Week 4 Posting for Enhancing Learning Material through Technology CEDO 525

The first item I want to reflect upon this week is the video How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World by Clay Shirky.  This video quickly caught my interest because he was taking about the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island.  I lived in New York in 2002 and was able to see this crazy parade.  Anyway, I thought that Clay made a great point of how Flicker's Tag function makes collaboration much more easier and allows anyone the ability to share there pictures and not just photographers.  In my own life, I use Facebook often and have used the Tag function for photos of people I have taken.  It really does eliminate the need for an institution.  You don't need one person finding pictures and publishing them, or a hierarchy of people doing this, it is done by the individuals and the collaboration is done for itself.  This truly saves time and headaches!  Tagging does replace planning with coordination.  Makes life easier. 

The other video I watched this week was How Cognitive Surplus will Change the World by Clay Shirky.  After watching this video, the events that have been occurring in North Africa and the Middle East came straight to mind.  It seems that all of the unrest that has been happening the second half of 2010 and the first half of this year has been due to "Cognitive Surplus".  Those countries have come to a point in their history where they have the technology to connect people together and the push forward their yearning for freedom.  It appears that much of what Clay was saying will continue to take shape in that part of the world until the people of these countries are free.

The next two things I want to talk about are the topics we discussed in class this past week, Cooperative Learning and Reinforcing Effort.  I think Cooperative Learning is so crucial for our students.  They will need to know how to do this all of their life.  I often see that students don't like doing this much because of personality conflicts.  We are lucky today to have different technologies that can help students learn cooperatively and work out personality issues they may have with others.  Tools suck as Google Docs and Webspiration can help students gather what they have learned and do so in a manner that is beneficial to them academically and socially. Even making a movie about the subjects they are working on can help them in these areas as well.      As for Reinforcing Effort,  there are just a ton of tools we can use as teachers to let the students know we notice the effort they are putting forth.  Whether it is a certificate made online and emailed to a parent, a quick email home, or a text message to the student telling them they did a great job. All of these things can have a huge effect on how the student feels about their work and have an effect on how much effort they put into future assignments.  

Week 3 Posting for Enhancing Learning Material through Technology CEDO 525

This week, I looked at three different websites that provide graphic organizer tools.  The first site I looked at was www.educationoasis.com  I really liked this site because it provides many printable tools that I can use with my classes right now.  All I would need to do is print one out and make copies.  This would be good to have as a starter for class when the students do not have access to a computer.  Some of the items I think I can use on this site are the Think Pair Share chart, KWL chart, and the Cluster Web.  I'm sure I can use the other items on this site, but for know I can see immediate use for these.  A down side to this site, compared with the other two I looked at, is this site only has templates, it is not used to create a concept map from scratch.  The other two sites I looked at were similar.  The purpose of both of them is to make an electronic concept map.  One of the sites I played around with was Bubbl.us.  Something I found helpful on this site was the ability to play around with the concept map tool before signing up an account on the site.  I wish more online tools would do that.  It allows you to get a sense if you want to continue using it or not.  This site was useful, but after I made an account and played with it a while, I felt the other concept map site I tried, Mindmeister.com  was easier for me to use.  I like the easy way to add and delete bubbles in Mindmeister.  With Bubbl.us, you have to use the keyboard, and I'd rather use the mouse.  I also liked the tool bar better and just felt the over all experience was more productive.  The next time I have my students use a concept map, I would like to use Mindmeister. 

Besides commenting on concept mapping sites, I would like to reflect on some of the strategies we read in our book and talked about in class this week.  One of the strategies I would like to use more for Cues, Questions and Advance Organizers is the idea of a pre-chapter survey.  I would like to set up a column for before the chapter and a column for after the chapter is finish to see if the students agree or disagree with a given statement.  I think this would be very useful in my Civics class because there are so many topics my students seem to be unfamiliar with, this would be a great way of testing them on what they actually learned during the chapter.  As for the area of Nonlinguistic Representation, I have started to have my students do illustrations for their weekly current events quiz.  Instead of writing a paragraph summary, the students could chose to write a short sentence and then draw an illustration of the story they want to share.  This works very well with many of my learning disabled students who have more of an artistic ability than a writing ability.  As for note taking, I currently give the students a few pages per chapter that go along with power point presentations that I have for them.  The students have to fill in the blanks of the words they see underlined in the presentation.  I like this type of note taking because if a student is absent, all he or she needs to do is go to my J drive folder and the presentation fits perfectly into their fill in the blank notes.  As for other note taking strategies, I am willing to try something like the Cornell Notetaking strategy, though I have a feeling that many of my students would find that as too much writing and may shut down. 

I felt that this week I learned some real practical tools that I could use with my students.  Though I have used hand outs for concept maps in the past, I don't use them often.  I think the materials that I got this week, both hand outs and electronic tools, will help me use them more with my students. 

Week 2 Readings for Enhancing Learning Material through Technology

The first article I read this week was called "Feedback that Fits" by Susan Brookhart.  One thing that I took out of this reading is to realize how quickly feedback should be given to students.  If a student is working on something such as math or other subjects that require the student to memorize facts, it's good to have instant feedback with the student.  For example, if you are working with a student how to figure out pay they would earn based on the number of hours they've worked.  Instant feedback would be beneficial because the student would know whether or not if they did the problem correctly.  On the flip side, you may not want to give feedback right away on something like a written paper.  You may need to see a few examples before you give meaningful feedback to the student.  As for the kind of feedback to give a kid, I have always felt, and this feeling was confirmed in this reading, that talking to a student one on one does the best for providing good feedback.  Though it's not always practical, I like to try to talk to each of my students one on one regarding their work as often as I can.  Overall, I feel that I do a good job at providing feedback to students I work with, but I know I can always get better.  I can do it more often and do it in a variety of ways, whether if it is written, vocal in class or a one on one conversation. 

Another thing I investigated this week was a rubric creating website and a quiz creating website.  I don't use rubrics too often, but when I do they seem to take time and I'm really not sure if I make them as accurately as I could.  The website Rubrix.com allows anyone to make rubrics online for nearly any time of evaluation.  One thing I thought interesting was that you can use the rubrics made on Rubrix.com either on your computer or on a mobile device.  That can make it easy if you want to move around and look at student work and at the same time show them if they are following the rubric correctly.  Besides Rubrix.com, I signed up for a quiz creating site called http://quizstar.4teachers.org/ .   A great feature of this site is that it is free to join.  I really can't wait to use this with my Civics class.  I have always had the students take their tests and quizzes with paper and pen, but I want to try to make a quiz that they can take in the computer lab.  This site will enable me to do that and I will be able to have it graded online.  I really think this is the way everyone should go, because how often do you use pens or pencils anymore?  

Besides the sites I was to look at this week, I also need to comment a little about setting objectives, providing feedback and providing recognition.  Since I have already talked quite a bit about providing feedback earlier, I am just going to talk about setting objectives and providing recognition to summarize this weeks blog.   As we were talking about in class and read in our book, objectives are really important for students.  Without a real set goal in place, students will not work as hard as they are capable of and they may get lost with the topics the class is working on.  Just by setting up the class with the end in site, this can help our students feel a little more comfortable with what they are studying and have something to strive for by the end of the chapter or unit.  Finally, providing recognition is also a very important element in the classroom.  I like to think of this in the terms of my own life.  When I have done something really well or have done something the way it's supposed to be done, being recognized for my work gives me a charge and makes me want to do well again.  I know that this is the case also with many of my students.  I think many of my students don't get the chance to hear they are doing well as much as they should.  Many of them think they are not "good" at school and that builds up on them.  When I think of all of my students, there isn't anyone I can't give recognition to for something in school, though sometimes it may take a little thinking to what that something is.   One example that comes to mind is a freshman girl who I case manage and have in two classes.  She started the year off really rough.  She would not do her work and her grades failed miserably.  The minute I saw that she was doing something well, I let her have as much recognition as I could.  I made her know that I thought she was doing a good job and that she has the ability to do what needs to be done.  As I have been letting her hear more of that, her grades are no much better and she is failing one class instead of six.  I like to think that some of my recognition has helped her change her outlook of school. 

New class.....Enhancing Learning Materials through Technology Week 1

After a week off, I have started another new class.  This class is called Enhancing Learning Materials through Technology and I will be taking this class for the next five weeks.  To start out this class, we were supposed to read two online articles and respond.  The first article I read was called Principles of Teaching and Learning.  The article was split up into two different views.  One looking at the aspects of effective learning and the other looking at the aspects of effective teaching.  I currently teach high school age learning disability students.  Many of the points brought up in the learning section of this article I see as struggles for my students.  For example, a lot of my students have minimal background knowledge on topics in class.  I often think this makes it much harder to get points across to students and for the students to get a good mental picture of what we are discussing.  I often have a much more interactive class if I have a few kids who do have background knowledge and can help others in the class with the topic at hand.  However, there are those times when I have students who think they know something and they don't and I have to correct them.  But I look at that as a learning opportunity.  Many times when students bring ideas that aren't correct up in class, that is the best time for them to be corrected and to truly understand the topic.  Another point in the article that I can relate to with my students is the motivation aspect.  Overall, I feel that I do an adequate job of motivating my students and helping them be more open to learning, but there are always some students who are very hard to motivate and then it is hard for them to grasp the concept.  I would like to be able to motivate all learners, but not sure if I will ever reach that goal.   Another issue in this article that I agree with is the climate for learning point that was made.  Although many of my students are socially and intellectually younger than their chronological age, I still try to provide a learning atmosphere that is positive and that treats the students like any other ninth grade students.  I think that is a major part of their learning if they see the teacher cares about them and notices that they don't baby them and expects a lot from them.

In the other part of this article relating to teaching principles, there were also a few points that stuck out at me.  The first point made about having relevant knowledge of students is crucial. I try to do that on a daily basis.  I want to know what my students are interested in whether it is outside of school or in their classes.  I feel I get a lot more out of my students when they know I care about them and when they see that I can relate what we are talking about in class with something they are involved with often outside of class.  The other point that I think is really important is the ability of the teacher to make explicit expectations.  I do this daily and also make sure that the students understand what will be going on from day to day or week to week.  I like having a structured class where my students know where to look every day for what will be happening as well as know the materials that are expected of them to have in class.  I also expect each of my students to do well on assessments, even if I know many struggle.  I expect all of my students to re-do their assessments if not done at a certain level.  I think these high expectations make the students realize that I care that they learn information that is taught in my class and that they should take more of the learning on to themselves so they are not constantly making assessments up.  The other point I want to touch base on is recognizing our "expert blind spots".  I have done a lot in my life which has given me a lot to share with my students, but I know that may be over many of the students heads.  I am constantly asking questions with students and make sure that how I present information is not presented in just a way a person who has experienced the topic can relate to.   Finally, once every few weeks, I will ask students what they enjoyed in my class and what they feel I should have done differently.  I have changed some things that I teach based on student feedback and enjoy having that feedback to base how I will teach next year.  

The other article that I read was called A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of teaching and learning.   This article was looking at the overall effects of technology in the classroom.  I found it interesting that some of the studies showed that having computer assisted instruction had positive effects, yet the effects were small.  I would have thought that just by having computer in the used in instruction, the positive outcomes would be much more pronounced.