EDU 533 Week 7 - Midterm Evaluation: Tech-nically speaking

Before beginning this course I was no technophobe, but I must admit that keeping up with the latest technology had taken a back seat to everyday things like cooking, laundry, nagging my children, making kick-ass Halloween costumes and cutting the guinea pig's toenails.

Halfway (or a little more, I think) through EDU 533, I feel much more up-to-date on the latest web tools that are available and am very excited about the ways these tools can help me as a future teacher. I think we've made an admirable dent in the learning outcomes for this class.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

1. Demonstrate the understanding of how technologies can effectively promote student learning. If someone were to come up to my on the street and phrase this as a question, I think I'd have a pretty good answer: Kids today have grown up on the Internet and are generally very comfortable using technology, as we learned through the documentaries  Frontline: Growing Up Online and  Frontline: Digital Nation. First of all, teachers need to understand that this plugged-in generation requires a different teaching style than previous generations and that the digital gadgets and websites these kids love can also benefit them in the classroom. Things like blogs, avatars and wikis can appeal to different types of learners and help keep them engaged. The use of websites such as animoto.com, which facilitate multi-media projects, can help students reach the highest level learning objectives on Bloom's Taxonomy and develop high order thinking skills. And let's not forget that technology is transforming life for teachers too, offering us excellent organization tools, streamlining our lesson planning and helping us stay connected to other educators.

2. Evaluate and use a variety of current technologies to enhance content instruction and to advance studentsí technological literacy

So far, we have explored several specific technologies that can add value to the student's learning experience and help him or her become better acquainted with the web tools that are available. I have become familiar with blogging and can see how it would be a useful tool both for sharing information with students and for allowing them to exercise their creativity. We played around with making avatars on sites like Voki.com and saw how they could be used to get kids interested in a particular topic. As homework we viewed webinars and saw how these could provide us with a wealth of useful information we could put to use in our classrooms. And we have  begun learning about webquests and how they can open up all kinds of new learning experiences for young people.

3. Design meaningful and authentic digitally based learning experiences with multiple and varied assessments. As one of our assignments, we had to design avatars on voki.com which would deliver public service announcements about being good digital citizens. I think these could be meaningful in the classroom because they're just fun for the kids to view and then possibly play around with on their own. We also wrote fill-in-the-blank poems that we turned into "word clouds" using Tagxedo.com. These could prove to be very authentic ways of connecting with students and meeting learning objectives such as these:
Commmon Core:
L. 8.5 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

• Interpret figures of speech (e.g. verbal irony, puns) in context.
• Use the relationship between particular words to better understand each of the words.
• Distinguish among the connotations (associations) of words with similar denotations (definitions) (e.g., bullheaded, willful, firm, persistent, resolute).

L.8.3. Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

• Use verbs in the active and passive voice and in the conditional and subjunctive mood to achieve particular effects (e.g., emphasizing the actor or the action; expressing uncertainty or describing a state contrary to fact).

ITSE:
1. Creativity and Innovation
Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and
processes using technology.
a. Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes
b. Create original works as a means of personal or group expression

4. Reflect upon and demonstrate effective use of digital tools and resources To use digital tools effectively we as teachers have to understand them and their importance. Since beginning this class I've definitely become a believer in infusing my lesson plans with technology as well as using it to help me be a more effective teacher. One thing that stuck with me from one of the videos we watched in class was not to be afraid to let kids take the lead with some of the projects that use technology. Not only can we as teachers learn from our digitally savvy students but the act of teaching it to us and to their peers can boost their confidence and reinforce what they know.

5. Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of safe, ethical, legal and moral practices related to digital information and technology. Our class spent a lot of time talking about the importance of being good digital citizens and teaching our students how to be good digital citizens as well. We made public service announcements on the topic and watched several documentaries and videos about topics such as cyber bullying, internet addiction and our digital dossier.

Digital Dossier video

6. Illustrate through application how state and national standards are implemented within the curriculum (e.g., NH Curriculum Frameworks, ISTE (NETS-Teacher/NETS-Student) and NH-ICT Literacy Standards for K-12 Students (306.42)) We are beginning to slog our way through various state and national standards including the Commoncore Standards and ITSE standards and have practiced locating the standards that best fit various projects we've done in class. We've also begun work on a lesson plan and a webquest, both of which have helped us become more familiar with the standards and how to apply them to our teaching.

7. Demonstrate an understanding of the use of adaptive technologies and other digital resources to personalize and differentiate learning activities for every student. I'm not sure about adaptive technologies, but we've definitely learned how various digital resources can help reach students at their level and accommodate the varied learning styles found within every classroom. For example, a video that we watched for homework last week when we were paired up to work on a Google document showed a teacher helping her students put together a multi-media study guide for Shakespeare's Hamlet. She discussed how that project was appealing to many of her hands-on students who never would have stayed engaged through a traditional review session.

8. Evaluate, adapt and reflect on emerging tools and trends by participating in local and global learning communities and by reviewing current research and professional literature. For one of our first projects, we had to choose a webinar to watch and then review on our blog. I chose a webinar on Symbaloo, a relatively new web tool that helps educators keep their bookmarks organized in an at-a-glance, visually appealing format; they can also add all sorts of other information, from student portfolios to collaborative lesson plans. The webinars are a great way to learn about new tools and trends and participate in local and global learning communities. In class, we also learned how to use Google Reader, a good tool for staying on top of current research and professional literature.