Reflection of course

This course has been a great learning experience, I have learned new ways to incorporate different learning theories into my classroom. As I went through the class I found out that I use most of the theories in my classroom already. I started the class as a behaviorist. I believed that students must behave and do their homework and I still believe that. Students need to practice what they are taught, but the course has also made me realize that there are more ways to than one to get information to my students and that giving the students the information does not mean they are learning it. I have learned that I must vary the learning styles I am using to keep my lessons new and interesting for my students. I need to work on incorporating group learning into my classroom. Social or group learning has the students working together to learn and the teacher is there to facilitate learning. The two new technologies that I plan on using to help me bring more social learning into my classroom are blogs and video threads. Video threads are the ones that I plan to use the most. I think there are many ways to use video threads to help the students work together. The students can use voice threads to work on homework. I can post a homework problem or a project assignment and the students can comment online and other students can answer the comments or make their own comments. I also plan to use inspirations in my classroom to make content maps and graphic organizers.
Two long term goals I am setting is the remain current with emerging technology and to continue to work with my coworkers to use more technology in the classroom. The first goal I will achieve by continuing to visit wikis and blogs about technology in the classroom and by talking with fellow teachers about how they use technology in the classroom. I will also continue my education.

Connectivism and Social learning

My school has been trying to have teachers encorporate social learning into the classroom. We are encouraged to have the students work together in the classroom. Connectivism and social learning uses the social network students have to furter their learning. Socail learning believes that " meaningful learning occurs when students are engaged in social attivities."(Orey,2001)
Social leaning can be very effective. I have seen where a student can help another student understand a difficult concept or come up with an example that would be more relevant to the other student than anything I could come up with. A problem that I have found with the social learning theory is that it requires a lot of work in prepartion and planning. If social learning is used without the proper plannning it can lead to the students being off task and possible behavior problems. There are many ways to use technology with social learning. Blogs, wikis and voice threads are great ways of having the students work together using technology. I like to post homework on a blog and have students comment about it and ask questions. This allows the students to use the technology they are familiar with to learn. I use this stratagy in my class but I also fear it.

Voice thread

Sorry it took so long. Life has been crazy but here is my voice thread. After I made it, I thought of so much more I can do with it.

http://voicethread.com/#q.b681769.i0.k0

Social learning

Social learning is when students get together to learn. As our text describes it “Social learning theory is working and connecting with others to construct knowledge”. (Laureate, 2009) I used this method along with the constructivist theory to have my students get into groups and create different artifacts. One of my favorite projects was to have groups of students create a solar cooker and then cook an egg with it. The students had to research designs and then create the cooker. The groups had to create a blog or wiki where they could share information. It was interesting to see how the groups broke up their work. I saw each student bring their talent to bare to create the cooker. This is what social learning is about. Each student can work to their strength to create an artifact. There is a problem with students getting along in the group and having one person do all the work while others do nothing. That is where the teacher comes in. They are more a facilitator when doing social learning.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

Constructivist theory

Sorry I have been away for a bit. My daughter brought my second grand child into the world. James Jackson is healthy and so is mom but it through my life into chaos for a bit. I have a 2 yo grandson who we were watching while mom was in the hospital. I am back now making up my work.
Week four’s learning strategies fit into the constructionist theory like a glove. In the constructionist theory students learn best when they build an external artifact or something they can share with others” (Laureate Education Inc., 2008). I teach science and I feel the best way to learn science is by getting your hands dirty and doing projects and experiments. This week the teacher was not as much a teacher but was a facilitator that helps the students learn by themselves by giving them activities and projects to do instead of listening to lectures all the time. When the students create an artifact it is a good way to incorporate social learning too. Constructing an artifact also opens up many uses of technology which is very exciting. Our resources this week talked about using excel and its graphing capabilities. This works out great for science. Students can graph their data and look for relationships in the data. I also like the students to create power points to present their findings. As I said earlier this theory and the related strategies fits science very well.
Resources:Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Constructionist and Constructivist Learning Theories. Baltimore: Author.

Cognative Learning stratagies

This week we went over two different areas that help in the cognitive learning area. Cues, question and Advanced organizers and summarizing and not taking. Both of these actives lend well to the cognitive theory of learning which states that students learn with technology not from. The student is not using the computer to practice anymore but they are using technology to gain, organize and present information. The student is no longer using technology to refresh old knowledge but now they are using technology to increase their knowledge and gain new knowledge. Technology can be used in four areas in the cognitive theory, Information seeking, Information presentation, knowledge organization, and knowledge integration. Students can seek out new information, then arrange the information is a way that makes it easier for the student to understand and then connect the new information to information they already know and finally present the information in a logical manner. The quote from our reading that I like most and that sums up the cognative approach is “When students work With computer technology, instead of being controlled by it, they enhance the capabilities of the computer, and the computer enhances their thinking and learning.” (Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001)).


Refrences:

Refrences:
Online Book: Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/
Section: Cognitive Tools

Behaviorism and instructional stratagies.

It seems that in today's classroom having the students do practice is getting out of style. I can not see how a teacher can expect their students to learn without practicing. The practice does not have to be worksheets of the same equations, but can be computer based training where a student plays a game that requires them to answer questions concerning what they are studing to continue on in the game. The important fact is that they are doing their practice.

I also believe that we should give the students credit for doing good work and putting forth effort. Hey that sounds like behaviorism again, dang we can't get away from that. In my class I have the student create a sheet of paper where they list their assignments and what grade the recieved on the assignment. In this weeks reading this is done on a spreadsheet. What a wonderful idea. I could have the students create a spreadsheet with the assignment, the maximum points, the points they got and the percentage that they have. I can also have the create it so it gives them a running grade so they would know what their grade in my class is at all times. One other thing I would do is have them list if they did homework assignments to show good effort leads to good grades..This addresses students' needs and provides immediate and appropriate feedback (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008). Dang behaviorism again.

Refrences:

Lever-Duffy, J., & McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations. Boston, M.A. Allyn and Bacon.

Behaviorist approach to eduaction

I feel that the behaviorist approach will always have a place in the classroom. As teachers we are not only concerned with what our students learn but how they are behaved. We all know that a classroom full of chaos will not lead to learning. If we use behaviorist approaches we can help modify the poor behaviors. To answer the first question yes the tutorial programs have a place in the classroom. A student learns by practice. Having the students use programs on the computer to do drills, or tutorials helps them through repetition. If repetition did not work I would be in trouble coaching the softball team. We do drills to reinforce what we teach them. The head coach’s favorite saying is repetition is the key to success. I agree, but it comes down to how much effort the students put in. As out text said, “effort is the most important factor in achievement” (2007).In my classroom we have instant response capability. A student sees what grade they have gotten on a quiz instantly this is a form of behaviorist thinking. I use the clickers for the students to answer a question during class and I can judge how well the class understood, but it also shows the student that they did well or need to pay more attention. Also using games that review what you have taught is another way to make learning enjoyable for the students. When the student thinks it is fun they are more likely to do the practice and more likely to learn.Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Been a while

Hello everyone. I didn't get a job teaching this year. If you have read my other post I was one of 33 teachers in my school district that were laid off at the end of last year. I was not able to get another teaching position for this year so far. I did get my special education certification over the summer.

Refective Essay for Integrating technology in the classroom

This course has been a wonderful experience. I thought I was tech savvy when I started this course but I was mistaken. It made me realize that I was an immigrant in the tech world and not a native. In this course I have learned how to blog and create and use a wiki. I am taking another master's program to become a Deacon in the Catholic church and the course I am taking now is requiring us to participate in a wiki. This brought home to me that this course isn't just a course but will be giving me a chance to learn something I will be using in my future classes. If I can use what this course has been teaching me as a student imagine what my students will gain from it. In these last eight weeks I have begun to realise that my students do learn differently from the way I did. I can not teach them in the same manner that I was taught. They have totally different experiences growing up than I did. Their brains are wirded differently than mine was. I have to learn to teach them in a manner that they are familiar with. This course has given me a great start at entering their tech world. I have created a blog, used wikis and have created a lesson that will incorporate the technology we have learned about in my lesson. Hopefully the students will respond to using the technology and it will increase what they retain form the lesson by having them do the work and not just listen to me teach. I have always felt that science is best learned by experiments, unfortunately with budget cuts there are not a lot of materials available to my students. By using the web we will be able to research and possible perform virtual experiments.
I will continue to explore different ways of incorporating the use of wikis and blogs in my teachings as well as looking for more ways to change my style of teaching from teacher centered to students centered. A great way to do this is to join blogs created by teachers for just this purpose. I will be continually scanning the net for blogs and sites that will increase my knowledge of emerging technologies that can help my students.
In the next two years I plan on having a website and a blog dedicated to each of my classes. The all the material that I use in class will be available to the students as well blogs and wikis where the students will participate in projects and be able to ask questions that I can answer as well as other students can put their responses in. This will give the students a chance to participate in the classroom as well as out of the classroom. By creating the website and blog I will be able to overcome the growing numbers of students in my classroom. As my district lays off more teachers the classrooms will get more crowded. The blogs will allow me to reach more students. I will be able to answer questions that students were unwilling or unable to ask during class. I will also be applying for grants so I can make technology more available in my classroom. I realize that fifty percent of my students do not have access to computers at home. If I can give them access to computers in my classroom then I can help solve that problem.

podcast

Here is the link to my podcast. It was a lot of fun making the podcast I think students would really enjoy doing this. http://www.teachertube.com/members/viewVideo.php?video_id=113438&title=Podcast1

21st century initative

What a great idea to have a website and an organization promoting the use of technology in schools. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills was created to champion and further the cause of getting technology integrated into our school systems. The website http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php is attractive and well laid out and easy to use.
I was dissapointed in the information the lack of helpful information on the site. The site did a good job explaining what the partnership was but when I went to the tools and resources section there was very little useful information there. I did a search for standards looking for how we could integrate our new technology in teaching the standards we have to teach and all I found were articles that explained that the partnership was going to do this. If the website starts to put information on how to use technology and give lesson plans and lessons using the technology it would be very useful. The site did have a link to other website that did have the information I was looking for but I think that it would have been easier if all the information was in one place.
I also would have liked to see the website have links to each state and their standards. I know my state of Georgia has a very good website with our standards and it even has suggested performance tasks for each standard.
On a positive side I did like the news and articles sections of the website. It gave information about the states, which are only a few, that have joined the project. I did a seach on state rankings and found it interesting that most of the states that are part of the project already are ranked highly for education. Maybe they are ranked highly because they already embrass technolgy in their schools.

I teach 6th grade earth science. I see many use for blogging. The first thing I can see is for student's to ask questions about what we are studying. A lot of students will not ask questions because they don't look "cool" if they ask a question. With and anonimity of the internet a student can ask a question and the other students would not no who asked. I think students could also publish their work on the blogs. It would be a good way for them to show off what they know. The biggest use for me would be the first reason. To allow students to ask questions and that would allow me to answer those questions so all can see.

What a year

Now that this school year is almost over, how has it gone for everyone? This year was my worse year every. I have had to break up 21 fights this year, had 4 death threats, 4 knives brought into my classroom and was laid off at the end of the year so my school district can hire 4 new football coaches.