Week 5 Reflection

My biggest "Aha!" moments this semester were amazingly from the first week. When we read the Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants article, my eyes finally opened to the reality of education and how it is changing. Through developing my philosophy I have really been able to center my focus on instruction and what ways are developmentally appropriate for my incoming students and what is going to be most beneficial to their learning process, as well as mine. I still see the importance in many of the philosophies, but I definitely think that learning needs to be student centered, with strong teacher guidance.

I plan on adapting as many of my lessons as I can to incorporate more technological portions of our new age into learning. I have to keep in mind that our students are not going to fully grasp and understand a concept by merely "sitting and getting" or even merely participating in "hands on" activities. I will need to take the conceptual knowledge needed and effectively merge it will real-world applications and those hands on experiences that create background knowledge and I now see that technology is the key to creating the bridge to connect each of those necessities to learning. I am so excited to get back into the classroom this year and "see" the how the effective use of technology will impact my classroom.

This course has really cemented in mind the hold that technology has on our society and how I need to infuse my teaching with the language my students are learning in, as foreign as it may be.

Week 4 Reflection

When answering the questions you posed to us I found myself awed, I can not count how many times I've opened a word document simply to type the name of a song I wanted to remember to download later and saved it to my desktop of my laptop so I'd see it. I've definitely turned my "remembering" off, I have my husband's number, my parents' numbers, and my numbers memorized, that's it. I recently replaced my iphone and didn't have all my contacts backed up, I felt so lost without my numbers and e-mail addresses. I go to all my meetings with my cellphone so I can create a note if I need to, save a date to my calendar etc. I'm CONSTANTLY connected either via the internet, or though my phone, which is always with me. I often find myself, watching TV, working on something, and switching back and forth to play an online game, or check status updates etc. This was a huge AHA for me while reading this week's article. I often play video games, often consuming so much more of my time than I truly should allot to it, i.e. Farmville, Farmtown, Treasure Island, Frontierville, Cafe World, Mafia Wars, etc.

After reading the article I would say that I fall mostly into the College Students or Millenials category, though my age would most likely classify me in another category. I found myself agreeing with many of the things I read such as identifying with my parents' values and feel close to them, I'm fascinated by new technologies, and my daily life is intertwined with numerous extra curricular activities.

We need to adapt our teaching styles to ones that are quicker, more technologically intertwined and offer variety and choice. Our students, now, are used to choice in decision making, are used to being able to go "Google" the answer to a question that pops into their heads etc. We have to make ourselves teachers that use best practices and allow our students to learn in their most effective learning styles. Which will require us to become "fluent" in their language of technology.

Jing Technology Project Week 4

I anticipate a bit of confusion for our parents who are not technologically inclined. Next school year, I plan to have my conference schedule and sign up on my classroom wiki. I have created a walk-through on how to edit the time schedule, using Jing.

Conference Sign Up- How To:


If you'd like to see a larger screen version you may click here.

Week 3 Reflection

I like the idea of a portfolio that is "owned by the learner", "structured by the learner" and in the "learner's own voice". So often, as learners we look to be "people pleasers." As I wrote on our class wiki, when creating my portfolio, I kept wanting to lean on that oh-so-present crutch of an example, or a step-by-step first this, then this process. As an educator in this technological age, I need to be aware of the changing learning sphere and how that applies to me as well. I understood the reasoning for not having one provided, and it's not that I needed or wanted that example, I'm just so used to having it because that's how we were brought up to learn; and that's just not how things are done now. In Assessment for Learning, or AFL, I find myself relating to several of the ten areas of thought. I agree that when we are planning AFL should be something we consider in how and what we teach, as well as what exactly we want out students to be learning, our method of assessment needs to be considered in advance to teaching any new concept, and should include facets of how our students are learning. We are in a fast-paced, information overload, society in which our students are learning and communicating in different ways that we are used to. To be an effective teacher we need to adapt and learn to communicate in their "language" and become "digital natives" :); thus we need to allow them to communicate back to us in the ways that are most beneficial to their life-long learning journey. Through using AFL, especially in the use of portfolios in the classroom, our students can become more prideful of their work, hopefully they will learn to self-assess as they go, adapt what they've learned and move forward from there. I think this reflection process helps them to evaluate their true understanding on a subject and lets them see where they may need a deeper understanding, or where they are already sufficiently informed. However, along the same line of thought, reflection often does little good without response and critique, both positive and negative, to allow room for growth. Portfolio assessments allow for the above mentioned growth opportunities, as well as a modified and individualistic learning environment. It allows us to meet the needs of all learners and allows room for self-expression and individuality. I am hoping that my portfolio development throughout this year and in the future will help me to become a more informed, versatile teacher who in technologically savvy. I remember creating my portfolio in my undergraduate studies and looking at it as something that was being "done to me" as stated in the article we read in this week's studies, however I am now learning that a portfolio can evolve and change with me, through my learning and beyond. I am excited to see how I grow and change this year, as will my portfolio.

del.icio.us

Here is a link to my Delicious account.

Week 2 Reflective Post

WOW!!!

I started off by taking the Information Literacy Quiz. I have always considered myself very technologically literate, but I have never felt more illiterate on the subject. I correctly answered 6 questions, but I had anticipated being able to answer more, I learned a great deal about what I did not know by taking the quiz.

The MAPping activity was eyeopening!!! I decided to do my activity on the website All About Explorers. The domain name was All About Explorers and the extension .com shows that this is a company, and these sites can be purchased by anyone. This is not a personal page, due to the lack of add ons after the .com. At this point in my research, this site seems to be very reliable, and nothing is sticking out to me in a negative way. From going to Alta Vista to search the link I found several teacher's pages who linked to this page, which only increased my view on it's reliability. When searching the term "explorers" in Google this site was the 6th result. On Yahoo, it was 66th, Infoseek it was 66th, and on Excite I stopped at 1o0 when I still had not seen it. After seeing this I started to get a bit wary about why the results were so far down the page. Search engine watch listed Google as the "go-to" place to find information, so now I was wondering what's going on. Google, allows ad placement for money to help run their site, or for personal gain!? This site was authored by HostMoster.com on May 22nd, 2003 and was last modified on June 7th, 2010, not too long ago. Finally in searching for the "why" this page was authored I found some very interesting information on the "about" page of the website... there was a disclaimer from the Teacher who authored the page stating that this page was "developed by a group of teachers to teach students about the internet" and "all biographies are fictional". That's where my WOW came in. I would have totally trusted this site and not looked twice at the ABOUT page. I learned my lesson and will NEVER make that mistake again.

Refelective Blog #1

By creating a rough draft of my educational technology philosophy it helped my guide my thinking and help me focus what areas I want to work on while completing my masters degree. It gave me a jumping off point, and I love the fact that now I can merely go back and edit as I gain new knowledge, or change my current schools of thought. Having my ideas is mind will help me find specific areas to work on as I explore new avenues of technology.

I love blogging, i currently already utilize it in my classroom. Two years ago, after taking a 23 Things course offered through my district I created a classroom blog that I wrote in DAILY, last year, I was not quite as good about writing every day, but I did still use it. My students loved it, they enjoyed communicating in avenues different from the classroom, they loved to speed and ease of the accessibility. I can not wait to find more beneficial ways to utilize it in my class.

It is hard to choose which portion of November's article stood out to me the most. I definitely agree with #1 "if it's on the Internet is it true?' This is something we really need to focus on with our students because what I notice in my 5th grade class is that my students tend to believe anything and everything that they find on the Internet. Teaching the how to evaluate what you find is as important as the what you find.

Through exploring the sites and articles provided, I thoroughly enjoyed Prensky's Digital Native, Digital Immigrants article and as I read I made a list of key words that stood out to me, I made four sections, each titled Educational Technology, Today's Learner, Reality of Education Today, and Potential Impact Technology Can Have on Education. In reading the words/phrases: no going back, networked, "edutainment", "just do it" and www.hungry.com stood out to me in summarizing Educational Technology today. There is no going back to where we were, we all must be networked, as educators we need to "just do it", the kids respond to "edutainment" and the kids are www.hungry.com for technology usage in our classrooms. When describing Today's Learner these words jumped out at me: changed, discontinuity, singularity, N-gen, D-gen, "future", computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, computer games, email, internet, instant messaging, and Digital Natives. Our learners are now the Digital Natives, the are the N-gen/D-gen, they learn in faster paced facets such as through email, games, the internet, computers, cameras, instant message, cellphones etc. This learning style is the "future" of education, it has changed, and there is a discontinuity between where we are and where we need to be. The Reality of Education Today is that it is the digital age, our "legacy" of learning is no more, our student's thinking patterns have changed, we need to learn to communicate with them in their "accent". A cultural migration needs to happen with educators and we need no longer be Digital Immigrants. Instantaneity of learning needs to happen now, so we do not lose our students. The bold words in the above and below thoughts are what I found from the article. Lastly, the impact that technology can have would be Digital Immigrant Instructors, who now present graphics before text instead of vice versa, and allow our students random access to information, and allow game play as a way of learning because Digital Natives prefer games. We need to move at "twitch speed", let our students receive information really fast, offer less step-by-step processes and allow parallel learning to occur. Educators need to have a mind-shift, start teaching "future math" and "thought experiments". Without growth, education will be lost. Technology is the key.

Digital Age Map

Technology Educational Philosophy

I find myself siding with portions of several areas of thought on Technology in Education. Education can not be defined in one broad statement, or one overarching theme, I think that to be truly successful as an educator, we need to be versatile and adaptive to the changes that are occurring in society and mold our classrooms to fit those new needs.

Education should do many things, it should prepare our learners for their future, make them reflective of their past, and help them navigate the present. Our job is to make our students successful societal participants, and learners who value their education, and strive to continue it. Having an education is a privilege that we are so lucky to be given free. As Educators we need to make our students aware of our pasts and what happened that helped to make us the society that we are today, and how we have grown from those things and can continue to grow. To help them navigate their present we need to give them the tools that will allow them to be successful individuals and understand the societal norms and acceptable rules. Finally, to prepare them to their futures we need to impart the knowledge that will allow them to function in the “real world” by being productive and successful citizens and hold knowledgeable conversations. Part of this preparing them for the future is educating them in technology, in it’s history, in it’s applications, in it’s benefits, and finally in how technology can help lead us to new problem-solving techniques for our futures.

The learner of technological education needs to be ready and willing to learn, adaptive to change, and open to new people and ideas. Our students, or learners, are mostly all ready and willing to be taught by us, however when we fall back into our automaticity and old ways, we lose our students. We can not, as educators, ask any more of them than we are willing to give.

The role of the teacher in technological education is the same as it is for the students, they need to be ready and willing to learn, adaptive to change, and open to new people and ideas. Technology is ever changing, faster and faster with each coming year. We as educators are expected to grow and change with the times. Our learners are not the same as we were, they learn at faster paces, in more highly engages ways, and through multiple facets, we as educators need to be ready to learn how to reach our learners using the technology that is an everyday part of our learners’ lives. If we are to stick to the same old “tried and true” techniques that we have been using over the years, they will become less “true” because we will begin to lose our learners and be moving backwards in the education of our students.

Through research I believe that education should emphasize knowledge construction and focus on authentic tasks that will have meaningful context later on. Education should be collaborative and should focus on higher-level thinking, this aligns with the Constructivism field of thought, however I do agree that a teacher should be a strong leader who can go back and check for understanding of their students often. Yet, when looking into the Pragmatics field of though I also agree that ideas and facts should be applied in real world problems and should have value, that problem solving skills should be used to attack problem, and that even social situations can be solved using this skills. I find myself agreeing that we need to become “teachers” of our students and not merely “trainers” of our students. We need to teach our students to think, that part of our goal in teaching needs to be the How To Think, not merely the first this, then this, and finally this, but the WHY this works, and the HOW this works. All areas of a students life need to be incorporated into the schooling, if you can make those connections to the world outside of our four walls, the student is more likely to hold onto and value what you say. If we teach it to them in the ways that information is presented to them in the real-world, it will also be of more importance and reliability to them. The Pragmatics believe in flexibility in learning and focuses on the motivation of the learner and what they want to learn, I do agree that we need to focus on the students interests, but where I stray from this field of thought is in the fact that there are some of the basics that still need to be taught regardless of want or need. All students learn in different ways, so as an educator we need to be prepared and present our knowledge in varied techniques, with technology being a must, kinesthetically being incorporated, along with the traditional reading and writing. The action-oriented view of Pragmatics reminds me of the Love and Logic techniques that my district currently uses with our students. I believe that sometimes the method in which we learn is as important in what we are learning, being a Science teacher the Scientific Method is a huge part of our curriculum and we especially focus on how sometimes and wrong answer can still be right., which correlates with the Pragmatic and Realistic schools of thought.

My goal is to impart the necessary knowledge to my students to make them successful in life. Whether it be in further education, in their professional careers, or as a socially adept individual. I currently correspond with my students via email, blogging, social networking and my whatever means the student is most “fluent” with. I would like to become more aware of Web 2.O technological tools, such as wikis etc. and utilized them more often in my classroom. Using technology, I hope to become an informator of technology and knowledge and not an automator of technology and knowledge. I will change with the times, gladly, and hopefully in turn my learners will grow and change and gain the needed knowledge to make them successful.

I expect that as an educator I should grow and change with the times, that my colleagues should be as willing to do the same, and that my learners will come prepared, to the best of their capabilities to learn what we have to share. Educators need to be willing to help each other to benefit the learning community as a whole and I will always do any and everything that will benefit the future of my students, and my communities’ students.

Technology in education has a growing responsibility, and we as educators have the same responsibility. We need to be ready and willing to change, to grow, and to move forward. Through meaningful relationships, hands on learning, real-world content and activities and technology integration though each and every activity, we will truly grasp this new day and age, and reach our learners in their new “native tongues”.