I drive roughly an hour to and from work, and I have been looking for a new way to keep myself entertained. My answer: Podcasts! I have a few new favorites in which I have been tuned: TeacherCast Educational Broadcasting Network, The Dave Ramsey Show, TEDTalks Education, and Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. All of these podcasts, with the exception of The Dave Ramsey Show, are geared towards education. I love that most of these podcasts are under an hour- perfect for my commute! It is almost like getting a short and sweet piece of professional development whenever it works for YOU! The convenient part of podcasts is that YOU are in control of when you listen. While I already have a few podcasts in which I have subscribed, I am still looking forward to exploring more to follow!
Podcasts can be used as I described above, an on-your-own-time professional development, but they can also be used in the classroom more directly. Solomon and Schrum (2014) suggest that students create their own podcasts to show mastery of a skill or concept. Students can create a podcast and post online for review. This can be a great way to reach a larger audience beyond the classroom, while maintaining a distant, safe online presence. According to Hobgood and Ormsby (2016), one way in which teachers can differentiate is through the process in which they deliver the content. The video titled, “Using Technology to Differentiate by Process” describes students using an online classroom management system called, Blackboard. This is similar to a system my school uses: Google Classroom. These systems are great tools to push assignments, notes, videos, images, or anything else you can think of to your students. Students can then have access to this content anytime they are on the internet! This is a great way to differentiate to meet diverse learning needs. Teachers can survey students to discover their learning preferences to help guide them in the development of a more personalized classroom. This personalized classroom is made much easier through the use of technology. Technology not only allows teachers to deliver content in a variety of ways, but also allows students to show mastery of content in a variety of ways. Using internet in the classrooms have a great impact on the understanding of diversity by allowing teachers to break down the walls of their classrooms. Students can explore beyond their schools, beyond, their towns, beyond their states, and even beyond their countries through the use of technology! As teachers, we can take advantage of the limitless resources the internet has provided us. We can take our students on journeys with Google Tour Builder or Google Expeditions, but we can also collaborate with experts or other students worldwide through a few clicks on Twitter. Students in the school in which I teach share a common low socioeconomic status. Most of my students will not get the opportunity to explore places, people, or even ideas outside of their local community. While it is important to bring in the local culture, it is also important to allow students the opportunity to branch out and explore in a safe and productive way. Teachers have the ability to connect with other teachers and experts in order to facilitate this type of learning with tools such as Google Hangouts or projects such as Journey North. Hobgood, . "Inclusion in the 21st-century classroom: Differentiating with technology - Reaching every learner: Differentiating instruction in theory and practice." Learnnc.org. n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2016. <http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/every-learner/6776> N.a. "Using technology to differentiate by process." Learnnc.org. n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2016. <http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/19119> Solomon, G. (2014). Web 2.0 How-To for Educators. (2nd ed.).
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Wikis can be used for just about anything! While the possibilities are just about endless, teachers can use wikis to encourage collaboration in the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, as well as publishing student work outside the classroom (Solomon and Schrum, 2014). Some teachers use Wikis to give students any-time access to resources, while others use Wikis for publication of student work. In Code Blue, students in a sixth grade science class create webpages for their department. Each student is assigned a doctor role (ex. Orthopedic Surgeon). Students published biography pages with information linked in about their specialty. Students clearly demonstrate an understanding of body systems. I really like the way in which each group of students have a block of the hospital. However, when first going to the site, the purpose (to display student pages). The home page is a list of links to get started in research. If I were to do a similar wiki, I would create a different home page, a Hospital Home Page, if you will. Then, have a link for student resources, directions, etc. Discovery Utopias uses a really creative way to publish student work and deliver resources for a project. I really like that the teacher included real-life failed utopias for student research, but I think my absolute favorite component of this wiki is the Clean-Up Crew. What a great idea! This teacher lists a Clean-Up Crew member from each grade level for other students to contact with creating, editing, and formatting pages. She even linked contact information for students to access. This is a great way to alleviate some of the pressure for us, teachers, to be in a million places at once! One thing I might change in this Wiki is the Proposal section. There is no obvious way to edit or download the proposal. I would either embed or link in a Google Doc or Slides for students to make a copy to begin editing right away. Go West provides students with a collection of information about the Oregon Trail: its timeline, daily life, maps, weather, etc. This site is very organized, and clearly well-planned. The only thing I would change is the concept map on the home page. To me, this is not visually pleasing, but I do not think it hinders understanding; just a personal preference. Overall, this is a great resource for students to learn about the Oregon Trail! Wikis are a great way to publish student work and to provide a concentrated bank of resources. I have started a Wiki to use in my 7th grade science class during our Biomes Unit, Exploration in Ecosystems. My plan for this Wiki is to provide students with the resources they need to create a page that promotes their biome. Student pages will highlight the features of the biome (plants, animals, landscape, weather, food webs, etc.). Students will work collaboratively on their pages. I am looking forward to further developing this Wiki and testing it out with my students! Carrington, A. (2016). Designingoutcomes.com. Retrieved 25 September 2015, from http://designingoutcomes.com/moodle/padwheel/padwheelposter.pdf Solomon, G. (2014). Web 2.0 How-To for Educators. (2nd ed.).
Productivity tools are a great way to support the diverse learning needs of our students because of the wide variety of tools available. If you have a need, there is probably a productivity tool for you! Solomon and Schrum (2014) suggest that productivity tools have been “termed the Get Things Done (GTD) tools” (p. 94). Solomon and Schrum (2014) also convey the heavy presence Google and Google Apps have in the productivity tools market. I am an avid Google user, and I certainly see the benefit of their productivity tools for my own teacher-use, as well as student-use. My colleague and I have recently used Google Slides to create an Interactive Slides presentation for a self-paced lesson. Google Slides allowed the two of us to create this collaboratively without having to literally be together. Also, its ability to be interactive lends to a self-paced lesson. This is huge for supporting the variety of needs with which my students challenge me. The way I just described using Google Slides fits into a lower level of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Remember/Understand) because students are simply finding information. However, teachers can allow students to use Google Slides to show mastery of a concept in a variety of ways. Students can use Slides as a delivery tool for their product (Bloom’s level “Apply”).
Another productivity tool that lends itself to a self-paced lesson is EdPuzzle. EdPuzzle is Google App that allows teachers to customize videos. Teachers search already-made videos (EdPuzzle provides videos from YouTube and other popular video sites) to edit by trimming and/or adding questions. The video will pause automatically to allow the student to answer the questions. The teacher-edited video can be accessed by a direct link or can be embedded. EdPuzzle allows teachers to start students off in the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Remember/Understand). Developing these lower levels helps to strengthen the foundation of our students’ learning. Plus, any tool that will allow for a self-paced lesson is welcome in my classes! Carrington, A. (2016). Designingoutcomes.com. Retrieved 25 September 2015, from http://designingoutcomes.com/moodle/padwheel/padwheelposter.pdf Solomon, G. (2014). Web 2.0 How-To for Educators. (2nd ed.). I recently explored two virtual environments suggested by Solomon and Schrum (2014): River City Project and EcoMUVE (p.178 and 181). Both virtual environments are geared towards middle grades science and seem like a great way to engage students. Solomon and Schrum convey (2014) that a benefit in adding virtual environments into our lessons encourage student-led inquiry and “exploratory thinking” (p. 177). While virtual environments are incredibly engaging, students still need the teacher-provided structure and support. Also, students still need participate in “self-reflection in order for the implementation of virtual environments, according to Solomon and Schrum (2014) (p.179). The River City Project puts students into a city that has been struck by disease. Students must hypothesize on how it will spread and how humans can negatively or positively impact the disease. To experiment and test their hypothesis, students will be led through a variety of different sources: interviews, photos, newspaper articles, etc. To implement this virtual environment, teachers must sign-up, be approved, and attend a training. My favorite virtual environment out of the two I researched is EcoMUVE. This virtual environment provides a unique experience in two ecosystems: pond and forest. There are so many components to this curriculum! There are tons of teacher resources, student resources, modules for extension or remediation, food web applications, and even post-assessments aligned to the National Science Standards. The best part is that it is free! That is right, teachers, FREE! I downloaded the game and was able to explore the forest ecosystem. This virtual environment allows students to explore the relationship between biotic and abiotic factors in one ecosystem, as well as the causal relationships of different factors. One exciting feature of this virtual environment is that students can click on an organism they find as they are exploring, and an index card full of information about the organism displays and saves in their virtual notebook. Additionally, students can time travel while analyzing the population data. They can, then, create hypothesis about the trends in the data. One of my favorite feature is the food web tool. All organisms in the ecosystem your student explores show up in a food web tool. Students can drag organisms around and connect them in ways that show the transfer of energy. If a student is unfamiliar with an organism in their list, they can click on the picture and a list of facts needed to complete the food web is displayed. For teachers to implement, they simply need to download the software and follow the steps in the guide provided. Simple as that! With structure and appropriate planning, I think that virtual environments are an out-of-the-box way to get content across to students. I have never attempted using virtual environments in my classroom, but am eager to use the EcoMUVE project! Please view the image gallery to access screenshots of my first virtual environment experience. Solomon, G. (2014). Web 2.0 How-To for Educators. (2nd ed.). http://ecolearn.gse.harvard.edu/ecoMUVE/overview.php http://rivercity.activeworlds.com/rivercityproject/index.html Social networks can be a great way to have professional development right at your fingertips! My professor asked us to get a Twitter account. Honestly, I was not thrilled; just one more thing to have to keep up with. However, I’m not admittedly a Twitter fan. Seriously, it is so easy to spend hours upon hours going through my news feed full of fancy new technology tips and tricks (Shout-out to Alice Keeler!). I think the reason I enjoyed Twitter so much more this time (I have tried a couple times previously) is that I had a very good recommendation of people to follow. That, I think is the key to using social media to its fullest advantage. Following educators who can help me grow, not only as a teacher, but who can also help me grow my network is valuable. Another social network I joined is Classroom 2.0. Solomon and Schrum suggest (2014) this as a popular site because of its forums, groups, and its archive of lessons, podcasts, and interviews. This site is interesting because your membership, while free, must be approved. So, once you sign-up, you have to wait a few days to get approval. I really like this feature because it likely filters out those sneaky little advertisements that we occasionally face in other social networks. However, I was very overwhelmed by the website in general. It is somewhat difficult to sort through the posts in the forum. As I browsed through the most recent posts in the forum, I had trouble finding something that piqued my interest until I saw one titled, “3 Useful Tech Tools to Use in Your Classroom.” This teacher wrote a whole discussion about the usefulness of Prezi. I was surprised to see that her top useful tech tool. My faith in the site began to diminish. While, I am now a Twitter-fan, I am not sure that I will frequently visit Classroom 2.0. There are a multitude of applications for Twitter in the middle grades classroom. When I taught ELA a few years ago, I would have students summarize using hashtags or I would have them edit celebrity tweets. Neither activity actually uses the technology of Twitter; the first just piggy-backs off the concept, while the second just had me printing off tweets for students to correct. More effective uses of Twitter in the classroom could include recommending students follow certain experts to help them grow a more professional following. By doing this, students could use this as a springboard for their research. While researching ways to use Twitter in the science classroom, I found a lesson that I am really excited about trying. Basically, a high school science teacher assigned an #OrganelleWar with his students. Students created a Twitter account for their organelle and started a campaign for “presidency.” While campaigning, scientists from all over the world began getting involved and adding insightful, new information for students. Now, students and experts are interacting- this allows the lesson to reach that higher level of engagement! I am ready to explore this an option for my cells unit. I’ll keep my blog, and Twitter, updated! Solomon, G. (2014). Web 2.0 How-To for Educators. (2nd ed.). https://twitter.com/ http://www.classroom20.com/ http://www.slideshare.net/BradGraba/twitter-for-nsta?next_slideshow=1 In my opinion, my school district, Brantley County, feels the strongest digital divide in the socioeconomic factor. According to Town Charts (2016) , the average annual household income for Brantley County is only $36, 301 and our school is at 100% free breakfast and free lunch. In contrast, the average annual household income for Georgia is $49,342. (Town Charts, 2016). This gap, according to Gorski (2005), can have a direct impact on the access to digital tools, internet, and technology trainings, especially in education. From my personal experience, every year, a little over half of my students do not have consistent internet access outside school. Honestly, a little over half do not have established homes. Consistent internet access for those are simply not a priority. My observation was confirmed through studies done by Gorski (2005). They found that children living in low-income environments are “more than twice as likely to have computer and internet access…(p.24).” I thought it was interesting that their statistics combine computer and internet access together. Most of my students who do have consistent internet access outside school use the data on their devices (phones or tablets); they typically do not have computers at home. I wonder what the statistics would be if just internet was considered. The lack of consistent internet access outside school can certainly be a challenge! While assigning internet-based assignments, our teachers must be careful when considering pacing. We have to allow more class time than those in surrounding areas because we cannot require students to complete online assignments outside of class. Another challenge is the lack of experience students have in technology use. The only time some of our students are using a computer, tablet, or internet is at school. We really have to account for their learning curves in the use of the device as well as their learning of the content. content. Gorski, P. (2005). Education equity and the digital divide. AACE Journal, 13 (1), 3-45. Town Charts. (2016). Brantley County, Georgia Economy Data. Retrieved September 11, 2016, from Town Charts:http://www.towncharts.com/Georgia/Economy/Brantley-County-GA-Economy-data.html Image from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/freepress/6641427911 Using Blogs within the classroom is a great way to eliminate the boundaries of your classroom walls. Students and classes can connect with others around the world to provide global insight, as well as to provide an authentic audience that is outside of the classroom. While classroom blogging has many benefits, Waters suggests in her blog that students must learn how to be successful, safe bloggers. As teachers, we must hold students accountable for their blogging, just as we would in any other piece of writing, but also for creating a positive digital footprint. After researching and reviewing multiple Blog Rubrics, I have decided that when evaluating student blogs, I would like to narrow it down to three criteria: content/personal connection, respectfulness, and sentence/mechanical structure. I added “personal connection” to the content portion of the rubric because blogs often relate content to their lives. As teachers, we typically do not read a blog about Google Classroom for a summary. Instead, we are reading the blog about Google Classroom for ideas on how to implement it into our lives. Similarly, students should be using the same technique in their blogs- do not regurgitate information, connect it to our lives. This “personal connection” component was inspired by a rubric created by Brenda Dyck. Another inspiration for my blog evaluation criteria is from Scholastic News Online’s Blog Rubric, who inspired me to use “respectfulness.” This is not a criteria that I found often while researching student blog rubrics, but feel as though it is a very important skill to develop within our students as they are communicating more and more often with others outside our classroom. Blogging in the classroom is great way to achieve a variety of objectives: providing an authentic audience for student work, connecting students to other students, connecting students to experts in various fields, or even a way to creatively express their writing. Students, however, must be taught how to achieve these objectives, just like they must be taught our academic objectives. We must go slowly, model, and provide timely feedback. The rubric posted below will help to evaluate in order to provide clear, valuable feedback. Waters, S. (2013, February 11). Getting more out of student blogs [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://suewaters.com/2013/02/11/getting-more-out-of-student-blogging/ Rubric created by Brenda Dyck Scholastic News Online’s Blog Rubric Thanks to Pixabay for the image used in this post! In my four-year-teaching-expert opinion, there is one thing that most educators can agree upon: students must learn more than the set of skills listed in the Georgia Performance Standards; they must establish a more suitable set of skills that will grant them ability to “interact with information, analyze what they find, create knowledge, and then communicate the results to a real audience” (Solomon and Schrum, 2014). While there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to educating students with this set of skills, there are ample Web 2.0 tools to which teachers can turn. As Solomon and Schrum suggest, “Web-based tools offer new potential for learning.” This rings true for my personal classroom. Discovering Google Classroom has changed my outlook on lesson design and students’ display of content mastery. While I knew I wanted to move towards personalized learning and a student-centered classroom, I did not quite know how to get there until Google Classroom. Google Classroom, certainly, is not the end-all, be-all answer, but it opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of Web 2.0 tools. With Google Classroom, I am able to provide personalized feedback on assignments before they are submitted. In my paper-pencil days, it would have been nearly impossible to leave personalized, individual feedback for each of my ninety-nine students in less than two hours. This piece alone was a game-changer for my classroom. These web-based tools can also assist teachers in providing support for students with a diverse set of learning needs. For example in Google Classroom, I am able to differentiate assignments discretely; since students are on a device, it is not obvious that one student may have more supporting materials than another student. Even though I am obsessing over Google Classroom, there is a plethora of other tools to support the diverse needs of our students. Lately, I have been using the SpeakIt extension on Google which reads text aloud for students. This, too, is discrete within the classroom. Although I use multiple Web 2.0 tools in my classroom, I am thrilled to keep exploring! I am especially excited to learn more about integrating audio and podcasting tools, along with integrating presentation and video-editing tools. My initial thoughts of these Web 2.0 tools is that I feel comfortable using these types of tools for my instruction, but I am ready to get out of my comfort zone and set my students loose on these tools to show content mastery. As Solomon and Schrum convey, “using tools and learning with them are two different things.” I look forward to learning how to create a more authentic learning experience that is student-directed with these tools in a more coherent strategy. Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2014). Web 2.0 How-To for Educators. (2nd ed.). Eugene: ISTE. Thanks to wikimediacommons.org for the image used in this blog!
My thoughts on 21st Century K-12 Learners’ needs is that they simply are not being met by “traditional” classroom settings. Current students need to have more personalized learning in flexible learning environments, which is nurtured in a “newer” instructional model, such as blended or flipped classrooms (Roblyer 2016). I think most teachers would agree that their goals for their students is to reach critical thinking, unpredictable problem-solving, and higher-order thinking levels. Technology, when used effectively, can assist teachers in supporting their students to reach these higher levels of cognitive thinking. Students should use digital tools and resources to conduct the research to support their higher-order thinking decisions. Another major component in 21st Century Learning is collaboration. Technology plays a huge role in collaboration. Digital tools can really open the door for students to communicate with others worldwide and develop more of a cultural understanding that they may not have experienced without technology. Using NETS-S standards in combination with a teacher’s state content standards can be a great way to start integrating “newer” instructional models in order to bridge the gap between student-needs and the education they are receiving.
This 21st Century Teaching and Learning Course has taught me a lot about selecting and evaluating digital tools and resources and gearing instructional design towards authentic learning. Before this course, I was unfamiliar with the LoTi scale and the Indicators of Engaged Learning. While I knew that some strategies were more engaging to students, I had not seen a specified list, nor had I ever evaluated lessons based on the LoTi levels of indicators of Engaged Learning. Ms. Roberts provided multiple opportunities throughout the course to evaluate lessons based on these criteria, even assigned coaching practice. This scaffolding process she incorporated modeled for me ways in which I can model/demonstrate to my fellow teachers regarding LoTi and Engaged Learning practices. The LoTi & ELI evaluation assignments built my confidence in becoming a technology coach. While my confidence is growing, I know that I still have lots to learn, and can’t wait to begin implementing these strategies into my classroom. Roblyer, M. D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th ed.). Pearson Education. |
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July 2017
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