Digital Blog Post #I- Chapter 4

Teaching goals, methods, and procedures...OH MY! The lesson planning process is like a teacher's recipe to follow for every subject. Lesson planning really is not just the final result but is indeed a process. Beginning with deciding on academic content to be taught and ending in some form of assessment is something that the teacher once had to do by the good old fashion means of books alone. However, in today's day and age we are faced with an abundance of resources via presentation software, visual-thinking software, web-based diagram, flowchart-making tools, teacher-developed websites, podcasts, wikis, and more (Maloy, 2014).  The technological resources available today for each aspect of lesson planning enables teachers to reach every learner and learning style that they may encounter, and provides them with choices on how to get them to reach their goals. Websites such as planbook.com is a great site to organize your classroom. create templates, store grades, match lessons to standards, or even sharing successful lesson plans with peers. Then lesson plans themselves may come from sites, for example, such as abcteach.com, and educationworld.com just to name a few. The use of technology in the classroom does not only apply to the utilization of a computer, tablet, or Smart Board app or website that the students may use in a lesson. It actually refers to the use of all of the above mentioned websites and resources during the entire lesson planning process.

Just as lesson planning may have an abundance of resources, there are also just as many, if not more, sources of technology based assessments.  Gone are the days of pen and paper essays or fill in the blank tests being the main form of assessing students. Now with the use of electronic tests and quizzes, grade keeping software, digital portfolios, student response systems, online surveys, and learning performance rubrics, teachers have many options for what type of assessment they wish to use that is best suitable for the content of which they are teaching as well as the student's learning styles. All of these assessments can be used for students to show what they have learned and can be summative, formative or diagnostic. I felt as a teacher, it was most important to mix up the types of assessments used in the classroom. Although, sometimes it is easier to get in the habit or routine of using one form of showing mastery, we have to remember that while some kids may do well with that form of testing, others may not. By allowing them opportunities to assess differently, will give students the chance to prove what they have learned in various ways.  Many times, in my language arts class, upon completion of reading a novel as a class, I would provide students with a choice of three or four types of assessments to choose from.  I made sure that these assessments were aimed at various learning styles, so that the non-traditional learners would have an equal opportunity to show what they have learned as the student who preferred pen and paper traditional exams.  Having not taught for a few years, and with so many advancements in technology, I am eager to use some of the new forms of digital assessments in my future classroom experiences.  

Student performance rubrics are used to evaluate student work on course assignments and activities by providing a criteria to the students prior to them doing their assignment. From a teacher standpoint, this form of grading may be much more work at the beginning as you try to create a rubric that categorizes what students goals are for an assignment. However, utilizing such websites as rubistar.com can make creating these rubrics much easier. Although creating a rubric may create more work in the planning process, in the long run it will save the teacher much work when it comes to grading. By providing students with expectations and points possible for each category of grading on the rubric, students are not guessing what the teacher wants out of the assignment.  The organization that a rubric provides gives a clear concise idea to the learner and makes them reaching their goals more attainable, since they know what the teacher is looking for.  

This chapter provided so much important information regarding lesson planning and assessments as it pertains to technology.  Teachers today have the ability to plan, and assess in so many ways so that they may meet the needs of all students, while sticking to the game plan and standards provided for each academic content being taught.


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. [Lesson Planning Wordle] Created 18, March, 2017, on www.wordle.com.

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

Digital Blog Post #C - Chapter 3

This week's reading took us through the world of teaching from behind the scenes. Creating the lessons and the art of finding a teaching approach would have to include much of the information discussed in the material throughout this chapter and module.  There are also many more concepts about strategies  and technology that are useful. Some of which I find worth mentioning are with regards to instructional teaching methods, and digital citizenship.

Learning theories such as behaviorism, cognitivism, contructivism, and construtionism are typically the methods that teachers use and adopt as their own in their classroom.  I have found that behaviorism is the most useful, especially with younger students or all kids in general. As explained in lesson 3, this type of learning requires the teacher to provide explicit and planned stimuli in order for the student to memorize, demonstrate, and imitate the desired product or behavior (Maloy, 2013. pp 49). In the VPK classroom, or elementary schools you can recognize behaviorism being used when you see a colored behavior chart. When my daughter, a kindergartner, goes to school each morning, she knows she has started the day with her name on "green". As the day goes on, if she misbehaves (no, not MY KID...never!) she gets her color downgraded to "yellow," and if she continues the misbehavior (she must get it from her father's genes) she will get downgraded once again, to "red". Staying on green for  a week straight earns her points, which earns her a prize on Friday, whereas yellow earns her a warning, and red results in parent contact/or point deduction.  This type of input/output behavior modification helps students get in a routine and teaches them what the expectations are. This concept can also be applied to older students but I feel should be introduced on day 1 of the school year (ie: not writing your name on your paper, late work, etc...may result in point deduction for the assignment).

Instructional teaching methods are not necessarily a one size fits all kind of approach.  You will rarely find a teacher who solely teaches one-on-one, or utilizes learning groups for every single lesson.  I feel as though there needs to be a balance and a good teacher will utilize these methods based on the needs of the students and the material they are trying to teach.  It's important for all students to have various ways to explore the lessons they are trying to learn. In the language arts classroom, I would often have students working one on one with me as I assisted them in trying to complete a prompt or understand various literary works. At the same time, there would be students gathering information on that same literary work, on the computer in order to complete their assignment. All, while others would be utilizing a rubric to self evaluate if they met all of the requirements since they have completed their assignment.  It was a balancing act but they students were able to adapt to each method throughout the course and I knew what worked best for each kid by observations and assessments.

Finally, I was happy to see digital citizenship explained as it was an important topic in my most recent teaching experience. "Technology today enables teachers and students to express creativity through social media, sharing ideas, among people who know each other and those who do not" (Maloy, 2013. pp 65).  The world we live in today is so computer rich that students sometimes get lost in cyber space and assume that their information will be as well. This past fall semester, I was assigned to be permanent sub for a middle school technology course, since the teacher relocated to another job.  The students had that teacher for a month and I felt it would be a good thing to assess what their practices are with using technology.  I was able to find a digital awareness quiz that helped them self assess what kind of information they are sharing and feel it is ok to share on the internet. The results were frightening! Most of those 150 students soon realized that they are putting their personal and family information at risk by oversharing online. Not to mention, many of them felt that their actions online can not be traced or tracked with regards to accessing inappropriate information or cyber bullying. That was just one aspect of digital citizenship that I had trouble emphasizing the importance of. The other aspect, being citing sources and "give credit to who said it," was a whole other ball game. I had trouble getting the students to understand that just because it is on the internet, doesn't mean it's free information to use and that the author of the information they are gathering should be cited.  I'm sure that their age had much to do with it, however with practice and reinforcement from all their teachers, they will learn in time.


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.

Digital Blog Post #A - Chapter 1

In Chapter 1, we are introduced to the world of our youth who are driven by and driving technology into our future. Although, I believe deep down I knew it all along, I guess I was in disbelief about some of the statistics that I learned from this chapter. It's definitely no surprise to me that kids today have technology at their fingertips when you see toddlers lying down with an ipad watching videos, or playing preschool games on social media photos. However, what IS surprising and alarming to me is the statement that "media multitasking" accounts for "10 hours and 45 minutes of media time during the day. In other words, youngsters were spending almost every waking minute outside school using some type of electronic equipment," according to Maloy et al (2013, pp.4-5). What is there left to show or to do with little people who have the world at their fingertips. This is one thing that I feel would be the biggest challenge to teachers today. The "digital divide" in the 21st century classroom, could pose a problem when you have most students spending every waking hour online while other students have zero digital time outside the classroom. Finding a way to bridge the gap and keeping the computer savvy kids engaged while also providing basic internet/ media instruction to the kids who do not have those skills will be essential lesson planning consideration for today's teachers. 

Secondly, as a student now with prior teaching experience, I find technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPAK) to be a great way for new teachers to learn to balance the three most important aspects of lesson planning today. It combines what to teach, how to teach and how to teach it using technology. This concept was not something that I was taught my first round of college courses in early 2000s, and feel it would've been very helpful had it been. With much trial and error, it may come to teachers and when it does it can make integrating technology so much easier. When I was a language arts teacher, I was always trying to read ahead and be one step ahead regarding the lessons that I was going to teach whether it be grammar, or literature as well as continuously try to incorporate higher order critical thinking questions. Many times I would get caught up in class discussion about the literature but lose sight of the students that may not be following along or getting lost in the shuffle. These were beginner mistakes on my part but a learning experience for me just the same. Having to juggle how to teach meaningful content was a challenge within itself and then having to do so by incorporating technology was disastrous for me at times! It was a difficult and underestimated task. TPAK, is something that I plan on learning more about and practicing in my future return to the middle school classroom not matter what subject I end up teaching. 

Last, but not least I would have to agree that "Building a digital identity as a technology-using educator is an exciting part of becoming a teacher and is as important as creating and refining an in-front-of the-class-teaching personality," as stated by Maloy, et al (2013, p.15). Just like anything in else in education, keeping up with the most recent studies through continuing education and professional development as it pertains to media is an essential part of evolving as a teacher. One of the greatest things about being an educator is that you learn with every lesson you teach or observe.  With every new resource you are given or taught, you are eager to incorporate it in your own classroom. Being able to model to your students that you are capable of teaching them in a way that they didn't expect to learn, can make for more meaningful learning experiences for students of all learning styles.  

In conclusion, the world as we know it is no longer the world that we knew growing up. We need to look to the future with an open mind and build upon the knowledge that we have and learn to go in this forward gush of technology and embrace it as our new way of teaching in the 21st Century.  

Resources:

Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.