Digital Badge H

Technology is a funny word. The first thing that comes to mind when the word "technology" is said are things like iPhones and computers and tablets. But every kind of advancement is technically a piece of technology. Minimal technologies are not to be dismissed as they still have many benefits in the classroom, however multimedia technology covers a wider range of things to be done with it. Minimal technology includes things such as whiteboards, hard copies of worksheets, overhead projectors, TV's with VCRs, and handheld microphones. All useful things, but multimedia technology is more efficient. Now we have interactive whiteboards, computers with internet and software, digital projectors, digital cameras, voice recorders and surround sound. Some of these things are used daily in classrooms all around the world. Since my last attempt at embedding a Google Form into a Digital Badge assignment didn't work out so well I decided to try it again, and ask my readers what their favorite piece of technology to use in the classroom is.




I think that my favorite would be the Smart Board. Between the SmartBoard and the document camera, I believe you could change the world in a major way. Seriously! Page 222 in our textbook does an in depth description on document cameras and their benefits. One of the best things about them in my opinion is that the teacher can now write notes for the class to see without their backs being towards the class. This works really well for middle school and high school, especially math teachers. For elementary school this is a great piece of technology for multiple reasons. One would be that the teacher can work through a worksheet with the class, and another would be that the teacher can praise a student and show their good work on the board for the rest of the class to see. This could also be useful at open house and events like that.

There are countless ways that middle school students and high school students can use technology to help with their learning, but its hard to imagine elementary schoolers using the same technology. The textbook suggests using digital cameras to build up an alphabet book for kindergarten-2nd grade students. I think this could be a really cute project, maybe walking through the school with my class and a digital camera, and having them point out things that start with whatever letter of the alphabet. This could be an awesome way for them to begin to recognize the letter sounds they are learning in the real world around them.

Digital Badge G

The concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) was really interesting! The three different designs of learning opened up a whole new view of teaching for me. Multiple means of representation is something that I feel like is my strength out of the three. I can easily take one objective and teach it many different ways until someone gets it and can understand it. Multiple means of expression is a cool way to think about teaching. I’m always thinking about how I can express what I know to students differently, but never really take into consideration how they can express what they know differently. The third is multiple means of engagement, is definitely something I need to work on. I feel like it would be easy to learn about each student and what they like and how to incorporate those things into their learning environment.

Other than the things they enjoy, it is important to incorporate their disabilities into consideration when incorporating technology into the classroom. There are different levels of technology to consider though, and access to them could depend on the school. Low-tech accommodations are easy and inexpensive, so they are usually the easiest option. Mid-tech accommodations include shifts in teaching and need the use of digital materials. High-tech accommodations include computer incorporation and other special technology. A few years ago my mom had a student in her class that has Downs Syndrome, and they added a touch screen computer for him to use during computer centers because he could not use the mouse.

Word clouds are an interesting concept. They are a simple way of introducing a story or piece of text to the class without just having a picture of a rabbit or a dog to introduce the story. They consist of words from the text, with the most frequently used words bigger than the rest. I think it is a good way to engage the students in a simple way. It is a good example of the UDL of multiple means of engagement.

I have made a Prezi of the things I have discussed in this blog as my digital tool. I think it is another interesting way to engage the students. When I was a student and I saw a Prezi for the first time, I was amazed! It is so much more fun than a boring powerpoint, and I would like to continue using them for my classroom.

Digital Badge F

Communicating is so important, and knowing how to do it through technology in this time period is basically mandatory. I enjoyed the topic on teachers and students communicating with technology. Towards the end of my high school career teachers started sending out reminder text messages to us about tests and projects, and it seemed weird that they were texting us but it was definitely a life saver. If I had a question about the project that I forgot all about, emailing the teacher was so easy and quick. Another way we communicated that was suggested in the book was through blogs, which was nice because my English teacher would post what we did each day on the blog so that if someone was sick they could easily catch up from home. It really made me feel like our teachers were helping us and encouraging us to succeed, which was important because I know so many people who felt like their teachers were against them and wanting them to fail their whole time in high school.

Going further into the realm of communication, I want to touch on the different types, which was cool to read about in chapter 8. Synchronous communication is immediate interaction, in real time. This includes texting, phone calls, or instant messaging. I really like this source of communication, especially for students and parents, because it is sent directly to the person, which is almost a guarantee that they saw it and received the information. This is not the case with asynchronous communication, where there is a delay in time and really no guarantee that the audience you're sending it to saw it unless they reply. This includes emailing, blogs, or discussions. I know that with blogs it's hard unless you're subscribed to it, because it's very easy to just forget to check it and then miss a homework assignment.

My third concept is about engaging students. The text book had a lot of good suggestions on how to continue to engage students outside of the classroom, after school. Some of the suggestions were; posting lesson plans, lecture notes, discussion questions, practice worksheets, ideas for further study, and student written materials. I think that the last one could be really cute with a younger classroom, like elementary school. The teacher could scan the students work as they grade it and upload it to the blog for the parent to see, and then give it all back at the end of the year to see how their child progressed throughout the school year. Another thought I had was using Google forms to ask parents questions, and I made an example one. I can't figure out how to embed the form to this blog post, so here is the link. Having all of the parent's emails in can be a good way to remind them that a new survey was posted on the blog, and to respond to it to help making their child's education more effective. I'm definitely going to be using Google forms for my class!



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 Badge E

Learning how to problem solve with different types of software is a great thing for me to improve on. It's really an important skill to have, and while I know that I do include technology into my daily problems, I don't know how to do that in a classroom situation. I like how the chapter started off with some steps on how to solve problems. I made a flow chart that outlined what that section of chapter seven wrote about. Starting there, with how to solve a problem, is a smart way to begin to think about how to incorporate technology into each part of the problem solving process.

 

The second thing I enjoyed about this chapter was the emphasis on all of the different software available to us, especially in this time that we live in. I think that people forget and take for granted just how awesome standard software such as Microsoft Office is. For example, not only did I type my blog in Microsoft Word but I also made my flowchart in it. There are so many things that I can do in that one program, and that's only a portion of the whole Microsoft Office package. Every day companies use software to help their days run smoothly. I remember one day I called Men's Wearhouse to make a change to a group rental, and their software was not working and all they could tell me was to call back the next day. Companies can do close to nothing without technology! Applying it to the classroom, every day teachers take attendance and enter grades into software programs, and I believe that I would try to incorporate other ways of using technology daily into my teaching routine. It's there, so why not use it!

There was one thing that really made me realize what a different world we live in compared to thirty years ago was the paragraph about Google Earth. No longer are students crowding around a globe, but now they can sit in their seats and watch as the big blue and green earth spins on the SmartBoard. Google Earth also allows teachers to focus on certain areas of the world without needing multiple paper maps to roll down from the blackboard. Those days are over! It's amazing how things have changed with the development of technology, and how some things will probably never be included in the daily classroom ever again. I think that's why learning about technology and how to naturally include it in our daily lives, both personally and in the classroom, is so very important.

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 Badge D

Chapter 5 was interesting. I really liked the emphasis on becoming fluent in technology. I feel that many teachers are so scared or intimidated by technology in the classroom because they either don't know how to use it or fear that it is just not reliable enough and will take away from class time either fixing it or tying to get it working in the first place. Becoming really fluent in technology is important for me because if I'm hoping to one day become a very natural teacher and teach without having to have a lesson plan glued to my hand, I'm going to need to really know the ins and outs of the technology I'm using and hope to have the students using.

I found this YouTube video online that is a futuristic view of teaching and the kinds of technology that could be incorporated into every part of a lesson. This was geared towards high school classrooms but I can see the same kind of technology being used in elementary school lessons, especially the presentation methods used by the teachers. The video was a very positive look on technology in the classroom, and is appropriate for this chapter because of the confident use of technology by both the teachers and students, they are very fluent in information technology.

 

Another important advance that has developed with technology is the new way of doing research. I remember in elementary school learning about the Dewey Decimal System, and then discovering Wikipedia in middle school and never looking back. I don't know what is being taught in elementary school now in terms of research method but I surely hope the decimal system has been taken out of that lesson. Learning about how to properly research online is so much more important in my opinion. Even now in every library there is a computer that will tell you where the exact book you're looking for is. Teachers especially need to learn and utilize this new system of researching and being teaching it to students. I think that the hardest part about online researching is that it's so easy to get off track and check Facebook or play a game or even just get completely off topic and research about things that don't have anything to do with the topic you're working on. Learning how to effectively research is another useful skill that students should be introduced to at a young age, as well as how to use technology productively. 

As I was typing that last sentence I think I realized that I would enjoy that to be a focus in my classroom. Whatever technology would be used, I want my students to know that it is being used productively and that they can do the same thing. An iPad isn't just a game machine, it's a planning, calculating, presentation making, communicating machine that can be used for so many more things than your entertainment.

Another productive use of technology is the new way of taking notes. The video above showed students actively taking notes on a computer type thing, but they were able to quickly take them without missing anything it seemed like. No more erasing, or sharpening your pencil, getting distracted with doodling. Note taking with technology is very efficient now, and allows students to focus more on what they wrote down than how they wrote it as the textbook said. I think the examples of recording the lecture and attaching it to sentences in your notes in a word document is a really cool advance in technology and am definitely going to look into that for myself!

This chapter was insightful and made me feel more comfortable with the thought of using technology on a daily basis in my classroom.


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.

http://youtu.be/uZ73ZsBkcus

Digital Badge C

Photo credit to Holtsman on Flickr

I'm glad that I read the opening story for Chapter 3, because I realized that I probably would have felt equally as unprepared to answer the question from the parent, "What can you teach with technology that you cannot teach just as well without it?" Later on the same page it discussed how technology is transforming education in five major areas: critical thinking and problem solving, digital literacies, electronic communications and collaborations, creativity, and digital citizenship. The photo above shows a class with iPods with camera capabilities outside doing a project. In the same photo album there were pictures of the kids photographing many things around a park they were at, and it seems like that is something that you cannot do without technology! Coming up with fun little projects for the students to do with things as simple as cameras can really help them grow in those five major areas with the use of technology. This motivates me to think more about incorporating technology into lesson plans or transforming the lesson to fit technology usage.

The other two concepts that I enjoyed were the learning theories. Mostly Behaviorism and Constructivism. They were all interesting, but I enjoyed these two the most.

Behaviorism is interesting because it says that people learn due to changes in their environment. The textbook says that this means that learning is a process of memorizing, demonstrating and imitating. There is a study where a boy was introduced to a rat so many times and a bad thing happened each time, so from then until he died he was extremely frightened of little white rats. I think this is an interesting concept with technology because students would basically learn what the computer put in front of them, and demonstrate it and imitate it. I personally feel that learning with technology should be more entertaining and interactive, hence why I enjoyed the constructivism learning theory. Constructivism states that people interpret and build their own world around them based on the knowledge they receive. This means that student learning with computers and technology is based on their own actions and responses. I think that this encourages creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and other major areas of learning. Learning with technology should be viewed from a constructivism learning theory view point.




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 Badge B

At the beginning of this chapter, the author pointed out that teachers who are just starting out usually teach as they were taught. But focusing on how you can create a "lively and inspiring teaching situation" is key. I really liked the emphasis on that, because it is so true. We don't live in a time where being taught by lectures, sitting in rows is the most effective way for students to learn. Working in groups, using technology, being creative, those are the ways to really get the material across to a student! I remember sitting through lectures in AP World History, and then meeting up with a friend afterword and turning our notes into stories so that we could remember the facts better. If teachers worked from the creative perspective, I think that students would not only learn more efficiently, but be more willing to learn.

One section of the chapter asked something along the lines of, "What motivates you to use or consider using technologies in teaching?" The only major reason that I could agree with was to engage students in learning in new and exciting ways. If technology is what will get the lesson across to them in a way that makes sense, then I'm more likely to do that. With the two-year-old's I teach at church, putting a CD in and playing music and dancing and singing with them is the way to get lessons across during praise and worship. However, when we start bible story time when they first come in I find that turning out the lights and pretending like we're camping and need to be really quiet to hear the story is the way to get them focused on the story. That brings a question to my mind that I might do further research on, but why is it that when the lights are of children are more likely to calm down more than when the lights are on, even with the same instructions?I'm assuming it will have something to do with sleep, and how we sleep in the dark, but I guess I will find out!

Another section of the chapter asked "How often do you plan on using the following technologies in teaching?" I chose four from the list provided, two I would use a lot and two that I would probably not use at all. The two that I would use consistently are the computer for professional communication such as with parents and administrators as well as other teachers, and using technology for classroom presentations and demonstrations. I think those two things are easy ways to incorporate technology into my teaching career and they don't require a lot of time or frustration to set up and use on a daily basis. That would be my goal for whatever technology I use in the classroom. If it is easy to set up quickly and can be used on a daily basis without frustrations of outdated software and such then I would be very open to it. The two that i did not like were creating a class website and using word processing for student writing. I would much rather use websites and resources that are already available to me to use in my classroom than create my own website or wiki or whatever I could create. As far as word processing, I think it's a great thing for high school and college students working on long essays and research papers and thesis', but when a class of fourth graders are working on narrative stories for the FCAT, then I think they should be handwritten. Elementary and middle school are still part of a period where students are forming their own personal handwriting, and sitting them in front of a computer with Microsoft Word to write a sentence is not going to help them with that.

Overall I enjoyed this chapter much more than the first one. It encouraged creatively teaching without diverging from the lesson itself. My real focus on learning any type of teaching method is figuring out how to get it across to the students in a fun and entertaining way where they wont forget it as soon as they get on the bus, but it will be a lesson they tell their parents about.This chapter helped me figure that out I think!



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.