Reflection #8

With the introduction of every technology I tried to envision how I would utilize it in the classroom. For one technology, in particular, the possible applications were obvious and powerful. With a wiki I would be able publish items relevent to the class such as assignments, the class syllabus, agendas and lecture notes. I could also post links to web pages that offered material that supported the concepts and skills discussed in class. Students could in turn pose questions to me or the entire class as well as turn in assignments. As far as any "Aha" moments, it would have to be when I discovered all of the applications available on Google and the ability to access these applications from any computer with an internet connection. Why use/pay for Microsoft Office when there is Google documents? Plus, there is the abilty to share the control of documents with others who "google". "To blog or not to blog"....It maybe that because I had a negative preconception of blogging, which has greatly improved now that I actually know what blogging is, or that I plan on teaching high school math or physics that I find it difficult to see what tools a blog offers that using a wiki does not. I do know that I will keep my eyes open for oppurtunities to use wikis and blogs in the future.

How to Improve Student Learning

The videos fit very nicely with one of the themes of this class; Today's student is different from yesterday's student. Today's student grows up with technology affecting most aspects of their day-to-day life and therefore feels out of touch and frustrated with traditional methods of teaching. I believe the greatest benefit of the use technology in the classroom is that it can allow the student to "own" the knowledge present in the classroom and in part control the flow of that knowledge to themselves. Students can learn at their own rate and get the immediate feedback that technology can provide when used properly. Given this, the way to improve student learning is for educators and administrators to use technology to enhance the learning experience.

Reflection #7 Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan

Density The objective of my lesson plan was two fold. 1)The first part was to get students to calculate the density of various liquids. 2)Based on these calculations students will hypothesize in what order the liquids will “stack” when poured in a container. Students will need to justify their hypothesis by referencing the results of the their calculations and the graphs generated from the calculation. The students would use the Google documents spreadsheet to perform the calculations and then graph the results with a bar graph.

Reflection #6

The purpose of my podcast was to show someone how to make a paper ballon from a regular 8.5x11 sheet of paper. I learned how to make this ballon back in 6th grade from a fellow classmate. I remeber having to ask him to make it multiple times until I got it. I then spent the next few days making one in every class period. Without actually seeing someone make it I am sure I would have lost interest and given up trying. If a picture is worth a thousand words a video must be worth 2012. For this podcast I used jing and a webcam that had been in the back of draw for the last 3 years. With the use of jing it was very easy to make. In the futuer I will need to perfect the lighting and audio. The microphone in the webcam gives poor quality audio. I envision using podcast to define/explain concepts in class that students can then access and review at home or teach my daughter how to make a paper balloon.

Reflection #5 MAPing Information and Social Bookmarking

Reflection #5 


MAPing Information

Last Summer I was taking a graduate course in Topology, which is a math course which dealt with the properties of topological spaces.  Most, if not all, of the course work was proofing theorems about these spaces on the white board in class.  Students would come to class prepared to present their proofs.  After presenting their proof our Professor and the class accept the proof or find fault with it.  One of the tools/methods someone can use in deriving a proof is by using/siting the results of an already proven theorem in their argument.  It happened one day that a student presented a rather long proof and referenced the results of a theorem we had not yet covered in class but that he had found on-line.  It turned out the theorem he discovered on-line was wrong and was probably a theorem a grad student had posted on-line.  This incident reinforced something I learned early, anybody can post something on-line.  Yet another example of this, my wife and I just had our 2nd daughter on January 17th.  As soon as my wife found out she was pregnant she started looking on-line for advice on everything; from what she should eat to how often the baby is supposed to move.  For every piece of advice/direction she found on-line she could find a conflicting example later on.  As you can imagine she spent a lot of time on-line.  If you want to see a gynecologist shake their head start a question with' "I found this on-line...."  We could have used some INFORMATION LITERACY.  In the future before relying on the information I find on-line I will follow the steps presented in the MAPing activity.

I can only agree with Dr. November that given the way people are now getting their information and then basing their decisions on this information it is important that Information Literacy be considered basic skill.  

I chose to dissect the website http://www.ntxe-news.com/, which is a on-line newspaper covering the local counties.  I realize that like any traditional newspaper the main purpose of North Texas E-news is to proved the community it serves with news it is also supposed to make money through advertising, thus it would be wise to dissect it.  However, there is very little information that I got from easywhois or archive.org other that the author's name and how long the website has been around.  What I can say about the website is that given that so many eyes are looking at it and taking in the information it would be difficult for it to continue if the information was consistently wrong.  The website is kept honest by it's readers. 


Social Bookmarking


By far the biggest advantage to using a social bookmarking site like Delicious is that you can take advantage of other's efforts.  Weeding through all the websites that come up when you Google a topic like "Educational Technology" can be tiring and discouraging.  I envision using my delicious account in the future to network with other math teachers and looking for video lectures on topics I will teach in class, hopefully  given by "mature and effective teachers".  Thus, helping my become an effective teacher in a shorter amount of time.         

Reflective Blog 4 - ePortfolio

The concept of an e-portfolio is new to me.  I can clearly see its benefits, the greatest of which are giving the teacher(s) another method of assess whether or not a student has truly grasp the concepts taught in class and allowing a teacher to guide a student where to concentrate their efforts in the future based on what is in or not in the e-portfolio.  This alone would make and e-portfolio a power tool for teaching.
I envision having students, through the use of e-portfolios, show the connection between the concepts learned in class and their environment outside of school.  Thereby showing the importance and relevance of the material.  I always wanted to know why are we learning this?

Reflective Blog 3 - Wikis

One of the things I noticed while observing a Physics class at a relatively small school was the limited resources available to the teacher for in class experiments.  As a student these in class experiments were not only the most entertaining part of the class but also drove home many of the concepts we learned in class.  The purpose of my wiki is to provide students with videos of experiments that either can not be done in class because of cost or because of the time available that would go along with material presented in lecture.  I have added one video so far of Mach's Pendulum.  This is a video that could be used to discuss periodic motion.

As soon as I added my first video I could see many advantages to utilizing wikis; from posting of assignments and class notes to keeping parents informed about what the children are learning.

During my observation I asked one of the teachers if they ever thought of posting class notes on the web so that students could have access to them at home.  He indicated he had but was concerned that students may not pay attention in class or take notes if they knew they could get them later.  I tend to disagree with this view.  I feel students will get more out of class if instead of taking notes they were actively engaged in the class discussion and not distracted by note taking.  Often times in my upper level math class in college I would leave the class with good notes but could not tell you what material was presented.    

Reflective Blog 2 with Concept Map

http://www.iste.org/welcome.aspx

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) stated mission is to advances excellence in learning and teaching through innovative and effective uses of technology. I align myself with the ISTE not only because I agree with their mission statment but also because one of their four strategic goals is to be and advocate for resources and policies supporting the effective use of technology to improve teaching, learning and leadership.  An agreement with-in the educational community that educational technology is important and effective is not enough to change the reality of the education process as it is today.  Policy makers need to be informed of the success of educational technology.  Elected officials will increase support for technology utilization in schools as they begin to hear more from educators about the positive impact technology has in curriculum, student success, and educational opportunity.

http://www.oetc.org/about/

The Organization for Educational Technology & Curriculum (OETC) mission is three fold. 1)To provide low-cost purchasing programs, 2) Provide professional development, and 3) Influence dedicated to the integration of technology in education.  In my limited time observing in a class room and throught the readings we have had in this course I have come to appreciate how benificial educational technology would be when done right.  The key point is when done right.  The OETC helps teachers do it "right" by reviewing what technology is availabe and providing teachers and administraters with this information.  The OETC also helps schools organize and coordinate cost effective, cooperative purchases and partnerships related to the application of educational technology. 

My definition of Educational technology is the use of any technolgy to teach, or improve the teaching, of any subject.  My educational philosopy is pragmatism.  As such I believe education is a necssity of life. Any tool that improved the education process is valuable and to not use it would be foolish.

Reflective Blog 1

The area that stood out to me most in Creating a Culture for Teaching and Learning was the first and second.  The reason for this is that it reflects the vision I had for using technology in the classroom.  It is a concrete example of how to use technology.  Exposing and directing students to different teaching styles and processes with the use of internet links and items.  In studying for my material competency exam I have been amazed at the amount of lectures and material available to students.  


To put it bluntly, if a student views their teacher as being a bad teacher (rightly or wrongly) or they are unable to concentrate given the multiple distractions in the classroom they can review the same material the comfort of their own space.  No longer will a student be limited to absorbing instruct for the 50 minute class period.  The student will be able to learn at the rate that is best for them nor be embarrassed to ask the same question over and over.   ...pause, rewind,  fast forward.  

Educational Philosophy

What is my Educational Philosophy?  If you had asked me that before reading our assignment I would have said something very simple like; I believe education is critically important.  I understand now that this is only my opinion of the value of education and not my philosophy.  So, what is my current Educational Philosophy?

I do believe education is a necessity of life, or at least a necessity for a fruitful life.  Education is not learning facts and then regurgitating them on command.  But rather education gives you the ability to tackle the problems in your life.  One can learn how to tackle one problem and then apply what he learned to future problems.  Even if a "student" fails at the problem he has learned what does not work.  The process of  mastering a problem is more important than the result.  To that end I believe a teachers main objective should be to identify and help a student develop the process which best fits their abilities.  Not everyone will use exactly the same steps or need to.

I am a beginning teacher, I have a vision in my head about the type of teacher I will be or rather the type of teacher I think is most effective.  I am currently a Pragmatist.   

Given my newly understood Philosophy I see technology being a great help in my students reaching the goal mastering the processes that will best work for them.  With access to multiple view points, i.e. processes, a student is more likely to succeed not only in the class but in life. 

Expectations For Class ETEC 524

My expectations for this class have changed greatly between the time I enrolled in the class and the time I read the class syllabus, this weeks reading and the assignment.  I wanted to teach because I enjoyed the time I tutored students in Physics at the college level.  I felt a sense accomplishment when some one I tutored felt better about themselves when the left because they had finally started  to grasp a concept that eluded them only 10 minutes. 

I had expected to learn software-hardware  tools that would help me convey information (example problems, example tests....) to the student and allow them to access this information more easily and outside the school walls.  I had no "Philosophical School of Thought" let alone know there were 6 of them.

I now expect to be uncomfortably challenged in this class.  I expect to have to change my approach from an Automate to more of an Informate