How to Evaluate a Website

I explored the website about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. Watch the following Screencast that explains how to determine if a website contains accurate information.

Legit Website

Final Reflection

After completing the readings, discussions, and watching the videos, my beliefs of how students best learn have been verified, but better yet, I have new tools to help me be a more effective teacher. My teaching philosophy centers around the belief that students need to make meaningful connections to what they are learning in order to build upon and retain information. Some of the tools that were introduced in this course will help me translate this philosophy into what I teach. The immediate changes I will make will be the use of technology as a collaborative tool. Students will learn from one another by utilizing tools that allow them to share, build projects, and understanding together.

Voicethread is a tool that I plan to incorporate into many different areas of my curriculum. I can see the value of this tool as a way to get students to be active learners and I am looking forward to using it with my students. Voicethread provides an opportunity for students to learn by using both visual and auditory tools which is key to student learning. The other tool that I plan to use with my students is Webspiration. I like the collaborative nature of this tool and the versatility it will provide for students while learning about and mapping out information for different topics.

One of my long-term goals that I have for my instructional practice is to make more of an effort to use technology as more of a learning tool and less of an instructional tool. Although I can see the value of using it as a learning tool, I can also see that it is even more important to get technology into the hands of students. This leads me to my second long-term goal. I will use technology as a way to incorporate more project-based learning where students are given the tools and freedom to be more active participants. It is important for students to develop an understanding of material through doing and creating and technology is a great way to do this!

Technology Brings us Together

Technology has allowed us to voice our opinions, seek help, research, share and socialize. Does it have a place in the classroom? Of course it does. For me the question is how? I feel pretty lucky to have what I do at the school I teach at. We have some pretty amazing Grant writers that work hard to get some of the latest and greatest technology. The problem with technology is that it is ever-changing, what is great one year, is out-dated the next. This can be very difficult to keep up with when you are working with limited resources.

The other problem that schools face is time, or lack thereof. As an educator I feel like every year there is more and more to do and teach. I enjoy learning about and using technology and I spend a fair amount of time at home doing things on the computer. There is very little time in the classroom to do what we are already doing. How do we add technology to the mix without taking away from other things? Check out my Voicethread to post your thoughts and comments about what life is like in your school or classroom and how you make it all work!

Voicethread Link

Instructional Strategies and Constructivism

Constructivism is a theory built from the Constructivist theories of Jean Piaget, who believed that knowledge is not just transmitted from teacher to student, but actively constructed in the mind of the learner (Orey, 2001).

As a teacher I have found a great amount of truth behind the Constructivist theories and how it pertains to learning. The projects that were described in our reading were excellent examples of how to get students to be active participants in their learning. I have tried similar Project Based Learning activities in my own teaching where students are given an expectation and the tools to achieve it, and have seen positive results....most of the time. There is a lot that can go wrong, but with proper planning these projects can have great results. I find that creating projects where students can't just sit back and daydream makes them be a part of the process. They develop a sense of ownership and make connections to things that I couldn't even begin to convey through directed instruction. Allowing students to creatively develop answers to questions and problems in their own way gets them excited and makes the experience much more meaningful.

Powerpoint, Excel, internet, Kidspiration....there are TONS of different applications available to use, but it doesn't matter what mode of technology is used to create the final artifact. What matters is that students are given the tools and freedom to find their own answers. Allowing students to have freedom to arrive at their own final product can be difficult for a few reasons. As the teacher, I must not only have a clear set of expectations and outcomes, but I must also have thought about all that could go wrong ahead of time. The other limiting factor is the amount of time in the computer lab that is needed to work on such projects. In the end though, the final artifact and the satisfaction that a students feels makes it all worth the extra effort. I've never had a student say they didn't enjoy doing such projects. Most of the time they aren't even aware of all they are learning!

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page

Cognitive Learning Theories

Application 3 Blog:

Explain how instructional strategies correlate with the principles of cognitive learning theory.

Discovery leads to meaningful learning, which leads to creative productions (Novak & Cañas, 2008). That is the theory behind the instructional strategies introduced in this week’s readings. These strategies correlate with the cognitive learning theory because they allow students to explore and make connections to what they already know by allowing students to integrate the different senses. Using tools like spreadsheets and concept mapping helps students visualize rather than just read about information. This dual coding is an important aspect to storing information in long-term memory. Creating visualizations gives students a way to retrieve information from the network of information that they have stored. These strategies also allow students to make connections to prior knowledge and elaborate on this knowledge, which is also important to helping students learn and retain information.

Resources:

Novak, J. D. & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them, Technical Report IHMC CmapTools 2006-01 Rev 01-2008. Retrieved from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition Web site:

http://cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/

TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.pdf

Behaviorism in Practice

Application 2:

Post your thoughts on how the instructional strategies described in the resources you explored this week correlate with the principles of behaviorist learning theory.

The behaviorist theory focuses on the role of stimulus and reinforcement in the learning process. Teachers have used this theory in a variety of different ways to teach students a variety of things. This weeks reading focused on reinforcement by showing students real information about themselves using a spreadsheet. The lessons used excel to show quick comparisons that allowed students to receive an immediate visual response. Both the immediacy and visual aspects of such activities are important factors in the effectiveness of the behaviorist theory.

Technology allows for versatility to help meet the different needs of the learners that exist in each classroom. It not only makes it easier to meet these needs, but it also makes it more fun. Technology has played a huge role in motivating my students. There is a sense of satisfaction that many students get from being able to do something new using technology, especially when they can show off their skills to a parent. These rewards all center around the Behaviorist Theory.

Final Reflection

In what ways has this course helped you to develop your own technology skills as a professional teacher?

This class has encouraged me to seek new ways to incorporate technology into my classroom. I have always enjoyed learning about and using technology with my students, but sometimes I lacked direction. I now have some clear ideas as to what skills I need to be focusing on to make learning relevant to my students’ lives.

In what ways have you deepened your knowledge of the teaching and learning process?

My knowledge of the learning process has deepened in that I have a better understanding of how important it is to include ways for students to share and find their own answers to relevant problems so that they can take ownership in what they learn. I have learned that technology can be used as a tool that will help them learn how to collaborate and investigate to arrive at a common goal.

In what ways have you changed your perspective from being teacher-centered to learner-centered?

My perspective has changed in that I now see how important it is for students to become the experts. It is my job to guide and help students understand how to use tools and learn the skills that will help them find and utilize information.

In what ways can you continue to expand your knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology with the aim of increasing student achievement?

I will continue to seek different ways to help my students to gain the skills they need for the 21^st century by incorporating technology in all areas of my teaching. I will not rely on traditional teaching methods, but embrace, and share, ways to continue to teach lessons that allow for creative and collaborative problem solving methods using a variety of technology related tools.

Set two long-tem goals (within two years) for transforming your classroom environment by which you may have to overcome institutional or systemic obstacles in order to achieve them. How do you plan to accomplish these goals?

Two long-term goals that I have set for myself include creating a class wiki and implementing the use of podcasts. These two technology based tools allow students to learn and practice skills that are important 21^st Century skills. Before taking this course, my goals would have lacked focus on these skills. I now understand the concept of doing different things and doing things differently and the difference between the two. I plan to start out small with these two goals and develop a system over time that works through trial and error. I think the main obstacle that I will encounter will be adequate time and access to the technology. I will dedicate our time allotted in the computer lab to working on these projects.

This course has given me a much clearer understanding of the kinds of skills that I must focus on to help my students be successful 21^st Century learners. I am looking forward to using many of the tools that I learned about and watching my students grow from these experiences.