technology I the first day of class so they we can become very comfortable incorporating them into are everyday class, and to build learning artifacts using a variety of technologies through out the school year. I can do the first few days’ procedures that involve getting to know you with voice thread, creating a power point slide of quick facts about yourself, or making a short video of yourself. As a result of that early school year prep, students will feel comfortable doing classroom project together all year.

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

I strongly believe in the assertions of social learning theories. The longer I teach the more I see the effectiveness of this important learning theory. In my recent experience I find that my school environment strongly supports these methods. I just sat last week in a meeting with several of my experienced colleagues and we discussed different strategies of engaging our students. Many of the ideas incorporated projects based on students learning together in a teacher created social learning environment. We are in an exciting time in our district, with many of us “tech heads” getting new technologies and brain storming ideas together to incorporate our technologies with our learning objectives. We are finding at times we are becoming consumed with technology use, and forgetting some of the basic science of teaching. Using technology to support our learning objectives, and create social learning model is important to our students learning 21st century skills.

Helping Students Be Successful With Homework

Click on the voice thread link below to view my video and submitt your comments.

Voice Thread

Integrating Constructivist/Constructionist Learning with 21st Century Skills

As teachers today, we always saying we do not have enough time to get all of our instruction into the day. We are in need of teaching strategies that make the best use of our limited time, and give the student an authentic learning experience in which they can make connections to the real world. Using project based learning that incorporates technology skills is an effective way to accomplish goal. As we set our learning objective and students develop artifacts to show us they have synthesized the new knowledge, we are sure to have a higher level of student engagement if we use technology.

Many effective computer based projects can accomplish this goal. Power Points developed with a learning objective are exciting for students to build an artifact. They also give the student a chance to take ownership of the project and to make choices on how to best present the new knowledge. They can choose the image that fits their schema; they can include the music that connects to them cognitively. We can also incorporate other technologies like music downloading and CD burning. Have students create their own sound track to a book is a learning experience they give them a strong cognitive connect to the new assimilated material.

I know that learning is happening in my classroom when I am not teaching. By that I mean that I am spending my time wandering the classroom listening to the buzz of my students developing a project together that they will use to teach each other my learning objectives. Using technologies to achieve this is critical to build the bridge between what I teach plan them and what they actually learn.

Technology and Graphic Organizers

“Where do I start”, is often the in the mind and voice of a panic stricken learner who is in complete disequilibrium as new material is presented. The cognitive learning theory with the focus on processing information within a structured approach can be successfully support by combining new technologies with support of graphic organizers and concept maps. Teachers are able to combine students past learning with clues to new learning that will advance a students synthesizing of new learning. By effectively asking the right questions we are able to help student develop critical thinking skills, and providing the experience of organizing this new information with different types of organizers that target different learning styles. When you combine web based links you are able to support concepts with both video and audio, thus further bridging the new learning to prior knowledge.

Technology and Behaviorism

I teach 5th grade and have students in class each who are just starting to grasp the concept of personal effort equals results in the grade book. Up until 5th grade, much of our instruction is hands on with little independent work. I struggle a lot with instilling in some of my students that their effort in homework is vital to them learning and build for future success. I will highly recommend this course text, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, to each of my colleagues for their summer reading. It contains excellent strategies that combine technology with our goals of students working independently and learning to take personal responsibility for their effort.

The strategy of providing an Effort Rubric so students can begin to make these connections early is fantastic. We can start the first week of school by building a rubric with our students and having them have input on the rubric themselves. We can of course guide them in the right directions with their choice of categories and expectation levels. Using a Microsoft Excel program to track their individual progress is an excellent way to combine teaching 21st century skills while reinforcing the effort with earn you results message.

Clearly, our students today are digital learners, immersed in all things technology. As soon as the bell rings they reach for their iPods (I love the fact my spell check just told me that I spelled iPod wrong, without the capitol P), game stations, or cell phones. By embracing this and using multimedia in every area of our curriculum that we can, we are bring their word into the classroom and will a chance to be even more effective in meeting learning objectives. I get an entirely different reaction in class from students when a plan a unit review session with a game show on www.iknowthat.com, versus having them take out a sheet of paper to answer question on page 289 in the textbook. All students are engaged, participating, and interacting with the material.

Reflecting on Technology Integration

I began the EDUC 6710 course with hopes of learning classroom methods that would excite my classroom. I am happy to say that my expectations have been exceeded. I was able to integrate new learning immediately into my classroom instruction which have had a dramatic impact on student learning. Seeing increased student engagement has resulted in improved test scores has been the most satisfying aspect of taking this course. As the class worked to make audio and video tracks to study science vocabulary, I saw students who before did not easily work with groups, take on a new level of participation. Test scores for the science unit that I taught during this period of taking this class, and implementing technologies, reached new heights.
I am fortunate to also have had an interactive white board installed in my classroom during my time taking this class. This has enhanced my use of technology integration and has further engaged students. Our study of the solar system using Google Earth, Promethean programming, and other web based sites such as www.stardate.org, has been a great compliment to our textbook.

In planning for the future, I have set two goals. First of all, help my students to work comfortably with our classroom technologies to develop their products that demonstrate learning and student achievement. They can use the interactive board and its many tools to design their own learning center. Students could use video blogs to develop critical thinking on curriculum topics. I see my classroom as somewhere they can develop not only content knowledge, but also 21st century life skills that will give them a strong foundation for the future. To measure my success in this area, I will develop a student technology survey that I will give students at the beginning of the school year, and compare with end of the year results.
Secondly, I will like to be a leader and contributor to our technology committee in my school. I will organize weekly meetings in which technology leaders in the building can share classroom stories and together discover new ways to increase student performance with technology integration as the catalyst.

21st Century Skills

As a graduate student at Walden University my classmates and I began a discussion about the following topic.

Our assignment was as follows,

Spend some time exploring the Web site of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Familiarize yourself with their mission, the members of the partnership, and the various resources available on their site.

• Your reaction to the Web site
• What information on the site surprised you?
• Did you disagree with anything on the site? Explain.
• What are the implications for your students, and for you as a contemporary educator?


www.21stcenturyskills.org



My reaction to this website was simply, YES! As a former member of the business world, where the most valuable of my employees were the ones with the best problem solving skills and communication, I completely agree with all the mission statement goals.

The only information I was surprised about was the number of states that don’t have plans in place to align themselves with the legislation. I would have thought that my state, New York, would be a front runner in these plans. I liked the fact that so many influential business leaders are involved.

The implications for my students as a contemporary educator are that I have a national organization that supports what I personally believe strongly, these goals are a must do in our educational system. We no longer compete with each other in the U.S., it is a global market place. I also believe that there is a ground swell starting in our educational system about the importance of 21st century skill, as evidence by programs like the current “Race to the Top” program started by the Obama administration. I see administrators in my district supporting the integration of 21st century skills in our school.

Critical Thinking

In science we are studying the solar system and space exploration.
We will take the knowledge we have and combine it with our
new knowledge to make some important inferences.

Currently, we are pondering the following questions,
which you can post a response to on this blog.

A spacesuit weighs more than most astronauts.
How can astronauts wear an outfit that is heavier than they are?

Students Share What They Learn

I think that one of the best uses for my blog would be for my student's to share what they have learned. This would be a extension of our learning groups in class. We could also make a video report of important points about things like story settings in ELA, how to round decimals in Math, and many other exciting new learning.

Learning From Each Other

I love hearing other teachers success stories from the classroom. We are all inspired by student success, in fact, it might be your story that give a fellow teacher the hope, or the knowledge to help a student they work with. Lets share our good days with each other.