I continue to realize that to use technology effectively it needs to be smoothly integrated into the curriculum. The TPaCK webquest gave great examples of how to incorporate technology into a lesson - and gave good examples of how not to do it. As I prepare for this up coming school year and I'm looking for ways to incorporate more technology, I'm keeping in mind to find a balance between technology, pedagogy and content.
I've used technologies such as Google Docs in both my professional and classroom lives and I'm excited about the ways in which others have incorporated and look forward to borrowing their ideas. One new piece of technology that I haven't used in my classroom before are Wikis. I'm not sure how I'll use them yet, but I'm leaning towards having my forensics classes use them for evidence collected in our crime scenes. I think these will allow students to easily share their information in their groups and with their peers. My goal is also for the students to have a collection of data from throughout the school year when they get to their final project crime scene. I think a wiki will be easier for my students to work with to make sure they focus on the crime scene data instead of getting stuck on using the technology.
Looking back at the goals I wrote down at the beginning of the summer for CEP 810 one goal in particular stands out - "Explore the technology used in this class rather than simply watching a video and assuming I know what I'm doing". I really enjoyed that both of my CEP courses this summer required me to use and demonstrate my knowledge of technology. While I started off know a little about a lot of technology, I enjoyed that my courses had me focus on practical applications of the technology and looking at ways to incorporate the technology into my classroom. I think I've begun to touch on many of my goals set forth in my Personal Growth Plan and I will continue to work towards those goals as I head back to school this fall. I haven't set any new goals at this time. I don't think I've met all of my goals that I set for myself 8 weeks ago and I want to continue working towards them without losing focus on what is important to me in terms of technology and my classroom. My major long-term goal is to incorporate technology into my courses. I expect this to become a life-term goal as the technology we know and use today will continue to change and as a teacher I will have to continue to grow and change with it.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Personal Learning Reflection
Its been a whirlwind the last 8 weeks. Between life, classes and work I sometimes wonder how I got it all done. Over the last couple of weeks I've actually seen technology making my work life easier and more organized and I'm looking forward to incorporating more technology into my teaching.
Over the last 8 weeks I've learned that integrating technology should be smooth and not distracter from the content of the class. Technology should be able to help the students in their learning. Sometime the technology used is a major part of the class and sometimes it is a little piece, but every use of technology should be meaningful. I've learned that technology should be used when it has a purpose - not just to say you've used technology. Technology can help all of us become more successful teachers if we approach it in that way. Technology can help us reach all of our students and allow them to express their opinions and ideas in new and creative ways.
Through my learning I am in love the idea of Web 2.0 - the internet as an evolving tool. The fact that teachers can share so much is amazing! In this day and age you can simply type in a topic to Google and it comes back with hundreds to thousands of webpages. As a teacher if you get stuck on teaching about DNA or need an activity for your students - there they are, hundreds of ideas just waiting to be read and used. At the same time you begin to wonder about the ease of this process. How are these ideas "approved" to be put out there for everyone to explore. The answer is simple, they aren't. Someone has an idea and they can immediately put it out there for everyone, but that doesn't mean it is exemplary. It could be far from it in fact. We as teachers have to be careful about how we use the Internet as a resource. I think that my experiences in this class have given me the ability to really understand the importance of technology in my classroom. I think I am also walking away with a greater understanding of exemplary uses of technology in education.
Good teaching with technology can be seen in my PLN assignment. This was a great example of incorporating technology to allow students to share their ideas in an organized way. By using technology to demonstrate my learning network I had to think harder about how I used my technology. The use of technology aided my project but did not become the focus, I still had to think about what my learning network means to me. The technology was present and helped make the assignment easier and more visually pleasing, but it did not overshadow the goal of the assignment. To me good teaching with technology means using technology to aid the assignment, not become the focus.
Looking back at the goals I set at the beginning of the summer one goal in particular stands out - "Explore the technology used in this class rather than simply watching a video and assuming I know what I'm doing". I really enjoyed that my CEP 810 (and 811!) courses required me to use and demonstrate my knowledge of technology. While I started off know a little about a lot of technology, I enjoyed that my courses had me focus on practical applications of the technology and looking at ways to incorporate the technology into my classroom. I think I've begun to touch on many of my goals set forth in my Personal Growth Plan and I will continue to work towards those goals as I head back to school this fall. I haven't set any new goals at this time. I don't think I've met all of my goals that I set for myself 8 weeks ago and I want to continue working towards them without losing focus on what is important to me in terms of technology and my classroom. My major long-term goal is to incorporate technology into my courses. I expect this to become a life-term goal as the technology we know and use today will continue to change and as a teacher I will have to continue to grow and change with it.
Over the last 8 weeks I've learned that integrating technology should be smooth and not distracter from the content of the class. Technology should be able to help the students in their learning. Sometime the technology used is a major part of the class and sometimes it is a little piece, but every use of technology should be meaningful. I've learned that technology should be used when it has a purpose - not just to say you've used technology. Technology can help all of us become more successful teachers if we approach it in that way. Technology can help us reach all of our students and allow them to express their opinions and ideas in new and creative ways.
Through my learning I am in love the idea of Web 2.0 - the internet as an evolving tool. The fact that teachers can share so much is amazing! In this day and age you can simply type in a topic to Google and it comes back with hundreds to thousands of webpages. As a teacher if you get stuck on teaching about DNA or need an activity for your students - there they are, hundreds of ideas just waiting to be read and used. At the same time you begin to wonder about the ease of this process. How are these ideas "approved" to be put out there for everyone to explore. The answer is simple, they aren't. Someone has an idea and they can immediately put it out there for everyone, but that doesn't mean it is exemplary. It could be far from it in fact. We as teachers have to be careful about how we use the Internet as a resource. I think that my experiences in this class have given me the ability to really understand the importance of technology in my classroom. I think I am also walking away with a greater understanding of exemplary uses of technology in education.
Good teaching with technology can be seen in my PLN assignment. This was a great example of incorporating technology to allow students to share their ideas in an organized way. By using technology to demonstrate my learning network I had to think harder about how I used my technology. The use of technology aided my project but did not become the focus, I still had to think about what my learning network means to me. The technology was present and helped make the assignment easier and more visually pleasing, but it did not overshadow the goal of the assignment. To me good teaching with technology means using technology to aid the assignment, not become the focus.
Looking back at the goals I set at the beginning of the summer one goal in particular stands out - "Explore the technology used in this class rather than simply watching a video and assuming I know what I'm doing". I really enjoyed that my CEP 810 (and 811!) courses required me to use and demonstrate my knowledge of technology. While I started off know a little about a lot of technology, I enjoyed that my courses had me focus on practical applications of the technology and looking at ways to incorporate the technology into my classroom. I think I've begun to touch on many of my goals set forth in my Personal Growth Plan and I will continue to work towards those goals as I head back to school this fall. I haven't set any new goals at this time. I don't think I've met all of my goals that I set for myself 8 weeks ago and I want to continue working towards them without losing focus on what is important to me in terms of technology and my classroom. My major long-term goal is to incorporate technology into my courses. I expect this to become a life-term goal as the technology we know and use today will continue to change and as a teacher I will have to continue to grow and change with it.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Online Teaching and Learning
There are many ways to incorporate technology into a classroom and it is important to find the right balance. If a teacher tries to use technology too much students often become bored with it. Use it too little and students become engrossed with just the technology and often miss the content.
I had the pleasure of "teaching" an e2020 class this past year. My job was simply that of a facilitator - sit in a computer lab with 30+ kids for 70 minutes after school each day to make sure they were working on their online e2020 classes. This program was implemented in our building simply for credit recovery and it had is pluses and minuses, which I don't have time to get into here. Students initially found this method unique and they tended to dive into it. As the weeks passed, student interest dwindled and their progress lagged. While I liked the structure of e2020 (online vocabulary, lectures, activities, quizzes, tests and finals) it didn't work for all students all the time. What we have discussed for utilizing e2020 this year, is to take smaller chunks of a larger online course for students to use as reinforcement to a class they are currently taking. For example, in a Biology course we could take the section on Natural Selection and assign students only the activities we wanted them to complete.
The nice thing about this type of Distance Learning/Online Learning is that it can be used to cover many different types of content. From Art History to Foreign Language to Geometry - all classes can be covered by this type of online learning.
Some of the pedagogical strategies that are seen in this online course include defining in the vocabulary section. This section comes first and reinforces the spelling of the work, the meaning of the work, the pronunciation of the word and the use of word in a sentence. The online activities often require the students to collect data and interpret the data in order to make a conclusion. These activities are often modeled after labs or demos we would do in class and give the students a chance to see the experiment done in a different way, yet still collect their own data. There are lab quizzes built into the program that then tests the student's knowledge of the activity by using short answer questions and multiple choice questions - all answers are visible to the teacher when they log in.
I think this type of online learning is good for review or as scaffolding for a small portion of a class, but many students struggle to complete an entire course simply for credit recovery. Using this type of technology for students who are often behind in multiple classes doesn't seem to improve their study skills, motivation or progress without direct teacher involvement. This seems to negate the whole purpose of "distance" learning. I've seen over the past year that there are two groups who seem to do best with an entire online distance course - the very top students (often self-motivated to begin with) and the very bottom (students who benefit from the UDL principles built into the course). I think the hardest part of using sections from a true distance learning course is keeping students motivated in using e2020 and not burning out and becoming bored with the material. To find that fine balance between too much and too little is my mission for this up coming school year.
I had the pleasure of "teaching" an e2020 class this past year. My job was simply that of a facilitator - sit in a computer lab with 30+ kids for 70 minutes after school each day to make sure they were working on their online e2020 classes. This program was implemented in our building simply for credit recovery and it had is pluses and minuses, which I don't have time to get into here. Students initially found this method unique and they tended to dive into it. As the weeks passed, student interest dwindled and their progress lagged. While I liked the structure of e2020 (online vocabulary, lectures, activities, quizzes, tests and finals) it didn't work for all students all the time. What we have discussed for utilizing e2020 this year, is to take smaller chunks of a larger online course for students to use as reinforcement to a class they are currently taking. For example, in a Biology course we could take the section on Natural Selection and assign students only the activities we wanted them to complete.
The nice thing about this type of Distance Learning/Online Learning is that it can be used to cover many different types of content. From Art History to Foreign Language to Geometry - all classes can be covered by this type of online learning.
Some of the pedagogical strategies that are seen in this online course include defining in the vocabulary section. This section comes first and reinforces the spelling of the work, the meaning of the work, the pronunciation of the word and the use of word in a sentence. The online activities often require the students to collect data and interpret the data in order to make a conclusion. These activities are often modeled after labs or demos we would do in class and give the students a chance to see the experiment done in a different way, yet still collect their own data. There are lab quizzes built into the program that then tests the student's knowledge of the activity by using short answer questions and multiple choice questions - all answers are visible to the teacher when they log in.
I think this type of online learning is good for review or as scaffolding for a small portion of a class, but many students struggle to complete an entire course simply for credit recovery. Using this type of technology for students who are often behind in multiple classes doesn't seem to improve their study skills, motivation or progress without direct teacher involvement. This seems to negate the whole purpose of "distance" learning. I've seen over the past year that there are two groups who seem to do best with an entire online distance course - the very top students (often self-motivated to begin with) and the very bottom (students who benefit from the UDL principles built into the course). I think the hardest part of using sections from a true distance learning course is keeping students motivated in using e2020 and not burning out and becoming bored with the material. To find that fine balance between too much and too little is my mission for this up coming school year.
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