Module 6 - Learning in a Digital World

     Technology has a huge impact on the way that I learn.  I can listen to a lecture or watch someone review a power point presentation and walk away with not bit of new knowledge.  On the other hand, I can view a podcast at my leisure, rewinding and replaying key parts, or participate in an interactive learning activity, and immediately become engaged in the learning process.  This is when I gain new knowledge and skills. I am the type of person who needs reflection time and likes independent learning, so face to face appears to be so much more structured and rigid, while the online environment allows me to personalize my own learning.  

     I believe that knowing the standards that I am teaching is the most critical and non-negotiable element in teaching and learning.  Next, communication with administrators, colleagues, and most importantly, the students is key to successful teaching and learning.  I have learned much about the different learning theories and feel that a blend of all of these theories at the appropriate time and in the right way is the best way to prepare learners for a future in such a constantly changing environment.  My preferred theory is connectivism, however in my profession as a middle grades teacher, the maturity of those students and the lack of experience with theory on my part requires for sure that I incorporate behaviorism and constructivism into their education.  There are many elements involved in online and face to face education that are important factors and another important feature is flexibility.  The world is changing, technology is changing, and I must change and allow my students to transform with the rest of the world. 

I commented on the following blogs:

http://lyndamarshallsblogpage.blogspot.com

http://castanosblogs.blogspot.com

Module 5 - New Technologies

New technologies are arriving with amazing speed at our instructional doorstep and the enthusiasm with which they are met varies among educators.  Some are used, some are passed over, and some do not get a glance, however the method by which these technologies are introduced might make a huge impact on their adoption.  I am sure that I may have seen different outcomes during one such introduction of my own had I employed Keller’s ARCS model. 

Several months ago, I was introduced at the district level, to some new technological advances and capacities for an existing assessment software program currently used by our schools.  The majority of our teachers used the program to create score-able answer sheets for multiple choice and short answer assessments.  New additions to the program capabilities included test banks for nearly all subjects with various DOK levels and types of questions, online testing and scoring with immediate feedback potential, question validity and standard analysis, test comparisons among individual students, classes, or whole grade levels and a few other tricks to improve the process of formative and summative assessments.  I was completely on board with these new processes and was anxious to share with my colleagues. 

What did I do?  I got myself put on the professional learning calendar and redelivered the information to teachers who were required to attend my session during their planning.  I assumed that all of the hours spent placing screen shots on the step-by-step handouts might make me change agent of the year and expected everyone to return to their rooms and immediately begin sessions with the new assessment resources, creating tests, analyzing data, setting up student groups by standard, and initiating a new plan of instruction based on all of this new data from the technology.  Nothing happened.  Nothing changed.  There were a few teachers who used the new test bank to create assessments, and others who looked at the test analysis.  However, no one was motivated to take the time to learn how to use and implement the new additions to the program so many of the new software additions went unused. The teachers were busy, did not appreciate having to give up their planning time to attend a training that they felt might not apply to them, and some just did not feel comfortable using the computer program and felt lost the entire time.  Using Keller’s ARCS model might have given me the opportunity to motivate and encourage my colleagues to successful use of the program throughout the school. 

First, I never tried to gain their attention to the program other than by sending an announcement that professional learning would be about “blah blah blah” and attaching a schedule for training.  I may have changed the direction of their mindset simply by sending out a flyer, a quick video clip, podcast, or animated Voki,  highlighting the new attributes of the existing program and how much time could be saved by using these additions in the classroom, thereby making it relevant to each of them.  By including a quick “cheat sheet” of basic directions for use of the new functions, teachers would have been able to peek at the program or practice in private, giving those who needed it some amount of confidence.  Instead of just training, I should have had a fake class set up and allowed the teachers to implement the steps as they decided how to adjust the program to suit the new fake classroom.  By facilitating my colleagues in using the program, and allowing them to feel some personal success, I am positive that the results may have been much different. 

Reference

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Boston: Pearson Education.

I read and commented on several blogs, including:
 http://castanosblogs.blogspot.com/
 http://loridodd.blogspot.com/

Module 4 Connectivism Mindmap and Reflection

After discussions with some of you, I revised my original mindmap to include more detail for some of the categories.  

Networks have definitely changed the way I teach and the way that I learn. My mindmap is composed of my favorites, however, there are so many that I used daily without even thinking about it. To reflect upon my favorite networks, I begin with my personal connections – facebook and pinterest. At this point, I still use facebook to keep up with friends and family and to form personal connections with other professionals. Pinterest is a network that I use in my daily life and for quite a while I thought it was for sharing fantastic ideas about decorating and cooking or fashion. I found out that this is a fantastic place to find some of my favorite lessons and projects to use in the classroom.
My favorite social networking tools that I use often with my fellow students, teachers, and my own students are the blogs and wikis. Until I started the Walden specialist program, I had not used either, and thought that my discussion drop box was really getting outside the box. The only connecting happening there was between myself and the student. Now, I am finding that the wikis and blogs are inspiring and motivational, encouraging my students to enter conversations for the first time ever. We are really learning from one another and the knowledge really does connect to real life when these tools are used correctly.
The major technology tools that I use in my classroom and teaching preparation are ITS Learning and Edmodo. The ITS learning is our new personalized learning system and the more I train on this program, the more I like it. It is so student friendly, and has chat capabilities, fantastic organizational capabilities, along with the technology that will identify personal needs for the students, allowing me to facilitate and monitor the learning as I should be doing! Edmodo is like a facebook for the schools and I have found more resources through connections on this site, shared apps with my students, and connected to several organizations through this one.
The Virtual tools are awesome and I am comfortable with the go animate site that allows me to create cartoonish lessons or turn group projects into animated discussions and presentations. This is a free site and has some interesting characters that can be selected. The students love to put themselves into another character's shoes and tape a debate or learning activity to present to others via our network or in the classroom. Noble is a virtual world that I am currently working with and its capabilities are amazing. I have quite a ways to go on this technology; however, the lessons in which I have participated create an unbelievable world of engagement. Students are able to create avatars and work together in protected worlds as they solve problems that are completely connected to real life situations.
As I share information about using one tool, another networking resource comes to mind, and as I read the blogs of my classmates, I see tools that I use often myself. There is no end to the digital tools and networking sites available to us and sometimes, the sheer quantity becomes overwhelming because I am anxious to try them all! I can see that our blogs this module will demonstrate just how effective the connectivist theory can be for growth in the area.

I commented on the following blogs:

 

http://loridodd.blogspot.com

http://lyndamarshallsblogpage.blogspot.com

Module 3 – Technology and Collaboration

I believe that we do have the basic instinct that leads us to interactions and collaborations with others. We are smarter in numbers and often learn from each other as we are collaborating. Wikipedia is a resource that is created by learners constructing meaning and sharing knowledge as they contribute to Wikipedia. Participants are definitely engaged in the process and build on the ideas of others as they add to the encyclopedia. There are unlimited web 2.0 resources as a result of this instinct and desire to collaborate and support others. Howard Rheingold's video was entertaining and engaging as he made some great points about how things are accomplished as people interact with each other to solve problems and create products.

Technology, used in K-12 education, was mostly used passively to process information, whereas now, it is often used to facilitate the exchange of ideas. Technology provides multiple ways to present information so that individual learning styles and choices are made available. "Technology can facilitate the collaboration process by linking together individuals who share a common interest and goal" (Brown). This collaboration is a key part of the constructivist approach to learning. Technology allows learners to build on their past experiences, construct meaning from information, solve real-world problems, and create exemplars individually or collaboratively. Technology also allows students to contribute at a time of their choosing, when they are feeling creative or when they are touched by an idea.

I found an extremely interesting article about a study completed on a school in California focusing on collaborative problem-based math and discussion based English leading to top SAT scores for entrance to colleges. The link is http://www.edutopia.org/stw-collaborative-learning-research and the article is from Eutopia. Some of the strategies that are highlighted by these educators are approaches that I had not considered. These strategies are: "Consider classroom geography, focus on process, not the right answers, build in accountability to each other, let students teach each other, and encourage students to be in tune with each other" (Vega & Terada, 2012). I had never considered modeling examples of engaged listeners and feel this would be extremely beneficial for my 7^th grade students.

References

Brown. (n.d.). Calpro-Online. Retrieved from ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education: http://www.calpro-online.org/eric/docs/brown/brown01_05.pdf

Vega, V., & Terada, Y. (2012, 12 5). Research Supports Collaborative Learning. Retrieved from Edutopia: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-collaborative-learning-research

 

 

I have commented on the following blogs:

http://loridodd.blogspot.com/ Lori Dodd

http://castanosblogs.blogspot.com/ Joseline Castanos

Module 2 - Response to Bill Kerr, Stephen Downes, and Karl Kapp Discussions

I am responding to the blog discussions, which can be accessed at the following links::  ttp://www.ulqcl.com/kappnotes/index.php/2007/01/out-and-about-discussion-on-educational/ and http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/isms-as-filter-not-blinker.html

The discussions were focused on the learning theories and the conversation began with the topic of behaviorism and was labeled by Downes as being outdated and "dehumanizing"(Kerr,2007); however, as I went through the dialogue, I saw opinions from Kerr, Downes, and Kapp leaned toward the blending of the best of each theory.  I feel that Bill Kerr said it best on his blog when he wrote "It seems to me that each _ism is offering something useful without any of them being complete or stand alone in their own right"(Kerr,2007).  I know that in my classroom, it seems that I use different theories according to the level of learning for the students.  I tend to follow the learning theories as identified by Kerr with my own different levels of 7th graders.  With my introductory lessons and for my remedial classes, I normally use more of the behavorist theory, the when it comes time to apply and practice the learning, I switch to the use of the Cognitive theory, and finally, when I want the students to complete multi-step problem solving that require critical thinking, I move to the Constructive approcah. I try to include problem based learning as much as possible and use performance tasks often as formative assessments, but find myself reverting back to the behavorist theory quite a bit as I settle back into our standardized testing environment (old habits).  I do agree that all of the theories are useful and necessary and give me guidelines to follow as I try to help my students achieve the learning goals. 

I participated in discussions on the follwing blogs for Module 2:
http://castanosblogs.blogspot.com/
http://pnesrsta.wordpress.com

MODULE 1 BLOG POST

I believe that students learn best when they are actually active participants in the learning. .  Education today should be all about the 21^st century learning skills – critical and creative thinking, collaboration, technology, inquiry…  Today, technology plays an enormous role in students’ lives and educators must adjust existing mindsets about teaching and learning.  Since students are so absorbed in technology outside of the classroom, then it is apparently significant to them and integrating technology into the learning environment would make the learning more important to students.  I do believe that a mix of several learning theories is necessary to successfully engage today’s student population of technology learners … and I strongly feel that giving students choices in learning methods and activities will boost learning.  Check out this link from Creative Commons for some details about student choice: http://www.personalizelearning.com/2012/02/10-tips-to-encourage-voice-and-choice.html .