My Reflective Blog for EdPsy 556

Universal Access

2006-11-18T13:30:00.000-08:00

The idea of Universal Access has become a very important issue in today's schools. Because of the increased pressure on schools to increase inclusion of special education students into regular classrooms, it is now even more important for teachers to accomodate the variety of student abilities that will be incorporated into your classroom.

When looking at the readings, I really was impressed with the Thinking Reader program(Curriculum Access in the Digital Age) and the impact that it could have in reading and language arts classes. I know that a majority of my students that have learning disabilites have a disability in one of the processes involved in reading. I can see were this could really benefit a student and also give them some added confidence. My school continues to rely heavily on print media for teaching of students, and while digital versions of texts would dramatically help many of the children who could benefit from this, it always isn't feasible in the classroom due to a lack of funds and equipment. Another limiting factor for many of our students is that they come from a poorer background with little parental involvement. We could spend all the time in the world on helping the students but if the parents cannot help reinforce these practices at the home, it will never probably catch on.

While I have no students with visual or audio disabilities, I found it really intriguing how many new programs and products are available to help them in learning materials and information that are being taught in the classroom. In many cases with students with disabilities, they just want to be seen as normal. If any of these products and programs can help them lead a relatively normal life, then I see no reason why we should take the time to incorporate these ideas into our classrooms. Some people may not want to put in the effort to help one student insead of the 20-25 other students in the classroom, but if it can bring in a new way for students to learn, it could very easily help the others students in the class learn more effectively.

In terms of how I am trying to ensure that my technological resources are going to be universally accessible to all students, I am sure that this will be an ongoing process. I may add visual elements for a student who has problems seeing or reading, but if my verbal cues cannot be heard by a student who is deaf, I will have to make some changes. I guess you can never fully have a project be accessible to all, but if you don't put in the effort to at least try, you are really failing your job as an educator. This class has provided me with many valuable resources that will be useful not only now but also into the future. I will continue to work on incorporating new ideas into my teaching style so children of all learning abilities will be able to succeed in my classroom.

Are We Reaching the Technology Standards for Teachers and Students?

2006-11-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

There is no doubt that teachers are looking at trying to incorporate more technology into their classrooms, but in terms of the standards that are established for teaching technology in our classrooms, how many teachers are actually meeting these goals? I will try to examine how teachers are meeting the teaching standards set up for them by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

In terms of the first technology standard of basic operational knowledge of technology, I think that most teachers today have to use computers more in their daily work than in the past. Many teachers have used GradeQuick or some type of grading software for the grades and have even used email or instant messaging. To me, this first goal seems very easy to reach and continue meeting in the future as long as they continue to try and work with new technologies.

The second goal of planning and designing learning environments and experiences could pose some problems for teachers, but if there is an appropriate set of guidelines established by the administration and the school district, this goal could very easily be met. A lot of this success of this goal is going to be based on the access given to schools to technology and also the funds for paying for this technology.

The third goal of application of technology in instruction is where many teachers are going to start having some difficulties. I think that many teachers would try to use technology in the classroom, but due to limited use of the programs and a low level of comfort with programs, it could easily prevent many teachers from meeting this standard.

The fourth goal of assessment and evaluation is used to some extent by teachers in terms of using grading programs, but in the scheme of things, it really isn't probably being used by teachers in terms of providing students with alternative forms of assessment and evaluation that would lead to more interest and success in using technology in the classroom.

The fifth goal of productivity and professional practice is also going to tied into how much funding and support is going to be given by the district and the administration. If there is no incentive for moving more technology into the classroom, it will be hard for teachers to view technology as something that will help them become better teachers for their students.

The final goal for teachers of social, ethical, legal, and human issues is something that is probably dealt with in the computer classrooms of most schools. I know that in our school that our computer teacher works very hard with the students in providing them with information on the proper use of technology in the school setting. I also know that she discusses with the teachers about how to properly use technology in the school building, and while some teachers may just ignore what she says, you have a small group of teachers that are working at becoming better teachers of technology and also better at incorporating technology successfully in the classroom.

In any case, the standards are always going to not be met by teachers due to many factors, but the biggest limitation of meeting these standards is going to fall into the area of funding. With many schools having difficulty finding funds for daily operations of the school buildings, money that could be used to better accomodate teachers to using new technologies in the classroom setting are going to be moved to areas that are deemed more important to the survival of the school. It is always going to be a fine line for incorporating technology in the school setting, but without proper funding, it will be destined for failure.

The student standards are definitely something that is not going to be easily met in the regular classroom enviroment because of the lack of time that many teachers have due to the increased importance of meeting yearly growth in our standardized testing. With more of the focus put on meeting that yearly growth, many teachers are forced to abandon creativity in order to teach toward the test. If you have a good computer teacher who can focus on teaching to these standards, the goals could be easily met, but without the approval of the teacher, it could make meeting these goals nearly impossible.

As technology becomes increasingly more important in the future, I am sure that there will more of a movement by the government to bring about changes in the teaching of technology and its use in the classroom. However, until that time sees the light of day, it could be a long time before we see some improvement in how many schools with meet these teaching standards.

Are We Responsible Users of Technology?

2006-11-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

When first looking at our question for our blog for the week, I immediately began to think about workbook pages and textbook pages that I have copied for use in my classroom. In any type of educational program or institution, the funds for buying materials for the entire classroom is not usually a feasible plan. When looking at the Copyright Act of 1976 (Chapter 4: Basics of Copyright Law), it is interesting to see that once an original work is created, it immediately becomes protected by copyright laws. This got me thinking about how professors allow us to look at other WebQuests for ideas on our own WebQuest or even our ePortfolios. How legal is that? I thought that by getting ideas, as long as I am not fully taking their ideas as my own, would not amount to copyright infringment. But in reality, it would be taking their ideas since I would possibly use some parts of their ideas as my own unintentionally. It might be a color scheme that looks interesting or how the page was set up. All of this would be tied to the page's creator.

I feel it is really important that clear guidelines be set up by the school and the district to help make these concepts something that all teachers must have an understanding of. I know that many teachers at my school would have no knowledge of copyright laws and "fair use" policies. I know that this is not a valid reason but how many teachers really look into copyright laws even on a yearly basis. I know many teachers at my school who see nothing wrong with printing off entire workbooks for their classes. Does the teacher not know what he or she is doing is wrong, or do they not really care? In reality, if the teacher sees nothing wrong with what he or she is doing, what is going to stop them from teaching their students that this is acceptable? I think that this is one of the best reasons for increasing all teacher's knowledge of copyright laws and the consequences of breaking these laws.

The Role of Digital Storytelling in the Classroom

2006-10-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

At first, I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical on how effective the use of digital storytelling could actually be in the classroom. The readings seemed to have some great ideas but nothing really jumped out at me at the start. My outlook changed when I began to look at the wonderful stories being created at DigiTales. I watched the first one on the boy from New Orleans and his journey after the hurricanes and then watched a story about a woman's journey to South Africa with the Peace Corps. I was amazed at what people could accomplish when given the technology to make it happen. I began to think of ways that even my students could try to create meaningful stories with the available technology at our school. The possibilities are endless and maybe with some time and experience, I will try to integrate more of the digital storytelling into my classroom lessons.

I also was impressed with the website dealing with oral history archives, Telling Thier Stories, on the Holocaust survivors, camp liberators, and Japanese Internment Camp internees. I have always done a project with students creating booklets about individual survivors of the Holocaust from a teacher's guide that I had bought from the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. While the kids enjoyed reading the stories and creating individual books on the survivors, this could present even more individuals for my students to use and also provide them with the actual survivor's own words for use.

In the end, I think that there are many ways that students could use digital storytelling in a variety of classes and if done correctly, could actually improve student learning and interest in the subject matter being taught. This is definitely something that I will attempt to use in my lessons in the future.

Embracing New Literacies Fostered by "Digital Natives"

2006-10-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

In looking at the Pensky article on Digital Immigrants vs. Digital Natives, I can definitely understand why there is a frustration of teachers when trying to bring in new technologies to students. In many ways, the new technologies that the teachers are trying to incorporate are already behind where most "digital natives" are on in their use of technology. We tend to get frustrated because they seem bored when we are teaching a subject, but in many ways, it isn't from the fact that what we are teaching them is boring them but the way that we are teaching it to them is not "active" enough. This is due to the fact that children today tend to process information in a vastly different way than we as students used to only a short time ago. By making some teachers try to embrace these new technologies, it can foster some frustration because we can have such a difficult time learning it while the student can pick up the program with ease. If there is to be some change in the way that we teach with new technologies, we must find a middle ground to help the teachers intergrate it effectively in their teaching while also keeping the students actively engaged in the lesson that is being taught. It is not something that can be done overnight, but with time and resources, it can become a reality.

In Roblyer and Bennett, the idea of visual literacy is a very interesting concept. Though I don't agree that most students have a difficulty in "filtering" out the digital messages in their use of media, I think the problem mainly stems with their focus on the task at hand. Students today can focus on a wider variety of tasks than we did just a short time ago. They need to get their "tech fix" on a quicker basis. I see this happen all the time when kids start researching information on the web. Rarely do they spend more than a minute on a site before they quickly move to the next. When I was growing up, downloading a page used to take at least a minute before it would load, and we thought that was quick. We need as educators to teach the students to not just focus on the visual content but what is actually being said and taught in the resources. In the end, we have to look to the middle ground as teaching as a digital immigrants and learning as a digital native. As comfort levels can become more apparent, it will not only make the lessons more adaptable for the teacher but also more useful in how it can be learned by the student.

The Role of Media in Learning

2006-10-09T12:57:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that media and technology are important and will continue to important into the future. We all use some sort of media in our daily lessons be it newspaper articles, television, internet news, etc. but with new technologies come even bigger opportunities for additions to our daily lessons. We have used blogs in this class and previous classes and have found that they can be very useful in spreading individual ideas to a larger number of people. Daily class blogs could be very useful in keeping students and parents "in the know" about what is going on in your classes during the year.

In looking at the variety of sources that were included in our techsercise for this week, I found that there were many web-based media tools that could help in my classroom. Odeo Studio would be very useful for me in the use of taping lectures and readings for students who were absent so they would be able to keep up when they were gone. It would be useful for recording daily messages for teachers by administrators, other teachers, and even parent questions if they had the resources to do this.

A second site that I found that could be useful in my classroom was Flickr. I could see me using this right now with our cross country team and its use of sharing pictures with the whole team. We could create a file that all parents, athletes, and coaches could import pictures into to share with the whole team. I could use this in my classroom also by importing good pictures that my students could use for presentations, research papers, etc. for the school. It provides a good way of putting everything useful in one place. This would cut down on the amount of time that students waste when trying to find information online and that could be used on organizing the information.

In conclusion, there were many other valuable resources that were available on the website that could be used and with more time, I could easily find ways to incorporate many other resources in my daily classroom activities. I was very happy with the amount of available resources that were quality sites that could be used in any classroom. In the future, there will be even more that could help improve the teaching methods of all teachers and that is never a bad thing.

Blended Learning in Classroom Learning

2006-09-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Before I can make an accurate determination of whether or not blended learning is useful in classroom learning, I want to first define what blended learning really is. First of all, blended learning is not a concept that is clearly defined. I feel that blended learning refers to blending e-learning techniques with traditional teaching methods to help improve the learning process in all students.

I think that blended learning, if done correctly and efficiently, can really improve how a student learns the subject. All students learn differently, and if by incorporating a variety of learning styles into your teaching style improves student learning then it is something that teachers will want to use in their classrooms. Technology is becoming a more readily available resource for using in the classroom setting, and it is our job as teachers to get the technology incorporated into our lesson plans in a way that will stimulate learning in the students. As long as teachers do not throw technology at the students in a way that confuses and discourages learning, technology can enable learning in a student.

Another advantage of using blended learning in the classroom is by helping teachers ease more technology into their classroom environment. If a teacher uses one or two forms of technology in their lesson plans and sees an increase in student learning, they will be more likely incorporate more technology in future lesson plans. This will benefit both the teacher and the student because it opens up more ways in how a student can effectively learn the material.

In the end, blended learning can be a very useful tool for teachers, but I also think that there needs to be a set comfort level for both the teacher and the student for it be successful in the long run. There is no doubt in my mind that this will be the way of successful teaching and learning in the future.

Empowering Student Learning?

2006-09-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

In terms of looking at how the WebQuest would empower student learning, I think it can emphasize two different areas. The first area that the WebQuest will help empower student learning is in the area of researching. Granted, most of the web information will be provided to the students, but it will hopefully teach the students what a quality website really can provide in terms of information. Since our WebQuest will have wide variety of links and information, the WebQuest can also show the students how much research really needs to go into creating a quality presentation or paper. The second crucial area where the WebQuest can empower student learning is in the area of enriching critical thinking skills. It can be very difficult especially for students in the younger grades to think critically about issues presented to them. If you can bring students along the way in how to approach issues and think critically about them by asking them guiding questions that will help them along the way, it will definitely help them down the road to think critically more effectively.

Ideas for a WebQuest

2006-09-08T07:06:00.000-07:00

In looking at the wide variety of WebQuests that were presented, I thought that it would be a great idea to create a cross-curricular WebQuest that would use an event that would allow many different teaching areas to be covered effectively throughout the project. When discussing with Bret and Dale, they agreed that a WebQuest that used the Olympics as a basis would be something that would fit this idea.

In terms of how we would set up our WebQuest, we would break it up into individual sections. Since Dale's teaching area is mathematics, he thought he could look at the percentage change in times and distances of events throughout the years. Since Bret's teaching area is physical education, he thought he could look at training programs and stretching used by the athletes. He could also incorporate the affects of performance enhancing drugs on athletes since it has been so evident in the news today. And since my area is social studies, I would look at the effects of geography and culture on the Olympics. We could look at why certain cities hold the Olympics and why some cities cannot. We can look at the effects of geographic landforms and their effects on athletic performance like long jumping in the high altitudes of Mexico City.

We all feel that this would be something that we would use in our school and actually think that the kids would have a lot of fun working with this type of WebQuest. Hopefully, it sounds like something that would be good for our group to use.

20 Tech Skills Every Educator Should Know

2006-08-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that educators now and into the future will have to try to incorporate technology more into their classrooms. As this is the case, it will be even more important for teachers to know how to use these new forms of technology.

Word Processing Skills
In my opinion, it is clear that teachers will have to know how to use word processing skills for the main purpose that creating materials for classroom use. It really is the most basic skill that all need to use.

Spreadsheets Skills
Spreadsheets are useful for keeping information organized. In my opinion, I think that it is useful for teachers to learn how to use spreadsheet, but overall, I doubt all teachers will need to know how to use this skill. The biggest use of this skill would probably be in gradesheet creation.

Database Skills
In terms of my knowledge, I have a very basic understanding and use of databases. In fact, I have never used this in my daily technology use. I guess I could find some way to use, but overall, I really haven't used it in my classroom.

Electronic Presentation Skills
I think this is easily the most commonly used skill that will be used in the years to come in how teachers organize information for student consumption. I have created lessons using PowerPoint in my classroom a few times and the kids all tend to enjoy this. The lack of presenters in the school can cause some problems, but as presenters begin to move down in price, I think it will be something that will be brought into many more classrooms.

World Wide Web Navigation Skills
I think that as we become more tech savy, the ease of navigation of the web will be something that everyone will have learned. Since, in most cases, I have used the web on a daily basis, I think that it is a great source of information for myself and my students. I think the biggest challenge shouldn't be navigation skills but how to interpret the usefullness of the information that is gained.

Web site Design Skills
I think that this is a very useful skill to learn. I think that as we move forward that teachers will have to know how to create web pages so that parents and students will have access to daily information in the classroom. As long as teachers can be taught to use web page design effectively, this will be something that everyone will be able to do in the future.

E-Mail Management Skills
I think that in today's world that most people have knowledge of how to use email. Since it has become the one way that people can communicate easily and quickly with one another, it is becoming the real way that most people communicate in the world. In my case, I use email daily.

Digital Cameras Knowledge
I use digital camera almost weekly and rarely even use film cameras anymore. As a coach for cross country at our school, we take pictures at every meet and create presentations at the end of the year for our kids. This definitely is something that every teacher should be able to use since it can provide examples what is done in the classroom on a consistent basis.

Networking Knowledge
I know how to access my network but in terms of my knowledge of the inner workings of the network, I don't have any real knowledge of it. I think this falls into the role of the technology coordinator and not really into the job of the teacher.

File Management and Windows Explorer Skills
I think this is one of most basic skills that all teachers should learn. If you can't manage your files, it can kind of make things difficult to find all the work that you have done. I think that younger teachers have a good background in this type of skill but some older teachers may have some issues with this. I use this skill also daily.

Downloading Software from the Web
I think that most teachers are limited in their skills of how to download software and because of that, this becomes a very important skill for them to learn. With the vast numbers of useful programs available, it makes it doubly important for teachers to learn this skill.

Installing Computer Software
Most computers today that are set up for a network prevent teachers from installing computer software on their computer, and in most cases, this falls to the technology coordinator of the school to get this done. One helpful thing is that Windows and Mac operating systems are usually very helpful in completing this skill anyways if this needs to be done on home computers.

WebCT or Blackboard Teaching Skills
I can honestly say that I have no knowledge of this type of skill. By looking it over, I can see how this could be very beneficial but I think a lack of funds can also impact this use. Maybe as time moves on, it will be more cost effective for use, but at this time, as a small town school, it can be pretty hard to get use on this.

Video Conferencing Skills
I know that some teachers in our building have video conferences with NASA astronauts during their space lessons. This is due to the fact that one of our teachers takes summer programs through NASA. I can see the benefits of this in terms of getting people to see a wider concept of the world especially in social studies, and it will be something that I will look at becoming more efficient in using.

Computer Related Storage Devices Knowledge
I save most of my information on the server, CD-ROMs, or DVD-ROMs. I know that some of my fellow teachers are using USB drives to save information and I am also looking into purchasing one just in case we have another incident like last year when the server was down for a few days. This will continue to be an important skill as more and more teachers begin to use computers in the future.

Scanner Knowledge
Again, I have knowledge of this from using it to scan results into Adobe to send to an Internet site that catalogs meets from the year. I have also used this to scan pictures for web pages and so forth. I feel this is a very valuable resource.

PDAs Knowledge
I have some limited knowledge of how to use PDAs, but overall, I would not even consider myself very proficient in its use. I do not know how effective these will be for all teachers to know how to use.

Deep Web Knowledge
I really had no knowledge of this idea, and I find it as something that is very useful for research purposes. It is important that student use a wide variety of engines to search for information and this skill will also benefit teachers. I will definitely spend some time learning more about this.

Educational Copyright Knowledge
Again I think this is a task of the technology coordinator at the school in terms of programs. However, the use of web information and its copyright issues are something that I spend a few days discussing with my students because I know it can lead to some problems. The librarian at our school is really beneficial to me with learning this skill.

Computer Security Knowledge
I think our school does a good job with keeping our network secure, but I also know that this can become more of a problem as students get more knowledgeable about computers and networks. Since technology progresses at such a high rate, it is important for everyone to try and keep the network as secure as it can possibly be.