Reflection

Reflecting back on my personal learning theory, that I developed in week 1, based on the knowledge that I gained from this course, I would not modified my learning theory. My personal theory about how students learn is: that students must be able to access the information being present to them, feel comfortable in the learning environment, receive positive reinforcement, and make meaningful connections to the information being presented. I believe that technology can be very easily integrated into my personal learning theory and there is no need to spell it out in the learning theory.

Any immediate adjustments that I will make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration will be to have at least one integrated lesson per day. I need to have my students on the computers more and take advantage of all of the resources out there that would let my students express their knowledge in a way that best fits them. Two technology tools that I would like to use with my students would web cams and VoiceThread. The reason that I picked web cameras is because my students are deaf and communicate through sign language. I think that web cameras would be a great to track progress of each student’s language development and reading fluency. It would be a great tool as well to record books so that the students can have a watching center instead of a listening center, which is what their hearing peers have. The reason that I want to use VoiceThread is because it allows the students to interact with each other in a different way and to have conversations about educational topics, so that they are getting that language practice and vocabulary development. It is also a good tool, because it allows the students to practice their writing skills, in a new and exciting way. I can also then grading and or track their progress with concrete evidence through these assessments as well.

My first long-term goal that I would like to make in my instructional practice regarding technology integration is to be able to think of ways that technology would support the standard curriculum without much effort. Right now, I have to work hard at making technology integrate into my curriculum. I want to be a person that people could give me a topic and could list five different ways that technology could be integrated into the lessons. The first to achieving this goal is to finish my degree in Integrating Technology in the Classroom. The second would be to follow blogs or professional journals and get ideas from the current experts in the field. The third would be to try as often as possible to have integrated lessons, and then make notes on each lesson about what work and what did not work so that in the future the lesson could be improved. The final step would be keep working at it because practice makes perfect and to attend workshops and classes to keep update on all of the new technologies that are available and support education.

My second long-term goal that I would like to make in my instructional practice regarding technology integration is to have every lesson for every subject to have some technology integration built into it. The first step would be to pick one subject and try to have one lesson a week, and then to slowly build to having it in every lesson. The second step would be to add another subject after, feeling comfortable with the previous subject or subjects. The third thing would be then to work towards having all subjects. I think that it could be a huge undertaking, but I think the key will be to take it slow and not try and hurry. I think that this goal may take a couple years to full master, but I think the pay out at the end is well worth the effort. I know that I cannot do it alone, so I will need to tap into every resource available to me whether it be blog sites, professional journals, workshops, classes, and or people around me.

Voicethread Project

Please scroll down to view my voicethread project.

Social Learning Theory

The instructional strategies described in the resources I explored this week correlate with the principles of social learning theories, because they focused on social networking and using others to gain information and skills. The resources talk about using different software and programs the enable many people to work on the same project at the same time, and where the participants are located does not affect their ability to work on the project. Social learning theorists believe that the primary way that people learn is by interacting with people and their environment. They believe that children should be involved in cooperative learning groups and should connect new knowledge and skills to old knowledge while they work in their groups to complete a common task. These cooperative learning groups are a great place to integrated technology using social networking. Group members can not only work on the same project, but they each other feedback and answer each other’s questions

The Constructivist Perspective

Lever-Duffy and McDonald (2007) stated, for constructivists, knowledge is a constructed element resulting from the learning process. Further, knowledge is unique to the individual who construct it" (pp 16). I believe the key to that statement is that knowledge is unique to the individual. There are so many things that we learn how to do in our life, but if we were asked to explained how we learned them we each would have an unique answer. How one person learns a new skill or a piece of information may not work for another person who is trying to learn that same skill. An example of that is when someone ask another person how to teach them to do a certain task. The person teaching gets frustrated at the person who is trying to learn the task because they are not getting it and the learner is frustrated at the teacher because they do not understand. It is because knowledge is unique to the individual who constructs it.

That is why project based learning and or problem based learning is so essential for our students. It gives them the opportunity to show off what they know in an unique way. A student may not be able to explain how they know something but given a chance to show you, may blow you as the teacher away. I do think that students need guidance during this process to ensure that they stay focused on the skill that you are assessing them on. I think that rubrics are the perfect match for these project based learning assignments. They provided both the structure and the freedom that is required for both parties to get what they require. I know that I loved problem based learning, especially when I can to work on the computer for the entire thing. Our kids are getting burned out of learning at an early age it seems like now a days, one way to get students excited about learning again is to use the resources provided to us and the technology that we have access to, to provide students with these problem/project based learning opportunities.

Social Learning Theory

The instructional strategies described in the resources I explored this week correlate with the principles of social learning theories, because they focused on social networking and using others to gain information and skills. The resources talk about using different software and programs the enable many people to work on the same project at the same time, and where the participants are located does not affect their ability to work on the project. Social learning theorists believe that the primary way that people learn is by interacting with people and their environment. They believe that children should be involved in cooperative learning groups and should connect new knowledge and skills to old knowledge while they work in their groups to complete a common task. These cooperative learning groups are a great place to integrated technology using social networking. Group members can not only work on the same project, but they each other feedback and answer each other’s questions.

How to get students to focus on details

Cognitive Thinking Theory

My thoughts on how the instructional strategies described in the resources I explored this week correlate with the principles of cognitive learning theory are that thinking maps are the perfect partner for cognitive learning theory. According to Levrt-Duffy & McDonald (2008), cognitive theorists focus on learning as a mental operation that takes places when information enters trough the senses, undergoes mental manipulation, is stored, and the finally used (pp 16). Thinking maps provide the brain with a way to organize the information and a way to link old information to new information. Cognitive theorists would love that students would be linking the old information to the new information because it would make retrieval of that information quick and more efficient. The learner would remember more because they would be learning information that was always represented in a mental process, which is what cognitive theorists, live for. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski had this to say about thinking maps, “to aid the learning process, look for opportunities to activate students’ background knowledge, thereby providing a direction for exploration. The technology, in turn, provides you with editable visual aids and multimedia resources that appeal to a number of learning styles” (pp. 79).

Behaviorist Learning Theory integrated with Technology

The instruction strategies described in the resources this week correlate with the principles of behaviorist learning theory because they discuss ways to increase a desired behavior by reinforcing it and punishing undesired behaviors. According to behaviorists, the learner acquires behaviors, skills, and knowledge in response to the rewards, punishments, or withheld responses associated with them. In the chapter that discussed homework, it talks about using different websites that allow students to practice certain skills and are reward for correct answers and punished for wrong answers by not being allowed to move on to the next level.

In the chapter that discusses reinforcing effort, all of the strategies that are provided to improve student effort are based on the behaviorist learning theory. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski stated (2007), “Spreadsheet software and data collection tools support the instructional strategy of reinforcing effort by helping students to chart the relationship between effort and achievement one of the classroom recommendations” (pp 156). A powerful way to show students that their hard work is paying off is to not only show them the data but combined data on groups that they associate themselves with. This strategy is built on the principal that the students will continue to work hard because they will be rewarded by seeing their data on the chart improve.

Growing through Reflection

This course has made me feel like I am up to date on my technology skills as a professional teacher. I feel like a computer whiz and I cannot wait to start the new school year, so I can not only use what I have learned in the course in my classroom, but share my knowledge with other teachers that what to use these strategies in their classrooms. I feel like I can walk into a room with others discussing new strategies for the classroom involving technology and I would be able to understand and add to the discussion now.

This course has broadened my view on teaching and the learning process. I am no longer unaware of why are students are having a hard time in today’s typical classrooms and what skills that these students are going to need in order to succeed outside of school. I now realize that I need to change my strategies and how I present information to my students in order to keep them engaged in the lesson but also prepare them for the future. This course has shown me that traditional learning strategies are not longer going to work for today’s students because today’s students are not the traditional learner.

The ways that I have changed my perspective from being teacher centered to learner-centered are that my students are not no longer going to benefit from a teacher centered classroom and in order for them to succeed they need to be taught in a learner centered environment. I now realize that I need to let my students struggle in a healthy way on challenging tasks and not jump right in and help them. My perspective has changed from thinking that my students are to young to do some of these tasks to my students need to start practicing these skills as soon as possible because most of my students do not have access to lot of technology at home. I need to work on my patience to let the students work through problems in their own way, if even if it means changing my agenda and stepping out of my comfort zone.

The ways that I can continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology with the aim of increasing student achievement are to continue with the masters program that I currently enrolled in at Walden and to continue to read and participate in blogs that relate to integrate technology into the classroom. I think that being able to see what other people are doing in their classrooms and then modified it to fit into my classroom will be a great help. I want to attend workshops, training, and or lectures that discuss using technology to increase students learning and stay current and up to date on the ever changing best practices and how to use technology in a new way.

The first long-term goal for transforming my classroom environment is for my students to use a form of technology daily in some way, shape or form. This will be a challenge because I currently have only one computer in my classroom and the computer labs are on the other side of the building and are not set-up in a way for me to work with my deaf students. I plan to accomplish this goal by getting computers that people no longer want and setting them up in my classroom. I will write grants to try and get more technology into my classroom, like digital video camera, video iPods, and web cameras. If I have all of these forms of technology at my fingertips, I will be able to create lesson centered on them and the students will get to use them daily. The second goal that I want to accomplish is to have a classroom blog site that the students contribute to and also provides lesson in ASL, spelling list, a place where parents can connect together and come to learn American Sign Language. I want to be able to post the students themselves signing for the online resource and stories. I want it to be a place where students can go and still be exposed to sign language at home and a place where parents can go and learn the language that their child uses to communicate. The way that I am going to accomplish this goal is by getting my administration and parents on board. I think that is going to be the most challenging part because I know that parents and administrators are going to be worry about having videos of the students online for everyone to see. I am going to have to conceive them that the students are going to be protected and that the blog site will provide huge benefits to the students, parents, and the community.

Podcast

Here is my podcast. http://www.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/1420/episodes/6778

My podcast is me interviewing three brothers about their technology use in a social and academic setting. They also talk about their feelings about an technology based classroom.

A review of the website Partnership for 21st Century Skills

My reaction to the website Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, was what an amazing resource this website is for anyone in the educational field that is looking for resources and or data about how to integrate technology in the classroom and the benefits of it and why it is important for our students to have these skills. The website was overwhelming at first. It took a couple of minutes, of me “playing” around on it before I found the information I was looking for. Overall, it is very eye catching and pretty user friendly. The information on the site that surprised where what other states were doing to try and close this technology gap that we have in schools and how long people are have do research on these new skills that our students need in order to survive in the ever change work place. Another shocking fact was how much other country are doing to make sure that their students are up to speed and or setting the bar for how and what students are learning and using technology. Compare to the other countries the U.S. looks bad because for some reason the county is almost fighting against this change is how and what our students need to know in order to get those “white collar” jobs. The other big shock I had were people’s responses to the articles that were published on this site. I really thought people would be excited and chomping on the bit to try these new ways of teaching in their classroom. To my surprise, people were having the opposite feeling towards the lessons and ideas provided on this website. People were suggesting that it was a waste of time for the majority of students to have these skills and that most students would not need these skills in their future job careers. People were supporting the way that things are currently being done and how could they possible teach these new technology skills when they do not even have enough time to teach the require curriculum. I disagree with all of their comments. It shows me that they have no clue what is going on in the rest of the world when it comes to educating students about technology. They are in their comfort zone with the old way of teaching and they themselves are afraid and do not understand these new technology skills. After reading the articles about how the earth is becoming flat, I see no future for our students unless they posses this new technology literacy skills. The implications for my students and I is that we are going to have to unlearn our current thoughts and beliefs about education. We need to revamp how we teach our students and how schools and classrooms are set-up. This website proves that in order for teachers to stay current on new technology and implications of it for use in the classroom, teachers are going to need to go back to school and continue to go back so they are up to date on the technology so then they can pass that information and skills onto their students. The world is changing and it is time for the education world to change as well.

Using the blog as a classroom tool

The way that I can potentially see myself using the blog website as a tool in my classroom is a way to post videos of my students signing and of adults signing. I teach students in kindergarten through 2nd grade, and all of my students use sign language as their primary mode of communication. Since most of my families do not know sign language, I think that my blog site could be a place where they could go and learn it for free and where my students could go and see other people signing and practice their skills. I think it would be awesome for the students to take turns recording themselves signing a the short stories that we are currently working on in reading groups so that when they went home they could practice reading the story. If they forgot a sign then they could watch the video on the blog spot for help. Parents could also watch the video as well and read the story. I could post videos of me signing more difficult books, spelling lists, and making lessons for people who want to learn sign. I think that the students would be excited about learning how to use the equipment and recording themselves and watching themselves on-line. I believe the blog being used this way would be very valuable to my students and their families to improve their sign language skills but for the students to go to and get help in sign language, which they can't get at home.

Hello World!

This is my first blog and I am all excited and nervous at the same time. My first blog will be introducing myself to the world. My name is Ashley and I am currently living and working in Las Vegas. I work currently at a local elementary school in the kindergarten through second grade total communication deaf and hard of hearing classroom. I am currently working on my master’s in Integrating Technology in the Classroom. I have two dogs, one is a black and white great dane pup and the other is a long haired daschund. I also own two horses, one is a black and white paint/draft horse yearling and the other is AQHA bay mare. My goal for this site is to discuss the issues that come up in my classroom, provide ideas or lessons that worked, and to provide a place for teachers of the deaf to bounce ideas of each other and to get new ideas and or solutions. My second goal is to share and get feedback on lessons that I am using that involved technology.

Thanks for stopping by and checking me out. Please come again and post a comment.

Ashley