Week 6 Video Reading

Changing Times

It's pretty ironic that we finish up this week with a summary of the ten "Big Shifts" in the classroom. Will Richardson's article neatly summarized the big changes in education but it was something that had particular meaning for me already. As a student again after many years, I was struck by how different this learning experience was for me this time around. Certainly the technology has exploded since I was last in class (getting an electric typewriter was huge, never mind a laptop!) but it was more than that. One thing that has struck me during the past few weeks is how few notes I have taken. Though we covered vast quantities of material in all four classes, very little of has through the traditional lecture-based classrooms. Also, the content does not come from one textbook or one instructor but instead from myriad sources that seem to come from many different perspectives. Instead of tests and papers, we engage in project learning, most of it group orientated. And, yes, technology leads the way across the whole process.

Richardson's Big Shifts are evident in our other classes as well. In Learning Theories, for example, we've talked a lot about integrating hands-on, technology-driven teaching practices as the best way to reach our multi-tasking, high tech youth. The idea of student-centered instead of teacher-centered was also looked at critically. Collaborative, social learning was also explored with theorists such as Vygotsky extolling the virtues of relationship, interest based teaching. All of this falls into what Richardson says is the result of the Age of the Read/Write Web. (Richardson, W. p.153). With online information, reading takes place 24/7, inside and outside of the classrooms and from millions of different contributors.

This is very exciting but there are some uncertain consequences for educators. For me, the sheer volume sources available is a little intimidating, though exciting. With this vast treasure trove of information and knowledge at our command, will we have time to access it all? Will it become overwhelming to decide the "what" to teach when the "where"is so easy to obtain? Or maybe it won't be the teachers, but the students who will call the shots. We have already seen how the balance of power, so to speak, is changing, where more and more producers and editors are out there. Interesting to think of what learning will look like in 5 years. For me, the transformation has already been monumental.

Week 6 Video Reflection

Wow. I was totally blown away by what some of my classmates produced in their movie editing projects today. Some of them really have a good grasp of how to use the technology. I thought it was a fun project once I became comfortable with imovie. I spent a lot of time fiddling with small details but I was pretty happy with my effort. I would definitely have added more text and broken up my footage more and would do a better job of adding music of my own instead of from iMovie. Like all the other projects, onceI became more adept at using the tool, I could spend more time on the creative end. I would love the opportunity to edit another movie.

It amazes me what iMovie can do. My efforts to the contrary, it really is a pretty straight forward, powerful program. When I coached my kids teams, my husband took tons of footage of them playing. I wished I knew then what I know now, I could have made some pretty cool movies.

Week 6 Wiki Reflection

I will certainly plan on including a wiki in my future classroom. I love the interactive nature of it and the fact that the readers/students can participate in the content. This are the first courses (Tech and Learning Theories) that I have taken where the syllabus, "handouts", outside sources, and working docs are all on the wiki. I found it incredibly easy to access information and having the ability to create links on the fly gave the instruction so much more freedom in formulating course content. I would like to have that same flexibility with my future students.

I think students in general would really enjoy creating their own wikis. For many special education students, pencil-to-paper work is a huge challenge. Wikis would be a great to assessment tool and would facilitate learning for many of these students. In addition, it gives the students some autonomy in their learning, being able to access sites they are interested in and link to all kinds of information. It really is portfolio learning which is a great method of differentiation.

As usual with my technology projects, the nuts and bolts of the tools wore me down so the content suffered. I especially felt that with my wiki. I feel there were many things I wanted to include but just ran out of steam and time. However, the good news is that I truly feel that this was a course I took away a huge body of knowledge, even if that was represented in my work. By the time I got to the end of the project, and was up against it, I was just beginning to feel as though I was getting a handle on my skills. While this didn't bode well for most of the work I turned it, I do feel as though I am taking skills with me into my own classroom and I feel that perhaps in this case, that matters more.

I came into this course a little intimidated and very, very unsure of my tech skills. I left realizing that my fears were proved correct!! Seriously, I developed a thick skin, always a good thing, and I persevered. My comfort level is improving and I look forward to the day when I can catch up my tech skills to my creativity and really produce some amazing things. At the very least, I definitely have a new found appreciated for technology in the classroom; in fact, its hard for to me to imagine good teaching without it in today's world.

Website reflection

Phew! Finally finished with this website. This was a really frustrating project for me on a couple of levels. While I appreciated the ease in which pages and links were created in Weebly, I also found adding and manipulating objects and elements incredibly cumbersome. I chewed up huge chunks of time trying to accomplish simple tasks. When I finished, I felt the content of my site felt far short of what I would consider an appealing and inviting site. In the end, to be honest, I just wanted it be be complete. I used to do some website design back in the day, most with Dreamweaver and while it was much more complicated than Weebly, I felt I had more control of the look of it and for a former graphic designer, that was important to me. Things like putting borders and boxes around elements, in fact just the positioning of elements was very hard. And for the life of me, I could not figure out why if I highlighted and changed the text on one element, the change invariably occurred somewhere else.

I would like to keep building a site for future use, however, despite the hardships of this project. Perhaps when I was feeling a little more creative and a little less stressed I could accomplish what's probably right in front of my face. The one thing I will strive for in revising this site will be to put more of my personality into. I thought this site did not reflect much of me in that way. I would like to add quotes, links to music, updates on the Red Sox and UConn basketball (and my daughter's high school team), more links to other cool sites and things that make me laugh out loud. I think that it is absolutely crucial for my students to get to know me and having some of personality come through in my class website would help to accomplish this. I also would like to have a student centered page that included webquests and a gallery of student work. So, very much a work in progress...

My check through Truwex revealed numerous warnings and I did manage to make some sense of what the info told me. For instance there were times when I had images and did not include style sheets or text alongside and I understand this could be an obstacle for some visitors. It was actually an interesting task to see the many things I typically did not consider.

Tech Week 5 reflections on reading

Mrs. Schuppe's Classroom

Reflecting back over the last month and how much exposure I have had with technology in the classroom, it's hard for me to espouse not using technology and online resources in the classroom. Coming from from my position as the anti-techy, that's saying a lot.

There's a few reasons that really stand out for me. We have talked a lot in other classes about recognizing the importance of youth popular culture and the need to attempt to incorporate it into our pedagogy. Because most of our students reside online, I already had the sneaking suspicion I would have to jump in. But what I have learned in this course and through the readings is that the online culture is not only for the young. As teachers, parents, educated adults, the online world beckons. We simply cannot ignore the possibilities and ramifications of having so many sources available at a click.

As educators, I feel we must prepare our students for the world in which they will live and work. Information literacy is as necessary as skill as traditional reading and writing, and one with just as serious consequences if not taught well. Exposing our students to a variety of online projects will help them think and participate critically in their academic and whole- person lives. Realizing how much vaster a landscape of experience we can provide our students through online activity, I feel we would be remiss not to include and teach into these tools. Wikis, blogs, podcast, video technology--for our students, these are all connectors to exploring not only their own worlds but the bigger world as well.

Ok, so I am all for creating online opportunities for my students. But I am less prepared for the social networking culture that I know is here to stay. I am used to the experience of interpersonal, face-to-face experiences and finding it a little intimidating to operate outside of that sphere. But, as in other facets of technology, I am learning and adjusting. Because I'm not as fluent in social networking, it's a little difficult to imagine exactly how this world will look, especially in the classroom. But, I have a few clues.

For starters, I envision a dynamic, responsive environment. As students, colleagues, administration, community, we will be tightly connected. The classroom will no longer be teacher-centered and instead will learner-centered, and by learner I mean students, teachers, everyone. The classroom itself could very well cease to be as we know it with 24/7 and virtual learning replacing the traditional modes. Learning will be directed not just by the curriculum but by what 's happening in our world, day-by-day, minute-by-minute. Social networking in the classroom will mean reacting and responding and reaching out-- to the people across the room and across the world. Hopefully, the interest-driven capabilities of social networking will enhance the educational opportunities of our students (and ourselves, as educators) and also extend into how our students maintain and grow their personal relationships.

Tech Week 5

The PowerPoint presentation that I submitted was a lesson plan entitled "Segmenting Syllables". This was designed to teach second grade or struggling older readers how to read multisyllable words. The lesson described a strategy that involves identifying vowel sounds in words to figure out how many syllables there are and then blending the syllables to say the word. This strategy is useful for those students who decode letter by letter and thus struggle with bigger words.

The features I included in my presentation included transitions, animations (lead ins, exits), some effects, importing images, creating links to relevant sites. I experimented with sound and created some narration for a few of my slides in which the teacher was being instructed to instruct in a scripted manner. I felt that I could have added a table or chart (mostly from creating the screencast with my group) but I was having some trouble thinking of a relevant reason to include one in this particular lesson. I would add charts/tables in future presentations. I learned how easy the animations were, once I played around with them.

Probably the most important thing I learned through this project was that despite all the bells and whistles available, you needed to be careful not to obscure the material you were presented. It's tempting to include all kinds of effects but often these become distractions. Sometimes less is more. That said, I am eager to keep experimenting with PowerPoint and I would most certainly include this tool in my classroom. Most learners are to some extent visual and so connecting ideas with images or text in interesting and in many cases, dynamic ways, helps get the point across. I think with kids that are used to navigating in a multi-sensory environment, lessons that include PowerPoint are more engaging alternatives to staid lectures. Lastly, I am envisioning for many of my special education students that this visual, auditory component of PowerPoint will be a support in their learning taks.

Week 5 T2P

Today was an useful exercise in putting T2P into T2P. It's starting to come together and I'm beginning to understand how to incorporate what I know about how I learn and, in today's case, how I think to my pedagogy.

If I can have a structure at my ready that helps me define, analyze, synthesize and examine issues that might arise in my classroom, then I will be better prepared to come up with solutions that promote the general well-being of my students and are congruent with my beliefs and values. Designing a blueprint not only provides me with a starting point and sequence of steps, it prevents hasty, emotional laden reactions that often cause more damage than good. Good intentions are not enough...there is too much at stake.

So I need a plan. I want to be a teacher that cares, of course. I already care about my students and I haven't met them yet. I know I will be taking them home with me each night, carrying their stories, their pains, their triumphs. I will want to protect and provide for them all. But am I truly caring? I agree what Nell Noddings says about relational caring: the student must know that they are cared for. How will my students know that they are cared for? When problems arise and conflict present themselves, will I find solutions that let my students know I care? If I think about our hypothetical teachers Erik and Frank, I believe they cared, they mulled over the last class, they ruminated over failed classroom situations yet did their solutions fell short of their expectations. There were many reasons but the one that jumps out at me was that their students did not know they were cared for.

In my heuristic, I want to make certain that throughout all the steps I take to gather data, examine the data and come up with solutions, my students know they are cared for. That means being honest about examining my personal biases, positive and negative, and checking those that interfere with an objective, fair assessment. That means talking honestly and openly with my students, inviting dialog, encouraging trust between myself and them, and between each other. It means valuing input from other colleagues and asking for guidance when needed. It means participating with my students as much as possible so I cam model for them what it looks like when my process cares about them.

I liked today's heuristic activity because it provided structure, something a "big picture gal" like myself often needs. However, I know there won't always be a clear cut solution that promotes and protects the well-being of all my students. I think Freire and Duncan-Andrade would concur that if my students know they are cared for, then they will trust me to resolve conflicts justly and, in turn, look for just resolutions in their own lives.