Week 7 Reflection

This week you had a chance to think about delivering instruction through a technological lens. Why did you develop the learning objective you developed and what was your rationale for selecting the technologies you selected for integration? What are your expectations for the learning outcome?

How are you viewing your instruction differently now?

Keep in mind when I say learning, I don't just mean k12 - we ALL learn. So if you developed an objective to show you mother how to send an email, it's still teaching and it's still learning!

Wow, I almost forgot about this.  It’s been a busy week here, and it’s about to get even busier.  We have Mock TAKS testing this week at school, two meetings after school, and I have a foal due and 4 week old puppies at home……

I selected the lesson I did to create a 3D model of the cell because I thought it would be an awesome and engaging learning tool for the students.  They could create something that they had to know, have fun doing it, and have to understand the cell structure and parts in order to create the model.  I thought that using Google Sketch-up to create this model would be a great way for the kids to bring the structure of the cell to “life” so-to-speak, and allow them to use power point as well to explain what they understood about the differences.  I believe that this would be a great lesson and would keep the students interested in their own creation. 

I have learned quite a bit in this course, and I am certainly learning more everyday.  The world of technology is expanding very rapidly and it’s difficult to even try to keep up sometimes.  I would LOVE to incorporate more of all this stuff that we have experienced through this class into my class.  However, in most districts, this is almost impossible due to the limited amount of computers and software that is actually available to the teachers and the students.  Hopefully, before education goes all “on-line” I’ll be able to share more of what I’m learning with my students!  Of course, then I’ll be able to share everything I’ve learned….I truly believe that someday teaching in the classroom at all will be a thing of the past.  There are certainly positives and negatives to this fact.  My biggest question is:  Who’s going to be the baby-sitters when this happens????  Don’t take that the wrong way, but our society has created school to become more of a baby-sitting service than a place of learning where children are responsible for what they are supposed to be doing.  Now, in many cases in lower education, school is only a place for kids to be while their parents are at work.  There’s no home support and there is no value placed on doing well in school in many cases.  Again, not all cases, but the trend is sure shifting that way in many instances.  What’s going to happen when there are no schools for these kids to go to?  Maybe technology will invent a robot baby-sitter as wel

Where's the magic wand?????

This week we explored tools for creating podcasts and discussed ways to build learning communties to facilitate interaction and critical thinking. With all these tools available, what are the implications for changing the way we work, teach and learn?  What is preventing us from such changes? If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change and why?

Wow, what a question.  I think I would like to have some face to face classes sometimes on some of this technology.  It’s very difficult to “get it” if you’ve never been exposed to it without some help sometimes.  I know we can have help on-line but it’s much more difficult to communicate by writing about something in this case than it is to just have someone “show” you live and in person.  I think this is probably one of the main problems on why we are not seeing change.  People get frustrated after spending hours trying to figure out how to do something and then get nowhere with it.  If I could wave a magic wand, I would wave it and have a person magically appear that knew all the ins and outs of this stuff so that I could have them show me, help me understand, and then disappear again until I need them.  Of course they would stay current on everything and could give me new ideas as well.  How awesome would that be, your own personal tech guru right at your fingertips.  Well, since that ain’t happenin’ I guess I’m going to have to figure something else out….frustration coming on…..

 

Is it credable????

Blog Reflection #5

When I decided to investigate the article “California’s Velco Crop Under Challenge” I wondered when I looked at the list if any of them had any real truth to them based solely on their names.  When I went to the site, I had a nice chuckle and thought it was quite funny and very unbelievable.  I wondered why anyone would make up such a story about the background, issues and status of Velcro growers in the state of California unless it was purely for entertainment or exactly for a lesson like we were learning.  I clicked on the author’s name for information and found an extensive biography that was totally bogus.  When I checked the website by analyzing the links, there was not much more credibility available.  Nine links appeared which all seemed to be bogus as well. 

I chose to do three searches for this subject by using “Yahoo,” “iGoogle,” and “go.com.”  Yahoo came up with the original article, followed by a link to Newsvine and then Dilgo.  There were no bogus website warnings in that search.  iGoogle came up with the original site, followed by Newsvine and the fourth search down indicated that this might be a bogus site and how to check it.  Go.com came up with advertisements for buying Velcro first and then listed the original site, followed by Newsvine and no bogus website warning. 

The site to check the author would not load on my computer for some reason so I was unable to perform that check but did read the bogus biography of the person.  It would be interesting to know if this person was actually real or totally bogus.  I’m sure more searching would answer that question.

I will defiantly use these tools when doing information searches in the future.  There have been a few occasions when I wondered about the credibility of a website and would have liked to have had tools to be able to investigate them.  It is so important to be sure the website is accurate, especially when you are depending on that in the field of education or if you are going to be presenting information on the subject matter to someone else in any media or form. 

I’m fairly confident that any information that I have used in the past has been credible, only because if I was suspect of it, I did more extensive searching, didn’t use the information, or gathered information from known reliable sources.

It is critical that our students understand that websites may not be all they are cracked up to be if they are to be informed members of the community, no matter what that community might be, home, school, local, state, country and world.  If we do not teach them to investigate and analyze information they will just believe anything and will never search for truth. 

I’m not quite sure about Delicious yet.  It will take some getting used to since it has changed the format of Firefox.  I’m hoping that when I access other links that they are not all intermixed with mine so that I can keep them all straight.  I thought the concept was awesome so I will be hoping that getting everything organized and understandable in my terms will help me.  I’m not sure that adding all my existing bookmarks in the very beginning helped and maybe if I would have left it from scratch then I might have liked it better.  I’m sure after working with it for a while, I’ll enjoy it and reap the benefits of social networking.  It will certainly be advantageous to be able to organize and use links that are not only important to me but that other people in my network find important and useful as well.  It would certainly save time if someone else already liked a site, found it useful, and made comments on its application for others to use as well.  

Assessment for Learning

Assessment For Learning (AFL)

In this week’s assignment, we were asked to decide which tenent of “Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep Learning” did we most related to and why.  I chose the tenent that stated:  “AFL should take account of the importance of (and foster) learner motivation.”  I thought of this as a very important part of learning in the classroom as well as through any type of technology.  If learners are not motivated to learn, it doesn’t matter what you present to them or how it is presented, it won’t matter unless they are open to learning it.  One of our biggest challenges as educators today is the fact that we, the teachers, are becoming more responsible for the students learning.  We cannot force them to learn.  Why isn’t there a shift of more responsibility being put on the learner instead of the teacher.  This is not as prevalent in college-level courses today, but it might be in the future if something doesn’t change in the lower levels.  We obviously have to assess how we can motivate learners but in the same token, learners have to be responsible for becoming motivated to learn through their own desires.  Thinking that using more technology will increase motivation may not be the answer.  Just because there is advanced technology available, this does not mean that the learner will use it to its full potential or as it is intended to be used.  Computer-based learning can be run through very quickly without the student really connecting any real learning to the process. 

We were also asked this week about the potential for portfolio assessment.  At this time there are a lot of pros and cons on using this method for assessment.  I believe that in a higher level of education, this probably has more value than at a lower level.  Having a portfolio of work would be an advantage to the student since it would be an excellent point of reference to return to at anytime in the future and almost at the learner’s fingertips.  However, if the portfolio is not created so that it can stay open for as long as the student desires then I think it might be more trouble than it is worth.  Being able to go back and reference something digitally would be much easier than trying to find it scribbled or written in a notebook somewhere that is falling apart and not as organized as a computer based tool would be.  It would be a huge advantage to be able to access all the information that you have learned in one nice place. 

I believe the creation of my portfolio will not only help me to reflect on my own learning, but also to advance my skills in the field of technology.  Having the ability to learn about new technology that is available to us both as teachers and students can only benefit our ability to be as successful as we can within our profession.  Having to learn how to input the information also helps us internalize not only how to do something but also the things that are new to us.  Many learners need to write things down to internalize them and this procedure does more than that.  The creator has to write it, or in this case, type it, figure out where it goes, make sense of how the technology works to accomplish a goal, and reflect on how successful they were at achieving a goal. 

Edcuational Technology Concept Map

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Reflective Blog Posting #1

Educational Technology Philosophy

I believe that all learners are unique individuals who need a caring, safe and interactive atmosphere where they can develop intellectually.  As an educator, it is my duty to help students meet their greatest potential by providing them with an atmosphere where they can feel secure, take risks, share ideas and experience diversity within the instruction. 

Students should be offered an environment that promotes the teacher as a facilitator that will enhance their creativity, curiosity, and success in directing their own learning.  The teacher should guide the student to discover information that is relevant to the learning goal while connecting new concepts to what the student already knows. 

Teachers need to continue their education through professional development to be valuable role models for their students who stress the importance of life-long learning.  Teaching provides an opportunity for continuous learning and growth for the teacher, the student, and the community.  There is a need for dedicated, compassionate, knowledgeable, current, and excited individuals to work with all learners.  Today’s learners must receive a solid foundation that can continually be built upon in order to meet the needs of our ever-changing competitive society.

Above is the first section of our first assignment.  I understand that as educators we should have some type of philosophy on which to build on but in all reality, they all pretty much say the same thing by using different words.  Yes, it makes us think about what we think about but sometimes I’m not sure that it really means as much to us as it does for the “look” of one doing it.  Really, I haven’t seen too many philosophy statements that weren’t going with the current trend of things.  I’m not quite sure of all the value in this then.  Is there value in writing a statement that just reflects what someone else wants us to say so that we can get good jobs.  We’re not stupid, and many times we just write these things to satisfy the requirement of doing so because without it we can’t advance or get a job.  OK, yes, I know it’s critical that we think about how we think but don’t we want to be more creative, original, and different?  Isn’t this what we want for our students? Why then, do we make such big issues about having a “philosophy statement” that pretty much just goes along with what people in higher places are looking for us to say?  I think I’ve now written five philosophy statements for education……none of them have made me a better teacher.  What makes me a better teacher is my passion for learning, my love of teaching, and my self-expectancy to be the best I can be at what I’m doing….

My expectations for this class:  Learning about how technology can help me accomplish that last sentence above, help me to continue to be the best teacher I can be by enabling me to learn all I can about what is available to help those I teach to become successful in their goals.