Final Reflection

In my Personal Theory of Learning application, I stated that I base my teaching style of the fact that not all children learn using the same methods. I mentioned that it takes observation and practice to understand one’s students. I notice that students will work harder for a me when I show them the mutual respect that I expect from them. A lot also has to do with learning environment and management of the classroom. I also feel very strongly about integrating as much technology into my instruction as possible. I am not sure that I need to modify this statement, rather make sure that I carry it out and follow my beliefs when the school year begins in a few weeks. Since this class was taken during the summer, I feel like I have learned so much valuable information that I will definitely use in the up coming school year.

Being that I am the head of the Technology Professional Learning Team in my school, I use a lot of the most up-to-date technology in my classroom. I am part of multiple grants that offer me equipment to test in the classroom. My principal and I are always meeting about the latest tools. Although I have a lot of equipment, I definitely plan on using the Concept Map Tools program that I downloaded as well as the Voice Thread. I love exploring the Internet and finding valuable tools that can support my students. At first, it was blogs and wikis, as well as moodles and the eZine. I feel that students will be able to navigate the Voice Thread very easily since I teach my students how to use PowerPoint. It is very similar, but gives them variety in how to present work. The concept maps are great graphic organizers. I have four computers and 10 lap tops and I plan on downloading the Cmap Tools program that I used during this course so that they can create their own.

Two long term goals that I have is to make sure that I bring more hands on technology into my classroom and to make it accessible to the students. I do have a lot of experience with the tools so I am confident in my delivery. What I am lacking are resources that are available to the students. A lot of the equipment I have in my room is more teacher friendly than student friendly. By using programs like Voice Thread or the concept maps, I now put more 21st century skills into their hands. I plan on exploring further than that so that I can come up with a plethora of student friendly programs. I also want to explore more options in bringing equipment into my classroom. I plan on doing this by going onto sites such as Donors Choose and raising money for my classroom to be a 21st century learning environment.

VoiceThread

Here is the link to my VoiceTheard about the importance of parents reading aloud to their children at home.

voicethread.com/share/1262063/

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

Most people learn new information from a social learning stand point. It comes through word of mouth or a conversation. One way or another, someone can always learn something new while socially interacting with other individuals. It works with so many adults and it is also true for students in the classroom. They absorb certain amounts of information and are given the opportunity to share their experiences through social interaction. It is very successful, especially since they can relate to each other and really do a fantastic job explaining it in ways they can understand. I have found it so interesting that this is what we have been concentrating on this week because it is something I have been fond of ever since I stepped foot in the classroom. It is always being highlighted in schools and really praised by administrators and theorists.

Once you add the availability of classroom technology into the mix and you have a picture perfect learning environment. There is a lot of social interaction and critical thinking going on with highly motivating tools and resources for all the students to use. Students can visit class websites to get up-to-date information on what is going on in class. Parents can check websites and blogs and always be informed. I remember when I was in 5th grade, we all had pen pals from another country. We would write and get responses probably once a month or so. Now, you can go online and video chat with someone halfway around the world. There are so many endless possibilities of where you can take this information. This past year, my class recorded videos of interviews with different teachers and principals for a debate project we were doing in writing class. We created an account on a website called Vimeo and were able to upload all of our videos on the internet.

Power Points and word processing has been around for a while, but all of these new programs such as iDVD, iMovie, Photo Shop, and Final Cut Pro (just to name a view) have really opened it up for the digital classroom experience.

Constructivism in Practice

In this week's learning resources, Dr. Orey discussed how constructivism is simply when students are actively engaged in the learning being presented to them and being able to create an artifact to demonstrate what they have learned.

With technology, students see their world and interests from outside the school walls and being transformed into the classroom. It becomes fun and exciting to them when iPod touches and lap tops and Smart Boards become part of learning. Technology is a great motivational tool that sparks interests and turns learning into something that is fun, not something that has to be done. In the end, it all comes down to critical thinking and active student engagement. With technology, both are evident.

Every year, my class is part of an opera program funded by the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. They love learning about the opera and seeing it live, but this year I really wanted to take it up a notch. One of the assignments that the students have is to come up with a series of questions about the opera and interview a partner, and every year this is written in a notebook and lost forever at the end of the school year. This past year, I had them record interviews using iPod touches that we have in class and uploading them onto podcasts. We were able to create our own little news conference station and it was a huge success. Parents and administration views the site over and over. I have been doing this program for three years and have never seen my students so motivated than I have this year, because technology held a big role. It helped motivate them to be critical thinkers and gave them a better understanding of the information. In turn, they created a wonderful, meaningful, final artifact.

Cognitivism in Practice

This week's learning resources basically described for us how to help students recall, use, and organize the information that they learned about a specific topic. This is bridged with being able to take successful notes based on relative information.

Different cues, questions, and organizers are used in relationship with a teaching point. What is the teacher trying to focus on? What does he or she want their students to learn? This is where David Ausubel's (1960) technique of advanced organizers come into play. It helps organize this new and useful information for the students. With so many 21st century skills being taught in the classroom, graphic organizers and aids can be created by students using their own laptops or computer stations. There is now even much more "higher-level" questioning involved which motivates active learning and student engagement. Procedures such as the use of these digital graphic organizers and making inferences and judgments put more focus on working the brain to be thinkers rather than try to just soak up as much information is possible.

A huge part of being able to process all of this information is the ability to take notes. Note taking becomes much easier with the help of graphic organizers. It also helps if the students have learned how to take meaningful, relative notes. There is a lot of information that is presented, but nothing is saying that all of it is relative. A skill such as summarizing helps students eliminate the irrelevant information. They can use aids such as high lighters if they are using paper. In my class, I high light with them using a document camera so that we can read and underline together what is relevant. If students do not have this skill, then they can become very frustrated and lose focus (Dr. Orey, 2007).

Understanding and organization helps anyone focus on what is important and what is not; not just children. If I can teach my students how to organize themselves based on the teaching point for the lesson, then that can help set them up to concentrate on what is relevant. It will allow them not to become overwhelmed and will create an environment where active thinking and engagement take place.

Behaviorism in Practice

Positive Reinforcement will always win students over. I know the term "win over" does not sound very professional, but it was straight and to the point. Children need to hear the positives. What have they been doing well? If they are on the right track. Keep up the good work. These sort of ideas allow the students to feel that they are on the right track to accomplishing the goal that they set or that the teacher set for them.

In this weeks learning resources, the emphasis on positive reinforcement outweighed the negative punishment. When I look back at my teaching, I feel that the resources were set up this way on purpose. It is what it should be like in the classroom; positive reinforcement and positive feedback. Constructive criticism is also positive because it allows the student to understand how to make it even better than it already was.

A lot of my students come from broken homes or families that are not as supportive of education as a teacher would hope for. I know there are more times than not when my students are hearing negative comments at home or their education is overlooked. They do not want to hear those things from me in the classroom. That is why i must always be positive, and it has worked. They are more apt to explore and challenge themselves with the class work. Sometimes, it even becomes a reward to do homework in the classroom. With all of the technology at their fingertips, it becomes an exploration versus a chore.

With all the strategies presented this week, I liked how technology is tangible to them. It is something that they can understand and relate to. Nothing over the top or hard to grasp. I try to make it like that in my classroom. I always go over how to use the equipment so that it is not just mine, but it is ours. We are all responsible for the technology. It is a real world application that they can use in their future eduction.

Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology

Hello everyone. This will be my blog page for our course Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology.

Week 8 Reflection

I have always found that I try to stay one step ahead of the game when it comes to the latest technology. I own the most up-to-date computers, iPhones, and now the new iPad. Yet there was so much out there that I have never even considered. And that stuff is free. Wiki spaces, podcasts, and blogs are something that I never have used in the past. All of the ideas that I have thought of and all of the ideas that this course has taught me is priceless. Although the end of the school year approaches and a lot of my ideas will have to wait, I can build on them and plan for a great school year. I have also been very active introducing these ideas to my professional learning teams and we are looking forward to putting a lot of it into place. I have already scheduled a few professional developments in Google Docs and, podcasts, and wikis for the up coming months. We are all very excited.

I have already started planning on how to transform my class into a 21st century classroom well before I started taking this course. I have written many proposals for grant money and technology training and I have been active in professional development. I have already been voted as the head of my school’s technology professional learning team and I hope to keep the position for next year. I have also pitched to have Promethean technologies come into our school and do demonstrations. My principal is very interested. All of this is working out very well. I guess I owe it all to the advances in technology. It could also be my uncontrollable interest... I just hope that I am fortunate enough to keep moving forward.

Partnering with 21st Century Skills

At first, I really liked what I saw. The site was bright, which gave me the impression that it was full of useful information and resources. Before reading anything, I wanted to just scroll through the site and see what jumped out at me. Unfortunately, not too much caught my eye. At first, I could not understand the point of the site. I did notice I could sign up for a newsletter, but is that it? I started reading a few of the posts and clicking on their links. A few of the articles I saw were pretty interesting, but nothing I could not find posted on a union board in a teacher's lounge.

Over all, I did not disagree with anything on the site. Whether viewers have different political views or opinions is one thing, but the articles were current and generally informative. They basically stated that technology is moving too fast for education to keep up. I think a lot of us already knew this. There was, however, some good links to some interesting blogs. I thought that was a nice touch for any educators trying to keep in the fast lane known as technology.

I did like what I read in the overview and their ideas about supporting classrooms with the new 21st century technology. Everything was there, like standards, professional development, and curriculum. You just needed to do some "clicking" around all the announcements to find it.

Now how does this affect my students? Well a lot of this can be focused on demographics. Not only the type of neighborhood that my students live in but their age group. I teach in an inner city elementary school where there is not a lot of money for technology in the first place. And according to the chancellor, high school has seniority to any tech distributions, followed by middle school and then elementary school. The further my students move, the more exposure the should see... I hope...

Critical Thinking, 24-7!

I teach in an inner city section of New York City and the funds in my school are tight. Although we do get some money that goes towards technology, there are over a thousand students in the school, so it is not easy to get the latest gadgets in every classroom. 

I am surprised, however, at the number of students who have computers and Internet access at home. They are constantly telling me about their myspace pages and what-have-you. Although I am pretty up-to-date with the latest technology, I never got into those social networking sites. My students are always trying to get me to join something to that effect. No way no how, can you do that. With blogs, on the other hand, it makes for a great critical thinking tool.

Here, we can discuss so many interesting topics, arguments, concerns, interests, etc. They can post what the feel or believe and do not have to be bashful or shy, since they are commenting via the Internet. And let’s face it, they get to go on the computer. It makes it all the more exciting for them. It is such a great way for them to constantly keep in touch and interact, and of course, critical thinking!

I know the parents are not very active in the community I teach in when it comes to their child’s education. I consistently have parents not checking homework, signing progress reports, or reading with their children. Now that they can respond to a blog, they can constantly remain active with class and have fun doing it at the same time.