5364 Course Embedded Reflection

My collaboration with my colleagues has been especially meaningful with this course.  There have been several instances in this course when the instructions have not been clear, and we have been able to work as a team to overcome those challenges.  We have often used email, our google docs and google hangout as a means to accomplish our goal of addressing the given scenario.   

I feel the two texts that were required of this course have been very instrumental in the way we chose to address the scenario.  Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works has been and will continue to be my “go to” asset when considering technologies to enhance my student’s learning experience.   Also, Web 2.0 new tools, new schools, has reminded me of the importance of ongoing assessment rather than waiting until the end of the unit to assess.  I believe that these two texts were instrumental when my group used the CAST Lesson Builder to create our UDL lesson. 

Again, the instructions were not clear on the creation of the electronic book.  Therefore, each individual team member created their own for that particular week.  My personal experience with creating the book was that it would be a fun activity for young students to do.  However, the one flaw I saw with that particular site was that even though you listed yourself as the author of the book in the first initial production steps, that step did not transfer once the book was published. As the author, you needed to add that text as part of your cover page.  

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

"All this means is that we don't wait until the 'unit' is over to determine how well the students and we as educators are doing!"
This was the largest lesson I have had to learn in my career. In the beginning, I remember feeling so confident and elated when I knew I had delivered an awesome lesson.  Especially when I had thoroughly covered all angles of the concept only to discover in the end it had gone completely over my students heads.  That is the beauty of differentiated assessment. And no longer are the days of long lectures with a quiz or test at the end.  We are now at a time when as teachers we know that dropping in on the students, questioning during discussion and allowing for short spurts of "show me how" are so extremely helpful.  This way we know before its to late if further clarification is needed or even a reteach.
Kristi Martin

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 155-164.

" To be prepared for the fast-paced, virtual workplace that they will inherit, today's students need to be able to learn and produce cooperatively."

I whole heartedly agree with this statement.  This is especially true with my students.  My students attend a virtual school in which they receive one live lesson a week.  This is our pilot year for live lessons. In the past, the student worked individually and asked questions of the teacher when needed.  In my particular class, I am collaborating with my students through video and live lesson, and I am allowing them to collaborate with each other.  The quality of product these kids are producing is phenomenal. They are completely engaged  and more confident in what they are doing. It has been a very positive change for them to be able to work collaboratively. 

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Chapter 7.

I originally posted this on Blackboard Sept 16.

UDL lesson builder:
I like this model and understand the concept of it.  However, it is very time consuming.  This may be a good model for new teachers, but I would be very surprised if districts would require this type of lesson planning.  Teachers are already at a loss for time. I would rather concentrate on the quality of the lesson itself not just the plan. When we add too many tedious tasks the actual production is what suffers.

Welcome to the Digital Generation. I absolutely loved this video.  The music in the beginning really pulls you in and grabs your attention. I agree with idea that technology is an "essential component of everyday life".  I think that as adults who have not grown up in this digital age we tend to negate or not realize this fact. As an educator, we see the cell phone in class as the students biggest distraction. However, are we taking into consideration how often we as adults check our cell phone. We use it to communicate both through text messages and emails.  We use it tell time and keep track of our engagements. We use it as a calculator. Image what uses the students could come up with if we allowed them to use them in class.  If we allowed them that empowerment.

Edutopia.org (nd). Welcome to the Digital Generation. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-project-overview-video

Web conference 9/14:
Today's web conference was very help and informative in regards to the tasks that are due this week.  We learned that our group needs to only turn in one ebook.  However, there was only two out of four of our members at this conference. My concern is that the other two participants will do their own ebook.  So Maria and I decided that we would each do our own book as well. Another helpful collaboration piece was the "how to" with loading our ebook to our site. 

I am really enjoying the content that this class has to offer. I am already thinking of how to incorporate the skills that we are learning. I just wish this class did not fall at the same time as the beginning of school starting.  That has been an overwhelming challenge.

"Because of their inherent flexibility, digital technologies can adjust to learner differences, enabling teachers to (1) differentiate problems a student may have using particular kinds of learning media from more general learning problems and (2) draw upon a student's other strengths and interests that may be blocked by the exclusive use of printed text."  It is for this reason that I find online curriculum so fascinating. I have taught in a traditional brick and mortar school with text as the main basis for curriculum, and I am currently facilitating an online curriculum that is mainly web based.  The largest difference that I am seeing is that the online curriculum encompasses so many different types of media as a means of learning.  That is not to say the students do not have text that they are required to access, but the program also offers animated videos, audio books and curriculum specific games to enhance the learning material. One notable observation that I have made, is that the students who are new to this style of learning are struggling with the independence part of this type of curriculum.  They tend to see links and try to get by with only accessing that part of the curriculum.  They are so used to being spooned fed every aspect of the lesson, even the directions, that they are not reading all of the directions and end up missing part of the instruction. My focus this first two weeks has been to train them on using all of the tools that are offered with this type of curriculum, the text portions as well as the media portions in an effort to reach all learning modalities.

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 Web site. Chapter 1. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

Web Conference: September 7, 2013

This web conference was very helpful in the respect of the ideas that were shared.  Being that I am not an inclusion teacher or have a special education certificate, I have not had a student who was either visually impaired or hearing impaired.  Thankfully our group has a member who is special education certified. However, we are doing a group hangout today, and I will share with my group some of the applications that were shared on the web conference.  I also wonder how applications such as Reading Horizons, Istation and Study Island can benefit my current students.

Lastly, we discussed reflections. I am noticing that my groups website does not yet contain a page for reflections. Today we need to discuss if we are going to do a group page or are we going to link our current pages.