EDLD+5364+Blog

 EDLD 5364 Blog: My Reflections on **Week 5 **  Teaching with Technology – The End - I have done more reflecting in this class than I have done in my entire life. My reflections this week is that there are way too many reflections to this class. This week alone, I have completed one for the discussion, one for this wiki, a group reflection and a five paragraph reflection about this entire class. I have nothing left to say.

"I'm just not good at math. My mom wasn't good at math either." When a student makes a connection between academic successes with factors outside of his or her control - things like heredity, gender, or race - it's easy to develop a defeatist attitude. After all, why bother if you know that you just aren't capable because of your genes?

I am not going to blame my parents, but I am a terrible writer, and it pains me to have to write all these reflections.

Videos - I hope the predictions of these guys do come true. I frankly see technology use in education growing at a snail's pace. By the time we reach the level we need to be at, technology will have grown to the point that we are beyond just lagging behind. Until administrators decide that technology is important and should be a priority, these changes are not going to take place. I have visited schools with principals or even superintendents have made technology a focus and non-negotiable. These are the progressive schools where active intentional learning is occurring. In other schools, I see passive learning or no learning at all.

About the Class - These reflections are on the final assignment as well, but thought worth mentioning again. I believe my group was very successful in completing all the assignments. We had five very strong people in our group from varying backgrounds. When one of was struggling with a concept or how to get our part completed, someone from the group was able to step up and help out. Diana was a great leader, Roger knew the Science curriculum, Elizabeth has a gift with words and edited the material, Karen gave all kinds of creative ideas and kept us on track, and I add technology to teachers lessons all the time and have many technology resources available. We met through [|__www.tokbox.com__] several times to discuss options for our plan and for everyone to get on the same page. I think at times, we tried to make the assignment more difficult than what was required. All members of the group contributed and in a timely manner which helped keep the team on track to finish the project.

My Reflections on **Week 4** Teaching with Technology – Project - I created a student sample book using kerpoof.com as well as a couple of how-to videos to show the teacher how to use the technology used in presenting the lesson to the students. I made the how-to videos with Jing which is a free download software that allows you to screen capture your mouse movements along with audio. I use the paid version of this software, Camtasia Studio, to create training videos all the time. Using Jiing was a little more challenging because I couldn't edit any of the video. With Camtasia, I can edit video, combine video, add text, add more audio, and add pictures. I made the video of how to use the online application, zoho sheet, and the application in SMART notebook software. I am glad I was able to help some of my teammates with ideas of technology use. I am also glad I create websites all the time and was able to help my teammates get their information attached to the website.

Videos on New Tech High - I have actually visited the Manor New Tech High School in Austin, TX. I had the opportunity to talk with a couple of Manor New Tech High School students. You could see the excitement on their faces as they explained their project to me. I don't remember the what the project was about, but I remember her enthusiasm. Everywhere I went throughout the high school, I saw students actively engaged and enjoying what they were doing. I have often wondered if I took several teachers that are reluctant to use technology to see Manor New Tech High School, would that change their minds about the use of technology in the classroom? I also sat through a meeting with Chad Branum, Chief Technology Officer of Coppell ISD, from Coppell New Tech High School. In the meeting, Chad went through how Coppell decided to open their New Tech High School. It would be interesting to talk with Chad now that the HS has been open for a year.

Readings - Elizabeth quoted this statement for her discussion from Rose, D., and Meyer, A. (2002). //Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal Design for Learning//. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology web site, __@http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/__

"The emotional valence of an academic task is critical in determining how well a student will succeed at it, or even how much effort he or she will invest. Students' unique affective networks manifest in their different responses to testing. For some, the stakes are set too high by testing in general and grading in particular, leading to a reduction in performance sometimes called //test anxiety// . For others, anxiety is a function of the particular task's difficulty.

Embedding assessment into ongoing work removes some of the emotional impact of testing and highlights its more positive aspects. For students. . . who fear academic assessment, freestanding tests loom as an obstacle, a hurdle, a 'failure detector.' But when assessment is removed from its isolated stature and made a normal, constant part of learning, the feedback for both student and teacher is informative and helpful rather than intimidating" (Ch. 7, Flexibility in Engagement).

What is interesting, is that in every class up to this point, I have have taken issue with the continuance of the TAKS test and how it is the only focus of school districts. Everyone that responded to her posts agreed with this statement, yet every time I bring it up, I get slammed by the class participants. I hope in the future, academics is tailored to individuals. I was hoping the 1:1 initiative studies would show that students are more invested in the education because it is at their fingertips. Then again, maybe the data hasn't shown the results I would expect because the classroom in which the 1:1 initiative has been implemented still hasn't changed the way curriculum is delivered.

My Reflections on **Week 3** Teaching with Technology – The Book Builder - This has been a very busy week with work and school, and I found all the projects to be busy work. I absolutely hated the Cast's Book Builder site. I would much rather have used []. My ebook allows me to add whatever I want to the page. I can add video, text, images, and audio to the page. The web 2.0 site also allows me to arrange the page anyway I desire, so I can use my creativity. The book builder site was very limited in the design aspects which is part of the experience in creating anything. I was wondering if the book builder site is new because there are very few book samples. There are zero book examples for 6-12 grades in any subject.

The Readings - While reading //web 2.0: new tools, new schools//, I started wondering why we are reading a book that is already out of date. I guess any book about technology is almost out of date before it is even published, but even more so when discussing a topic that is growing so rapidly. Here are a few I know about: Photo Editing (Many features of Photoshop) - [] Brainstorming (same as inspiration software) - [] Videoconferencing - [] I could go on and on, but I am not. My point is, this class is all about exploring new tools, but we are being limited to old tools when creating our assignments. I hate using Google sites for creating websites because I can't customize them. Why not let us use something else if we are capable? We are using Wikispaces for a blog, but Wikispaces is not a blog format. We had to use book builder, but again that site doesn't allow for creativity.

On the other hand, I have enjoyed reading //T////eaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal design for learning.// I like what it has to say about learning styles and to push the limits of the classroom. Don't be afraid to do something different in the classroom which is challenging when administration is scared to allow new technologies in the classroom. To unlock blogging or social networking sites or even youtube is not going to happen in my district because administration is scared of the possible law suits. A student can do far worse to another student at anytime of the day, but we can't shelter our students from every possible danger. We can however teach them how to use these tools appropriately as well as how to keep themselves safe in these environments.

Sources: Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). //web 2.0: new tools, new school//s. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002) //Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal design for learning.// Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology website, http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

My Reflections on **Week 2** Teaching with Technology – Resource: Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002) //Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal design for learning.// Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology website, http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

"In contrast, more recent theories, such as Multiple Intelligences theory (see Gardner, 1993), are consistent with what we are now discovering about the learning brain-namely that students do not have one global learning capacity, but //many multifaceted learning capacities//, and that a disability or challenge in one area may be countered by extraordinary ability in another."

I believe this quote is so true. I am horrible at grammar and writing, but I am very mathematical and artistic. Most think it odd that I am great at math, but I can also draw just about anything and I am very musical. When I am learning new material, I need a variety of inputs. I need to read the text for myself, I zone out when it is read to me. Sometimes I need a graphical representation. I have to see the big picture before I can concentrate on the details. I think that is one reason I am a little frustrated with the class, I don't have a clear overall picture and then the details are given to me piece by piece.

Another quote from this same source, "technological advances have equipped educators with tremendous new instructional resources in the form of computers and digital media. New technologies offer us the opportunity to respond to the multifaceted individual differences in our student population by providing more varied media, tools, and methods." I used this quote for the discussion board, but I really like it because for those of us that do not learn like everyone else, we can now have options to learn information in different varied methods. I wish I would have had some of the exciting new web 2.0 tools available when I was teaching in the classroom. I can think of a few of my students that would have benefited from these new technologies. The challenge now is to convince superintendents and technology departments to open these tools to our students and teachers. My district blocks almost all of them. I will continue to push for at least teachers to be able to access these tools in the classroom.

As for the group work, I think our group is ahead of the game. All five of us are strong personalities and so it will be interesting to see how we will be able to pull all our strengths together to create a unit of lesson from such varied backgrounds. I use to teach Math, Elizabeth use to teach English, Diana use to teach Spanish, Karen teaches art, and Roger teaches in a pull out content mastery type program in California. Roger is at a disadvantage because he doesn't know the TEKS. [] has been nice because we have been able to have a few web conferences with the group and have been able to get our thoughts on the same page.

My Reflections on **Week 1** Teaching with Technology – I hear the words "21st century student" all the time, but I often wonder how many people really know what that means. Teachers tell me all the time they are implementing 21st century skills into their classroom, and the example the teacher sends me is not. Maybe the first step we need to take as administrators is to make sure the school is on the same page. If we want to build 21st century learners, we need to make sure the teachers, principals, and administrators, are all working from the same understanding of what is 21st century skills.
 * The Readings - **

This is my fifteenth year in education and I have always taught using constructivism and connectivism without knowing that is what I was using. I didn't know there was a name for it. Maybe I have always taught this way because Mathematics lends itself to these theories. All of math is a building process. I believe many people do not like math for one of two reasons 1) had a horrible experience with a class or a teacher or 2) it is too abstract or never connected to real world application. We all use math every day, and if it is related to real world experiences, it is easier to understand. I love the TV show "Numbers" and the Number's curriculum created for High School math classes. This TV show proves that everything from relationships to escape patterns to bullet trajectory can be solved by math. The idea of using constructivism and connectivism to take what students already know in technology and build new knowledge in areas we need to teach them. I think we can use the same techniques on teachers to get them to integrate more technology into the curriculum.

The challenge with using web2.0 tools is the technology department and the fears of potential lawsuits. I fight the battle everyday to open websites that would be beneficial to our students as well as our teachers and administrators. In my district all blogging, video/audio streaming, and social networking sites are blocked even from teachers. The network administrator won't even listen to me. His response is CIPA, and the Superintendent doesn't have enough knowledge about these tools to help me. If web 2.0 tools are blocked, how do you teach your students 21st century skills?


 * The Discussions ** - I love reading all the discussion posts. There are so many differing opinions even within a group of people with a common goal. I would think if someone were getting a Masters in Educational Technology, they would have a common passion and yet, there are still so many different opinions on the subject. It is also interesting how you can learn so much about a person you have never met simply by reading their thoughts on particular subjects over time. I look forward to seeing how someone will react to a post. I wonder if some don't play devil's advocate to engage more conversations.