Teaching with Technology Final Reflection

EDLD 5364 Teaching with Technology Teaching with Technology had provided me with an array of options for incorporating technology in my lessons through its readings, lecture slides, and videos, and activities. I can authentically integrate technology in my lessons. The overall theme for me was learning about adding technology activities into my lessons. I also was able to personally relate to constructivism and connectivism, I incorporate a little of both theories as a teacher. “George Siemens speaks of how a learner has the ability to create connections between various sources of information.” (Week one slides--3) It is how you connect your learning internally and externally. I do believe that is our experiences that enable us to connect prior learning to new learning. I could also to relate to Vygotski when he stated that, “the concept that as a learner gains new information from instruction, through reading, hearing, or collaborating about the new information, the learner adds to his or her personal baseline knowledge and creates new knowledge.” (Week one slides—3) Students come to the classroom with an array of prior knowledge and experiences; this develops learning for students. When students come into the classroom without many real world experiences, this can hinder their learning because they don’t have the prior knowledge to pull from. “Every learner has experiences that influence his or her understanding of the world.” (SEDL, 1999) Over the past thirteen years I have taught in two areas of town, which are completely opposites, for the most part: one is very low socio-economic and the other school is middle class. The biggest eye opener for me has been what a big role life experiences play in our educational world. My students from the poorer side of town no matter what they do, will never have the life experience many of the students from the middle class. This is where we as teachers have to as best we can level out the playing field and bring those experiences to our students. We can begin by incorporating technology activities and bringing the outside world in to the class through technology. The internet, smart boards, videos, e books, blogs, UDL lessons and other multimedia, can provide our students with meaningful experiences. As educators we need to provide meaningful experiences for our students so that they don’t group up learning meaning isolated facts. Student’s “know a lot of facts but can’t solve problems” (Big Thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games). I know when I went to school all we spent time on was trying to make sure we had random facts memorized: dates, computation, and other concepts that were to be taught in our given grade levels. Now, I realize that old school teaching was just rote memorization but if we want our students to evolve and be able to be successful and productive adults we must teach them how to actually solve problems and work collaboratively, as stated in this video. As educators, we need to teach our students how to solve problems and think critically, in other words apply what has been learned, just memorizing random facts in isolation is no longer the way for our students to attain success. References: Week One slides----slide 3 Edutopia.org (nd). Big thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-james-gee-video Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, (1999). Learning as a personal event: A brief introduction to constructivism. Retrieved from http://www.sedl.org/pubs/tec26/intro2c.html

Teaching with Technology #5

Student’s “know a lot of facts but can’t solve problems” (Big Thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games). I know when I went to school all we spent time on was trying to make sure we had random facts memorized: dates, computation, and other concepts that were to be taught in our given grade levels. Now, I realize that old school teaching was just rote memorization but if we want our students to evolve and be able to be successful and productive adults we must teach them how to actually solve problems and work collaboratively, as stated in this video. As educators, we need to teach our students how to solve problems and think critically, in other words apply what has been learned, just memorizing random facts in isolation is no longer the way for our students to attain success. Edutopia.org (nd). Big thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-james-gee-video

Teaching with Technology #4 pt 2

After this weeks web conference, I realized my group was very confused by last weeks assignment. I feel that if five people understood the assignment to all be the same and yet it wasn’t what we really should of done. I guess if we would of generated UDL’s that were all centered around our scenario, it could of saved us a lot of time now in weeks four and five. Maybe, we should of asked more questions but since there wasn’t a web conference during week three but I guess all of this is a learning experience and that is what we are doing is learning. All in all it has been a positive learning experience and I have learned so much during this class.

Teaching with Technology #4

When I first began teaching, I asked a veteran teacher if we were testing our students over reading or their knowledge of science. She said what did I mean by that, I replied by saying well what if we have struggling readers then they will not be able to read and comprehend what the question is asking them and not really testing if they know the science content. She told me we have always done it like this, the students should be able to read at the grade level they are currently in. Back, then I never thought about incorporating larger font or virtual labs as I read about in this week’s readings. I was glad that she transferred out of our school and we were lucky enough to have a principal, at the time that believed that we should give the students a choice of multiple assessments to determine if they knew the content and in what areas they were still struggling so that we could go back and re teach needed skills. I taught at a school that allowed us to come in during the summer with our team to plan and create assessments for the next school year. We would begin by formulating ideas for varied assessment types over the same given skill/same content: paper pencil, projects, activities/ hands on, computer based, and or ongoing assessments. During this week’s readings, I thought about my teaching days where our focus was, " Ongoing assessment, teachers can accommodate differences in strategic networks by providing students with multiple means for expressing what they know, such as the option to respond by writing, speaking, drawing, creating an animation or video, or developing a multimedia presentation" (Rose & Meyer, 2002, chapter 7). I really think I was making a difference and meeting the individual needs of my students. I had several assessments that my students could choose from, it was no surprise that most of the time students didn't choose the paper pencil assessments. I was able to meet my student's individual styles by providing an array of assessments, they could self- select from and at the same time, I was provided with data that I could in turn use for future planning. Believe it or not, students were excited every time we gave an assessment because they wanted to see the choices from which they could choose, I wish my students now had that as their reality: STAAR is not something that makes them excited. My students are ten years old and all they know is that they must pass to be promoted, talk about pressure. Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Chapter 7. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology Web site. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

Teaching with Technology #3

Because students aren't all on equal footing when it comes to recognizing such patterns, teachers need to provide differentiate instruction. Teaching through differentiated instruction is one of the key components that my principal looks for in our lessons. She, at times, comes in when we are planning as a grade level and wants to know how we are reaching all learners. She looks in our lessons to see what we are doing to reach all learners and how we are differentiating our lessons. I have made a grid with all the various modifications and ways I have learned that students learn the best, with so many students; I have to find a way to organize myself. When designing my lessons I keep in mind the wide range of learners in my classroom, they come to us with such a wide range of abilities and experiences. It is up to me to ensure that they all have an equal opportunity no matter their individual academic level. Citation: Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology Web site.

Teaching with Technology #1

EDLD 5364 Teaching with Technology Week One After finishing week one’s readings, lecture slides, and videos, I can already tell this class will be teaching me about various ways I can authentically integrate technology in my lessons. The overall theme for me was learning about constructivism and connectivism, I incorporate a little of both theories as a teacher. “George Siemens speaks of how a learner has the ability to create connections between various sources of information.” (Week one slides--3) It is how you connect your learning internally and externally. I do believe that is our experiences that enable us to connect prior learning to new learning. I could also to relate to Vygotski when he stated that, “the concept that as a learner gains new information from instruction, through reading, hearing, or collaborating about the new information, the learner adds to his or her personal baseline knowledge and creates new knowledge.” (Week one slides—3) Students come to the classroom with an array of prior knowledge and experiences; this develops learning for students. When students come into the classroom without many real world experiences, this can hinder their learning because they don’t have the prior knowledge to pull from. “Every learner has experiences that influence his or her understanding of the world.” (SEDL, 1999) Over the past thirteen years I have taught in two areas of town, which are completely opposites, for the most part: one is very low socio-economic and the other school is middle class. The biggest eye opener for me has been what a big role life experiences play in our educational world. My students from the poorer side of town no matter what they do, will never have the life experience many of the students from the middle class. This is where we as teachers have to as best we can level out the playing field and bring those experiences to our students. We can begin by doing hands on activities and bringing the outside world in to the class through technology. The internet, smart boards, videos, and other multimedia, can provide our students with valuable experiences. References: Lamar University, lecture slides week one, slide one Lamar University, lecture slides week one, slide two Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, (1999). Learning as a Potential event: A Brief Introduction to Constructivism. Retrieved from http://www.sedl.org/pubs/tec26/intro2c.html