EDMOOC Week 2 Reflections

 Productivity Future Vision

This video was confusing. If the woman was able to hold a meeting online in real time why was she even travelling? And, couldn’t the daughter have searched for a recipe without her mother’s help? The man seemed very relaxed and leisurely, almost as though his only role was to help with the cooking. Best of all, just how dated was that frying pan!?

It was definitely meant to be Utopian with all its smooth, white, clinically-clean surfaces, smiling, happy, attractive people who seemingly had all the time in the world. But there was very little humanity. The man and girl barely shared a word, let alone a conversation or a hug…. The home was stark and soulless. Sorry Microsoft, sitting in a hotel room wired into my tablet devices is not my idea of a better use of my time…

A Day of Glass

Definitely highly utopian influences. Suggesting that learning could happen anywhere, anytime, that access to info is at fingertips 24/7. That learning can be recorded and shared later. I was disturbed by classroom uniformity and teacher-directed learning. PLEASE let the future be more learning-centric. Field trip was exciting but felt more like a 3D computer game. Not sure any of my students would take time searching for elk’s hoof-prints if they could go hunt down 3D dinosaurs instead!

Communication seemed to revolve around common experiences, or common interest.

Definitely technology-centric

Charlie 13

I can’t really see past the bleakness of this predicted future. I wonder what the perceived danger of the old ways was and, if this is such a positive and balanced community of tagged people, why do they have to lie about those who choose not to be tagged? To me, it is like the current practice of tagging prisoners but in reverse. Instead of the bad guys being tracked, now the innocent are rounded up and branded like cattle. The police officers conversation with the mum could be interpreted as supportive and friendly or, in my case, disturbingly invasive and personal. I don’t want some complete stranger knowing that I live by myself and taking pity on me!

There did seem to be only a very minute hint of choice but, at what cost? Charlie would have to abandon his mum, break her heart, and live behind a wire fence. It suggested that Charlie could tow the line or be excommunicated. Of course, Charlie’s the hero so the video does lead us to want to back his revolt.

Many people argue that Big Brother is already watching our every move and I don’t remember being consulted on whether that was OK with me. Having said that, it is actually OK with me so long as it is only used to catch “the bad guys” and not misused.

I wonder why the society waits until the kids are 13 to tag them. If this were ever a reality I find it much more realistic that they would be tagged from birth, before they could have an opinion.

E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC #EDUMOOC

I read a blog entry by a fellow course participant and I realised just how inportant it is to share your thoughts and feelings online. I'm of the generation where it was socially unacceptable to "air your dirty laundry in public" (that's a British expression meaning to share your trials and tribulations with other people). I realise that this practice is both out of date and culture-centric. I can't help it though. I am just not accustomed, or comfortable with, excessive amounts of sharing online with people I've never met and am likely never to meet.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate those who can so I want to thank Brittany Chan for her blog posting "There are 40,000 people in my class… My strategy to avoid becoming overwhelmed #edcmooc"

Below are my reflections on her posting...

Your first MOOC is overwhelming but it is also a brave new world. We may well be at the cutting edge of a paradym shift in mass education.
When I went to University there were several hundred people on some of my courses. That was overwhelming too. So many people in one lecture hall. I felt so small and alone. Very quickly though I began striking up conversations with people and found myself slipping into a habit of sitting next to the same people, sharing opinions with like-minded people and seeking out those who challenged my ideas.
Isn’t it just the same thing here? Will we pick our network, or will they pick us, or both? Will we stay with the same group all the way through or will people come and go?
The issue is that the learning community is only as strong as the individuals in it. Or is it? Is the best learning community the one where everyone thinks alike or everyone thinks differently? Hummm… so much to consider.

UDL Guidelines in Practice: Grade 1 Mathematics

EDUC 6713 REFLECTION

The acronym GAME really helped me focus on the steps I needed to achieve my goals and I think this will be especially helpful for my students. My first goal of explicitly teaching and modelling safe, legal and ethical use of digital information (NETS-T 4a) has already lead me to plan this exposure into my curriculum. I have spent considerable time planning for implementation. My lesson plans are ready to go. I am ready to monitor and collect data so I can evaluate the impact on my students and, assuming all goes well, I am excited about sharing these new techniques with my colleagues and administration. My second goal (NETS-T 5c) was easier to implement since it involved me monitoring and reflecting on emergent technology tools and resources. My personal learning network has offered plenty of opportunities and a large amount of helpful advice. I have prepared my technology journal but, until school starts, it will not be possible to reflect on the implementation of new tools and resources.

As I mentioned, the acronym GAME will help my students see each step of the process clearly. However, with such young students (first graders), I will need to give the students clear examples and alternative language for the words Monitor and Evaluate. Plenty of modelled examples should help them to see how they can look reflect back over their learning in order to measure its effectiveness. Teacher-assessments, peer-assessments, audience feedback and self-assessments have always featured heavily in my instructional practice.

I had already thought that I was doing a good job of integrating technology. However, this course has shown me that there are gaps that need filling. Mostly, I feel that there needs to be an increase in conversations about the ethical use of technology school-wide. Many teachers use technology for research but it is not always effective and students are not expected to quote sources.

Our curriculum is based on inquiry and therefore problem-based learning is a big feature of what we already do. Students are guided to locate their own inquiry questions and the teachers provoke deeper thought with problem-based questioning.

This course has made me reconsider the effectiveness of social networking/online collaboration. I feel that this is an area that I have tended to avoid with my young first graders in favour of all the other wonderful things that can be done with technology to extend my students’ learning. However, this year I will be moving to third grade and I already have plans to include online collaboration as a regular way for my students to reflect and report on their collaborative projects. In order to do this, I will assign time at the beginning of the year to explicitly teach some rituals for the regular use of these technology tools. With regards to digital storytelling, it is my intention to spend more time investigation and evaluating the most appropriate digital storytelling tools for my particular group of students for this upcoming academic year.

Reflections on my progress so far

The first of my GAME plan goals was to implement the explicit teaching of safe and ethical practices in all my classes. The information I need to achieve this goal was covered in our previous course. The QUEST strategy for teaching safe and ethical practices is spelled out in the course material provided and I am very much looking forward to trying it with my students on a regular basis.

Aside from these resources, I will also need to begin writing curriculum and lesson plans that include this new information. Since, I do not teach within a National System I feel that there is easily time in our syllabus to include this. Obviously I will not know how successful or effectively it will be until I have had a chance to reflect and evaluate the lessons.

Discussions with colleagues will have to wait until school starts again. I imagine that most of the teachers will be interested in what I am saying but will naturally look to me and my class trialling the lessons before making any changes in their own classroom.

My second goal involves staying up-to-date with current developments and I believe that I have been doing this through my learning network. Similarly to my first goal, I have many ideas about implementing technology into my lessons next year and this is also why I was motivated to ask for a change of grade level for next academic year. I have very much enjoyed teaching first graders but I felt that I could integrate and extend my delivery of technology much more with older students.

At this point, I do not feel that I need to modify my action plan. Kaladia has kindly offered me some food for thought. Her main question was how would I go about getting colleagues to collaborate with technology integration. In fact, I do not believe that my goal is to have colleagues collaborate on projects. Since I am not the technology co-ordinator I have the space to create my own personal goals. I do hope that some of the other teachers might be inspired or at least show an interest in what I am trying to achieve.

Over the course of many weeks on the Master’s Course, I have learned a great deal with regards to the difference between technology teaching and technology integration. Mainly I have learned that there is room for both, although I do believe that the integration part can often lead to the former as the students practice using software and become more familiar with different technology applications.

I am reassured to know that integrating technology is an enormously valuable tool for 21^st century learning and not just a fad.

Resources need for GAME plan

As I mentioned in my initial posting, there are several actions that I would like to take in order to achieve the goal of advocating, modelling and teaching legal and ethical use of digital information and technology. The first would be to open these discussions during grade level and whole school faculty meetings. To discover what is happening in other classes and to reach a consensus on how we can all move forward in order to ensure consistency across the grade levels. The next stop is two-fold: planning for and explicitly demonstrating good practice in the classroom.

I hope to achieve the implementation and explicit teaching of safe and ethical use of digital technology through the QUEST strategy covered in Week 7 of EDUC 6712. I do not believe that I will need any additional resources than I already have at my disposal. However, regular and reliable access to the internet will be necessary. The greatest resources that I will need to successfully achieve this target will be careful lesson planning and assessment.

Since we are halfway through the summer vacation, I have not yet been able to carry out these plans but I intend to begin as soon as the new academic year starts.

I also wrote in my initial posting that, for me, there are two greatest sources of information and education in this regard. The first is my personal learning network online: other professionals sharing their experiences and knowledge and the older students creating and demonstrating how they use technology. “After you’ve identified your learning goals, you need to take action to meet those goals (…) You could take a class. You could ask others. You could research information online or in books. You might even ask your students” Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer (2009) p.4.

It is nothing new to me to be regularly reading and checking my aggregator for interesting posts on new technology tools and their application. During the holidays I am fortunate enough to have additional opportunities to refine, revise and add to my personal learning network. One of my favorite ways of keeping up with new developments during non-teaching times is to read educational publications and technology-related materials such as Mac Magazine.

This is my GAME plan

I would like to make a more conscious effort to explicitly advocate, model and teach safe, legal and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources (NETS-T 4a)

The last course: Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom has opened my eyes to the fact that many teachers (at least in my school) are not deliberately instructing students on the legal and ethical use of digital information and technology. Whilst we all agree that it is important, I do not believe that we are making this point transparent enough to the students. Indeed, I am not at all certain that most teachers are even familiar with our school’s Acceptable Use Policy. There are several actions that I would like to take in order to achieve the goal of advocating, modelling and teaching legal and ethical use of digital information and technology. The first would be to open these discussions during grade level and whole school faculty meetings. To discover what is happening in other classes and to reach a consensus on how we can all move forward in order to ensure consistency across the grade levels. The next stop is two-fold: planning for and explicitly demonstrating good practice in the classroom.

Progress will be monitored through the assessment and evaluation of my students’ knowledge and digital artefacts. If my students’ work reflects the appropriate use of citations and paraphrasing, as opposed to copying and pasting without crediting the sources I will feel that my goal has to some degree been achieved. My learning will have been extended by the development of my lesson plans and instruction in such a way as to reflect this change in my students. Monitoring my progress towards developing consistency across grade levels may be more a matter for my administration to evaluate and track. However, I will feel successful if, at very minimum, teachers are able to engage in positive and useful collaboration through our discussions and reflections.

My second and on-going goal is to evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning (NETS-T 5c). The beauty of the technological advancements of recent years is that there seems to be a tremendous increase in the creative use of technology tools. The downside is that this progress seems to be happening at such lighting speed that it is often hard to stay abreast of all the new innovations and applications.

For me, there are two greatest sources of information and education in this regard. The first is my personal learning network online: other professionals sharing their experiences and knowledge and the older students creating and demonstrating how they use technology. “After you’ve identified your learning goals, you need to take action to meet those goals (…) You could take class. You could ask others. You could research information online or in books. You might even ask your students” Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer (2009) p.4.

Whilst my personal learning network keeps me up-to-date with current research and novel ways of implementing the strategies, I feel that I need to make a more conscious effort to regularly evaluate my use of technology and its effectiveness vis-à-vis my students’ learning. In order to achieve this goal, I would like to maintain a technology journal; which includes my own observations, personal reflections and accounts of both student focus groups and colleagues’ comments. “Key to effective reflection is to go beyond a simple description of what happened to consider why it happened, how it is connected to other events, and what adjustments should be made to subsequent actions based on this understanding” Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer (2009) p.11.

Reviewing these notes at quarterly intervals will allow me analyze patterns in the data and monitor the progress I have made towards achieving this particular goal.

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful

classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc.,

Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education

standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashxhttp://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx