Reflection on Learning in EDUC 6714

Teachers today know that “one size fits all” is not true in the classroom, where students vary in readiness, interests, and learning profile (Laureate Education, 2009c). Further, because of differences in their brain networks, students will benefit from various methods of representation, expression, and engagement (Laureate Education, 2009a). With these differences in mind, teachers need to plan flexible lessons, offering options for content, process, product, affect, and learning environment to help all students effectively learn and demonstrate their learning (Laureate Education, 2009b).

As Tomlinson (Laureate Education, 2009d) notes, differentiated instruction (DI) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) require careful lesson planning. Many resources are available to assist teachers in implementing DI and UDL, but teachers do not have the time to explore every option. However, the differentiation station my colleagues and I created on Facebook lists examples of digital resources that we have summarized and evaluated. Thus, when we need a tool to facilitate learning for a group of students, we can turn to the differentiation station. The station, which is a public Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=154189104598721&v=app_2373072738, has four categories: surveys and inventories, UDL information, DI tools and strategies, and additional resources. Among those suggested by my colleagues, one resource I expect to use soon is Toondoo, which helps students create cartoons and books; this tool can help differentiate by process or product. The Dare to Differentiate wiki will be a valuable resource for a wide variety of tools. A source that I recommended on the differentiation station, and which I have already used (see the example below), is http://edu.glogster.com/; this site lets teachers or students created interactive posters that can include multimedia elements to appeal to different learning profiles.

As a result of EDUC 6714, I plan to use more pre-assessment to customize instruction (Tomlinson, 2008), and technology, such as online student surveys, will help me do this. After creating two sample surveys as class projects, I will be able to quickly make new surveys to learn more about student readiness and interest before we begin new units.

Further, I am using online resources more to offer individualized options to my seventh graders, especially the interactive writing tools at the Read Write Think website, http://www.readwritethink.org/. These tools scaffold student writing for a variety of activities, including business letters, poems, and various types of essays. While some students do not need this help, it is valuable to others in meeting the writing objectives.

I also offered my students the option of creating a website as their assessment following the novel unit we just completed. Four students selected this option; one added additional features to his site, including a blog, and was delighted when many other seventh graders visited his blog to comment on the novel.

Students have never been completely alike, but today’s learners are more diverse than ever. To accommodate this variety and promote learning for all, technology can be a valuable tool; it provides options that would not be possible with traditional methods and engages learners accustomed to functioning in the digital age.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009a). Brain research and UDL. Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009b). Introduction to differentiated instruction. Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009c). Learner differences. Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009d). Managing the differentiated classroom. Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

Tomlinson, C. (2008). Learning to love assessment. Educational Leadership, 65(4), 8–13. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Trying Glogster

Okay, this is really cool if I can just imbed the link correctly. I just discovered Glogster, which lets you create an interactive "poster." It's all sorts of multimedia possibilities, all in a single location. I'm going to try it with a lesson on poetic devices for my seventh graders. this is my first attempt, so it won't be perfect, but I can imagine a lot of possibilities.

Reflections on my GAME Plan

           I began my GAME (Goal, Action plan, Monitor, Evaluate) plan almost two months ago. Based on the plan for self-directed learning suggested by Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009), my plan originally called for me to find more opportunities for my students to do authentic writing using digital technologies. I am happy to report that I have already made significant progress in that area. For example, my summer school students are currently involved in online discussions about our class novel and short stories. Although the school district blocks most blogs, we have this opportunity through a site called My Big Campus. This site allows us to hold online discussions that we can share with other schools that subscribe to My Big Campus, or we can limit the discussions to our own school district.

            A major advantage of online discussions is that they are so engaging to students. Yesterday, for example, my students requested an opportunity to respond to the day’s reading in their novel; students do not often request opportunities to respond to literature in a typical classroom discussion. In addition, my students tend to think more deeply when they post online responses, rather than talking only about what is on the surface. As Cennamo notes (Laureate Education, 2009), online environments tend to promote creative and critical thinking.

            My students will also be creating a wiki to show what they have learned in summer school. One important audience will be their families, but another will be the teacher for the second half of summer school, since I am teaching only the first half. The new teacher will be able to look at the wiki to see exactly what students learned during the first weeks of the class. Others who may wish to view the wiki include the guidance department and administration.

            Based on the first part of my game plan, I expect to continue the online discussion and wiki during the school year, and will add a class web page with the students doing much of the routine updating. In addition, I will be using the lesson plans I created in EDUC 6713 to increase online writing by students.

            I have adjusted the second part of my GAME plan. While I still plan to eventually arrange video conferencing, the hardware and software requirements both create problems at the classroom level; the hardware for including the entire classroom is expensive, and Skype is not available at school. Therefore I plan to first focus on helping my students learn video creation. I have arranged with our technology department to have Movie Maker installed on some of the computers at school, and video cameras are available in the IMC. I have used video editing programs in the past, but that was several years ago, so I will need to develop a new GAME plan to become more proficient with video editing.

            Nearly every unit that I teach can include at least one of the technologies we learned in EDUC 6713. All I need to do now is match the content with the most appropriate technology and help the students develop their own GAME plans, and I can hardly wait to begin.

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: a standards-based approach.  (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Cennamo, K., presenter. Promoting creative thinking with technology. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

GAME Plans are Good for Students, Too

Educational researchers Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer developed the GAME plan outline (2009) to help teachers become metacognitive learners and accomplish self-directed learning. The acronym simply means: set a Goal, take Action to meet the goal, Monitor progress, Evaluate whether the goal was achieved, and Extend learning into new situations. Of course, these are steps we hope our students will also take; especially in 21st Century learning environments, self-directed learning becomes increasingly important.

Although teachers still facilitate learning, we are no longer expected to be the source of all information. Instead, we often are helping our students to find the resources that will let them achieve our content area standards and then continue customized learning. The GAME plan is a good fit for this approach, especially when we are working with technology because technology changes so quickly and so many options are available; few teachers will be able to teach students everything they might want to know within all technologies. Instead, teachers must help students be self-directed learners.

After determining which standards students need to master, I can offer a variety of options for learning and assessment, and students can choose among these options if they are armed with their own GAME plans. To accomplish this with my seventh graders, I might begin with a graphic organizer, modeling how I learned a new technology by beginning with a Goal, taking Action, Monitoring my progress, and Evaluating and Extending my learning. Students could then use the organizer to develop their own GAME plans, allowing them more choice and increasing engagement in learning.

The International Society of Technology in Education has developed standards for both students and teachers, and these standards often mesh neatly. The standards for teachers (2008) are: facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity; design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments; model digital-age work and learning; promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility; engage in professional growth and leadership. Notice that these coordinate with ISTE’s standards for students (2007): creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making; digital citizenship; technology operations and concepts. Further, the teacher standards do not suggest that teachers should provide all the information students may want; instead, teachers are to facilitate and inspire, provide opportunities for learning, and model digital-age learning and responsibility.

Helping my students to create their own GAME plans will lead them to become self-directed learners, which will be an important skill for success in the 21st Century.

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach. (Laureate

Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

International Society of Technology in Education.). 2007. National Educational Technology Standards (NETS-S) Students. Retrieved June 15, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/content/navigationmenu/nets/for_students/nets_s.htm.

International Society of Technology in Education. 2008. National Educational Technology Standards (NETS-T) and Performance Indicators for Teachers. Retrieved June 15, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm.

This Week's GAME Plan Updates

Once again my colleagues have offered some great suggestions for helping me to achieve my GAME plan. Thank you to Jewel for pointing out that MovieMaker can also be used for audio slide shows, making it a good choice for digital storytelling; that information may come in handy for our upcoming assignment on developing a lesson with digital storytelling.

Thank you also to Christina, who recommended Avid Liquid in case I want to take video production to the next level. I have only briefly investigated Avid’s products, but they sound amazing. For anyone interested in more advanced video, this would probably be good to look into.

As I review the GAME plan I posted several weeks ago, it seems that some parts will be easier than I anticipated, but other parts will be trickier. Because our district has subscribed to My Big Campus, my students can now easily create wikis. They can even post on each other’s “walls,” very much like Facebook, but completely within the system. I will be trying this out in summer school, starting next week. So I am very close to achieving the first part of my GAME plan—using Web 2.0 resources to engage students “in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources” (ISTE, 2008).

The second part of my GAME plan—using virtual environments for learning (ISTE, 2008)—will be trickier because of Skype being blocked at school. My Big Campus does not seem to have a videoconferencing application. This is an area that will require additional planning and collaboration with our technology department. I believe we can eventually get some type of videoconferencing capability, but it may not be for a couple of years. In the meantime, I may concentrate on developing our use of video and video editing software since MovieMaker will be readily available.

References:

ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education.). 2008. National Educational Technology Standards (NETS.T) and Performance Indicators for Teachers. Retrieved June 9, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

The Next Steps: Video Softward and My Big Campus

I have made some additional progress in my GAME plan this week. Working with the district’s technology department, I set up an account on My Big Campus, the new software I mentioned last week. Our district has joined this program, which the technology department says will let me set up wikis and blogs for my students. It also provides e-mail accounts within the school, so there will be lots of ways to share information. I am truly excited about trying it out during summer school. 

The responses to last week’s post have some good ideas about how to use a web page in class. I especially appreciated the suggestion to make the web page a regular part of my students’ classroom work. It provides them with a chance to show their responsibility and to review the essentials of the day’s lesson, and it provides me with an up-to-date page without my constant input. Thank you, Katie.

I also investigated more about using video. While I want to learn more about video conferencing, I also want to improve my proficiency with video editing because that technology is so engaging for the students. Our district formerly had Windows Movie Maker software on many computers, but it had been removed because it took a lot of memory and not many teachers were using it. However, the tech department has told me that Movie Maker can be reinstalled whenever I need it, so my students should be able to access that program in the fall. This is an area where I will probably need to fine tune my GAME plan because I can foresee many uses for short videos created by students. As Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) explain, a GAME plan needs to be monitored and possibly modified. At present, the only video editing software in our middle school is on a single computer in the IMC. That obviously won’t provide enough access if more than two or three students want to use it.

I still need to try out actually using Skype. Using the web cam on my laptop is very simple, so this is just a matter of setting up a time to talk.

In the coming week, I hope to start setting up my class pages on My Big Campus so it is ready for summer school.

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: a standards-based approach.  (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

It is exciting to find ways to actually implement the GAME plan (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009) I posted two weeks ago. I think my students next year will benefit from more opportunities to use technology for learning.

Three classmates—Katie, Tracey, and Jewel—have provided some very helpful guidance for getting started with videoconferencing. I would still like to eventually get my whole classroom involved in an exchange with another classroom, but pairing students up for individual conferences via Skype may be the best starting point. It is easier and less expensive. Later I may be able to add the technology for a full classroom videoconference, but I think we can accomplish some valuable exchanges in a one-on-one format too.

Another step forward came today when I talked with our district’s technology director. He told me that our Moodle program is running again; that was encouraging. I had used it for two class projects during last year’s summer school session, but it kept crashing when we tried to use it with the larger classes during the regular school year. That glitch seems to be fixed now, so I’m looking forward to using that technology again. Last summer we carried on class discussions and created pages about a novel using Moodle, and the students responded well.

The technology director also mentioned that he would like me to try out new software that will let us set up blogs, wikis, and email for the students within the school. They still won’t have access to external blogs or wikis, but we could at least communicate with other classes within our district, which would be a good way for the students to learn more about the technology.

I have also decided to keep up a class website next year. The district provides space on its server for any teachers who want to create websites, but it’s not as intuitive as some of the free websites I could subscribe to. However, it would be more convenient for parents and students to be able to just click on my link on the school’s website, rather than needing to keep track of my individual site. I could post a link from my page on the school’s site to a different site, but that seems a little cumbersome. I’d appreciate feedback on this from anyone who has experience with maintaining a classroom website.

One of my colleagues in my school is looking to implement technology in new ways, just as I am. It is helpful to get her feedback, along with that from my Walden colleagues. Two, three, or several dozen heads are better than one. Right now, I am envisioning my students talking to another class about themes and personal connections to novels that both classes have read. If anyone has tried this, I would be interested to hear more about what went well and what we should try to avoid.

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: a standards-based approach.  (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Moving Forward with my GAME Plan

To carry out Part D of the GAME plan (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009) I posted last week, I will first need access to video conferencing software. I can reach Skype at my home and use my own laptop computer, which has a webcam, but our school district blocks access to Skype in the schools. I will therefore need to consult with our technology department to try to find a way to work this out. Since I would like to include my whole classroom in video conferences, I would probably need to use a separate video camera, not a webcam, so I would need to learn how to connect the hardware.

To accomplish this goal, I will also need to network with other teachers or search online to find distant classes that could collaborate with my students. I already have one possibility for connecting with students in a state quite far from mine, but I will need to locate others if this possibility does not work out. Just as important, I need to choose a unit that gives my students an authentic reason to collaborate with other students in a distant location; I am considering a non-fiction reading unit.

Part B of my GAME plan will mainly require me to consult with my colleagues, both at my own school and online at Walden University, and to also search the internet for other ideas for authentic activities. I will also need to review the various unit plans I already have, sorting out the lessons that have particularly effective, authentic activities included.

Effectively organizing ideas may be the most challenging aspect of this part of my GAME plan. I will want a system that lets me quickly review various activities, yet also separates them by topic and type of technology use included. In addition, I will also want to consult with our technology department and get permission from my students’ parents before they create web pages that anyone can view.

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

A GAME Plan for Integrating Technology

The International Society for Technology in Education has developed a list of five National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) (2008), each with four performance indicators. While all the standards and indicators are important, I plan to focus specifically on two indicators by using the following GAME plan (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009) to increase my confidence and proficiency.

The first standard states that teachers will “facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity.” My goals involve Parts B and D of this standard. Part B says teachers should engage students “in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources” (National Educational Technology Standards, 2008). As a language arts teacher, I feel that sometimes language arts lessons are less real world than science or social studies. Although my students will need to use their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills every day in the real world, middle school students need to have authentic reading and writing assignments that are engaging, yet instructive. As Dr. Ertmer noted in the first video for this week (Laureate Education, 2009A), effectively integrating technology into education requires that teachers examine their beliefs about good teaching and learning; I believe good teaching includes authentic learning experiences, and using technology in today’s classroom makes learning both more authentic and more engaging. Therefore, I want to develop a repertoire of strategies for connecting reading and writing lessons to the real-world. I can begin learning more about how to use website creation as a learning and assessment tool, especially ways of connecting with learners in other areas who can provide feedback to my students. I can ask other teachers in my own building for ideas, but I can also search the internet or take a class. Our current textbook, Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009), also has a variety of ideas, as do the texts from our previous technology classes.

I will monitor and evaluate my progress by creating outlines of units that provide opportunities for authentic writing with technology. While some writing experiences should be informative, for example, others should be persuasive. Some may require more graphics, including original graphics created by the students. I must ask whether I will be able to provide several types of authentic writing experiences for a variety of audiences.

To extend my own learning, I will continue to learn new ways to incorporate technology into writing. For example, I would like to be able to teach the students to create and edit video, which would require developing a script: an entirely different type of writing.

My second goal is Part D of the first standard, which says teachers will “model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments” (National Educational Technology Standards, 2008). I am particularly interested in using video conferencing software to allow collaboration with classrooms in other locations. Since I have not used this technology, my action plan begins with actually learning how to use video conferencing. I have a computer equipped with a web camera, but I have not had a reason to use it so far. I would also want to learn how to set up a video camera to provide live video from my classroom. Further, I would need to reach an agreement with a teacher at a remote location regarding a purpose for a collaborative project; this project will not be successful unless there is a genuine learning purpose. As a teacher explained in this week’s second video, technology needs to fit the objective; it does not work well to formulate a lesson objective around the technology (Laureate Education, 2009B).

I will monitor my progress by keeping a record of my ability to set up the required hardware and software, which should come more quickly with practice. I can also monitor my progress by noting how often I find opportunities to use video conferencing. I will also need to evaluate whether video conferencing actually promotes learning for my students. As noted above, there must be evidence that students are learning content by using this technology and that they continue to be engaged, even when the technology becomes familiar.

I will extend my learning by finding new classroom applications for the technology if it proves to be successful.

For both goals, I will also monitor and evaluate my learning by adding samples of student work to my portfolio.

If my GAME plan is successful, I will be able to provide my students with new authentic learning opportunities that will incorporate both language arts and technology.

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009A). Ertmer, P. (Speaker). Program 3, Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences with Technology, Part 1. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009B). Program 4, Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences with Technology, Part 2. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). (2008). International Society for Technology in Education. Retrieved May 15, 2005 from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

Creating Internet Inquiry Units

I am looking forward to seeing the projects my high school students will soon be creating in an internet inquiry unit. I created the unit as part of EDUC 6712, Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom, a course through Walden University. The students should grow in both inquiry skills and content literacy through this unit. Of course, while creating the unit, I also gained insight into the process of teaching new literacy skills.

Perhaps most striking is the amount of guidance students need as they learn new literacy skills, especially locating relevant information, critically evaluating information, and synthesizing ideas. Although students are generally familiar with the technology, most need guidance in using it efficiently because today’s resources are vast, complex, inconsistent, sometimes manipulative, and constantly changing. Further, it is left to the user, rather than an editor, to evaluate the reliability of resources (Coiro, 2003), so students need explicit instruction in these areas.

For example, two weeks ago I asked my high school students to evaluate the reliability of several bogus websites. In many cases, the students were able to offer only two reasons for doubting the veracity of a site: it did not make sense, and the photos were blurry. After a lesson on this skill, most students were able to suggest other avenues to investigate, such as domain name, information about the author or sponsor, ability to contact the author or sponsor, and back links to reliable sites (Eagleton & Dobler, 2007; November, 2008).

Similarly, many students need guidance in locating information. When trying to locate information on the internet, these students will usually open Google, without considering any other search engines, and type a question in natural English, rather than using a topic and focus strategy (Eagleton & Dobler, 2007, p. 135) or something similar. When a list of results is returned, they randomly select one to read, rather than looking at the description or the URL.

For any inquiry-based project to be successful, students will need instruction in the techniques that will make their work efficient. Obviously this will be an important focus in my teaching when my students do projects that involve new literacy skills.

Knowing this, I will be ready to include more inquiry-based projects in my own teaching. In the past, I had been frustrated because students conducted inefficient searches and failed to adequately synthesize new ideas; instead, they tended to parrot back information from one or two sources. Now I know that formulating important questions is an important first step in the process (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004), leading to more usable results, so I will plan for instruction in this area, as well as in finding, evaluating, and synthesizing information. Of course, after students have learned these skills, subsequent projects will need only to review them, so this instruction will take less time.

A goal for my own professional development is to create a website that will be a resource for my students. Like my students, I will be finding resources, synthesizing, and sharing. I would like it to include information about each class, such as assignments and due dates; links to valuable resources, such as the Creative Commons search page and Citation Machine; links to fun educational sites, such as Gamequarium and Spelling City, for my middle school students; and my contact information. Further, I would like to include samples of outstanding student work and photos of classroom activities.

I can easily set up a web page through any of several sites that offer free web pages. To make it successful, though, I will need to plan a few minutes each day for updating the site. Adding photos will require some extra time because I will need to be sure to have parents’/guardians’ permission to include their students. The most time consuming part will be posting examples of student work because these will have to be scanned and saved before they can be uploaded.

I would also like to learn to use cell phones for student participation in class discussion; students text their responses to the teacher. I have heard of teachers in other schools doing this, but I do not know exactly how they accomplish it, so I will need to investigate this possibility. I will need to learn how teachers make sure students are not engaged in private conversations during class time. Using cell phones this way would take advantage of the fact that, as Warlick notes (Laureate Education, 2009), students are bringing technology to school with them.

For the foreseeable future, technology will continue to expand out students’ access to information. Although teachers cannot learn and teach every new technology as it becomes available, we can and should use some of the technologies to engage our students in learning and to help them prepare for life in the Information Age.

References

Coiro, J. L . (2003). Rethinking comprehension strategies to better prepare students for critically evaluating content on the Internet. New England Reading Association Journal, 39(2), 29–34.

Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the web: Strategies for internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). It’s not about the technology. Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. [Video recording]. Baltimore: Author.

Leu, D. J., Kinzer, C. K., Coiro, J. L., & Cammack, D. W. (2004). Toward a theory of new literacies emerging from the internet and other information and communication technologies. In Ruddell, R.B. & Unrau, N.J., (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed.). (pp. 1570–1613). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.