Reflective Thoughts on Supporting Information Literacy and Outline Inquiry in the Classroom

As my journey through Walden’s master’s program, Integrating Technology in the Classroom has brought me to the end of EDUC 6712; I have evolved into a teacher who grasps the importance of the new literacy skills. One of the most striking revelations about my teaching of new literacy skills to my students is the fact that without evening realizing it, I am incorporating these skills without thinking. Because I understand how the definition of being literate has changed to now encompassing the need for our students to acquire the new literacy skills in order to be able to compete in tomorrow’s work force, I will strive to add more of them into my daily lesson plans.

Due to the knowledge and experience of this course, I am more equipped to teach and guide my students through the process of being able to indentify websites that are reliable and valid as opposed to websites that are created with the intent to mislead or spread untruths. Never realizing such faulty websites existed, I take satisfaction in being more conscious and skilled in educating my students in where to find kid-friendly appropriate sites and search engines such as http://www.ivyjoy.com/rayne/kidssearch.html and even researching an existing site by finding out who the true author is by using www.easywhois.com. Will Richardson states, "They (students) must be able to assess its authority by examining the incoming and outgoing links from and to other sites on the Web to ensure it references--and is referenced by--credible sites" (Richardon, 2009, p. 29).

One professional development goal I would like to pursue is to create a wiki for all special education teachers throughout my school district as a collaborative site to post and share ideas and links that have been enjoyed within their classrooms or as a place to ask for assistance from colleagues. This would also be the perfect avenue to share how to adapt 21^st century skills to each learner according to their individual needs. Current trends of technology could be shared as to how it is being incorporated into the curriculum. Just think of all of the resources that would be available to share with just a click of a computer button; powerpoints, voicethreads, lessons for Promethean and smart boards, and since special education ranges from K-12, there would not be limited materials by any definition. Another added benefit is that this wiki encompasses all realms of special education, which includes speech/language, physical/occupational therapy, gifted, resource, and co-teaching. My steps to accomplishing this goal is to contact my immediate special ed supervisor and acquire contact information for each school or sped teacher. Then I would set up the wiki and invite all to join. Between word of mouth and a great need for this collaborative effort among my peers, I feel I could accomplish this particular professional development goal without too much difficulty and we all would reap the rewards especially the students.

Kimberly

Reflection on Effective Bridging of Technology and Instruction

As I began to understand what this course, Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction and Technology entailed, I also began to investigate as well as express which theory I lean toward or used the most.

The more I reflect on my own personal learning theory, the more I realize that I continue to evolve and grow and do not prefer to be boxed into labeling my beliefs and teaching styles. With this said, I found that I adhere to mainly the constructivist and cognitivist theories with a little mixing of behaviorist. Bruner stated that learning is “an active process in which learners build new ideas or concepts based on their current/past knowledge” (Duffy and McDonald, (2008). Piaget “suggest that the adult’s role in helping the child learn was to provide appropriate materials for the child to interact and construct” (http://www.child-development-guide.com/child-development-theorists.html#theorists1). I believe that each child possess different learning styles and strengths in which I try to incorporate all modalities of learning in order to reach all of my students at any given time. I am a very intuitive teacher and also believe that most students learn best by actually experiencing things through touching, building, creating, and owning. I have always believed this meaning this portion of my personal learning theory has not changed upon the completion of this course. However, what has resulted from this course is the awareness of how to better implement technology using these theories.

Through this course, I have been enlightened to technology terms and tools that I have not heard before. One such tool that I have continued to use since being introduced via this course is VoiceThreads along with Concept Mapping. I have already utilized VoiceThreads in teaching concepts for reading such as main idea, cause and effect, and fact and opinion. This next week, I will take the next step and place my students in cooperative groups in order for each group to create their own VoiceThread. The second tool I have explored is Concept Mapping. In fact, the concept map I created for this course has been referred to on many different occasions in my class for reading, social studies, and science. I look forward in continuing to use concept mapping more easily as well as extending this technology tool for my students to create their own.

My first long-term goal is to keep abreast of current trends and applications in technology. There were many things we did throughout this course in which I had not heard of before. This first goal can be obtained by seeking more professional development classes, which focus on technology, as well as completing my masters through Walden University. My second goal is to add new technology tools to my lessons. As I begin to incorporate more technological tools, I want to ensure I am utilizing them correctly in addition to really benefiting my students and my lessons. Instructional time is limited and valuable. I want my students to be able to take these tools and use them with me being a facilitator. As I think of the technology and tools that exist now, I wonder of the advancements that will happen by the time my students and own children reach their college years.

The only consistent and steadfast element of technology is that it is changing on a daily basis; how we communicate, share ideas, make presentations, and even work in collaborative groups. It is a never-ending process. I hope to expose my students and even myself to different ways of incorporating technology as much as possible. This class has really opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities of using these tools as both instructional and learning.

Child Development Theorists...Major Theorist of Child Development. (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2010, from Child Development Guide http://www.child-development-guide.com/child-development-theorists.html#theorists1

Lever-Duffy, J. & McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Voice Thread

Constructivism in Practice

This week's articles and videos examined the constructivist theories and their relationship to technology in the classroom. Within the chapter, Generating and Testing Hypotheses, Data Collection, and Web Resources were discussed and explained. When Generating and Testing Hypotheses was explored, I thought the example given of fifth graders who used Microsoft Excel to learn about compounding interest and saving money can lead to strong earnings over time was pretty powerful. The goal was not to learn about math or graphing; however, they were hidden in the use of this technology tool.

As far as data collection tools, I have never heard of a USB connectable data probe before so this was new for me. This activity for higher grades does indeed show many instructional strategies. It definitely adheres to the constructivist theory of allowing students to create their own meaning through experience.

Web Resources was the part of the chapter I like the most. I love linking to the various websites to find what parts I can utilize the best. I really liked the Plimoth Plantation's You Are the Historian website. It allowed the students to learn via a virtual fieldtrip about life back in colonial times. My son who is six has been ‘inventing’ for years therefore By Kids for Kids: How to Invent was a personal favorite to explore with him. Although he invents with legos, we still enjoyed it.

I believe that as I stop and think about my classroom theories that I do use the constructivist theory at times, but I feel I align more with the constructionist point of view.

Concept Mapping

Discovering Tennessee using concept mapping

Cognitivism in Practice

This week's readings, Orey presented four roles of cognitive tools and gave examples of each. These include information seeking, information presentation, knowledge organization and knowledge integration. Two instructional strategies that relate to the cognitive learning theories are cues, questions and advance organizers and summarizing and note taking.

"Presenting information involves the organization, format, and verbalization of knowledge conveyed through cognitive tools" (Orey, 2001). Examples include graphic organizers and concept maps. Using concept maps allows students to start at the top with the main thought and work their way down to the less general concepts. Concept maps are used frequently in elementary schools to prepare for writing paragraphs. I can now see where they would fit into other areas to strengthen the students' learning.

Summarizing and note taking strategies focus on "enhancing students' ability to synthesize information and distill it into a concise new form" (Pitler, 2007, p.119). These strategies force the students to weed out what is not important and what is. I still use this strategy to jot down key words and cues and also to summarize in my own words, therefore, I will be more likely to remember the information being presented.

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Behaviorism in Practice

Behaviorist theorists believe all behaviors can be unlearned and the key element to this theory is reward response. I wish that held true with all students, but I don’t believe that it does. I do use many methods that go along with the behaviorist theory such as contracts, consequences, reinforcement, extinction and behavior modification, and therefore, I believe it does have a place in education and educational technology today.
According to Standridge, “simple contracts can be effective in helping children focus on behavior change” (Laureate ) I have seen this work when dealing with children that need minor behavior changes. However, I have had students who were dealing with lots of issues, and contracts did not work. Honestly, I felt it was more of an imposition on my part to constantly monitor behavior every thirty minutes as some contracts are done. Usually these contracts were set up by our guidance counselor but left up to me to maintain. I do use both positive and negative consequences. I use a ticket system all during the day when I catch students doing the right thing. On Friday, they cash in five tickets for a piece of candy. I also use treasure box. Just as Dr. Orey stated in the video about his own son and his classes, most teachers use clip pulling for punishment, but before a student moves their clip, they must tell me what rule is broken. The point is for students to take ownership in the rule they broke so that hopefully, it won’t happen again.
There are times when behaviorist technology applications are appropriate and effective. Currently, our system is using istation as a means of testing, drilling and practicing for reading intervention. This is the fourth year we have used it. Even if a child does poorly on the initial testing, the program is designed to raise self- esteem as well as academics. The commentator will say, “Keep working hard and try your best.” The students love it. There are other programs out there that praise students for their hard work. It motivates the students to work harder.

I do think online educational programs need to be evaluated constantly by the classroom teacher. There needs to be a purpose in the program not just a usage of time in the classroom. “Researchers find that reading for understanding online requires the same skills as offline reading, including using prior knowledge and make predictions, plus a asset of additional critical-thinking skills that reflect the open-ended, continually changing online context” (David, 2009, p. 84).

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page
David, J. (March, 2009). Teaching Media Literacy.