EDUC-6712I Reflection

The most striking revelation about teaching the new literacy skills to my students as a result of this course was that not only was I teaching them new ways to learn in the 21st century, but I was also learning new skills that I have never thought of before. The knowledge that I learned from this course will stay with me while I teach. The skills that were presented throughout the course are skills that can be used in every day life not only to use and help my students, but to also share with my colleagues. The 21st century fluency's are something that I want to understand and have so that my students can have and understand them. As I began to become more familiar with the skills, I really started to use them and thought about how they really do matter. The skills are just simple everyday things that you may not think of in everyday life, but when you break it down and really think about what they are and how they effect your life and your teaching, it is amazing! The media skills were important for this class. As I read through them I realized that I know some of the skills and use them, but there were skills that I do not use and began to use them in my own life and classroom. The one professional development goal that I would like to pursue to build upon my learning in this course and develop my own information literacy or technology skills would be to become more familiar with the personal skills. I want to better myself with these skills so that I can share them with my students and instill them in them so that they will be able to be great lifelong learners. The steps that I will take to accomplish this will be to instill the personal skills into my everyday routine at school and begin to teach them to my students. I really enjoyed this class and really want to take the 21st century fluency skills with me so that I am able to instill them into my students to be the best learners they can be.

Final Blog Posting

As I look back at this course, I will admit that there were times that I did not give it my all. It was very hectic end to the year and I sometimes failed to give it my all. Although I did not give it my all there were many different strategies that I learned and will take with me from this class. Although my personal learning theory seems to remain the same with my students, there are a few things that I would be willing to change to better my students learning in the classroom. I am willing to make our classroom more of a hands on environment. It is very hands on at the moment but I believe by making it more hands on the students are able to explore and do things that they may not have been able to if it was teacher led. I am definitely going to incorporate the Internet more into my classroom as a result of this class. Technology is so important for this generation of students. Dr. Michael Orey stated that teachers should take technology to teach using it as a technology teaching tool and not to be afraid to give the kids technology to learn, get them engaged in learning! I agree with Dr. Orey, kids today sometimes know more than we do therefore we can learn from each other! There are many things that I would like to do as far as technology is concerned in my classroom. Two goals that I will set for myself will be to use technology more in the classroom as a teaching tool and to take full advantage of the brand new computer lab that is being put in in our school. I want to achieve these goals by trying to get to the computer lab at least once a week so that my students become familiar with the lab and by the end of the year are able to take their knowledge of what they know and use it at home and in first grade. The computer lab is going to be a great addition not only to our school but also to the Kindergarten class of 2010!

instructional strategies using the constructivist/constructionist learning theories

The instructional strategies described in this weeks resources that were explored were very interesting! I believe that they correlate directly with the contructivist/constructionis learning theories because they are hands on. The activities are good for students because they are presented in a way that students can actually see the information and understand it at the same time! Data Collection Tools are a great idea for answering questions and by doing this it forms new ones. This is good with the Constructionism theory because it is a type of learning that builds on an external artifact and is something that can be shared with others. When students build these data collection tools not only are they learning but they are also building stuff and getting involved! When students build on these ideas they are testing their own minds to see if the information that they generated can be tested by the information that they entered into the tools!

Reinforcing Effort, Homework and Practice and how it relates to the Behaviorist Learning Theory

As I look at read through the material in 'Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works', I gained a lot of insight to the different things you can use with technology to keep students interested! In chapter 8, Reinforcing Effort, I found the Effort Rubric to be very interesting. Although at the Kindergarten level I would have to make it much easier to understand, the concept and ownership for the student was a great idea! I liked the way the teacher can set it up and then each week the students go in and actually grade themselves on the work they have done, all in the computer. I believe that this relates to the Behaviorist Learning Theory because it lets each student own up to their own selves. If they get a bad grade on the rubric then they know that they need to own up to themselves. Basically it is saying that you received the grade you did for the performance you showed in the class. That way they can look at what they got from the rubric and change it to make it better for themselves next time. The Behaviorist Learning Theory seems to be cut and dry, the student is either being reinforced or punished. With the spreadsheet that shows effort, the students that do their work and follow directions will be reinforced and the students that do the minimum or nothing will be punished with the grade that they receive. If a student gets a bad grade, he or she is just punishing themselves and can make it better next time by showing more effort to get that reward!

Reinforcing Effort, Homework and Practice

Blog Reflection on Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society

As this course draws to a close and I reflect on what I learned, I am very impressed by the outcomes of technological abilities I have been able to learn and incorporate into my classroom!
As a professional teacher in the classroom, this course has made me aware of great things in technology that I would have never found out about. This course has taught me to try it even if it seems hard or intimidating. There were applications that were introduced and I would get cold feet, because they were new and different! For me this was a challenge and I really enjoyed it. I have deepened my knowledge for technology in the classroom because it has become like second nature for me. When something is new I believe that a person is afraid to dabble into it, but this course has helped me to feel confident with technology that is challenging but fun & interesting!
I cannot say that I have shied away from my teacher-centered classroom management, but I am experiencing with the learner-center. With Kindergarten students it is very hard to let the students be on their own. Although I do give my higher leveled thinking students a chance to work with technology in our classroom. I do my best to shy away from teacher-centered but sometimes it is hard because the boys and girls think it is a play time sort of thing. I believe that with my higher leveled learners it is much more manageable to let them dive into using technology because they seem more mature to me and understand!
I will continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching and leading with technology to increase student achievement by continuing to try new things in the classroom that involve technology, encourage it at home and try to be more open to reaching every student with technology activities!
Over the next two years my long term goals include getting a smart board and having my in-focus machine mounted in the ceiling of my classroom. I hope to acquire the smart board by writing a grant to local companies explaining my need and uses for a smart board in my classroom. It would be a great addition for our class and also add many hours of creating great lessons to promote lifelong learners. The in-focus machine needs to be mounted for safety reasons. At this point it is very hard to constantly have to plug it in and move it to get it going. The cords are always in the way, which is a danger for my students and we have to share it as a grade level. I want to be able to just have it in my classroom for my own use without all of the hassle to go with it! I plan to achieve this goal by talking to administration and explaining my goals and concerns with this issue.
As I looked back on my checklist from week one, several answers have changed after completing this course. I checked off that I use a variety of digital tools to collaborate and communicate with students, parents, colleagues, and community stakeholders. I checked that I do that sometimes; I have changed it too often because I find myself doing it on a more frequent basis now! I also checked that I sometimes seek out other professionals, both at my school site and in the larger global community, with whom I share best practices and build a personal learning community to further my own professional growth; I am doing it on a more consistent basis now!
I have gained much insight from this course and will continue to use and learn more about each of the applications I encountered!

Partnership for 21st Century Learning....

When I first looked at the website, http://www.21stcenturyskills.org, I was a bit overwhelmed. It seemed as though there was a lot of information and it all jumped out in your face. Once I started to navigate through it though, it seemed to be more user friendly!!
The information on the site that surprised me was the members that belonged and contributed to the site. One member that I found to be very interesting was, Cable in the Classroom! After I went through and looked at all of the members, I went to the Cable in the Classroom website and looked around it for a while. I put in my zip code to see if it was available in my area where my school was. Once I put my school name in, a cable company popped up, I clicked on it and the name of a representative came up to call. I immediately cut and pasted the link and emailed it to myself!! I am definitely going to look into this. The website, http://www.ciconline.org/home, was very interesting and gave some great information. The service is free and "Once connected, educators can start using an array of more than 500 hours per month of commercial-free, copyright-cleared educational video programs and thousands of pages of related online materials, produced by cable networks, and all free of charge!" www. ciconline.org
I did not find any flaws to this website. I was actually really impressed with it and plan to use it more often now that I know it is a resource! The implications for myself and my students are that if I use this website as a resource, I can find new and great things linked to the 21st century to share with my students to make them life long learners!

Using a blog in my classroom!

I teach Kindergarten at a elementary school in a suburb about 20 minutes from Cleveland Ohio! Although we do have all access to using computers in our K curriculum, it would be very hard to blog with Kindergarteners. I have not brought the laptops into my classroom just yet. I just cannot bring myself to trying out the whole laptop idea with 23 five and six year olds. Even though some of my students can read to an extent, I do not feel that blogging would be ideal in the Kindergarten curriculum. I think that if they could blog by drawing pictures some how on the computer to express themselves, this would be a great way of blogging! Kindergarten is the grade where children are just getting used to the whole school atmoshere. If anyone has any ideas on ways to incorporate blogging into a Kindergarten curriculum I would love to hear them!

New to the blogging world!! PLEASE HELP!

Hi! My name is Amy. I am a teacher in Northeast Ohio obtaining my masters in technology degree! Well I guess I thought I was pretty up with technology but I am beginning to see that I have a lot to learn! My assignment for my masters class at Walden University was to set up a blog page. So I thought ok, how hard could it be??? Well I was fooled. I know a computer pretty well and I can navigate through pages pretty good. I went to several different educational blogging sites and let me tell you what, they were not very blog friendly, that is a turn off to me. When I signed up for Blogger.com, it was very friendly and user easy!!! So here I am! I am glad to be a part of Blogger.com and hope that I can provide some good insight to the technology world as well as learn from the best bloggers out there! Thank you for reading, talk to you soon!