EDUC - 6712I-5 Reflection post

As the 8 week class comes to an end, I have learned much and grown as a teacher.  My students will be experiencing a large change in make up.  The most striking change I would have is in the area of ease.  I created a unit plan for this classroom and it was very easy to do and integrate.  I thought developing a unit with new technology literacy would be very hard but it was not.  It has the same challenges that any unit has but added upside in the that the students learn new skills.  These skills relate to 21st century job skills.  

I will use this skills I learned here to not fear new technology in the future.  I would like to make things like wikis, jings, voicethreads, and webspirations.  All these things will be used in my classroom in due time as I gain more confidence.  This will help my student learn and show more growth.  

I have one professional goal that relates to this class and that is in the two integrate two new technology in the classroom.  Another goal is to complete a grant to try and win money for a smartboard.  That would really take my teaching to the next level. I would like to get this to improve from the chalkboard to the smartboard would be great.  I could really make a great impact on learning.  

EDUC -67131-2 reflection post

As this 8 week coarse comes to an end, I have experienced growth in my professional life.  This class has introduced me to the GAME plan.  It is a great help to integrate technology in the classroom.  It allows me to become accountable and responsible for student learning.  Students are growing up in a totally different world as compared to that of the last generation.  Students need to be able to adapt and change where as the last generation needed to remember and reproduce.  Using technology in the classroom helps students learn these traits.  The GAME plan keeps me an track and pushes me to use more and more technology in classroom.  It makes me set accountable and visible goals.  This helps me make great stride in the area of technology.

There are some immediate changes I will make because of this class is the use of the wiki.  I really understood how easy it is to work by using this in the community learning center.  It is easy to use and it is like a word document.  It got me over my fear of using technology and it is going to become a bedrock of my classroom. 

week 7

The GAME plan we worked on this class is a great idea.  I have learned a lot about different types of education goals and technology goals.  I have learned about many different things and the best thing I have obtained from this is to set goals and constantly work to integrate technology in the classroom.  Now that this class has one week until completion I ask myself how will I work to keep using technology.  I have learned that even though their are struggles technology is a crucial part of learning.  The 21st century demands new type of job skills.  I need to work and set visible goals for technology.  This is the only way to keep my progress going.  If I do not set goals they will merely just fall by the way side.  I have also learned about some new tools I have used like wiki's and voicethreads.  I used these tools with moderate success.  I am now learning by doing.  There is a big difference between theory and practice.  With setting new goals I have found a way to learn and make technology work in my classroom. The GAME plan will be a part of my teaching until retirement.  

blog post

I have made some strides in my GAME plan and hits some ruts in other parts of my GAME plan.  Using technology requires large amounts of planning and this time of the year is a hard time to plan.  I have because I am coaching two sports teams and the christmas holiday.  Again it is no excuse but I am using other methods that require less planning.  They are not lecture note test style but rather a style that is not using technology as much.

GAME week 5

My GAME plan is coming along pretty well.  I have been pretty effective in using the podcast and the blog.  I have nailed it out and feel competent in teaching it to my youth.  I have learned how to use the new technology and now want to apply the information I learned.  

I still need to get better at using the information to make it better for the students.  They will ask all kind of questions and I need to be prepared for everything.  

I have been adjusting my lesson plans to try and use this new technology once a week and that is my goal.  It is hard but I am trying to work on it.  

GAME PLAN II

Improving the GAME plan is a crucial test.  I am finding good resources on the web to help in my improvement of my game plan.  I do not think I need to modify my goals for this task.  I have learned a lot though. I have learned about the blog and the podcast.  The first hurtle was how to allow these websites but not other websites that contain harmful information on the school computers.  With a little collaboration with the tech head I was able to achieve this with ease.  I really have no new questions and am looking forward to completing this task.  

Help for the GAMEI

As discussed in the blog post before this one I developed my GAME plan.  My game plan included blogs, wikis, and podcasts.  I will need a group of people to support me.  I will use my fellow professionals at the school.  We will discuss information and find out what works and does not work.  My colleagues are very important because they will help keep me accountable on my goals.  The next group will be an online professionals.  I will post to professional blogs and talk to people about my problems and successes.  These are the people I will need to make my GAME plan a success.  I will also need the right type of technology.  I will have to get all the web pages bookmarked and information I need to make my blog, wiki, and podcasts to work.  

I will also need some additional information to help me out.  I will have to discuss with our tech coordinator and to make the websites work.  I need to make sure that the websites will be allowed by BESS.  BESS is our filter site.  This is additional information I need to work out.  

I have been able to take the information I have received in class has allowed me to start planning a unit using the GAME system.  I am working on the ins and outs of this plan.  It will be a good experiment and I hope to see the future success. 

GAME plan

The GAME plan is to set goals, take action, monitor, and evaluate and extend (Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009).  This will help me to set two goals for me this year.  I have chosen NETS-T 1 and 2.  They are the following "Facilitate and Inspire student learning and creativity" and "Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments" (Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009).  I have a GAME plan to help me do better on both of these areas.  

Setting goals are vitally important.  Without goals there is no way to measure success or have anything to strive for.  I need to have something I can look and push me to go further.  I will make a short term, mid term, and long term goals.  Next thing I have to do is to take action.

I will take action by trying and learn by doing.  I will make some mistakes or things will not go as well as they should.  This cannot deter me though.  If I live in fear of mistakes, I will not grow and my teaching will not improve.  I need to take chances and improve on what works and discard that which does not.  

My goals will allow me to Monitor my progress.  By making short term, mid term, and long terms goals I will be able to see progress I am making.  This will all help me make better choices.

I will lastly need to evaluate all the process.  Were my goals accurate?  Did I set hard enough goals?  I will then take the next step to extend the process over and over again.  

I will try new things like blogs, wikis, and podcasts and see how they work.  I will plug them into my GAME plan and hopefully they will help me achieve better learning.  What do you all think?

Craig

EDUC 6711 Reflection

When looking at my personal learning theory from week one I would not change much.  My ideas have been reinforced.  Students learn best when allowed to construct their own knowledge and have ownership and accountability in it.  This approach is constructivism.  Students need to be a big part of the learning process.

Two areas in which this class changed me was in the area of technology integration.  I will use two different types of technology, webspirations and blogs.  The graphic organizers that can be created are clean and neat.  This is a great thing and also it can be saved.  The work will be reproduced after the dog ate it.  The next is blog.  This allows students to share work with the world.  This expands the audience and forces them to defend their thinking.  This is Maslow highest level of thinking.  

I have two goals for my teaching.  Goal one use technology and goal two try two new 21st century skills.  How will I be accountable.  I will tell my mentor teacher my goals and she will hold me accountable and also have them on my desk with check marks.  I will check them off after completion.  These goals will help students learn better and improve my teaching.  That is I am after as a teacher.  

voice thread

www.voicethread.com/share/657954

social learning theory

Students need to be able to learn from each other for social learning to take place.  What that learning needs to like to transition students with 21st century skills is unknown.  This weeks resource makes some good activity that should apply to social learning theory.  The most important one I believe and use is creating a video.  Making videos requires a lot of different workers doing different things.  These classroom groups need to be small in nature to give the maximal effort.  The thing that needs to accounted for is that every student is pulling their weight and achieving the learning objectives.  This is were rubrics and individual work needs to be taken into account.  Using rubrics are very important for success.  

Constructivism

Constructivism is a great teaching philosophy.  It takes the classroom and transitions it from a teacher centered to student centered.  The student needs to become a thinker and problem solver as they build their understanding of information.  The development of this skill is the most important task I want to teach my students.  Although their are certain items in my core area I want to them to learn and understand.  Given the choice would you want your students to be great thinkers and problem solvers but learn no content in your class or learn all the content with no problem solving skills, I would choose the first EVERY time.  Things that constructivism teaches are very important because they give students 21st century skills.  

virtual field trips

Cognitive learning theory focuses on the students ability to place information into groups.  It is very important to understand how important visual aids presented.  If at all possible bring or go to the where the object is.  What would be better talking about an archaeological dig?  We all know the answer but we cannot always do that because of money.  Money is a scarce resource even more so in these economic times.  That is why virtual field trips can be so important.

Virtual field trips are a very important tool a student can learn a whole deal.  The students will take information on this trip and place it in to their mind.  This is cognitive learning theory because students will take information and place it into one of those schema.  They will place all this information and place it together and make sure that they understand it.  Using things like graphic organizers can allow students to construct their own information and with scaffolding from the teach the students can get the information.  This will allow them to learn more productively and get the same information instead of just taking notes.

Homework and Effort

The use of technology in the classroom allows the teachers to have a great influence on students seeing how effort correlates to success and helping to do homework.  Technology allows for teachers to spend less time preforming tasks while giving students more information.  

The first I will look at how effort effects the class.  Research shows that most students do not understand the correlation between effort and success (Pitler, 2007).  Teacher can easily create excel spread sheets that show different effort charts.  Teachers then can make bar graphs that show test grades and effort.  This relates that to behavioral method because student easily see things happen right away.  They see how much effort they give and what grade they receive.  

Homework and practice is a very important for student success.  Students need homework that helps reinforce information that was taught earlier (Pitler, 2007).  Homework should not be just work to do at home but have purpose.  A teacher must be able to answer the question "why do I have to do this?"  If the answer is just because the homework is not worth giving.  It needs to make sense and help the students perform a task. 

It is important that teachers use technology to help them gather data.  It makes it very quick to do and students can see results very quickly.  Giving quick response is crucial to success. 

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Hunting Season

I am really looking forward to this hunting season.  I have been drawn for three waterfowl hunts and have some really good deer on camera. I am just looking forward to a day in the field to reflect on my teaching, life and to enjoy nature.  Hopefully I will also get something to fill my plate at home too.  Any hunter let me know if you are looking forward to this as well?

Reflection of Ed Technology

Since June 26th, I have been enrolled in a very important class that will start my transformation of my classroom into a 21st century classroom.  This class was just the start though.  The class is not the completion of my technology training but rather is a door.  I have had my eyes opened to the options that a 21st century classroom has.  I now am interested in podcasts, wikis, and blogs.  These all take the student first and centers the classroom around the student.  This class helped me realize that this new technology is really easy to obtain.  I easily did all the task required of me.  When I started the class I thought how could I ever make a podcast.  This class taught me that I can do it but I need more research and more reading.  

This class has deepened my understand of the learning process by understand the business world they will enter.  Students need to be able to think on their feet.  Students need to do research and synthesize information.  These student will use web meetings instead of face meetings.  This changes the need of school to produce thinkers.

This has reinforced my ideas that the classroom needs to be student centered.  Students must be first.  Its not about the teacher and what the teacher wants.  The teacher needs to establish objectives and assessment of those but allow the students to be able to take ownership of a project.  This will allow students to have the ability to think for themselves and trust themselves.  It is huge to get students to trust themselves.

How can I help my students better achieve and trust themselves?  I must continue to educate myself.  I need to keep reading professional blogs and continue to be a lifelong learner.  I need to keep taking chances for my students.  I understand that by taking these chances I will better my teaching.  Will some things fail yes but more will succeed if they are based in research based methods.  These method will improve my teaching and improve my students learning.  Now I have two goals for the next year.

Number 1 goal is to make a positive difference in ALL students lives.  There are so many things that get in the way of this.  Whether we can't do this because of a standardized test or their are too many students.  It is important that as teachers we need to make a difference.  To many students fall through the cracks.  I will hand write personal notes to all students with positive encouragement.  This will take time but the time will make the difference that all students need.

My number 2 goal would be to incorporate one of the methods I learned in class in my classroom.  Again it will be easy to not do anything.  That will not be the case though.  I will test out these methods in my civics class.  They will test it out before I use it in core class.  I can then show my principal the positive effects of these 21st century methods.  

This class has opened my eyes to the classroom of the future.  I am on my way to transforming my classroom to the 21st century.

Route 21 evaluation

The website http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ is a very interesting and easy to read website.  The website is very attractive and nothing at the site is hard on the eyes.  The front page has students using technology and diverse students.   After reading the mission of this website, I really like this idea.  It is great that they incorporate all different types of people.  It is just not an education site.  The skill sets they want students to learn are great.  This organization has been around since 2002 and this was my first time there.   I was really surprised with the interesting youtube video I found on the website.  I agree with their assessment that problem solving skills are critical to succeed.  I really did not find anything I disagreed with.  This website will have great implication on me and my students because it is just another resource to use.  More resources will help find that one idea that will help my students succeed.

Blogging and school

I teach 7-12 Social studies at Put-in-Bay Schools.  Blogging would be a great thing at my school because it would allow my students to reach a larger group of students.  I have small classes of less then ten which has great advantages but one disadvantage is lack of contact with students their age.  Although the meeting will be web based the students will be able to interact with students of their age of different schools.  This will expose them to diversity and different opportunities.  It would also be a great place to expose work for people to look at.  The community could get involved and blog with the students.  They can interact and do projects on the internet with community involvement.  The learning can happen anytime.  Learning can happen at the students convenience or other peoples.  While we are sleeping on the island a person in Europe can be adding to the discussion.  Blogging will allow me to attempt to overcome a weakness of my otherwise great school district.

Education and Technology

Education is rapidly changing and one area that it is improving on is the itouch. This little gadget is pocket size pc well mac. This device could change the world of education becuase students like them and they would have access to tons of information. I am starting to look into the itouch and its impact on the teaching world.

First Blog

Welcome to all who come and read this blog.  Hopefully you will find this blog interesting.