Digital Blog Post #L- Chapter 12

 This chapter in the text is all about integrating technology and creating change as teachers. The first topic in the chapter that struck a chord with me was the stages of technology integration. The stages of technological integration include entry, adoption, adaption, appropriation, and invention. In the entry stage, a teacher is learning about information technologies and needs to gain specific skills in computers and technologies before they can think about how to apply new knowledge to classroom situations. In the adoption stage, teachers are working on blending technology into their classroom practices without making any significant changes to those practices and is essentially at a basic level. In the adaption phase, teachers are fully integrating new technologies into traditional classroom practices and is using technology regularly. In the appropriation stage, teachers can easily and confidently use technology both in the classroom and for their own professional work. In the final stages, invention, teachers are beginning to experiment with many instructional patterns and ways of relating to students. They are also exploring new ways to creatively use technology in and out of the classroom and adding emerging technologies to a personal collection of professional skills and practices. I would say that I am currently in between the entry and adoption stages. I have learned about many technological properties throughout this course, but have not yet had the opportunity to apply them.

 The second topic in this chapter that I chose to address is technology integration issues. There are six issues that occur for classroom teachers that directly affect their efforts to integrate technology into teaching. These issues include administrative support and teaching style, unwillingness to change favorite lesson plans, reluctance to use technology in new lesson plans, use of technology as a reward or punishment, use of technology as an add-on to other activities, and use of technology to separate students by ability groups. The issue I am currently experiencing in my classroom is lack of administrative support, specifically lack of sufficient resources. My classroom consists of ten students. There are only six computers in the school and they can only be used by my class on Mondays. My classroom resources are restricted to a dry erase board. Though this is challenging, I am considering creating a WebQuest for my students and having them complete it on the computers. There are many walls we can run into as educators and it can seem like there is nothing we can do about it, but there is always a solution. I believe that creativity is one of the main keys to a successful classroom.

The third and final topic I will be writing about is becoming a technology-leading teacher. There are a few key strategies outlined in the text for becoming a technology-leading teacher. The first of these is writing grants, working with computer-using colleagues, joining professional organizations, celebrating digital learning day, involving students in technology and change, and developing a technology-leading mindset. I believe that the technology-leading mindset is the most important of all. Throughout this entire course, to accomplish any of the things that we are learning about and hoping to accomplish, we have to actually be willing and ready to persevere through all of the challenges that we will soon face. It can be very easy to fall into a routine and just throw something easy and simple together because it can take too much time to learn about something new and integrate it into your classroom, but I believe the most important thing you can do as a teacher is evolve. I, and most of my peers, plan to be in the teaching profession until retirement. That could be up to 50 years. So much can change in 50 years. Because of this obvious fact, we must continually evolve to keep up with our students. Imagine if they were teaching today the same way they were teaching in 1965. We, as humans, are always changing, always advancing. So it is of vital importance that we keep that in mind when we are teaching.

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.

Morrison, T. (2015, November 28). Chapter 12 Wordle. Retrieved November 28, 2015, from http://www.wordle.net/create 

Digital Blog Post #K- Chapter 6

The first topic I chose to address within this chapter is social bookmarking. Social bookmarking expands the concept of bookmarking from one user at one computer to a community of users on many computers. Basically, instead of a private resource library seen by one person, social bookmarks create a public list that can be viewed and added to by many readers. An example of social bookmarking is a website called Delicious. I have some experience with Delicious because of this course. In the beginning of the semester, I was required to create an account and put links that I've used for assignments on the account. Personally, I think that Delicious has been an extremely helpful resource. I also took the liberty of adding any links to my account that I thought might be helpful to me in my future teaching career. Little did I know, I would be starting a new job as a teacher last week and while I was stressing out about how unprepared I really was, I thought about all of the resources that I've learned about during this course. Delicious was one of the ones that assisted me the most when creating my lesson plans. Especially because I only had two days before I had to start and I was losing my mind and completely blanking. Thankfully, I had saved tons of resources beforehand for this exact situation. I think that some of the most important parts of being a teacher are being organized and prepared. Delicious and other social bookmarking websites are something that I would recommend to any potential educator.

Secondly, I have decided to write about WebQuests, since it was the most heavily covered topic in this chapter. A WebQuest is an online inquiry by students that are designed and guided by teachers. In a WebQuest, students follow an electronic map or take an online tour, moving from one web resource to the next to gather information and learn about a particular topic. The steps of a WebQuest include the introduction, task, process, evaluation, and the conclusion. During this lesson, I was required to create a WebQuest of my own. WebQuests are a very creative way to integrate technology into any thorough lesson. Unfortunately, I seemed to struggle with the WebQuest assignment. It seemed like a simple enough task, but for some reason I just couldn't really get a good grasp on it. Despite this, I do think WebQuests would be a very fun activity and a very valuable resource for some teachers. I personally do not think that WebQuests would be something that I would use in the classroom, but that could very well be because of the fact that I am still trying to adjust to using so much technology and I admittedly am still slightly biased in favor of traditional methods. WebQuests may have been a little too technologically advanced for me now, but I will definitely put one into my Delicious account and look into it again in the future.

The last topic that sparked my interest was online learning and virtual schools. Online learning and virtual schools refers to the delivery of educational experiences through computer and other technologies. The subject of online learning and virtual schools is highly debated and discussed. The ones in favor of online learning in virtual schools appeal to technology and the constraints of school budgets. Students are freed from a fixed schedule and more open to do other things. Critics of virtual schools state that online schools have a huge lack of social interaction with peers, have fewer opportunities to learn together collectively and receive less individual attention from instruction. During my educational journey, I have done both online/virtual school and on campus. I struggled with online schooling in high school but excel at it in college. I grew up with an autoimmune disease and online learning/virtual school was one of the absolute best things that I used. It's not for everyone, but I would definitely recommend giving it a try if you're interested.

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. Morrison, T. (2015, November 15). Chapter 6 By: Taylormorrison90. Retrieved November 15, 2015, from http://flipquiz.me/u/taylormorrison90/chapter-6

Digital Blog Post #J- Chapter 11

The first topic in this chapter that caught my attention was digital teaching portfolios, particularly because I know that I will soon be completing my own teaching portfolio. A digital teaching portfolio is a collection of education and professional materials stored in an electronic format. It serves as an organized collection of materials that show a teacher’s growth and development overtime. It may include copies of materials, videos, audio, PowerPoints, photographs, and other multimedia. The text states that beginning to build your teaching portfolio as soon as you start taking courses toward a teaching license is a way to use all the activities and ideas from classes, field experiences, summer work, and community volunteering as sources. I have completed many assignments and gotten tons of ideas for my future in teaching from this course alone. I also feel that I have managed to uncover parts of my teaching philosophy that I could not pinpoint before. I intend to use the portfolio as a guide to exploring my teaching and think critically and creatively about how to teach students the best that I can. I think creating a digital teaching portfolio will be very useful for me and I am very excited to complete it.

The second topic I decided to include in my blog is democratic schools and classrooms. The goal of democratic schools and classroom is to increase the involvement of students in educational decision-making and academic learning. Democratic schools and classrooms are places where students and teachers make decisions about important aspects of educational operations together. This can include academic curriculum to school climate and rules. Critics like to dismiss this method by saying that when given the opportunity, students will make immature decisions that will not benefit their learning. I disagree. I feel that students should be able to give their input and be involved in their own learning. I think that when given the opportunity, students will choose academic methods or rules that are fair and also benefit them. In my classroom, before beginning a lesson, I would always like to discuss with students how they would like to go about learning it. For example, I would ask if they would like to have a debate, complete a research project, or do a role playing activity and then put it to a vote. I can remember a time when I was in high school and the administrators changed a rule. The students didn’t like the new change and protested, which led to the students and the school administrators to have a discussion about the policy and make a decision together. This allowed for everyone’s voices to be heard and point of views understood. I feel that allowing a school or classroom to take the shape of a democratic environment allows students to feel like their voices and opinions are actually valued and they’re not being treated like children, which I believe leads them to behave more maturely due to being treated more maturely.

 The last topic that caught my eye when reading through the text was entitled, “reasons for teaching with clickers”. This refers to students submitting individual responses to questions by pressing a button on a clicker device slightly smaller than a TV remote. Depending on the clicker model, students can answer multiple choice, yes/no, true/false, ranking, numeric, and even short answer questions. Once all of the students have submitted their answers, the system displays the correct answer to the question as well as the percentage of students in the class choosing each response. Student participation with clickers has many instructional advantages, including active learning, student involvement, real-time feedback, and question-centered instruction. I have personally used this technology before in a college level Biology class. I am not very interested in or very good at Biology, but the clicker system sort forced me to pay attention in class and therefore, succeed. The clicker questions were used as a participation grade, so that while we were being lectured or taking notes on a PowerPoint, a question would pop up every now and then. If you weren’t paying attention, you would lose precious points. It also gives more shy students a chance to answer questions anonymously and not hold back for fear of being wrong or appearing foolish. I would love to use this type of technology in my classroom.

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.

 Morrison, T. (2015, November 9). Benefits of using Clicker Technology. Retrieved November 9, 2015. 

Digital Blog Post #I- Chapter 4

The first topic I chose to write about in this blog is using technology for lesson planning. So far in this course, we've learned a lot about technologies specifically for student use. This relates to students because it directly helps them, but is more so directed to making teachers jobs easier. The Internet is home to many resources for supporting lesson development using the student learning objectives and Understanding by Design (UBD) approaches. There are hundreds of already-assembled lesson plans on almost every subject. This resource has the potential to save hours upon hours of teacher's time. By doing a simple search on google, I found hundreds of extremely in-depth lesson plans for secondary social studies on a huge variety of subjects. There are also a number of lesson plan templates online available for teachers to create their own lessons without the hassle of having to create the whole chart to go along with it. When I become a teacher, I'm sure there will be more advanced technology than this, but I intend to utilize these types of technologies in order to be the most time efficient that I can be.

The second topic I will address is assessing and evaluating students. As teachers plan and deliver lessons, they are simultaneously designing ways to assess what students are learning. There are three factors that strongly influence how teachers think about assessment. These three factors are personal experience, standardized testing, and teacher tests. Personal experiences deals with the fact that teachers tend to teach how they were taught and assess the way they were assessed. This creates an endless cycle, and it leads to many teachers not utilizing new technologies that will indefinitely help their students to learn. Standardized testing is a method of assessment used all over the country. The 2001 No Child Left Behind legislation led to the dramatic rise of standardized testing. Standardized testing is a huge enterprise in the United States. A testing industry watchdog group estimates that 100 million standardized tests are issued to students K-12 in the United States every year. This method of attention is gaining a lot of attention lately, and not necessarily good attention. Many people, including myself, believe that standardized testing is not a very fair or effective assessment method. Lastly, teacher tests. Tests for teachers really affect how teachers think about assessment. Most states require teachers to pass a test before they can earn their teaching license. Assessing students is a complicated business. Some educators believe that test assessments best determine what a student know or is able to do in an academic area, while some believe that performance assessments more truly measure student learning. It is of vital importance for new educators to utilize both test and performance assessments in order to most accurately measure student learning progress.
The third topic that I found to actually be the most interesting is creating student performance rubrics. Student performance establish known-in-advance criteria to assess student performance, describe in concrete terms what students need to do to meet those criteria, and allow students and teachers to discuss areas in which the best work has been done or improvement is needed. I've found that I tend to do my best work when given a rubric to go along with the assignment. I think this is because rubrics provide me with very clear instruction about what is expected from me to succeed. I'm the type of person who prefers very direct instructions for things rather than my own free reign on an assignment. For this very reason, I am a huge believer in grading rubrics, but making an assignment clear, in your own mind and in the minds of your students, is not as easy as it seems. The usefulness of a rubric lies in its concreteness and how criteria are explained to students. The whole purpose of a rubric is to provide students with an idea of what is amazing, good, poor, or unacceptable work is. Therefore, it is imperative that we as educators know first exactly what we want from students and then pass that information onto them.

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.

 Morrison, T. (2015, November 1). Types of Assessments. Retrieved November 1, 2015.