Reflection (week 8)

After taking this course, I have used the GAME plan, not only in developing future lesson plans, but also in everyday life skills. Being able to organize your thoughts and information gained is vital to create a path in achieving your goals. By mastering the organizing life skills, I will be able to use this strategy for lesson plans as well as passing this strategy to my students in creating more meaningful goals along with achieving them.

After exploring all the useful applications on Facebook for students to use for collaboration, I came to a realization that schools may not allow the usage of such social site. As the course moved on, I have discovered Ning.com that Vicki Davis (2009) suggested to use in its place. In the beginning of my GAME plan, I wanted to strengthen my lesson plans with more meaningful and authentic lessons for my students. In order to do this, I created a discussion with former colleagues to collaborate in creating authentic math lessons. Surfing the internet was another way since it is full of resourceful information on web 2.0 since we all want our students to be successful in their learning. Having the GAME plan provides more relevancies while creating my lesson plan. As for my second goal, implementing more technology into my lesson plan than just PowerPoint presentation or streaming, the resources provided in this course, inspired me to expand my horizons and experiment with what is out there on the internet and seek more tools to use in my lessons.

Immediate adjustments to my lesson plans would be incorporating technology to aid in memory retention rather than just utilizing technology because research states that more learning happens in a 21st century classroom. Technology should be used as an aid. After creating the lesson plan using storytelling, I find it intriguing of what students can do by using their creativity when given the chance.
This course was packed with information and resources to incorporate into the 21st century classroom, as well as a new way of organizing skills, setting goals, and planning on how to achieve them. I am looking forward to another course filled with this type of information to help my future students to become more successful.

Resourceful:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.

Student ISTE NETS GAME Plan (week 7)

After viewing the ISTE NETS for students, I see that my students are successful with just understanding the basic operations of a computer. They are able to type a letter and add a clip art to a document file, as well as having the ability to surf the internet.

However, I feel that my students need to develop more awareness of the internet of validating information on the internet and understand the danger that lurks within it. Also, when researching, students need to understand that using the information from someone; they would have to cite in order to give the person, who wrote it, credit. As my some of my students, they learned how to search information on the internet, however, they spend more time clicking to see if the site is what they are looking for and if not, then they continue to look. My students need to work on social and ethical uses of technology, using technology for collaboration, and research tools from the ISTE NETS for students.

As I experienced the GAME Plan way of thinking, I feel that students and the teacher (me) should set a goal to emphasis on and take a few minutes to brainstorm the GAME Plan with them. Because students come up with the goals, they will be more apt to work on it and focus their attention. With a GAME Plan on the wall for that class, students will see it every day when they come into the classroom as a reminder. This allows students to have some additional help in their organizing skills for the future as well as having students develop metacognitively.
As for ,my GAME plan, my goal is for my students to master at least 5 out of 6 ISTE NETS by the time they reach 11th grade. My action is to allow my students to set their goals and plan how they will achieve them. The monitoring for this task is by observations and they meeting the standards of mathematics using the technology assigned to them. Evaluation will be part of the monitoring, however at the end of the goal or project, positive and negative events must be recorded so that the following year, the same mistakes will be avoided.

The GAME Plan Continued... (Week 6)

As I explored the Facebook application, I felt that it was going to be quite useful in many ways. But it has come to my attention that many students may not be able to access it through the school system until it is approved with the school and having this social site unblocked. I am exploring Ning, something that Vicki (2009) suggested for “educational networking”. I want to be able to understand it and seems like it will be like Facebook. I have thought about the “tagging” that Vicki (2009) mentioned in the DVD. Perhaps this will help solve some of the challenges that I may have in the future. As for the first goal of creating authentic lessons for my students, I feel that I have come to the conclusion that creating these lessons, maybe two time a year will not be too overwhelming. Trying to make every lesson authentic all at once in a year is quite tiring, and I do not want to be burned out in trying to make great lesson plans. I am still connected to my former colleagues and mentors to receive ideas of creating authentic lesson plans. We collaborate together and receive a better product then I expected. Because this is online collaboration, the collaborating part is slow since we all have teaching jobs and creating out our lesson plans since we are all on different levels of mathematics.

I would love to continue working on the authentic lesson plans even after I have graduated from this program since it takes time to create a well-thought-out lesson plan. Doing a few a year will be more effective and will accumulate more over the years to become a better teacher. As for the social networking, I would like to explore Ning more and perhaps, the school will be more willing to unblock this site since it is for educational collaboration.

I feel that I have not met my goals completely until a few years later for creating authentic lesson plans. As for the social networking, I feel Ning is like Facebook, thus I will be able to pick up on it and its uses in a few short uses. I would like to work on legal matters for the internet such as copy rights and what can be used in the classroom, and what can I print and how many. I enjoy knowing all the laws since I want my students to have respect for other people’s property, thus I need to demonstrate this by following the rules of the internet.

I believe I just need to spend more time exploring and reflecting on what I can do with my new knowledge once it has been explored. Finding faculty or connect with other teachers, then communicating with them about internet use for the curriculum will be most helpful so I can teach my content, still meeting the standards, and exposing our students to new technology they will need in their future.

Reference:Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.

The GAME Plan Continue (week 5)

As I am continuing my journey on the GAME Plan, I have to admit that my action plans are going well, and been brought some additional information from my colleagues. For example, the Facebook application page suggestions for students that Miriam. I thank you for the wonderful applications all in one page. My students will definitely benefit from this, from organizing their work, and additional tutoring. I also joined the “I AM TEACHER” from Facebook so I can expand my connection from not only just my former cohorts, but to all networks around the world. Also, this application allows you to download visuals of all sorts for different subjects for free under “freebies”, and of course, the other downloads are for a price.

So far, I am still playing with the applications, and just getting to know how to use VoiceThread more. I might start using introducing the Facebook applications for organizing for my tutorees. I also might started a Twitter as Diana suggested to post my lesson plans, instead of a blog.

Right now, I am just infatuated with the applications on Facebook, and would like to know how it works and the VoiceThread as well. Perhaps, just asking, what lesson can I use this on? What will the principal say to this if the website was blocked at school? How will I teach my students how to use this application in school and still be able to teach the TEKS? I am sure these are common questions that many would ask.

As of right now, I would like to test some of these applications and implementations on my tutorees. That way I know what I am up against. I can see what the timing will be for students to learn how to use these applications as well as any other integrated piece of technology.

The GAME plan Continue…. (week 4)

So far, I am doing well on my GAME plan. My goal for creating more authentic lessons for my students is going well. I have more and more people coming in to join my Facebook. I still feel that I might have to supplement internet resources over the Facebook application since most of the teachers are extremely busy. I have learned that communication with both experienced and inexperienced teachers is a plus since everyone has something to contribute. Some questions so far that has arise are, Are there other ways of doing this? What are some modifications for students who are so behind, that they are still in my classroom, but they are not graded on the level. How will I continue to engage them in the real life experience but not lose the rest of the class?

As for incorporating more technology into my classroom, I find it nice to have support from my former teachers, professors, and colleagues. Although some of them are very fearful of technology, but in the end, they contribute to the collaboration. I am now enjoying just playing with voicethread so I can create more lesson plans with this until I play with additional software. I enjoy Geometer’s Sketchpad to be a tool to use in the next year. I am ready to start the New Year with more knowledge up my sleeves to better our future society.

The GAME progress (week 3)

Goal 1: To create more authentic real life lessons to engage my students in critical thinking.

My goal seems to be like many novice teachers, having not enough experience in creating life like lessons in the world of mathematics. Often in this subject area, we have many students with a variety of learning styles and with many gaps to go along with this already challenging scenario.

My action last week was to invite teachers that I formerly work with to my Facebook. By becoming friends, we are able to share ideas when possible. Most of my colleagues have access to Facebook with their mobile phones since this wonderful collaborative software is blocked from their school. This allowed me to ask questions creating a nice atmosphere to collaborate and anyone who is willing or is fascinated will read or contribute. So far, I have had a few hits with discussions. Not only is this a great way to collaborate, but also a great way to record data and keeping it onto a server where I have the ability to access anywhere as long as there is internet. Another action that I did was to manually call my student teaching mentor and the head department of mathematics to ask for advice on certain lesson plans that I tended to have low success levels. While engaged in conversation with my mentors, I have the ability to take notes on my lesson plans, and take time to reevaluate what I have to enrich the lessons for better success. In addition to these steps I have taken, I would also need to purchase a large binder to hold all my revised lessons so that I all my new lessons will be in order and ready to be executed.

Because this is the beginning of my journey through the GAME plan (2009), I feel that I am not completely into the program yet, but just getting it started so that next week, the collaboration will begin on a larger note. I understand that teachers are very busy with their own lesson plans, and that is where Facebook becomes so convenient. By revising my lesson plans, I will see more engagement of the students, as well as better scores, and better attitudes. Hopefully, I will have great collaboration on my Facebook and a nice large notebook full of new ideas in my revised lesson plans.

For my evaluation, I have not accomplished much, just a little bit of collaboration with my former mentors. I have learned much and in hopes to become like them in the future. I know I will be there. For now, I am still in the beginning of the stages, thus it is too early to evaluate.

Goal 2: To incorporate more technology into the classroom not limiting to PowerPoint and streaming.

My action for this goal is to again collaborate with my colleagues and former mentors. However, since they are more helpful in creating the lesson, the Instructor of Technology may be more helpful in this case. This week, I was not able to collaborate with him, however hopefully I will in the future during this course. For the meantime, I will collaborate with my colleagues in Walden University and read more than the necessary required readings to expand my knowledge of the new technology in the corporate world. As for my Facebook, I have become a friend to an Examiner of local Dallas for Technology. Every week, I see a piece of writing about new software or new ways of using software on my Home page. Though his is just beginning his Examiner career, I cannot wait until he starts to find more and more information to where he is putting a posting a day. Also, I have added some technology blogs in blog reader to view what is new or the talk about in the future. It is interesting to see what is happening and what is developing as well. Not only is this great, but sometimes deals on the internet are advertised, for example, I was able to download two types of software for free when they would have initially cost $50 if downloaded some other time. Although, they are just converters, but it would be nice to convert an .avi to DVD format. If you have a student that is having trouble, you could make a video and send it home. They would be able to play it in their DVD players. This will help if I am absent, they can watch a video of me teaching, causing the class to not be behind so much upon my arrival. The materials that I need are my laptop, converting software, blank DVDs and CDs, Facebook, internet, and my blog.

As for my monitoring, just watching my technology use in the classroom is great way to indicate if I am using technology to enrich my lessons. Also, a binder with many saved streaming and DVDs as well, so I will be able to do this again with future students.

For my evaluation, I feel it is a little too early to evaluate my progress since this is only the beginning of the journey for this goal.

The GAME

Every person in the world should always have goals in their life so that they have a reason to keep living, the same idea in the 21st teaching realm. We, as teachers, should always have goals so that we have a reason to continue our profession. As a student teacher, my mentor taught me only how to direct teach, while working on my masters, I feel there are topics to learn and goals that needs to be set and reached in order to fully feel accomplishment in our teaching career. After reviewing the NETS-T, I see the broad spectrum of what needs to be learned in order to enrich my curriculum. As a professional, setting goals and viewing what my weaknesses and strengths are as equally important as to understanding the curriculum. By using the “GAME”, suggested by Dr. Cennamo (2009), this will help aid me in the process of creating my goals and accomplishing the as well.

Strengths

I feel my knowledge of using technology to teach in a classroom, such as using PowerPoint presentations or online streaming, is a strong point in my teaching career. Also, I encourage my students to be creative in developing a way for them to remember mathematic process. This is an example of promoting creativity in the classroom. Promoting collaboration is another strong point that I have. The ability in working together as a team is an important asset in our students’ lives and their future.

Weaknesses

Some of my weaknesses are probably common to for the novice teacher, such as creating authentic lessons that contain real life situations for our students every day. As for a mathematics teacher, there should be numerous ways to do this, but I still feel that I need to improve on this portion. Having my students validate websites will also be my weakness because I need to work on this process myself. Another weakness that I know I will need to strengthen is to properly assess my students’ work on instruction and their digital development.

The GAME

Goals:

The most important goal, I feel, is to create more authentic lessons for our students to understand the main reasons why we all need to learn mathematics. The second goal that I would love to strengthen is creating an engaging atmosphere not limited to Power Points and streaming.

Actions:

In order to broaden my view of lessons and creating authentic lessons for my students, I feel that collaboration with colleagues and perhaps some mathematic professors will help me with suggestions for certain lessons. There are many resources; however, I feel that an example with a face-to-face human interaction will solidify my memory and better understanding of the situation presented. As for the second goal, following technology blogs will inform me of the new software that are out there, and see what our corporate world is using. Also, as for presentations, it would be nice to create a movie clip of some sort to teach the lesson or even try to get the school to purchase a smart board. Also, collaborating with my fellow technology majors will help in my broadening of my views on teaching.

Monitor:

As I learn more about different scenarios for authentic learning, the more revisions on my lesson plans, the more I am improving my instructions. My train of thinking will be more geared towards authentic instructions. Also my students’ progress in learning the material will improve since the relevancy of the instruction is much higher than direct teaching. As for the second goal, compiling a list of options of all possible technology software to use in the classroom will be a good start, then contributing time to explore those options and list below of each software what it would be good for, instruction wise.

Evaluation:

As stated earlier, the evaluation stage would be seeing the complete compile forms of revised lesson plans for creating authentic lesson plans. When asking myself, “Did I learn anything?”, I would be able to say, “yes” since I kept of record of it. This gives me the opportunity to reflect on what I learned as well as improving my lesson from the beginning and how much improvement I have made. As for the second goal, just seeing my lesson plan include different software is a great way to see how much you learned. There are always software that you can learn and figuring it how to use it in your lesson is great way to see how much you learned.

All in all, we as teachers should always strive to better our profession. In order to do that, we consistently need to have goals and reach them at our pace. Without accomplishing any goals, we would be stuck in the boring same routine and the same type of scores as well.

Reference:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.

Reflection (Blog Post)

In the modern world of education, students are required to be proficient in more areas of literacy than the previous century (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). From the transition of limited textbooks and other tangible research products to the modern digital library on the world wide web, it is difficult for any teacher, novice or experienced, to adapt to the classrooms new twenty first century challenges due to everyday challenges. After taking course EDUC6712I, my way of thinking of education has taken a new path due to the results of my new teaching methods.

David Warlick (2009) suggested that we, as teachers, should embrace the “changing nature of information” (Laureate Education, Inc). The World Wide Web has changed the corporate world, and is now slowly entering into the education world. This year, it is unfortunate that I am without a job; however I have been using many learned techniques with my tutorees. As Dr. Hartman (2009) mentioned, “questioning” is a “new literacy skill” for our students today. As I wrote items on the paper, I found out that my tutorees were not proficient in researchable questioning. After a few tutoring sessions, my tutorees were able to understand the difference between good questions versus bad questions. As Dr. Thornburg (2004) stated, good questions bear more questions (Thornburg, 2004, p. 4). It is essential for students to learn how to question properly because “Inquiry is the essence of active learning…” (Eagleton & Dobler, 2007, p16). On my laptop, my tutorees were able to use search engines to find websites that will offer them support since I only see them once a week. It seemed that they were proficient in searching on the internet. That was expected of a few of my tutorees. This is one of the first steps that my tutorees demonstrate their understanding of questioning since they are to use keywords to find what they are questioning. After fining key words, my tutorees need to learn how to read search engine results. According to Dr. Hartman (2009), students need to be taught how to read the results on their screen. My tutorees actually would click on the first and see if the website would help them. If not, they will go back to the listing results and click on the next. I was shocked to find that they did not even pay attention to the writing underneath the titles of website. As November (2008) mentioned, students may be searching for an idea, but may be mislead because it looks like what they are searching for (p1). This leads to validating information found on websites. In the beginning, I was not able to properly validate websites myself, only having a few tricks that would suggest the website was creditable. If I was this way, then most likely my tutorees were feeling the same. The best part of this was that all of us were learning how to validate the websites together; it was such a wonderful experience. Also for them to say, “Mrs. Osborne, I found one that I can use”. We all went down the checklist on Beth’s ABC guidelines (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). The most enjoyable part of this was when students started to learn to navigate and validate information. Because this was only tutoring, there was not any teaching on citing however there was a lesson on how to give credit where it is due. Overall the experience of this journey was wonderful and extremely rewarding.

Since this course, I have decided to continue on the same path of teach with the exception on a wider road that contains more technology incorporation and more inquiry process. While teaching my tutorees, I now know what some elements that will need to be addressed. It is important for a teacher to never assume what literacy they know without witnessing it. Also, the process that I have been using to teach my students is the discovery method anyway, so inquiry would be added onto what I already have planned. Even though a classroom may not be full of technology, learning can still take place. As Dr. Warlick (2009) stated, “It’s not all about the technology, it is about connection … and obtaining information.” Having student connect to their peers, other classrooms, or with a classroom that is around the world, connectivity is the key to critical thinking and engaged learning. Students should “share their information online through wikis, blogs, and other tools.”(Laureate Education, Inc, 2009) According to Dr. Hartman (2009), students should “share their information online through wikis, blogs, and other tools.” This helps prepare our students for the future of technology in the corporate world (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). Not only is just being computer literate is a must in the twenty-first century classroom, but also students needing to learn how to validate and cite information. As teachers, we “should encourage our students to cite” (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). Validating websites will need to be addressed too. I know that in the beginning of the school year, I need to work on computer literacy skills while reviewing information that students need to recap from the year before. A project will now be incorporated in every six to nine weeks, graded by a rubric system. This will give the students the chance to collaborate and share their ideas over the internet, giving them something to be proud of. Nevertheless, these are some changes that I would love to incorporate into my lesson. Having the final Unit Plan helped me to understand how to plan for a project using technology. This was a great experience.

As a teacher, there are more the one way to become a better mathematics teacher. My goal is to incorporate a little technology at a time, to make the classroom environment more engaging. Professional development would be a great way to upkeep the technology that is constantly changing. Also, this would give me the opportunity to collaborate with other teachers to learn how to implement technology in a particular lesson. Technology blogs, I have already subscribed to a few to see what softwares are out there that may be useable in the classroom or for extra support. These blogs are basically geared towards the corporate world, however if thought out thoroughly and creatively, they can also be used for educational purposes.

All and all, this course has really opened my eyes to the new world of education. It is my duty to figure out how I will use this new found material to mold the future students and our future to become successful in life. It will be a difficult road, especially if I join a small school, but again, this course also taught me was that it is not all about the computers. Students are still capable of learning. Communication is the key to success. Teaching students how to inquire and find answers on their own will create lifelong learners. That is the ultimate goal of every teacher to see their students become independent in their learning.

References:

Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the web: Strategies for internet inquiry.

New York: The Guilford Press. November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators.

Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Supporting Information Literacy

and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Baltimore: Author.

Application 7 Back Up

Running Head: INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY INTO THE CLASSROOM


Integrating Technology into the Classroom

Jennifer Osborne

Walden University
Susan Krauss
Bridging Learning Theory, Instructions, and Technology EDUC 6711I-7
June 25, 2009

Integrating Technology into the Classroom

With technology on the rise in the corporate world, many schools fail to support technology into the classroom. For example, it is rare to find schools that provide a laptop or computer on a one to one student ratio. Many of times, students are to work in groups on a computer due to the lack of technology equipment. However, students learn more in a collaborative setting when given the opportunity to discover new materials, according to Dr. Orey (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). After taking a graduate course on integrating technology into the classroom, it is a pleasure to present a lesson with technology integration that supports my personal learning theory. In a tenth grade setting, mathematics is extremely difficult for students to grasp if they do not have a firm foundation of postulates and theorems. In this lesson, students are grouped according to available number of computers to promote student collaboration where students will be provided a handout for investigating relationships between angle measurements when two lines intersect at a point. In this passage, you will find a descriptive step by step detail of how technology will be integrated into this lesson and how the teacher will facilitate student discovery.
First, let us begin the steps of the lesson. To begin the lesson, the teacher will have to guide the students to tap into their prior knowledge with questions such as, “What do lines look like? What about angles? What are angles made of? How do we name this angle? Can someone tell me what a vertex is? Well, today we are going to investigate some relationships between angle measurements when two lines intersect at one point.” Having students generate their own hypotheses makes the activity more engaging and puts a sense of competition of who is correct (Pitler, Hubble, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p 204). In the meantime, students can predict what will happen while I pass out the handouts. Students will then get into their groups at a computer to get onto Geometer’s Sketchpad. This allows students to have the opportunity to practice their social skills. “…today’s students need to be able to learn and produce cooperatively.” (Pitler, et al., 2007, p 139). The hand out will walk students through four steps in creating and naming the two lines intersecting each other. They will do these three times to back up their conjecture. This is an application of testing their hypothesis (Pitler, et al., 2007, p 202). Measurements will be recorded as part of the four steps. With the measurements written on the paper, the students will then print out their findings. Students will then get their results and analyze their data guided with some questions for them to answer. For example, “List two pairs of vertical angles. Are there any angles that are congruent? Which ones are they? Write a conjecture about the relationship between vertical angles.” This is an application of cues and questions (Pitler, et al., 2007, p 73). As the students get into their groups to discuss their data, the teacher will encourage the students to look for similarities and differences (Pitler, et al., 2007, p 167). Once all the groups are finished, a classroom discussion will be facilitated by the teacher. Students will announce their findings while the teacher writes them on the whiteboard. The class will develop a conjecture that will actually be a postulate. The time length should be able thirty minutes for students generate hypothesis to declaring a conclusion. Now students will need to have the opportunity to interact with their knowledge. This is where students, in their groups, make a poster of what they discovered to hang up on the wall. This helps students to have a deeper understanding of the new materials. In addition, a homework assignment will be given to help students apply the new postulate they learned. “As an extension of the classroom, homework provides opportunities for students to deepen their understanding of the content and to gain proficiency with their skills.” (Pitler, et al., 2007, p 187).
With technology, students will spend more time analyzing rather than generating answers to compare and contrast. This makes the learning more engaging and less stressful for students who get lost in what they actually need to do. Technology has given many teachers more teaching tools, but in this instance, the Geometer’s Sketchpad is a learning tool for the students (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). This lesson integrates different types of teaching strategies which are proven to promote learning in the classroom according to Pitler, Hubble, Kuhn, & Malenoski (2007). With this lesson, students will have the opportunity to be familiar with discover and exercising social skills. These are the life skills that students need to practice before going into the real world.


REFERENCES

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction,
and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom
instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Personal Theory of Learning

Throughout this course, I have been exposed to additional teaching tools, as well as learning tools, to use in the classroom, thus expanding my personal theory of learning. According to my initial personal theory of learning, I believed the first thing in the classroom has to feel safe and comfortable in order to promote learning in the classroom. In addition, students are to be introduced with new information with a connection of prior knowledge with added relevance in order to motive students to learn the new materials in a well balanced diet classroom. After taking this course, I now would like to be more specific about the balanced diet in the classroom. I believe that students should also have the chance to interact with the new information in order to for them to have a deeper understanding. As Dr. Orey stated, teachers should teach in the proximal zone, because students are ready for the new material (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). With this in mind, students should also be taught things that they cannot learn themselves. In this zone, students should work collaboratively or with an external knowledgeable other (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). This helps students learn deeper and the challenge is more for the student to enjoy. This also gives the students the opportunity to practice social skills as well. With integrated technology, students have the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the new materials or their knowledge of discovery methods.
In the classroom, I believe I will be more apt to do collaborative learning, rather than majority of lecture, now that I have a better understanding of what to expect in the process. Because I am in a school with limited technology, it is difficult to incorporate more technology into the classroom. Without the support the administration for using wikis and blogs, even this type of integration is difficult. I thoroughly enjoy the voicethread activity. I may use this as a teaching tool in or outside of the classroom. This would be a wonderful tool to help students who do not understand the lesson the first time around. Even posting powerpoints on the blog would be helpful to students as long as they have access to the internet at home.
One long term goal of mine is to be in a school that supports technology into the classroom so I would be able to integrate technology in my lessons without having to fight for rights to do so. Technology usage wise, I would love to have a collection of powerpoints or voicethreads to help students better understand more of the lessons. Also, these videos or powerpoints are great review for students who have access to the internet. Along with these, I would like to have a link for homework helpers too. Because mathematics is a subject that many students have a difficult time with; this allows them to have continual repetition of the lessons.

Second goal I would like to integrate into the classroom is to have students work collaboratively to have a deeper understanding of the new material. I would like for students to have more chances to interact with their new materials as well. Once I have the technology in my grasp, I would use it as a teaching tool and a learning tool. For examination purposes, Excel would be a great way to see patterns or if the trend is increasing or decreasing. Students need to be able to problem solve and how to compare and contrast.
Overall, I am waiting for the golden opportunity to run my classroom with technology. It is imperative that I get into a school system that supports this type of integration. With homework postings on blogs to voicethread videos of demonstrations, I believe there should be a great rise in the knowledge and confidence the students will possess.

Resources:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Voicethread Assignment

I was supprised as to what this program is capable of doing. However, the experience was not good in the beginning. I record myself and the file was too big, then come to find out, the voice thread does not read AVI files. Well, I learned something new today. I like how the powerpoint is broken down to individual slides. This helps from having to upload so many things. I enjoyed the experience and will be planning to use in the future once I have expolred it's potential. The link to my voicethread is http://voicethread.com/#q.b544411. Hope you enjoy it :)

Cooperative Learning Tools

This weeks' tools for collaborative learning were a great experience. I current am a facebook fantastic; however, it never crossed my mind to use it for collaboration. I know that wikis are for collaboration as well as learned in the previous class. Since these types of web 2.0 software are on the internet for students (and teachers) to collaborate, why not use them in the classroom? Since these tools are for students to bounce ideas off of each other, they learn more and construct more with what they are provided with. Thus, the connection to social learning theory, as Dr. Orey mentioned, the level where students are unable to grasp the concept unless they have a knowledgeable other, this is where students are unable to learn on their own (Laureate Education, Inc 2009). In order for them to learn, students have to depend on each other to help each other construct the project.

I explored "Building Homes of Our Own" and loved the software. This allows students to pick or build their home and watch the cost go up and down. Not only is this real life scenarios, but this allows students to problem solve. This also provides students to collaborate while they are in the quest of hunting or building a home within their budget.

I thoroughly enjoyed this section of the course because it provided me some ideas to take back to the classroom.

Reference:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Utilizing Problem Based Learning Methods for Constructionism and Constructivism

According to Dr. Orey’s (2009) presentation, constructivism is a where students create a specific definition to for something general (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). Thus, this is an example of retrieving prior knowledge to build upon; this process is called assimilation (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). If in a given situation, students are unable to assimilate, then students will need to reserve the new information in a new place by accommodation (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). Once this is this is achieved and then equilibration will eventually be reached when “a balance between differences in external reality and one’s current beliefs and understanding” happens (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). So students start out as Constructivist and later have enough understanding to become a Constructionist. The tools that were to be explored this week were fascinating. Problem based solving is a great way for students to use their prior knowledge to discover something new that is to be learned. As one of my cohorts said, “It’s great to present a define problem and end up with an ill-define solution.” This meant that a problem is presented and the ending will not be expected to be the same every time. This is where students learn most, because it allows students to generate questions and hypothesis to answer them. After all, “When students generate and test hypotheses, they are engaging in complex mental processes, applying content knowledge like facts and vocabulary, and enhancing their overall understanding of the content.” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, Malenoski, 2007, p 202). With problem based learning, the highest of learning is taking place. The one I really enjoy and still figuring out was the Problem Based Learning where you are able to create your problem based activity. Students are also using their senses and are constructing, thus the possibility for students to retrieve the information will be greater. If this is achieved, then we are making a difference in our students’ lives.

Cognitivism in Practice

After reviewing the different strategies for using graphic organizers in our required reading, I have to say, "Wow! Why did I not think of that?" Graphic organizers, cues, probing helps students recall the information recently learned. Dr. Orey(2009) described cognitive learning as a process where students learn to store new information, and the ability for them to retrieve the information at will ( Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). With the graphic organizers shown from using word process to advance organizers such as kidspiration help students make connections and retrieve information when needed (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p. 78). Often students do not make good connections when not engaged. Having them write down, from brain storming to making a table will aid them in making connections. In the long run, students will be able to make connections easier, and retain the information longer. This is what all of us teachers want. This week was a great learning experience.

Reference:

Laureate Education, Inc (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., K. (2007). Using technology with classroom insturction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Correlation between instructional strategies and behaviorist learning theory

To begin, behaviorism is to condition desirable behaviors while behaviorism-based learning is to condition students' recently learned materials. The resources listed in the Resource column were great at demonstrating immediate feedback and to provide students with every opportunity to practice what they learned.

I extremely enjoyed the social studies tutorial because it has lessons that include audio for students who possibly may have problems in reading. To top it off, after the lesson, the student is able to click to practice what they just learned. Immediate feedback was shown after each question to correct any misconception of the new material. It is hard to make a student unlearn what he practice incorrectly and then having the student relearn to correct it.

The other resource I enjoyed was the Classroom.JC-Schools.net site because it provided many interactive websites for students to use. For example, the graphing interactive website was a website that allowed students to explore and manipulate the graphs to see what the reading would do. This helps students to read the coordinates and problem solve while answering questions at the bottom of the graph. After going through the exploration and answering questions, a box prompts for students to enter their name and the teachers email address as well as their own the results they scored on the interactive website. This is great way to demonstrate integration of behaviorism and technology into the classroom. This websites conditions students learning, giving students immediate feedback, as well as incorporating emailing tool to send results to students and teachers.

After reading more strategies in the text, I was eager to use the new found tools found in the readings. Having a linear view of Microsoft Excel and its purpose, I have acquired a new found way to use this software to compile worksheets and to use during class to teacher. It was great to see parabolic graphs done in Excel (Pitler ,Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p 192). Students will be able to see formulas and tables while the graphs are compiled in front of their eyes. Better yet, students compile these for projects where they will be able to compare the results to derive their own rule to predict what will happen if a certain part of the formula changes.

Effort plays a large part in how students learn. "Success comes in cans; failure in can'ts" (Pitler ,Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p 155). As stated in the beginning, behaviorism is about conditioning student behavior. Teachers should emphasis the relationship between "Effort" and "Achievement" is something that ever teacher should incorporate into their classroom. After teaching for two years now, I wish I would have done the Excel program that Ms. Powell did in her classroom (Pitler ,Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p 158). She had students chart their efforts and their assessment test to see the correlation. This is a great concrete way for students to see their behavior and their choices affect their achievement outcome. Thus, students will see the more effort they put into their work, the better their achievements will be.

To wrap things up, behaviorism is about conditioning. Teachers must be creative in incorporating technology into the classroom to condition students to learn. Even though some interactive websites are used negatively, such as drills for lower level students, it is overall a great tool to use in the classroom. We just need to make sure it is to enrich our students' learning while we are entering the twenty first century classroom.

Reference:

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Chronic Behavior Intervention

Of all of the different types of behaviors I dealt with in the past, I would have to say it is very seldom to consider a student with chronic behavior problems. However, there are a few within the classroom I would have to reflect upon in order to intervene appropriately in the future. While attending a classroom management class, I have learned about the Individual Behavior Change Plans (Jones & Jones, 2007, p 397) and Escalation of Intervention (Laureate Education, Inc, 2008) to incorporate and improve my current discipline routine. As I read these types of interventions, a certain scenario came to mind, thus a comparison of what had happened verses what I should have done using the Escalation of Intervention (2008) first before moving onto creating a Behavioral Intervention Plan (Jones & Jones, 2007, p 397).
After having a wonderful student-teaching experience for an entire semester, it only fed my eagerness to teach when it was time to obtain a full time job. As I attended the interview that was required in order to teach at Phoenix, I was informed that many of the students are well behaved and eager to learn with little ambition to attend public schools. It was music to my ear, not only to have received the job, but to have students who were well behaved. As a small school, there was a class that contained only four students. Within that class, there was a student who exhibited many manipulative qualities far from his peers. Many of the teachers were uncomfortable having this student around. At first I refused to see it, but eventually this student started to argue with me within the learning environment accusing me of everything from giving him failing grades to treating him unfair due different nationality. This student would walk out of the class without permission and do as he pleased to show that he possessed no fear of the school system.
When the aggression of this student started, that was when I should have used the Escalation of Intervention (Laureate Education, Inc, 2008) since many teachers informed me of this potential problematic student. Using the knee to knee intervention, as Dr. Wolfgang (2008) suggests, should have been the first step to start the discipline process. Beginning with the relationship-listening approach to understand what triggered this student’s behavior should have possibly avoided many issues. This would be the perfect time to listen to the student of what is happening in their life. However, if that is not the case, then moving to the contracting-confronting face would be appropriate (Laureate Education, Inc, 2008). This is the proper time to make the student be aware of what they are doing, and how they are hindering the learning environment. This is a perfect opportunity for the student to also reflect on their own behavior and refocus on their goal. After this approach, keeping an eye on this student would be wise and to praise him on his progress. This is also shifting power to the student to let him know he has the power to change himself. If there are no apparent improvements, then moving to time-out is the next option. Of course, the first time of noticing no achievement, then I should guide him on how to reflect on his behavior again, allowing me to exhort more power. If this is unsuccessful during the learning environement, then the student would be escorted by another teacher or adult to the counselor’s office to reflect again on his own behavior until he is ready to return to the classroom to work diligently. If this session is unsuccessful, then I will send him to the principle’s office to have additional help in refocusing on his goals and to obtain more guidance on reflecting on his behavior; perhaps, this may be gathering power from support of the other staff members. By this time, if the behaviors continue, then a parent – teacher conference would be held. Unfortunately, the mother is usually unable to attend since her busy schedule, thus a meeting with the student would probably be more effective. Once this is down, the last element would be to create a contract between the student and me, which is the Consequence-Rules face(Laureate Education, Inc, 2008). In Phoenix, we consider this stage as an “SST” (Student Support Team) meeting where students are nominated based on behavior or academics. This is where the student is evaluated to see what the roots of the behavioral problems of what the child is missing. Once the roots of the behavior or academics are pinpointed, then solutions are generated to implement immediately for their success, thus using the Staffing Teams suggested by Dr. Wolfgang (2008).
During the mist of the above paragraph, I should be observing and documenting what was happening in order to provide a “healthy” assessment on pinpointing the behavior triggers. This could also help in avoiding to use the severity situations suggested by Dr. Wolfgang (2008). One form that caught my eye was figure 10.3 Functional Behavioral Assessment Form (Jones & Jones, 2007, p 402). This form would guide me to reflect on what happened in that particular classroom. Also, this would help me interview the student while he is reflecting on his behavior is effecting the learning environment and himself. Also, this documentation would be helpful when conducting a conference with the student or having the student receive guidance in his reflection.
In conclusion, teachers must take little steps at a time to handle behavioral issues. Whether it is to a beginning of something severe, like the situation I was in during my first year of teaching. It was nice to be informed by other teachers in the beginning about this student. Now that I am equipped with new knowledge of the Behavioral Intervention Plans (Jones & Jones, 2007, p 397) and Escalation of Intervention (Laureate Education, Inc, 2008), I believe will be making better choices and more equipped with proper documentation in order to handle severe situations.

REFERENCES
Jones, V., & Jones, L. (2007). Comprehensive classroom management: Creating communities of
support and solving problems (Laureate Education, Inc., custom 8th ed.). Boston: Allyn
& Bacon.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Classroom Management to Promote
Student Learning . Baltimore: Author.

Reflection on Course EDUC-6710I-12 Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society

After blogging for sometime, I find myself wanting more and more to use in the classroom. Not only blogging, but the usage of wikis and podcast will aid in my class setting. The experience that I had in this taking this course had really provided me with more tools in incorporating technology into the classroom. After collaborating with my peers on the wiki, I experienced the great joy of what I can use in future projects. I am currently working on a wiki for the entire math department to use to help students be successful. Right now I am using multiple blogs for my each of my subjects and taks tutoring. This helps me keep a trail of all my students and their train of thought. I believe that podcasting will be my next project. It would be nice to be able to call gcast and podcast a lesson so students can refer back to a lesson. Not only for students, but I would be able to listen to myself and reflect on how much better would I be if I would have done something different? I would have a record of myself and lessons. This would be great to have if I am teaching the same subject again because I would know what I need to address and where problems may lie.

Going back to the collaborative project using a wiki, I feel that students would be able to benefit from this as well. A project where students just keep track of notes and links so when a team member is absent, that student has access. There are so many types of software that students would be able to use in the classroom where they can discover what they are to learn. It is the matter of having adequate computers with internet access or lab time for the students. When students are discovering what they are learning, it tends to be stored better and also, the classroom will become learner-centered. I would be the facilitator rather then the teacher. When students are discovering learning, they are visualizing, listening, reading, and manipulating. By students using all the learning styles, the chances, of them succeeding, increases greatly. They would have a greater probability of success. Technology is truly an ultimate goal since it uses all the learning styles to teach students. My perspective in learner-centered has not changed a bit. That is one of my ultimate goals as a teacher.

The first goal I would like to do is to have every one of my students to have access to a classroom blog. I would like to start posting notes and assignments on there for students have their notes at their fingertips anywhere they go that has internet access. Once I have mastered that, I would like to have students blogging and using wikis to help tutor each other on assignments. Even though there will be many obstacles, I feel that I should take my plans to the IT department to collaborate with them to see what we can do, as a team, to get our students prepared for their future. After collaborating with the IT team, I should also be prepared to have a back up plan in case of power outage or internet failure. Included in the obstacles, I also need to consider my students’ home technology access. Maybe have students come to school early or have then stay late if they need more time to post their blog. Perhaps they would be able to see the topic on paper and write their response so when they come to school; they would know what they will be posting. This would save time in the long run and any anxiety a student may have.

My answer have changed on the Checklist from Week one since I have taken this course. I feel more equipped with technology experience and ideas. Coming up with my own ideas was a good exercise for me, however I loved reading my colleagues’ ideas too. If it was not for them posting their wonderful ideas, I would not consider myself equipped with great ideas. Now I will be able to synthesis their ideas with mine. Designing lesson using technology has now been moved to sometimes; however I am not proficient in it yet. The modeling is has improved because I made time to play with the tools in the classroom. Having access to the internet opens up so many possibilities; that includes using cameras to capture pictures, ipods for podcasts and so forth.

To be honest, I have learned so much by just exploring and working on these wonderful assignments that pushed me, not only to learn, but figure out how to use these tools in the class. I true enjoyed this class. To my collegues and Professor Trask, thank you so much for a wonderful experience.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Opinion on Site
This site was extremely interesting. With the ability to find anything on the internet, it is not surprising to find such a wonderful resource to help incorporate technology into your lesson plans. I have to admit that I enjoyed looking through the lesson plans they had on the site. There were variations of subjects which makes it quite versatile. My reason to the site was surprising, perhaps, since this site gives you updates on technology and pointers of how to incorporate technology into the curriculum. There was not anything I found that I absolutely opposed, to be honest. I am only at the learning stage where I want to be fed with more information. Until I have my hunger satisfied, I will be taking in everything I am being thrown. Once I feel that I am somewhat full, and then I may start to see what is realistic and what is not. I also enjoyed the Route 21 and only viewed the beginning of Access 21. I found the interactive sites were great and very useful.

Partnerships
I found it intriguing that 21st Century partners with only 10 states. Unfortunately, Texas is not one of them. Perhaps if Texas was one, I would be more familiar with it. They are also partners with National Council of many subjects and other business communities. It is great to know that there are corporations out there supporting educators with what is needed to be taught in schools to better foster technology into the classroom.


Implications for Teachers
Because there are many resources found here as well as articles full of information, I feel that this site really stresses the importance of incorporating technology into the classroom to prepare our students in the corporate world. There are many resources that I would be able to suggest and possibly use in the classroom to help aid in teaching with technology. I am excited about this site and have bookmarked this in delicious.

Implication for Students
I was not quite sure what it could have been, but it could just mean that students should feel responsible in learning what needs to be learned in order to survive in the corporate world.

Utilizing Blogs in the Classroom

There are many ways to use a blog in the classroom. The question is, what would its purpose be if all my students have access to the blog? I believe there are so many ways a blog can be used in the classroom. For instance, students can interact within a professional setting on a prompt such as Kathy Martin (2008) used in her lessons.

Due Dates:
I have students who are terrible at writing down assignments, and parents are upset because they do not know what homework their child has. A blog would be a great tool to list the assigned assignments and their due dates. This may decrease the number of late assignments.

Frequently Asked Questions:
Parents and students would be able to ask questions about anything related to the class. Teachers would be able to reply. While this is happening, there maybe other students or parents who have the same questions and see that they are not the only one, like the classroom frequently asked questions we have in the Walden University. Other students would be able to respond to each other as well. The will enhance students’ social and academic socialization. This is very convenient, however; this would be ideal if everyone has access to the internet.

Cross Curriculum Project:
As a small school, we tend to like cross curriculum projects such as “The Road to Success”. We talked about bridges in every class. What type of math do we use to determine about the size of the bridge? What types of bridges are well known in History? What does science have to do with bridges? Are there bridges in the human body? Are there other ways to define “bridges” in literary work? Students could be prompt with these types of questions on a created blog. They would be able to contribute to this in their class and perhaps if students are confident in their original thoughts, they may even go into the other classes’ blogs and contribute. This would be great to have student use academic and social skills while learning how to use today’s technology. Students would also see that everything can be considered in each subject and how they coincide.

Student’s Subject Journal:
Students would be able to set up their own account and keep a journal of their subjects, any notes they would like to keep in an electric folder. This will require students to read their notes, type them out, then synthesis what they learned by reflecting on the new materials. Students would be able to interact with what they recent knowledge they acquired.

Class Statistics Report:
In my school, TAKS scores are very low. Students are wondering about what the class is doing. They always ask what the average score on tests are. This is a great way to post averages of grades, tests, and benchmarks. Students would be able to see the class averages improve or go down. They would be able to reflect on the strategies they used. Was it successful or unsuccessful? What could they have done differently to obtain a higher score? This could also be a competition between classes. Who has the highest class average? Students will see the need to raise their class averages.

After all is said and done, these are a few factors that blogging can be used in the classroom. Technology should be used to enhance learning and to boost their confidence. With a blog as their own personal journal, students would be able have access to their notes or study guides at their fingertips. If the students lose their notes, they will be able to recover it by just a click of a print button. With the class report, students will be able to see what is going on, grade wise, with their class as a whole. Cross curriculum project gives the students a chance to collaborate and discuss. Teaching students how to interact is a crucial lesson. After all, they will be interacting with the public or within a company. Students will learn how to answer and reply to a question, whether they agree or disagree. The frequently ask questions blog will allow communication between parents and students. At the same time, a paper trail will be drawn. It is like killing two birds with one stone.

Introduction

This is the second time that I have blogged, but the first time I started a blog of my own. It is a little bear. Just be patient with me. This will be a great experience for me. I like to keep this blog about classroom strategies, whether it is a math or classroom management, and anything in between. I believe that all strategies has a core where we can all use them within all subjects. Also, since this is a necessity for my master's program, I would like to discuss anything having to do with Integrating Technology into the Classroom master's program. This will be great for anyone who are navigating in the same direction in education. It would be a great list of postings for all of us to use in the end.