New and Emerging Technologies Reflection

Throughout this course I have learned of various new and emerging technologies. I have also learned what an emerging technology is. Technology is emerging when it enters into existence and small use somewhere in the world (Laureate Education, 2009). Unfortunately, education is often lagging behind in the world of emerging technologies, letting the business world test and try out new software and reading years worth of beaming articles before adopting it.
At my school at least, I hope to change this. I am fortunate that we have some newer technologies that many other schools do not, such as laptop carts and SMARTBoards. Since the adoption of the latter however, our district (particularly in the elementary schools) have not been on board with spending money on new products. The digital gaming that I have learned about, in particular Kinetic City has so many benefits and potentials for use that I would hope I can convince the PTO, and administrator, whoever to let me test it out with a small population. I certainly understand the hesitancy of administration and parents to test out so called “video games” in school. I have learned however that good digital games are not video games, but an interactive learning experience that can work right alongside the existing curriculum (Deubel, 2006).
I would love to be able to show this to the powers that be, and let them see how amazing and interactive, and especially educational digital gaming can be. If money is an issue (which it always is), I am glad to say that I have found several digital games that are free or cost a nominal fee. This would help me convince people, I’m sure that digital games can belong in school.
I will also stay abreast of the Horizon Report (Johnson, Levine, Smith, & Smythe,2009) and Eduoptia (George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2010), two sources I know that are constantly searching for and reviewing emerging technologies. Staying on top of what is out there may be able to help me show the staff at my school exciting and educational ways to enhance our curriculum.


Deubel, P. (2006). Game on. T.H.E. Journal, 33(6), 30–41.
George Lucas Educational Foundation. (2010). Edutopia. Retrieved June 18, 2010, from
http://www.edutopia.org/
Johnson, L., Levine, A., Smith, R., & Smythe, T. (2009). The 2009 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). New and Emerging Technologies. Baltimore: Dr. Thornburg.

Moodle Presentation

6714 Week 8 Reflection

Before beginning this course, I already had my class immersed in technology from blogs, to wikis, to digital storytelling. I can say with passion that I do in fact agree with Week 1’s premise: customizing instruction is not as difficult as it might seem. This is not to say it ISN’T at all difficult, but it is manageable. I try to differentiate my instruction in teaching, as well as choices for my students to showcase their knowledge whenever possible. I also try to work technology into that differentiation, and technology oftentimes makes my job easier on that front. I feel was pretty savvy in the area of differentiated instruction thanks to my first Masters degree as well as my school district I work in (before starting this class), but I wasn’t as familiar with UDL. Through this course I have learned how to take more of a starter approach to differentiation. If I can help alter the curriculum when certain subjects are re-written, my district can account for learning differences in our classrooms. This will make it easier to differentiate instruction because the curriculum will already provide for various setups. Every summer teachers are asked to be part of the curriculum writing committee, and this summer I finally feel that I have something concrete to offer. I can show my UDL website that I designed for this class. In my classroom however, I will continue to set my students up for success and provide them with the opportunities to learn and demonstrate their knowledge in ways that fit them, not their neighbor using many of the tools and resources that my Walden colleague have shown me, including CAST sites and my newly made beginning of the year survey. The self-made survey will inventory my students’ learning styles, interests, intelligence preferences, learning profiles, and their academic strengths and weakness. This will be extremely useful in setting up my classroom and determining how to best differentiate my instruction.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFgtMzZzUXl4NEczYVJUbFA4R0Z2OEE6MA



Differing instruction for our students can be made so much easier by incorporating a bit of technology into our lessons. Something as simple as projecting images on the screen as we talk to our students makes a world of difference! Teachers can use textual information as well as supplementing it with pictures, audio, and movement. By using assistive or adaptive technology we can more easily reach our learners (Rose, D., & Meyer, A., 2002a). I will ensure that I also give my students choices of presenting information in different ways to reach their strategic mind. From experience, I know that many of my students also benefit from being shown how to manage their time effectively and plan their goals. A specific tool I would use to help me in this is the CAST Strategy Tutor (2008). It is geared more for third grade and up, and would greatly help my students in our research assignments. The website allows for students to plan and do web research all while being guided. This site is extremely helpful for students who want to do web research but are not sure how to start, or need assistance in summarizing and synthesizing their information. I will also be using VoiceThread for digital storytelling in our upcoming Colonial Times Unit. By using technology to help meet the needs of all students in content, process, and product I am setting my students up for success in our current society.





References

CAST Strategy Tutor. (2008). CAST. Retreived April 13, 2010, from
http://cst.cast.org/cst/auth-login



Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002a). What brain research tells us about learner differences. In
Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Reprinted by permission of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development via the Copyright Clearance Center. Located at http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter2.cfm

Reflection-Final Posting

All in all, I feel that I’ve created a pretty good GAME plan. Although I didn’t completely follow through with it (since I said that I would use it with my students next year) what I was able to accomplish, I feel proud of. After a lot of research on which site was the best, looking at other teachers’ existing wikis, I made my own wiki that I will eventually use with my class. I modified my plan slightly to perhaps test this out with my class this year to simply copy and paste a report that they are going to do in Word into the wiki. I already set up usernames and passwords for my class this year, and put simple instructions on the wiki itself so when/if we do this, my students shouldn’t be TOO confused. Next year when I actually do the birthstone project, I will revamp the site and add my class as users. It might be fun to leave my old class with member status however so they can comment on their predecessors’ work. To a fourth grader, having a fifth grader say “good job!” is fabulous! I’m excited to use wikis in my classroom, although I don’t think I would use them with every report-style assignment. I still think it is valuable to have a hand written first draft and have peers edit in colored pencil to easily see comments/changes. I know that that can be done electronically, I do it all the time with track changes in Word for my colleagues, but as nine and ten year old working out the physical aspect of writing their thoughts down is something they need to master.

Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

I believe if I act out my GAME plan as I intended, I will hit most of the NET-S. The first NET-S standard addresses creativity and says “Students [must] demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology (National Education Standards for Students, 2007).” When my students use their knowledge about rocks, minerals, and their various properties to design and create a wiki page concerning their personal birthstone, I would say they are demonstrating an immense amount of creativity. They are using their current knowledge, researching new information, and applying it to a brand new technological concept. Not only do they have to master the content knowledge, but groupwork skills, and technological awareness as well; thus covering four NET-S standards (numbers 1, 2, 3, and 6). The fifth NET-S standard that my students would cover is that of digital citizenship. Along with the ever popular and oh-so-important plagiarism speech, the computer teacher and I would instruct how to properly cite sources so that the students as giving credit where credit is due. On their wiki pages they would have a “Works Cited” page and list all of the resources (either internet or book) where they found their information. As they are only in fourth grade, they do not do parenthetical citations, but a list of resources is sufficient enough. Upon reading the NET-S, I feel that they are extremely closely linked with the same NET for teachers, and as good teachers if we cover our own standards we will cover (or mostly cover) the student standards. With slight tweaking, we can hit them all. Although I don’t feel it is necessary to cover ALL NET-T and ALL NET-S in one lesson or unit, it can sometimes work out without seeming forced!






References

National Education Standards for Students (NETS-S) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2007Standards/NETS_for_Students_2007.htm

Revising Your GAME Plan

My progress is going slowly. With all of the other work for this class, my own classroom, and the fact that I just got a student teacher I haven't played around much more with my pretend wiki. I have however discussed the topic with my class to see if they thought next year's students would be interested in creating a wiki. I figured if they said no it would open up a dialogue and get me to rethink my goals, as I don't want to spend time creating a huge project with little to no enthusiasm from my kids. Luckily, my class thought it sounded like a lot of fun, and wanted to know if we could try one later this year (oh dear…). I'm still looking around for more examples of class wikis in elementary school to guide me, but I am not ready to change my initial goals. I think my project is a good one, and I need to just keep going with creating my pretend wiki as a model for my class. Next time I try to improve my learning, I will do just as I have done, set up a model, have a conversation with my class to gauge their interest level, and tweak as needed.

Evaluating Your GAME Plan Progress

I played around with wikispaces a lot over the past few days. I made myself 2 wikis just to get a feel of what I might use. I made one for this Walden class, and then another one using a free 30 day trial of an educator account. I know my school wouldn’t purchase the educator’s subscription off the bat, but maybe if I make a sample page and show them the possibilities they might consider it. I was concerned that my students would need to have email addresses to write on my wikipage, but I found a way around that. I added 3 fake students using their first name as their username and also as their password. This will make it easy to remember for both of us if there is a problem. I’m thinking of using this wiki idea with our Explorers unit next year. This year we’re trying a webquest, which I was initially excited about. After going through it with my students however, I’m not as impressed as I thought I was with the particular site. I still need to play around more with the wiki. It is taking me awhile to make sample pages, look at them from a student’s point of view, and then think how I can logistically expect nine and ten year olds to complete the tasks. I think that my original plan will still work, I just need to practice myself more so that I am comfortable with everything. Making the wiki has been relatively simple, it is the “teacher stuff” that is taking me awhile.

Monitoring my GAME plan

After doing some more research and comparisons, and LARGELY by Phil Bonus’ assistance (thanks Phil!) I have decided to use wikispaces for my class wiki project. My own experience helped me to eliminate pbwiki as a contender and then the comparison tool from teachersfirst helped me to see the pros and cons between wikispaces and wetpaint. I was leaning towards wikispaces, but still unsure when luckily Phil posted about his experiences with both. While I don’t think it would have been a disaster if I picked the other choice, I am glad that I spoke to someone else who actually used them with students. I now need to re-read the chapter about wikis in my Walden text Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts by Will Richardson. That is one of the best textbooks I’ve ever read, it isn’t dry and difficult to understand like most others. I found his classroom examples very helpful. I need to now set up a fake wiki and test it out in school. I want to make sure the sites are not blocked at school, that my students don’t need email accounts, and the look is as I want it. Now if only I could find time in the school day to do this….

GAME Plan thoughts

To get my GAME plan in gear, I need to research free wikispaces for students, first of all. I found this great “wiki walk through” http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/ on Teachers First website that goes through 3 main free wikisites: pbwiki, wikispaces, and WetPaint. I’ve used the first before in a grad class and didn’t much like the look of it, I also see my students having a bit of trouble with it. I need to use the comparison tool on Teachers First to decide between the other two and pick one to use. After that, I think that I should share my intentions with both the computer teacher and principal. I already have a class blog, and use it with no trouble, but I always like to run new technology by the administration (one, so they understand it, and two [honestly] to show that I know how to use this technology and it would be great to use with other classes). Being that I would use this wiki for a project in my next year’s class (since I already blew the first application of the birthstone project) I have a lot of time to play around and make a fake wiki. I always test out new technology before showing it to my students so I can get a feel for any difficulties they might run into. I think I will make a fake wiki on a simple topic (one of my favorites is my dog Lily) so that my students can see what their wiki page might look and feel like.

NETS-T

After reading the National Education Standards for Teachers I believe that I exhibit all five indicators with varying strengths. Two of the standards that seem to be my continuous goal however are designing and developing new experiences and facilitating my students’ creative learning. I feel that these standards tie together and would seamlessly integrate into a GAME plan.

I have done many digital projects with my students and my peers over the years with different success rates. Something that I have never done with my class, but have done on my own within Walden University is creating a wiki. I would very much like to try and create such an interactive learning experience. Recently, to culminate our Rocks and Minerals unit, I gave my students the optional project of doing a Birthstone Report. If they desired, individual students could research their birthstone using pre-evaluated website links I gave them and describe their birthstone using various classifications that we studied in class (hardness, transparency, value, location, etc). The students then typed or wrote their findings onto a poster and presented it to the class. Out of twenty-five students, only four chose to do this. I believe that if I had made this into a wiki project, many more students would have participated. By opening the project up to inspire collaboration and creative thinking, I could have had students born in the same month work together and post pictures as well as textual information about their birthstone.


To monitor my progress in this area, I would constantly check in with my students to see their work. I would provide time in class for my students to ask questions and advice from me. As any good teacher knows, modeling is key to success. Since this would be my first wiki project, I would have my class work together to create a sample wiki first so they know how to use the available technology. That way, they could do the birthstone project mostly at home. I would have minilessons as needed to show the class new features on our chosen wiki hosting page and to combat any problems that they might have. At the end of this project, I would evaluate not only my students’ progress but my own. Did I succeed in teaching twenty-five fourth graders how to navigate the web? Were they able to effectively compile research information and choose the most important facts? Were they able to put the information in their own words and properly credit their sources? If so, I know I am on a roll into creating many more collaborative wikis with my students. If not, I would hold a brainstorming session with the class to see if we could figure out how to remedy the situation, and be more prepared for a positive experience in the future.

References
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.