Zech_Reflection

Connor's "virtual poster"

                                                            Rainforest Lesson Reflection

 

My lesson was created as a further supplement to existing curriculum and designed to enhance student learning about the rainforest. This lesson is also part of larger unit on biomes that I am currently modifying. Since students will be building on their current knowledge I designed this lesson in a cognitive constructivist fashion. In order for this lesson to be successful, both teachers and students must have basic computer skills and knowledge about the rainforest; although it is hoped that the teacher will have a better understanding of this biome than the students. Watching the ease in which my student took to the technology and paired his knowledge of rainforests with it confirmed for me that this activity were able to make sense of and understood the technology.  Glogster was chosen for its ease of use, the many choices it allows for students to display their creativity and knowledge, and best of all, it has a free site. Also, my familiarity with this site and my technical knowledge should help address most difficulties that students should have. This is very important because any lack of knowledge about a site or tech may dampen a child’s enthusiasm for the activity and any learning that may come from it. When using tech, it’s important that teachers feel comfortable and that they should be confident enough to help troubleshoot problems that may appear.

 

Implementing this lesson in a classroom would allow me to create groups that will allow for support for different learners in my room. I believe that this activity would definitely be engaging and fun for the students it was designed. As I do not have a classroom of my own to gauge student response, I asked my 10 year old son, Connor, who is in the 5^th grade to be my guinea pig. After going over the power point, the story and reviewing what a rainforest is, I introduced him to Glogster. I showed him my previous assignments and explained how to build his own graphic blog. I then told him what I wanted him to do; create an interactive, graphic blog using audio clips, video clips and pictures, using the internet as his source. I then left the room and told him that if he needed any help, that I was in the next room doing my homework. As he is a few years older than most 3^rd graders and had one-on-one attention when needed, he probably didn’t need as much time as they might. I expect that the younger students may need more time than initially provided, especially when other time constraints and subjects are added. Assessment would come in few different ways. First, the “virtual posters” would be grade by me based on a rubric shared with the class, also, the students would rate their group mates on a scale of 1-5 on various aspects of their group participation and finally, there would be a written assessment with open-ended, short answer questions.I think this lesson has plenty of affordances, starting with cost; Glogster is a free site that is easy to access and easy to use. I would imagine an introductory lesson on using Glogster to take about a half hour, which about the time I spent showing Connor how to use it. However younger students might need more time, including introductory lessons on layout design or how to first imagine, then draw rough design and then to process of building a glog. All could be treated as mini-lessons building up to introduction to Glogster, Vimeo or any other site. User friendliness would be another affordance of this site. The only constraints that I could think of when using this site would be availability of computers and time allowed for their use and the second constraint would be access to the internet. While most schools provide internet use, many sites are blocked (for obvious reasons), which may in turn block the number of available audio/visual clips and pictures. However, I’m sure most students today can find what they need; the constraint may not be as serious as I originally thought.

 

Glogster is a technology that can be applied to any topic or subject matter. I could easily see using it for a reading assignment, creating a graphic character study for characters in a book. It could be also used as a virtual book report. For writing, students could create virtual poems, using Glogster to “animate” poems that they or someone else have written. Math students could create a “glog” about prime numbers, science students could create food chains and history students could focus on a particular war, battle or event like, Prohibition. Its practicality through subject matters and ease of use makes Glogster an excellent tech tool to incorporate into classrooms through about eighth grade. It’s also an excellent introduction to incorporating technology for those with little confidence in their technological efficacy. I found that the difficult part of integrating lessons with technology is actually finding something that is user friendly, is straightforward in its approach, especially with regard to ease of instruction and allows the subject matter to be presented in a clear-cut and easy to understand fashion. In the end, however, I believe my professional development and teaching practice will benefit from be able to look at any lesson and think, “How can I use tech to improve this lesson and what tech fits it best?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, here it is! My digital story for CEP 800 is complete and ready for showing. Please feel free to post comments. Of course, if there is any critiques or criticism, please post it in a polite and constructive fashion. Thanks!

CEP 800 Digital Story

I really struggled with this assignment. Not so much with the recording of the interview, but with editing and trying to add music. For whatever reason, I coul not get Lame to work so I was unable to edit  or trnasfer to a MP3 file. Hopefully, you don't mind the few seconds where my cat thought he'd give me his two cents.
As an assignment, I enjoyed talking to my "students and hearing what they had to say; whether they struggled with misconceptions or had a pretty firm grasp of the material.
I can see this being a valuable assessment tool as long as time allowed for it. It could be an interesting assignment for a teacher toallow their kids time to interview fellow classmates or grade level peers (perhaps even including their parents) to test their knowledge, write an article for the class newsletter or even to help build their social-personal connections and also, to introduce themto public speaking without having to speak in front of the class.

Module 2 Interview
https://soundcloud.com/#czechmate6/cep800-copy

Personal Learning Reflection

Stepping into this virtual classroom seven weeks ago, I came as a tabula rasa or “blank slate.” I knew that no matter what, I was going to leave with some very beneficial knowledge and most importantly, how to incorporate it in my future classroom. I was not disappointed, through weekly “meetings” I was provided with information on some new (at least, to me) technology, how to find it and how to use it; then, through discussions with my fellow classmates, I was provided with ways to effectively introduce them into the classroom so that my students would get the most benefit from them. Given the time constraints of this class (8 weeks) as well as the others in this series, I don’t we could’ve effectively or efficiently put more on our platter. I liked that we were given a tool, say the RSS feed, and allowed to play around with it for a week, finding our likes and dislikes and then having to set one up. This is important because as we learned with learning styles, no two students learn alike. Providing multiple options allows for greater success, lecture, reading, exploring and hands-on experience gives us the student, several avenues in which to find our learning “comfort zone.”
When integrating technology we, as teachers, must accommodate our students’ diverse learning styles. It is too much, I believe, to try and adjust our teaching style to all of our students. However, it is important to at least find a few that most can adapt to, especially hands-on learning and then perhaps, allow the students a variety of ways to assess their learning. That way, even if they learn just enough, they would be given more than one way to show what they learned. Also, teachers shouldn’t replace effective teaching with technology just for the sake of it. They should integrate technology to be a support for what they are learning, a means to show what they’ve learned and a way to demonstrate their knowledge. I think integrating the internet helped show us how valuable a tool technology can become. Especially when considering social media and its reliance on the internet to be effective. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all rely on the internet to connect their subscribers. Blogs are also an effective way to disseminate information, allowing discourse from as many people as you want to have; these discussions ranging from educational theory to book reviews, and even, to cake recipes.
I believe that, for me, all our assignments represented good teaching with technology. None really stood out from the others and I believe that is a reflection of good teaching within the course. I believe this because I feel that each assignment built on the one prior and that with each new assignment, we were given multiple options on how we could present our work. For me, I had heard about RSS feeds but I didn’t know what they were or how, if used properly, important they could become in a classroom setting. Creating a blog, using Twitter, using various other available social media allowed me to expand my knowledge base and provide me with ways to incorporate these tools into the classroom.
I believe that I have surpassed most, if not all, of my learning goals for this class. Knowing that I was coming in with very little knowledge made it all the easier for me to meet my goals. I learned about new technology, social media and how it can be used successfully in the classroom and further cemented my opinion that effective teaching can be supported with technology and that its use as well as social media, will make the world a lot easier to bring into our classrooms. Do I have any new goals? Yes, I do. I would love to continue to explore ways in which social media can be used in the classroom. I would love to learn about developing a class website that is safe, secure and available for my students and their parents. I would to learn how to use technology to create my own illustrations or models, for example: using tech to create a model animal cell, instead of having to rely on internet provided materials alone. Perhaps, another way to put it is to be able to technology to make myself more self reliant and able to create my own work. These are goals that I have for myself. I plan to continue my technological learning with continuing education classes, seminars and workshops once I have completed these classes. I believe that to be important because technology improves at such increasing rates, that if you don’t keep up, you’ll get left behind, quickly.

Current use of tech in my work in Education- Personal Tech Plan

For the past several years my use of technology in the realm of education has been limited to three fronts and in this post I will address all three.

The first front has been that of teacher working as student. In pursuit of my Master's and my teaching degree/certificate, I have been quite busy searching the internet, working with colleagues and instructors and reading up on current tech hardware and software. My classes, especially CEP 810, have been particularly useful in providing support in terms of social media, incorporating tech, like iPads, into the classroom; and how to accommodate the diverse community of learners we encounter in the classroom-all with technology. In my CEP 810 class alone, we are provided with proof that technology makes the world smaller as it includes students from various places across the planet. Without technology, this type of collaboration is extremely limited, if not impossible.

The second front is that of teacher using technology. For one glorious year, I had my own classroom, granted I was a long term sub but I taught 4th grade from October to June and was responsible for everything regular teachers had to do: lesson planning, conferences, grades/report cards, and everything else that was expected. The availability of tech, hardware or software, was quite limited in my building. Students had about an hour of computer time and it was quite often a waste of time. I take part of the blame for this because of my inexperience with technology was quite limited at the time so I let the tech teacher run the class. However, over the years, my experiences have grown exponentially, and again; I give credit to CEP 810 and my peers for opening my eyes to a wonderful world filled with tech, social media, glogs, blogs and websites. My potential students will benefit greatly from my growing pains.

The third and final front is my current situation, teacher working as a substitute. I have been working as a substitute for the past 5 years and with the exception of my first year in which I held a long term teaching position; I have worked in different schools all over Kent and Ionia County in western Michigan. The diversity of the buildings range from rural to urban, rich to poor, and large to small. As a sub, you find yourself in a different building, a different grade; each with differing levels of technology available. I have been in large districts with no tech in the classroom except for the teacher’s computer and small schools where each child in the classroom has “their own” ACER laptop with apps built in and are internet accessible. In other words, you work with what you have, and often you get to police what the regular teacher has planned and put in use. Quite often, the only tech that I get to use in the class is the ELMO, which is basically a high tech overhead projector. The few times that kids are using tech to work on a power point or other class project, my help isn’t often asked for; because, after all, I’m just a sub, what do I know? The other type of tech usually involves a “student run” television-style morning news program.

What does all that mean for me in the future? Well, I am still optimistic that I will find a teaching position before I have to retire. Secondly, my exposure to the classrooms and my awakening to the benefits of incorporating tech and social media into the classroom have only helped to make me a better teacher. Notice I said “incorporating tech” and not “replacing classroom instruction with.” My CEP classes, colleagues and my own personal experience have helped provide a solid foundation on which I can construct a classroom community built with the helpful benefits of technology.

Learning Styles & Strategies

Looking back at my learning experiences from K through 12 and upwards, I find that no one strategy was any more effective than the others. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it was perhaps a combination of styles and strategies provided my teachers/instructors. For instance, during my early elementary years, rote memorization, ancient-looking filmstrips/ movies and teacher centric instruction ruled the day with very little hands-on experience. Of course, back then we also had plenty of field trips to support material in class. Very little of this changed in junior high and high school, unless you took Chemistry, advanced Biology and a few other specialty classes. Here you were expected to get your “hands dirty,” so to speak as activities reinforced or ran concurrent with lecture.
I have found that I have a different learning style for each subject and that I struggle if needed to adapt a new strategy to a particular subject. For instance, take math. I am more of an active/sequential/visual learner who needs to see things worked out and explained step by step, perhaps several times before I feel comfortable trying a problem on my own. I would be totally lost, however, if asked to try a new style. This is my comfort zone and anything else just decreases the likelihood of my understanding the concept. With regards to the Montgomery/Groat article, I find myself identifying with Cluster 1. The primary learning style is dependent/participant/Competitive and the primary teaching style is Expert/Formal Authority, with a focus on exams/Grades emphasized, lectures with teacher centered questions, although I believe that students must be able to be an active participant in this or any other style of learning/teaching.
So what worked and what didn’t? This is what I found to be true in order for me to be successful. Teacher lead discussions with active student participation, a personable delivery that doesn’t lull the student to sleep, engaging supportive material: movies, movie clips, connecting material to real world applications/situations or “what if’s,” and instructors willing to take a different approach/perspective and even, incredibly, admit when they don’t know or have made a mistake. I find that that fallibility evens the landscape and helps the student better connect to the instructor. What didn’t work: bland, stale lectures, handouts without explanation, relevance or discussion, an authoritarian instructor who can never be challenged, no real world connections or hands-on experience. These strategies spelled out ultimate failure, yes I may have passed the class but my level of understanding was very low.
In order, for teachers and students to achieve the success that they want, balance must be created. For each learning style, there is a different teaching strategy. When you factor in, on average, 27 students in a classroom, a teacher must be adaptive. No one teacher is going to be able to reach that many students because each and everyone probably learns best with differing strategies. Perhaps the best teacher is a juggler, able to differentiate her teaching strategies based on the whole of their classroom. Experimenting and rotating how materials are presented and even more importantly, how students are assessed on their knowledge. The one year I taught fourth grade I gave my students options on how they could show me that they understood the material. For instance, in our unit on the “Anishnabeg or Three Tribes” I allowed my students to write a report (blah), create a diorama, make a poster, write a song, act out a skit that was related to one or all the tribes, or in a group, with some help from their parents, provide a small feast of foods that the tribes would have eaten. This assessment went better than I had expected as the children were extremely eager to show off what they had done. This project also helped the students with the required chapter test from the text, as each student showed at least a ½ grade bump in their scores. That I believe is the key, since we cannot possible employ all strategies at once, allow for different learning by changing up our teaching strategies and how we assess our students.

The boy and the birds by czech6 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This day at the beach, near Melbourne, Florida, started off cold and miserable. The kids were ready to give up and go to my Aunt's house but not before Connor found a flock of sea gulls innocently minding their own business.