Digital Blog Post #G- Chapter 10

Through computer technologies, teachers can meet the needs of students of all backgrounds including ESOL, and special education learners. This chapter explores the various types of assisting technology that is available for these students that can be used to help them in the classroom setting. Using technology to assist linguistically diverse learners, differentiated learning, and and writing with technology are some of the concepts that stood out as they are most commonly obstacles that teachers are faced with day to day and year to year.

Teaching in a multicultural society that we live in today is not only a rewarding job but a challenging one at that. However, luckily teaching in the 21 century also means there are an abundance of resources to use in such a situation. Guiding lessons in a manner that will make the content relevant to the cultural background of the student can help them gain a better understanding. "Technology enables teachers to create teaching and learning situations in which students work together across cultural, racial, language and gender boundaries on common projects, and in so doing promote new understandings and images of each other (Maloy, 2014)." From creating and reading websites, blogs, reading newspapers from countries across the world to taking virtual field trip, there is no doubt that technology broadens the horizons for teaching students with different cultural backgrounds. Personally, I have used GoogleEarth with my students so they can explore the countries of their ancestors. I began by searching my father's small town in Italy on the Smartboard. The students were fascinated to see that I can actually navigate through his town and sometimes see his neighbors in the images. Although, the students in that class were all Florida born locals, they were still eager to see their own ancestors' cultural background and each other's as well as learn about GoogleEarth and explore different countries. Now, with devices like Virtual Reality goggles, the possibilities seem to be endless. Imagining a classroom of students who can now put on a pair and seem as though they've transported themselves out of the classroom, is truly something that seemed to be out of a Sci-fi movie when I was a child. This can enrich any classroom in schools across the world, however unfortunately, the schools that would most benefit from utilizing such technology because they have a large amount of diverse students, may also be the same schools that may not have those resources because of low funding.

Differentiated instruction is a concept I most struggled with when I began teaching. The idea of creating different educational experiences to meet the learning needs of individual students was something that I was led to believe would be only beneficial in the elementary school setting. The idea that comes to mind is the use of centers. Where there are three groups of kids and they are all working on different skills and every certain amount of time, they rotate to a new center with a new skill. It wasn't until I was in my 6th grade language arts class, teaching how to write expository essays, that even middle school teachers can benefit from this form of teaching. I saw one chunk of students didn't understand how to write an expository essay that I realized centers would work perfectly in this situation. Having a group of students not understand introductory paragraphs, another group didn't understand how to cite text evidence, and then other students didn't even know where to begin. How is one to get 20 students at all different levels to produce an end result that looks remotely similar to each other? Cue the background knowledge about centers in college. Luckily, I broke those students up in various groups based on what they most struggled with and was able to cycle them through centers until they each had their chance to discuss with me and ask questions. Each group was given different exercises aimed at different learning styles as well as content that they were struggling with. Differentiated instruction is so beneficial since teachers receive students with prior knowledge that varies. The most challenging part of this, for me, was classroom management and having your eyes all over the room while students are on different tasks.

 For many students, writing is not an enjoyable task that is tedious and gives them anxiety. Teaching students to prewrite, draft, revise, edit and publish is often a lengthy process and they can get lost in the shuffle or give up along the way. I agree with the idea that students "the key to a writing process for student writers is convincing them that they are writers now. They must believe the words and pictures in their heads are interesting and important enough to express through writing and drawing (Maloy, 2014)." As a language arts teacher, so many times students would appear to have writer's block when in reality they just felt silly writing the thoughts they had in their head. Often, I would sit down with them and talk out their ideas with them to prove that what they mean to say is paper worthy. Once those ideas were on paper and they saw all that they were able to write, suddenly there was a sense of pride that overcame them. Once blocked from writing because of lack of confidence, they then considered themselves to be decent writers! Technology enables those same students to come up with slideshows, graphic novels, comic strips, short stories, iMovies, etc...allowing those students to bring their ideas to life, and feel a sense of pride in their work. This was a very interesting chapter to read as well as reflect on.

 So much content was discussed and happens to be filled with content that is most relevant in every day teaching. The ideas discussed this week will be used throughout a teacher's career beginning in internship and ending the day they retire. There will always be diverse learners, students from various cultures, with some disabilities, and levels of prior knowledge, and yet teacher's are trained to take on all of those students and work with them until they succeed. THAT is the magic of teaching!

Resources:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Tarabokija, V. [Voki Character] Created  and retrieved 25, February, 2017, from http://tinyurl.com/hv5lbek

Digital Blog Post #E- Chapter 7

The classroom today has come a long way and it is now a place that can provide learning opportunities like never before seen in the classrooms of the past. With a plethora of learning games, software, apps, virtual worlds, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, kids now have such an advantage at their fingertips to see the world and find ways solve academic problems or understand non-academic concepts and problems as well. This chapter gave an overview of the many ways technology can be utilized for such purposes.

Back in the day I remember playing Oregon Trail in my elementary computer class. I remember stressing about being bit by a snake, being plagued by typhoid fever or running out of crops or oxen. Whether I realized it or not, that was a learning experience! Had my teacher attempt to teach me budgeting money, rationing food, or avoiding farmland from being flooded or die as a result of droughts, etc...I would've been completely disinterested. This fictional world that we were placed in for 40 minutes a week, made us, the students, escape the traditional classroom and explore the world of problem solving from a virtual point of view. The world may have been fictional but the life lessons were real. While reading this chapter, this was a memory that came to mind that made me think about how long technology has been trying to work its way into the classroom. Although, Oregon Trail was not an academic based game and more of a virtual learning experience, I still valued the time played on there as I felt it taught me some cause and effect, math and problem solving skills. Here we are so many years later and with a seemingly never ending flow of such learning games, software and apps that are available for our students and the options will keep on growing.

                                 
Although, it is beneficial to include technology and gaming in the classroom for enrichment purposes, it is especially important to evaluate the complexity of the game. The assigned game's intended purpose should not be to provide mindless fun during school hours. It should be to evaluate a student's higher-order thinking. I agree with University of North Texas technology educator John Rice stating that a game should score high on specific standards in order to ensure that it successfully promotes higher order thinking, in accordance to Bloom's taxonomy.
The game should have complex story lines, age appropriate characters, real-world settings and puzzles that must be solved, interaction with other players or virtual characters, replay with alternate outcomes, and interesting graphics. Without meeting these criteria, the teacher is failing to provided the students with a dynamic learning experience and "remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating" may not occur for the duration of their playing time (2013, pp. 163) .

Photo credit to Kathy Cassidy on Flickr

The one concept I was most fascinated by was Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS).  To think that a system exists that can provide an accurate evaluation of a student through computer responses feels like it is something out of a science fiction movie.  Such intelligence tutors are said to be compared with "similar to having one teacher for every one to three students" (2013, pp. 176). I know from years of being a tutor myself, that being able to assess a student's progress, and diagnose what they need more work on is a difficult task. Having ITS, means the kids today have the opportunity to either work on specific disciplines, higher-order thinking, concepts, facts, problem solving, or inquiry learning from the comfort of their own computer.  The program is capable of diagnosing the student's shortcomings and create practices that help strengthen them in those areas. I personally am most interested in this, as it can help my own children and students in the future.

  Gone are the days of solely text book reading, note taking and lectures. Today, teachers have the opportunity to teach with a deeper meaning and understanding for all things specifically with the use of software, apps and learning games. Why not use them? What a time to be a teacher and an even better time to be a student!







Resources:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

[Washington Post]. (2014, May 18). 'Oregon Trail' and the Evolution of Classroom Tech". [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/njy3twF2X0I