Final Reflection

For those who did not know before, this blog was part of a project for my Educational Technology class at Albright College.  I walked into Educational Technology with no real understanding of what I would be learning.  I thought it would be months of SmartBoards, but instead I learned so much more (though SmartBoards were included).  I learned how to utilize technology I already understood, but how to use it in the classroom and how it could be modified for student-learning.  I learned brand-new technology like Diigo, Glogster, and a plethora of other websites that I will definitely use in the future.  I learned how connected teachers are.  There are millions of resources out there already created and shared for free.  There are online educational videos and social networking sites to connect teachers across the world.  I don't know how much I will use the technology learned here in my day-to-day life, but once I am in a classroom, I will use it all the time.  And that's the point; educational technology is so much more than a multimedia class.

#Literacies

Today I watched the Literacy chat on Twitter.  The theme to this chat was how to teach English and literacy in the age of Common Core.  The chat was hosted by Troy Hicks, who added questions throughout the chat.  The group seemed really social.  People kept introducing themselves and saying where they are from and what they do.  Most of the people in the chat were English teachers. 

One question was how are the common core standards being interpreted across the country.  Many people thought the standards were limiting.  The felt a sense of pressure to limit time and resources spend on material not being tested.  Others commented that the standards had more to say about nonfiction than fiction, and few standards about writing, so perhaps they are not so limiting.  Some teachers complained that the administrators were interpreting the standards very literally, allowing less room for creativity.  This brought the discussion into how risky was it to a teacher to broadly interpret the standards?  Many commented that there is a culture of fear among teachers- fear of being different, fear of being fired, fear of taking risks, and ultimately fear of failure.  I can relate to this.  In all of my education courses, I am constantly warned of things not to do because I could get in trouble.  This makes me nervous, not of teaching, but of administrators.

This chat was very conversation based, which I enjoyed.  Only one person shared a link: Common Core Ate my Baby and Other Urban Legends found at http://bit.ly/VbgNfX

#CCChat

This week I chose to check out Common Core chat since Common Core is becoming a huge topic in education.  In every other chat I have participated in, someone has brought up Common Core.  I could not find the time for the actual chat on Cybermary's page so I simply took half an hour to read everything I could find in the chat.  Because I used this method, I could not find one distinct theme or topic.

This chat consisted on a lot of resources shared through links.  This chat also seemed to have only a few loud participants.  Mel Riddile and Darren Burris were every other few tweet, with other random people in between.  I found that no one was really saying anything; they were just posting a few words and a lot of hashtags.  I was disappointed with CC chat.  I had hoped to find debates on its worth and ways to implement it but I found next to no discussion.

#ntchat and Personal Interest Project

I have decided that my personal interest project is going to be about the use of video and podcasts in the classrooms.  By videos, I mean those made by non-profit organizations and people, not videos made by organizations like History Channel.

I decided to participate in New Teacher Chat this week.  The theme of this chat seemed to be help in general.  Many links were shared as were many resources.  Someone shared ideas they had for behavior modification for her kindergartners.  This can be found at: http://bit.ly/Prf2rO.  The ideas were very cute and clever.  Another shared a list of websites all teachers would find useful.  This can be found at: http://bit.ly/OKJgqx.  Some of these sites include Smithsonian Education and edHelper.  Another person shared a list of Android Apps that teachers could use in education.  This can be found at: http://bit.ly/PZ6jfA.  I do not have a smart phone, but many of these looked interesting to someone who does.

A lot of the chat seemed to be trite phrases and begging to join other chats.  I don't know if there were less opinion-based questions because the people in the chat have less experience, but I was disappointed.  I feel like while many good resources were shared, I did not learn a lot.  The only real question was about thoughts on the Common Core and that led to discussion about an upcoming webinar about Common Core.

I did find some new people to follow though.  I am following Melanie Amburn.  She is an elementary instructional supervisor who provided several interesting links.  I am also following Eye on Education.  While this is not a person, whoever was tweeting for the company was saying interesting things and proving resources.  Finally, I am following Ronnie Gonzalez.  He is a director of technology in Texas.  He shared some interesting hashtags to check out.

#SSChat

This week I watched a combines social studies and English chat.  The theme of the chat was project based learning.  There were many interesting links posted.  One I found of particular interest was how to use the presidential election in the classroom.  The link is posted below.  The link is from TeachHub.  The chat focused on how to use projects in the classroom and how it helps students understand material better.  The pursuit of one's own interests lead to deeper understanding.  Also discussed was the use of projects to better the community.

I am now following Kenna Wilson, a middle school principal.  Molly Smith is another new person I am following; she is a history teacher.  Finally, I am following is Justin Staub, a Pennsylvanian teacher.

bit.ly/SgRN2T

#Edchat

I participated in Edchat on Tuesday night.  The topic of the chat was: if the poverty gap is a major force stalling the improvement in the American education system, how do we address it?  The chat had a lot of ideas, though some seemed rather off topic.  Some suggested training teachers to be better at intervention.  Others cited that students in poverty were the ones more often put in special education and were more likely to fall behind over the summer.  These students are given lower expectations so they only rise to far.  Others were critical of standardized testing because it did not show a student's true ability (though how this relates to poverty is unclear).  Teachers wanted the government to take more action and provide more funding, though they never actually discussed the government using poverty as a stalling tactic.  Many stated that schools simply are not able to handle the problem of poverty.  Many said student in poverty need help before they even get into the public school system.  More programs like Head Start are needed.

There were many links posted, though most of them were unrelated to the topic of the chat.  One interesting article actually was about further ways to use Twitter as an educator.  This site shows the top 50 education chats and how to use them: http://bit.ly/UHl76A

I am following several people that I discovered within #Edchat.  Nikkol Bauer is the CIO of Henry County schools in Kentucky.  Emil Ahangarzadeh tweets mostly about technology and is a self-proclaimed ninja.  Steven Anderson is one of the creators of Edchat .  Mel Ridder is a high school principal.  Ron Peck is an AP history teacher and one of the creators of SSChat.
 

Classrooms are Getting iSmart

The classrooms in the videos from the One-to-One program and the Transformed Classroom video physically looked like any other classroom, with the addition of iPads and laptop computers.  There were still desks and chairs for all of the students as well as boards to write on.  Some classes continued to use a textbook while others found them needless with the new technology.  In the classroom with the iPads, two students shared one tablet do they were seated in pairs.

The technology increased communication between the students and the teachers.  They could e-mail one another at any time so a student could have work looked over, returned, and corrected before class even began.  Discipline with using the computers was a bit of a problem with they first received them but the student quickly got into a pattern of appropriate use.

Differentiation of instruction was achieved with the new technology.  In the 5th grade classroom full of tablets, students played many educational games.  Skill level in those games acts as a form of differentiation because every student can go at his or her own rate.  Technologies like these make it easier than printing out several different worksheets and giving only certain students certain worksheets.

In my classroom, I would love every student to have access to computers whenever they were needed instead of signing up for library or computer lab time.  I would use them to share videos I thought to be of value.  There is a great youtube channel called Crash Course.  Crash Course teaches both biology and world history.  I would use the world history videos to introduce a new unit of study.  Viewing sources such as political cartoons or old pictures is much more easily done on a computer.  The image would not be degraded or get blurred in the printing process, and if everyone has the image in front of them then there is no eye strain.  I would use the computers like the other teachers to distribute homework and collect papers so less trees are cut down.

The sheer amount of technology in the classrooms surprised me.  I went to school with no smart boards and very few computers.  We used overhead projectors a lot.  The fact that a school can get a bunch of 5th graders iPads astounds me.  The use of the technology was very interesting.  The teachers used the technology in unexpected ways, ways that I could not even imagine because I lack the experience.