According to Cennamo, Ross and Ertmer (2009), self-directed learners engage in planning, evaluating and monitoring their learning activities. Therefore, as a way to monitor my professional growth and leadership development, I have decided to create an electronic portfolio that demonstrates the technology learning activities used with my students across all content areas. So far, I have begun the process of including in my portfolio interactive Smart Board activities and writing assignments that my students have created on the computer. As the school year continues, I plan to implement a variety of technology related activities students have used to help make learning more engaging and interactive.
In addition, as a way to more efficiently monitor my progress, I have slightly modified my action plan. I have decided to update my electronic portfolio on a weekly basis, instead of monthly. Updating my portfolio weekly allows me the opportunity to include interactive technology activities as I complete my weekly lesson plans. I have learned that integrating technology into the curriculum as I create my lesson plan ensures my students more frequent opportunities to be enriched throughout every school week.
As a way to increase my self-directed learning, I have used more online resources to increase my knowledge and learn new skills about integrating technology across content areas. I have also continued professional dialogue with my colleagues, on a weekly basis, about the interactive technology activities I have used in various subject areas.
The new question I have to explore is how to find more time to incorporate individual use of technology on a weekly basis, instead of just using the interactive Smart Board for whole group lessons. Last year, I used to check out the wireless laptop cart once a week for my students to use as an added piece to their technology integration. Unfortunately, with the way our schedule works this year, I have found it very challenging to find an extended period of the day where I can get the wireless laptop cart, set it up and allow time for students to work independently. I may have to sign up for the computer lab that is already set up with computers instead of bringing the wireless laptop cart to my classroom. Although the students thought it was cool to have laptops in the classroom once a week, this year’s students may have to experience the computers in a different way due to less flexibility in our class schedule this year.
Reference
Cennamo, K., Ross J., and Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Carrying Out My GAME Plan
After reviewing my GAME Plan, I realize that I will need the continual support of my colleagues to further my professional growth. I have begun the process of creating an electronic portfolio by having the students type a paragraph that describes an Ultimate Playground Project that they recently created for homework. The students were able to type their stories at school while being introduced to some basic computer skills. I have created a folder with all of their typed paragraphs on the school’s database and I plan to post their paragraphs on our class webpage. In addition, I plan to use our class webpage as the main source for others to view the items in my electronic portfolio. I will ask our technology support staff for additional help on creating links that parents can easily click on to see all of the technology projects students have created throughout the school year.
I hope that parents and staff members will be able to see the progression of student capabilities on the computer as the school year continues. I will continue to use the support and creative ideas from my Walden colleagues through online discussions and our learning resources to gain further information needed that will help make this electronic portfolio a success.
I hope that parents and staff members will be able to see the progression of student capabilities on the computer as the school year continues. I will continue to use the support and creative ideas from my Walden colleagues through online discussions and our learning resources to gain further information needed that will help make this electronic portfolio a success.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Developing My Personal GAME Plan
Goals:
In order to be a more self-directed and lifelong learner, I would like to strengthen my confidence and proficiency in the following two areas:
ISTE NETS-T
• Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
• Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Action:
In order to engage in professional growth and leadership, I would like to take further action towards increasing my skills and knowledge in the area of integrating technology in the classroom. One way to accomplish this goal is to grow from the knowledge gained from my master’s degree education through Walden University. I will use the ideas gained from my course resources and the experiences shared from my colleagues to enhance my own learning experiences. I will also use the online resources from professional journals to increase my level of understanding with various technological tools and programs that can be useful to increase student learning.
According to Cennamo, et al. (2009), creative thinkers have the ability to “generate a large number of original ideas”. In order to motivate my students to become more creative thinkers, I will model creative and innovative thinking within my classroom. I hope that through my modeling, students will be able to reflect upon and demonstrate more creative thinking. Students will also use more technology to develop their creative thinking and reasoning skills. Finally, I plan to use more authentic instruction to facilitate creative thinking by providing more opportunities to have experimental, inductive and hands-on learning across content areas.
Monitor:
As a way to monitor my professional growth and leadership, Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) recommend I “find a product or performance that will demonstrate to myself and others that I have obtained my goal”. Therefore, I will monitor and reflect on my professional growth by creating a portfolio of the technology used with my students across various content areas. I plan to update my portfolio monthly with a description of the technology used within my classroom as well as the response and success technology had towards my students’ overall achievement and engagement towards learning.
In addition, I will use the same portfolio to monitor my goal with facilitating student creativity and learning. I hope that the technology used will also enhance students’ abilities to express their creativity and interests in learning.
Evaluation:
As a way to evaluate my portfolio, I will continuously reflect on how the use of technology in the classroom has helped increase both my professional growth and student learning. As a way to evaluate student achievement, I will compare my current students’ test scores and project outcomes to those of last year and see if there were any gains in overall student achievement. I will also ask my students to complete a survey in which they describe how, if at all, technology has influenced their learning and creativity throughout the school year.
Reference
Cennamo, K., Ross J., and Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
In order to be a more self-directed and lifelong learner, I would like to strengthen my confidence and proficiency in the following two areas:
ISTE NETS-T
• Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
• Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Action:
In order to engage in professional growth and leadership, I would like to take further action towards increasing my skills and knowledge in the area of integrating technology in the classroom. One way to accomplish this goal is to grow from the knowledge gained from my master’s degree education through Walden University. I will use the ideas gained from my course resources and the experiences shared from my colleagues to enhance my own learning experiences. I will also use the online resources from professional journals to increase my level of understanding with various technological tools and programs that can be useful to increase student learning.
According to Cennamo, et al. (2009), creative thinkers have the ability to “generate a large number of original ideas”. In order to motivate my students to become more creative thinkers, I will model creative and innovative thinking within my classroom. I hope that through my modeling, students will be able to reflect upon and demonstrate more creative thinking. Students will also use more technology to develop their creative thinking and reasoning skills. Finally, I plan to use more authentic instruction to facilitate creative thinking by providing more opportunities to have experimental, inductive and hands-on learning across content areas.
Monitor:
As a way to monitor my professional growth and leadership, Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) recommend I “find a product or performance that will demonstrate to myself and others that I have obtained my goal”. Therefore, I will monitor and reflect on my professional growth by creating a portfolio of the technology used with my students across various content areas. I plan to update my portfolio monthly with a description of the technology used within my classroom as well as the response and success technology had towards my students’ overall achievement and engagement towards learning.
In addition, I will use the same portfolio to monitor my goal with facilitating student creativity and learning. I hope that the technology used will also enhance students’ abilities to express their creativity and interests in learning.
Evaluation:
As a way to evaluate my portfolio, I will continuously reflect on how the use of technology in the classroom has helped increase both my professional growth and student learning. As a way to evaluate student achievement, I will compare my current students’ test scores and project outcomes to those of last year and see if there were any gains in overall student achievement. I will also ask my students to complete a survey in which they describe how, if at all, technology has influenced their learning and creativity throughout the school year.
Reference
Cennamo, K., Ross J., and Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
My Reflection on Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry
One of the most striking revelations I had about teaching new literacy skills was having my students develop their own essential questions. Armstrong (2009) stated that students should identify their own questions to explore, based on the academic standards that must be addressed. This statement helped me realize that essential questions can become much more powerful and beneficial for students when they create their own questions based on the required content area. The idea of students creating their own essential questions confirms my longtime belief in that students should have an active role in their learning. When students are more actively engaged, I believe it helps them become more inspired to learn. In addition, Armstrong (2009) confirmed that good essential questions lead to inquiry-based projects that help all students problem solve and develop new ways of thinking. Therefore, I will take the knowledge and experience I’ve gained from this course about student led inquiry-based learning and use it to help influence my students to become 21st century learners. I plan to also further my professional development by reading accredited journal articles through the use of online resources such as Google Scholar and EBSCO Host. These professional journal articles will provide me with useful ways to help students develop their new literacy skills. Furthermore, I will take the information gained from these journal articles and initiate professional dialogues with my colleagues about helping our students become 21st century learners.
The challenge for me will be to allow my students to come up with their own questions, as opposed to simply giving them the questions to explore. In doing so, I will mainly act as a facilitator by guiding my students into developing strong questions that will help them think in broader ways. I will also use technology to help assist students with developing appropriate essential questions and to assist them throughout their inquiry process. Thornburg (2004) affirmed that technology supports students’ learning during their inquiry process and it also provides images that allow students to stop and reflect on their inquiries. Throughout the school year, I will provide my students with multiple opportunities to use technology as a supporting tool throughout their inquiry learning experiences.
References
Thornburg, D. (2004). Inquiry: The art of helping students ask good questions. (Executive Briefing No. 402). Retrieved from http://www.tcpdpodcast.org/briefings/inquiry.pdf
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Supporting information literacy and online inquiry in the classroom: Essential questions in inquiry projects. Baltimore: Armstrong, S.
The challenge for me will be to allow my students to come up with their own questions, as opposed to simply giving them the questions to explore. In doing so, I will mainly act as a facilitator by guiding my students into developing strong questions that will help them think in broader ways. I will also use technology to help assist students with developing appropriate essential questions and to assist them throughout their inquiry process. Thornburg (2004) affirmed that technology supports students’ learning during their inquiry process and it also provides images that allow students to stop and reflect on their inquiries. Throughout the school year, I will provide my students with multiple opportunities to use technology as a supporting tool throughout their inquiry learning experiences.
References
Thornburg, D. (2004). Inquiry: The art of helping students ask good questions. (Executive Briefing No. 402). Retrieved from http://www.tcpdpodcast.org/briefings/inquiry.pdf
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Supporting information literacy and online inquiry in the classroom: Essential questions in inquiry projects. Baltimore: Armstrong, S.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
My Reflection on Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction and Technology
As a result of my learning from this course, I have truly learned how to bridge learning theories, instructional practices and various technology tools to further enhance and enrich my students’ overall learning experiences. It has been a pleasure exploring how to integrate the theoretical foundations of our educational system into the 21st century classroom. Now, I have a better understanding of how these traditional learning theories and instructional practices apply to our students of today and the way students grow and develop cognitively and socially as learners.
Earlier in this course, I developed a personal learning theory that incorporated a combination of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory and Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. My personal learning theory stated that all students have the capacity to become successful learners and achieve at their highest levels as long as they are given valuable experiences that support their learning styles. In addition, students’ experiences, their intelligences and their higher order thinking can be enhanced through continuous peer collaborations and discussions. Furthermore, technology can be used as an engaging and influential tool to further facilitate peer collaboration and the teaching – learning process within the classroom. I still strongly support my personal learning theory because it truly enhances students’ overall achievement within the classroom. To ensure students have an opportunity to learn at their highest levels, I will take a balanced approach and include different learning theories, such as the behaviorist learning theory and cognitive learning theory, as a foundation for the instructional practices used within my classroom in order to better meet the needs of all students.
Moreover, as a way to stay current with the today’s times and to continue student engagement through the use of technology, I plan to research more about voice threads and online concept mapping tools so that my students will be able to showcase their learning on our class webpage. I especially would like to incorporate voice threads as a final communication piece of our second grade persuasive writing unit. I would love for students to voice their opinions on a particular topic and try to persuade others to feel the same way. With the use of voice threads, their classmates could either write or record their thoughts on whether they agree with their classmates or not. I believe this technology tool would help facilitate student learning as they learn how to communicate effectively with supporting details, facts or images that would help influence their peers to agree with them.
It is my long term goal to ensure that our classroom truly becomes a classroom without walls. I want all of my students’ parents and family members to have the opportunity to see all of the learning that takes place without necessarily ever having to step foot inside our room. Through the use of our class webpage, parents and family members, from all over the country would be able to take virtual field trips to our classroom and see all of the great and exciting things we are learning on a regular basis. In addition, it is my goal to have an ongoing blog where parents can communicate to students how much they have enjoyed their visit to our classroom in order to further support student learning. Parents can also ask questions to students about their experiences working on a particular project and students can write back to parents answering those questions. In order to help make this goal happen, I plan to get in contact with our school’s media specialist and information technology staff members to ensure students’ identities and work samples are not compromised over the internet. Once I have a way to ensure the protection of our students and our classroom, then I would also make sure that I have the support of our parents and administration. If for some reason, we are not able to showcase our learning on our class webpage, then I would provide copies of our class projects on CDs and encourage parents to email the class their comments and questions in order to continue constant dialogue between parents and students as well as the teacher.
Earlier in this course, I developed a personal learning theory that incorporated a combination of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory and Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. My personal learning theory stated that all students have the capacity to become successful learners and achieve at their highest levels as long as they are given valuable experiences that support their learning styles. In addition, students’ experiences, their intelligences and their higher order thinking can be enhanced through continuous peer collaborations and discussions. Furthermore, technology can be used as an engaging and influential tool to further facilitate peer collaboration and the teaching – learning process within the classroom. I still strongly support my personal learning theory because it truly enhances students’ overall achievement within the classroom. To ensure students have an opportunity to learn at their highest levels, I will take a balanced approach and include different learning theories, such as the behaviorist learning theory and cognitive learning theory, as a foundation for the instructional practices used within my classroom in order to better meet the needs of all students.
Moreover, as a way to stay current with the today’s times and to continue student engagement through the use of technology, I plan to research more about voice threads and online concept mapping tools so that my students will be able to showcase their learning on our class webpage. I especially would like to incorporate voice threads as a final communication piece of our second grade persuasive writing unit. I would love for students to voice their opinions on a particular topic and try to persuade others to feel the same way. With the use of voice threads, their classmates could either write or record their thoughts on whether they agree with their classmates or not. I believe this technology tool would help facilitate student learning as they learn how to communicate effectively with supporting details, facts or images that would help influence their peers to agree with them.
It is my long term goal to ensure that our classroom truly becomes a classroom without walls. I want all of my students’ parents and family members to have the opportunity to see all of the learning that takes place without necessarily ever having to step foot inside our room. Through the use of our class webpage, parents and family members, from all over the country would be able to take virtual field trips to our classroom and see all of the great and exciting things we are learning on a regular basis. In addition, it is my goal to have an ongoing blog where parents can communicate to students how much they have enjoyed their visit to our classroom in order to further support student learning. Parents can also ask questions to students about their experiences working on a particular project and students can write back to parents answering those questions. In order to help make this goal happen, I plan to get in contact with our school’s media specialist and information technology staff members to ensure students’ identities and work samples are not compromised over the internet. Once I have a way to ensure the protection of our students and our classroom, then I would also make sure that I have the support of our parents and administration. If for some reason, we are not able to showcase our learning on our class webpage, then I would provide copies of our class projects on CDs and encourage parents to email the class their comments and questions in order to continue constant dialogue between parents and students as well as the teacher.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice
In today’s society, many people use technology to communicate with each other through social networking for both business and for pleasure. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski (2007) suggest that in order for students “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”. During school, when students work together in cooperative groups, they will able to increase their learning (Pitler et al., 2007). Cooperative groups provide students with opportunities to practice their communication skills and expand their knowledge on how to collaborate and work together as a team to build meaningful artifacts that benefit everyone involved in the group. Furthermore, students can transfer what they’ve learned from working in cooperative groups to interacting in social networks business purposes once they have moved on to their workplace environment. Cooperative learning helps students successfully contextualize knowledge learned in school to real world situations and minimizes the idea of situated cognition in which students have inert knowledge (Orey, 2009).
In my second grade classroom, I try to use cooperative learning as much as possible. Students are placed in formal, informal and base groups depending on the type of activity and its purpose. Pitler et al. (2007) recommend various types of cooperative learning groups by giving students multimedia projects and web resources to use in order to create an artifact together as a group. Although some of the types of projects and web resources provided may be a little too advance for my students to work on, I do like the idea of using technological resources to help facilitate student learning, especially while working in cooperative groups. I have found first hand that when students are placed together in groups their learning increases and they are great at trying to help each other reach the same level of understanding as they have about a particular topic.
During cooperative learning, especially when technology is incorporated, I enjoy hearing students communicate with one another in a way that is very simplistic and childlike so that their peers can relate and gain a better understanding. Cooperative learning provides both high and low achievers a chance to grow and develop as learners because they both have opportunities to take the role of teacher and supporter (Orey, 2009). Therefore all learners, regardless of their level of understanding, can benefit from each other in significant ways when social learning is supported through cooperative grouping.
Orey, M. (Presenter). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Laureate Education, Inc
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
In my second grade classroom, I try to use cooperative learning as much as possible. Students are placed in formal, informal and base groups depending on the type of activity and its purpose. Pitler et al. (2007) recommend various types of cooperative learning groups by giving students multimedia projects and web resources to use in order to create an artifact together as a group. Although some of the types of projects and web resources provided may be a little too advance for my students to work on, I do like the idea of using technological resources to help facilitate student learning, especially while working in cooperative groups. I have found first hand that when students are placed together in groups their learning increases and they are great at trying to help each other reach the same level of understanding as they have about a particular topic.
During cooperative learning, especially when technology is incorporated, I enjoy hearing students communicate with one another in a way that is very simplistic and childlike so that their peers can relate and gain a better understanding. Cooperative learning provides both high and low achievers a chance to grow and develop as learners because they both have opportunities to take the role of teacher and supporter (Orey, 2009). Therefore all learners, regardless of their level of understanding, can benefit from each other in significant ways when social learning is supported through cooperative grouping.
Orey, M. (Presenter). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Laureate Education, Inc
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
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