Technology in the Classroom

As I studied the NETS·T standards, I found that encouraging my students to work together cooperatively and trying to incorporate technology as much as possible in my classes is included in the standards.  But I have noticed I also need to encourage and teach my students the correct procedures to follow when using technology.  I need to teach them how to be responsible when using websites and citing sources.  I need to teach them the proper way to conduct conversations online with their fellow classmates.  The final thing I need to improve in my teaching is to expose my students to real-life problems and how to find ways to research in order to discover ways to solve them.

An action plan that I can use to improve the skills that my students need can be done in several ways.  I can begin a class blog, teach mini lessons in netiquette, teach them research techniques and how to cite sources. I can teach many of these by modeling and using minilessons as a way to introduce and teach the proper way to conduct conversations and do research on the internet.

One way that I can monitor if the students have synthesized the information given to them is to closely monitor the class blog.  I will be sure to stop and correct any improper behavior.  I can also create projects that the students will need to search the internet for information.  I will have the students keep a journal of their progress with class blog, as well as any projects that they are conducting.

I will extend my learning by doing more professional development that pertains to technology. I will also need to research the internet for up-to-date information for new technology applications and ethical use of information obtained from the internet.

The biggest thing that I have learned from this course is that students must be taught the correct literacy skills when using computers. I had always assumed that the students had the knowledge to know how to use computers.  But actually most of them only have rudimentary skills when it comes to using technology.  They can use IM and play games. Some of them might be able to use some of the applications available. But when they are asked to do any type of research most are unable to do it correctly.  Students need to be taught the basics of using a search engine and deciding if a website is valid and reliable.

The knowledge and experience that I have gained from this course has only shown me that I much more to learn and many more skills to teach my students. I will need to teach them the correct way to research a website and how to site their sources.  But before I teach them those skills  I will need to teach them how to create essential questions to begin the journey.   This course has also shown me that I need to incorporate literacy skills in every technology based project that I require my students to create.  According to David Warlick, “technology increases the ability for students to connect with each other and with content” Laureate Education, Inc., 2009).  I feel that using technology not only enhances the understanding of the standards being taught but interests the students in ways that they learn more.  I want my students to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to be able to succeed in their future education, as well as in the workforce. 

One professional development goal that I have is to continue to learn as much as I can about technology. I also plan to incorporate technology as much as possible into my lessons and daily life.  In this way, I will continue to grow in developing my skills in both literacy and technology.  Another professional goal will be to attend as many technology based conferences as possible to continue to add to my knowledge base.

References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Program thirteen. It’s Not About the Technology [Motion picture]. Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Baltimore: Author.

I plan to determine if there is a significant difference in the end of year test scores when using only technology or a mixture of technology and cooperative group work in the mastery of science standards by middle school students.

The research questions that I plan to use in conducting research for the literature review are as follows:

1. What types of technologies are used exclusively in the science classroom to ensure mastery of science standards for middle school students?
2. What types of technology and cooperative group work are used in the science classroom to ensure mastery of science standards for middle school students?
3. What differences are found in the end of year testing in the science classroom that used only technology strategies and science classrooms that used a combination of technology and cooperative group work?
4. Which teaching strategy is best to use in the classroom to increase mastery of middle school science standards:  technology only, cooperative group work only, or a combination of both?

The research methodology that I have chosen to use for the literature review is the mixed method triangulation.  I feel that this method will allow me to have a more complete literature review by having a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research which will lead to “greater validity”(McMillan & Schumacher, 2008).

Reference:

McMillan,  J., & Schumacher, S. (2008) Research in education: Evidence-based inquiry (Laureate custom edition). Boston: Pearson.

I plan to determine if there is a significant difference between using only technology or a mixture of technology and cooperative group work in the mastery of science standards by middle school students.

Who:  middle school students

What:  using only technology or a mixture of technology and cooperative group work

Why:  mastery of science standards

I still believe that as a teacher I need to constantly change my teaching styles and strategies to conform to how my students learn best.  I will still apply Gardner’s theory when planning my lessons.  In this way, there will more interested and engaged students.  When this happens learning is accomplished.  The modifications that I have made in my personal learning theory is the use of more technology-based lessons.  According to Dr. Orey, “incorporating multiple senses in presentations improves learning”(Laureate Education, Inc., 2008b). This can be achieved by incorporating technology, as well as, other tools such as labs, hand-on activities, lecture notes, and discussions.

The immediate adjustments that I will make to my instructional practice will be to use technology as a “learner-centered” tool instead of my using it as a tool to “present information” to my class. There will be times when I use it to present a PowerPoint to my students for their notes. But instead of text I will have images for the students to use to help them to remember the information(Laureate Education, Inc., 2008d). I will be using in the next school year non linguistic representations, concept maps, and summarizing and note-taking strategies.  The non linguistic representations will be used by the students to help them to learn their vocabulary words and they will use Word to create them.  I plan to use the concept maps to help the students understand a concept better. I think that both of these strategies will help the students to form “mental pictures” and “visualizing deepens understanding”(Laureate Education, Inc., 2008a).  Dr. Pickering advices to only work on two strategies at a time and the “strategies are effective only if students become proficient at using them”(Laureate Education, Inc., 2008a).  As for the summarizing and note-taking strategy I will use this as the students become proficient in the first two strategies. I will also continue to use cooperative learning as much as possible in my classes.

The two long-term goals that I have to change how technology is integrated into my classroom are to use virtual field trips and to require my students to learn how to use the software application Word and PowerPoint to do projects, graphic organizers, note-taking, and nonlinguistic representations for vocabulary words and concepts.  The strategy that I will use to accomplish my goals will be to first take the time to research on the internet virtual field trips for every standard that I will teaching in the school year. According to Dr. Orey, virtual field trips give students “opportunities to go where you physically can not, compare information with primary sources, to witness history, and to engage in critical thinking activities”(Laureate Education, Inc., 2008b).  I think that doing this will extend the learning of my students. I will address the other goal by taking the time the teach my students how to do each of the strategies listed. I will not overwhelm them trying to teach them all of the strategies at once. I will teach them to do the nonlinguistic representations by using Word and the note-taking strategy first. I want to teach them how to summarize and take notes in several different ways so that they will be better equipped when they move on to the higher grades and college. After I have accomplished the first two strategies, I will then focus on teaching them how to do PowerPoints and graphic organizers.

REFERENCES:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008a). Program eleven. Instructional Strategies, Part One [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008b). Program five. Cognitive Learning Theory [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008c). Program six. Spotlight on Technology: Virtual Field Trips [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008d). Program thirteen. Technology: Instructional Tool vs. Learning Tool [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

http://voicethread.com/share/527380/

“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” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007).  Cooperative learning relates to the social learning theory because the students react and converse with each other in a “social setting” while learning from each other.  They also create something from this meeting.

Social networking and other tools that are available online are what is needed in today’s world of fast paced change.  Collaboration of any kind is now possible across the world.  Students can have “keypals” or email pals of they can be involved online with such collaborations as “the JASON project”  at www.jasonproject.org.  This project is “an organization focused on engaging students in hands-on scientific discovery” (Pitler & et al, 2007).

Cooperative learning enhances the interactions between students allowing them to learn how to work together to create something that they would otherwise not be able to accomplish alone.

REFERENCES:

 Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

 Constructivist/constructionist learning theories means that the student is “actively constructing his/her own learning” by constructing something to “share with others” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008).  From the reading, Generating and Testing Hypotheses, students “are engaging in complex mental processes, applying content knowledge like facts and vocabulary, and enhancing their overall understanding of the content” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p. 202).  I feel that students use some of the steps in the scientific method not only in science by in other subjects as well.  They form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, generate data, and make an informed decision of what the answer is to the problem. 

Technology is used in “interpreting” the data that the students have collected.  Students can use Excel worksheets to organize data , web sources to collect information, and Power Points to create a final project to present material that has been gathered.

Some examples of websites are www.explorelearning.com, www.minnesotazoo.org/education/games/matchmaker, www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig.  Using these websites and other like them will be useful to students by engaging them in “seeing the big picture” about ideas.  They can form hypotheses and test them by using technology.  By using technology and project-based learning students are able to use their higher order thinking skills and create an “artifact” that will lead to better understanding for them and others. 

REFERENCES:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program seven. Constructionist and Constructivist Learning Theories [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

I found the chapters from this week’s resources interesting and informative. In the chapter, Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers, advance organizers are characterized as “structures that teachers provide to students before a learning activity to help them classify and make sense of the content” and organize “new content that is not well organized in its original format” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p. 73).  They also help students to organize their thoughts in a way that can be more conducive to their learning style.

Cues and questions were also discussed.  Each are used to “trigger” the memories of students to help them to remember skills that they have been  previously taught.  The technology that can be used to create advance organizers are Kidspiration and Inspiration.  They can be used to introduce information or to organize new concepts and vocabulary words being taught. 

I like the idea of using an advance organizer because it combines using vocabulary words, definitions, and pictures.  The students can fill in the information individually or with a partner.  Also a blank advance organizer can be used as an assessment tool.  I feel that this type of organizer will be a way for students to cue their memories to help them to remember concepts that has been covered by using the definitions, as well as, the drawings or pictures.

Multimedia is another way that students can be taught concepts.  Some examples of websites that can be used to view video clips are www.unitedstreaming.com and http://video.google.com.  Students can also use http://creativecommons.org to “create videos” to use as a project of what they have learned(Pitler & et al, 2007).

The next chapter Summarizing and Note Taking, was important to me because as a seventh grade science teacher I need more ideas on how to give my students different opportunities to learn how to summarize and take notes.  “Students should be taught a variety of note-taking formats”(Pitler & et al, 2007, p. 125).  Some examples of the different techniques are Combination Notes, which combine key words,explanations, and pictures, Concept Maps, and PowerPoint Combination Notes, which are basically a summary or key words and pictures.  I plan to use these methods next year with my classes to enhance their note-taking skills.

Cognitive learning theories engage the students in moving information from their short-term memories to their long-term memories.  I feel that all of the instructional strategies that I have discussed in this post correlate with the cognitive learning theories that I have learned about this week. The skills that they learn in the classroom should stay with them throughout their educational years. They should be taught how to use these skills to make more connections and triggers to enable them to retrieve the information needed to succeed.

REFERENCES:

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.