Frau's Blog

In addition to this being the final assignment for this course, it is also the final assignment for my masters program! It is  hard to believe this program is over. It went by so quickly and I have truly learned so much.

The portfolio assignment for this course was to create a lesson using gaming, multi-user virtual environments (MUVE)or an online learning module. I chose to form my lesson around the technology I was the least familiar with, and that was the MUVE. Over the course  of my life, my family and I were always very up-to-date with new technology. We always had a computer and we were some of the first in my town to the get the internet when it was first introduced. I was surprised when I learned about these virtual environments as a part of this course because I was really unaware of their existence. I had use chat rooms when I was in middle school, and I was familiar with games like World of Warcraft, but I had never actually been a part of a virtual environment the way they are currently. This was something unexpected for me. I always thought that I was keeping up with new technologies as they were becoming available, but as it turned out, I was not quite as current as I thought.

What I think will influence my teaching the most is the concept of McLuhan’s Tetrad. McLuhan said that with each new technology, it will enhance, make a former technology obsolete, it “reverses” or rekindles something from the past and finally it retrieves, or will eventually be pushed into something different which will cause itself to be obsolete (Thornburg, 2008). The biggest adjustment that I can make to my teaching is to be prepared for new technologies and be aware of what technologies will become obsolete. Even the overhead projector, a staple in every classroom, will eventually not be needed anymore and that is in the process of happening already. Document cameras, interactive whiteboards and even S-video cords that take the  image on the computer screen and share it with a television screen all can replace the function of the overhead projector. And eventually new technologies will replace document cameras, interactive whiteboards and S-cords.

Each year, many publications are released that inform people of new and emerging technologies. One of these publications is the Horizon Report. The Horizon report actually includes new technologies and their implications for classroom use and adaptation. By reading this report and others like it, I will be informed on the latest technological resources available and how I can begin implementing them in my classroom. By using the latest technologies with my students, I can be sure that I am providing the best opportunity to be a 21st century learner.

Reference:

Thornburg, D. D. (2008). Emerging technologies and McLuhan’s Laws of Media. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.

Something that I absolutely loved about this course was working in small groups using a social networking site. My group used Ning (http://www.ning.com) and it was really easy to use and there was a chat feature available to anyone who was logged in to the site. What I enjoyed so much about using Ning was the collaboration aspect. Because Walden is done online, aside from the discussion boards there is minimal interaction between my classmates and me. The Ning allowed a few of us to share more information with each other that we would not have shared on the discussion board. Even though the differentiation station assignments had a specific goal or topic to share each week, there was still more opportunity to chat with my group in a more informal setting. I found my social networking partners to be so helpful. I learned about several new online resources that I would not have known about if I did not have the opportunity to share and discuss information with this group.

Each week in the differentiation stations, we were supposed to share a resource that was applicable to assignments for the week. One member of my Ning group shared several links to online surveys about learning preferences and styles, like this one: http://longleaf.net/learningstyle.html. A major component of Universal Design for Learning and Differentiated Instruction is that students come from different backgrounds, learn in different ways and have different strengths and weaknesses (Hall, Strangman & Meyer, 2003). By having students complete surveys like the ones shared in our social networking site, teachers can use the information discovered about the different students and how they learn and adapt teaching methods and styles to help meet the unique needs of all learners.

There are two immediate adjustments that I intent to make as a result of this class. First, I want to make sure I am more aware of my students and how they learn and be certain that I am providing them the best opportunities to learn. I know my students well, I have wonderful rapport with them and I am familiar with many of their strengths and weaknesses. Although I have this information about my students, I am not sure that I have always done everything I can to provide to each student. However, now that I am more aware of what UDL and DI actually are, I can be sure to actually implement more of this strategies to ensure that I am doing my best to reach everyone.

Second, I want to be more creative. This creativity will provide more chances for me to use technology with my students. It is easy to get stuck in a worksheet and book work rut, and I feel like I am in that rut now. It is an ongoing goal for me to integrate more technology in the classroom. By being more creative with my assignments and allowing the students to be more creative with how they express their knowledge, I think it will be easier to find new technological resources to use in the classroom. For example, after using the social networking site in this course, I am very interesting in using social networking with my students but I am unsure how. I am looking forward to using more technology and new resources with my students.

Reference:

Hall, T., Strangman, N., & Meyer, A. (2003). Differentiated instruction and implications for UDL implementation. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_diffinstructudl.html

• Reflect on the GAME plan you developed and followed throughout the course.  Summarize any new learning that resulted from your following your GAME plan and explain what impact your new learning will have on your instructional practice.

I enjoyed coming up with a game plan and going through the steps of GAME. It is nice to set goals and take the time to plan and work on them and evaluate the progress of achieving these goals. Even if not every goal is achieved, going through the process is nice. It is reassuring to structure the whole goal-achieving process as I am pretty unorganized!

I think that any sort of planning like this will have a positive impact on teaching. Setting goals, working toward them and evaulating your progress is how we become better teachers. I think teachers do this naturally, but again, the GAME plan just organizes the process into a clean-cut method of doing so. It is the evaluating that truly impacts teaching. If a lesson does not go well, you need to evaluate it and modify it so that it goes better the next time. Continuing to do failed lessons with students does not make for a good teacher! Workign through ineffective lessons and making them work better in the future is how to become a better and more effective teacher. The “E” in GAME plan, evaluate, it what helps teachers achieve this.

• Describe any immediate adjustments you will make to your instructional practice regarding technology integration in your content area(s) as a result of your learning from this course.

One adjustment that I need to make to my teaching is to always make sure I have a back up plan. Even the lesson plan template available with our textbook has a section for back up plans for a lesson. This is extremely important because as wonderful as technology can be, it can easily go wrong. In general technology is readily available, but the internet connection could go down, websites could be down or blocked or, like what happened at my school this semester, the entire school server could crash and there is nothing available on any of the computers in the building.

It is common sense for teachers to have back up plans, but honestly the need to use them does not arrive too often and it is something that I have slacked on since becoming a teacher. When creating lessons for this course where I had to come up with a back-up plan, it was a relief to know that I would be prepared should something go wrong. The peace of mind from knowing I have a back-up plan is worth the little bit of extra time and work.

First, here are the 5 main standards for NETS~T (the teacher standards):

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity

2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning

4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

And these are the 6 main standards for NETS~S (the student standards):

Reference:

International Society for Technology in Education. 2009. National Educational Content Standards. Retrieved from: http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS

• What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice? 

I have learned about several new web resources, both from my classmates and from course materials, that I would like to use in my classroom. I would like to use sites like Wiggio and class Wikis to encourage online collaboration with students. My classmates have introduced me to ePals, which connects students in classrooms all over the world. I have learned about micro-blogging, where students can communicate with each other using 140-character messages, similar to a text message. There is so much I would like to incorporate I am wondering if I can actually do all of it! This is incredibly encouraging because I have not always had the best of luck beginning to integrate technology at my school. I have hit a lot of road blocks along the way but I am optimistic that I will be successful.

• What goals are you still working toward? 

My first goal of integrating technology into 5 lessons is something that I can always be working on. It is a little more difficult than I anticipated just because my school does not seem to be as ready to begin integrating more technological instruction as I am. Overall though, it is something that I am working toward and will be able to successfully accomplish with time.

The other goal I originally set was to make checking student progress a mandatory grade each week.  I am planning to integrate this at the start of the new semester in mid-January. This is something that I am really looking forward to beginning as I am very curious as to whether this will make a positive impact on student grades. Our current grade book is called Progress Book and it allows students to log in on any computer to check their grades. I am hoping that requiring the kids to check their grades on a weekly basis will motivate them to keep their grades up. If they are more aware of not turning in work or poor test scores I think they will be encouraged to make sure they are turning in work and studying for tests.

• Based on the NETS-T, what new learning goals will you set for yourself?

The main aspect of NETS-T that I am working toward is to “develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress”. This incorporates both of my goals: to develop more technology-rich lessons and for students to monitor and assess their progress.

• If you are not ready to set new learning goals, how will you extend what you have learned so far?

I am not ready to set new goals because I have not yet achieved my current goals. This question reflects a lot upon why I began this Masters program. I really want to learn more about truly engaging my students and integrating technology just seemed like a logical step forward. I always want to be learning new teaching strategies and improving my abilities as a teacher. My next step is using the new resources I am learning about in this program and beginning to implement them in the classroom. I am learning so many new things and I am very excited about trying them out in the future. In addition to all of that, I am supposed to be getting a Mimeo board sometime in the next semester and I am thrilled! I think it will really help me begin to use more technology with my students without having to reserve the computer lab all the time.

• What learning approaches will you try next time to improve your learning?

I think the best learning approach at this point is to just not be afraid to try something new, even if it is a complete flop. Even trying is an accomplishment. This is how people learn – by doing. Revamping lessons and modifying them to better fit with the students and the class is how to make a lesson better. I also want to have students fill out brief questionnaires about new lessons. I want them to give me feedback on how they liked the lesson and what I can do to improve it or any changes they think I can make. Students are brutally honest (not always a good thing!) but I think they will be able to help me learn new things as well.

This blog post is actually coming at a unique time for technology at school. Our district server has been down all week and we have limited access to technology for the time being. We are able to get online but we have no access to our desktop or any of our files. It has been a stressful week!

Slowly but surely I am beginning to reach my goals. I am taking a few of my lessons and at least brainstorming how to modify them to integrate technology, if not actually modifying them all together. I am looking forward to continuing this because the students really do enjoy using the computers. In addition to the technology, I think they enjoy the change of scenery of being in the computer lab instead of the classroom.

Something I have learned is not to be afraid to try new things. Every attempt at trying something new will only help me figure out what is successful and what is not. Even if new lessons are not the greatest, I do not consider it a failure because now I know I need to modify these lessons to make them more effective. I have also learned not to be afraid to ask students for help using new technological tools. Some of these students are very tech-saavy and are more knowledgable about certain things than I am. I welcome their help. I recently had to have a student set up a DVD player for me because while I hooked the DVD player up, there was no audio. One of my students could fix it, so I took advantage of that opportunity to let a student help me out.

There are still many technological resources that I am not familiar with that I can use in the classroom. I have discovered a few new web resources just from reading my classmates’ blogs! I am looking forward to testing these new technologies and seeing how I can integrate these resources into my own classroom. It is so wonderful having my classmates as a resource!

In light of our server being down, I have a greater realization to always have a back-up plan! While technology is a wonderful tool, it is still somewhat fickle. If the internet isn’t down, a specific website could be. Sometimes files are not saved in the correct format to open on different computers. Sometimes videos are deleted or moved or internet filters do not allow teachers to show them. There are many things that could go wrong when relying on technology. Having back-up plans in crucial for times like these. A non-technology related assignment is much better than dealing with 20 bored high school students because the internet was not working. I have had to rely on having back-ups a lot this week since I did not know until I got to school if the server would be working or not – here’s hoping it is up and running again for tomorrow!

• Are you finding the information and resources you need? 

Yes and no. While I am coming up with new ideas to integrate more technology in the classroom, I am running into many roadblocks. Most of these roadblocks are a result of internet filter at school. I have voiced my complaints with this problem before but it continues to get worse and even more frustrating. I really want to use VoiceThread and it is blocked. I want to show a video of something and the websites are blocked. I want to play a German song, blocked. German online newspaper? Online radio station? German blogs? Blocked, blocked, blocked. I have found a way around the YouTube block. I can download and save the video on my home computer and email it to myself so I can open it at school so I can share it with my students. So integrating more technology using the internet is turning out to be a lot of trouble. 

• Do you need to modify your action plan? 

Modifying the plan is probably something that needs to be done, but I am not sure how. I can continue to have students make their own Power Point presentations and attempt to find web resources online that are not blocked, but this is not incredibly exciting. I need to find more methods of technology that I can use, but I am not exactly sure where to start. Suggestions?

• What have you learned so far? 

I have learned that something that should be moderately easy to do is actually much more difficult to accomplish. I am not sure why certain websites are blocked, especially when I am learning in this program how great these resources are for education.

• What new questions have arisen?

The main question I have is where do I go from here? Because I have already integrated some technology in the classroom, what new technologies should I try to incorporate from here? What do I do if I discover the technology cannot be used at school? And I am still unsure of what new technologies I should try.

I suppose this is a very negative post. For what it is worth, I do enjoy using the technology that I am already currently using in my classroom, but I am looking forward to using more and it seems like such a distant dream at the moment. Hopefully it will get easier and I will be able to post something more positive in the near future.

And thank you in advance to any of my classmates who have any new ideas for me to try!

For my other goal of monitoring student progress, I just need my computer to check the login information for my students on the online grade book.

References:

• Set goals for strengthening your confidence and proficiency in at least two indicators in the NETS-T. 

I would like to strengthen my confidence in the following two standards of NETS-T:

• Decide what actions you will take to achieve those goals.   

To achieve my first goal of teaching students about real-world issues using digital tools, I will create new lessons that will use more digital tools. In addition to this I will look at lessons that I already have in place and see how I can modify them to incorporate technology. Teaching the German language is a lot of black and white information. There is only so much that can be done to show students what a direct object is and how to conjugate a verb, but I can begin to incorporate more activities to help students practice this information using technology. For example, I can make online practice exercises and quizzes using a website like http://www.quia.com

My second goal is about encouraging students to monitor their own progress. I have done a literature review about student-monitoring and how it affects their grades and it appears to have a positive affect. Our school offers students an online  grade book so that students can log on and see how they are doing in their classes whenever they want. However, not very many students check their progress regularly. Teachers can see when the last time the students logged in to the online grade book. I would like to make it a weekly grade for students to check their progress online. Because I can check when the students log on, I can make it mandatory for students to check their grades. They students must have logged in sometime each week to earn points for monitoring grades.

• Determine how you will monitor your progress.

To monitor my first goal, I will aim to add 3 more lessons incorporating technology and modify 2 existing lessons to incorporate technology this school year. I also intend to add even more in the following school year.

I would like to incorporate my second goal starting next semester. Since we are already into the 2nd nine weeks, I will wait until second semester begins before I require students to monitor their progress online. This will also give me the opportunity to see how the student-monitoring affects their grades between first and second semester. It should provide very clear evidence if self-monitoring does affect student grades.

• Decide how you will evaluate and extend your learning.

For the first goal, because I have done more traditional activities in the past, I can observe how the students respond to new activities using technology. If students react positively to the new lessons I will continue to modify lessons to incorporate more technology. If not, I can continue to use the lessons I already have. Although I think using more technology could only have a positive effect on students. They are already so excited to work in the computer lab that I think more activities using the computer would be beneficial to them. I hope to see higher levels of engagement and therefore higher quality of work.

For my second goal the students progress will serve as my evaluation. If monitoring their progress does show evidence that it can improve their grades I will continue to use this strategy in the future. If it does not show a positive affect on grades I will re-think the idea and possibly modify it or scrap the idea.

References:

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.

• Describe the most striking revelation you had about the teaching of new literacy skills to your students as a result of this course.

The most striking revelation I have had with my students is how few of them actually knew how to properly evaluate a website and decide if it is reliable. My students often will recite something they have read online and when another student challenges it they joke,”Well, everything on the internet is true”. While this is only a joke my students do not take the time to determine if the website is reliable or not. An English professor from my undergraduate studies illustrated how important this is by showing us a website discredited the existence of the Holocaust. After reading the information on the website, at the very bottom of the site we discovered it was written by a math professor from a fictional university. I experienced this again while evaluating a website for this course: Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus at  http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/. This is a fictional creature, but the website even fooled me at first glance. Until I began investigating the website further I did not realize it was a hoax. As a result of this I have already done activities with my students to help them identify reliable web resources.

• Describe how the knowledge and experience gained in this course will influence your teaching practices going forward.

Something that I have really enjoyed about this course, and this program for that matter, is that so much of what I am learning can be used in the classroom. During my undergraduate studies, I learned about classroom management and how to write a lesson plan but none of that really went with me into my classroom. Those are concepts that cannot be realized until a teacher has their own classes and students and discovers the best way to interact with them. The information I have learned through this course and through Walden I can begin using practically immediately in my classroom.

This course has emphasized the importance of teaching 21st literacy skills and those skills are something that I will be thinking about as I make new lessons and modify old lessons to incorporate these skills. It is important that as I plan activities for my students that I try to include technological resources as often as I can.  Being able to read and comprehend text is no longer enough to be considered literate. The International Reading Association (IRA), as cited in Eagleton and Dobler (2007), says that “literacy educators have the responsibility to effectively integrate these technologies into the literacy curriculum in order to prepare students for the literacy future they deserve”. By offering more opportunities for students to use technology I am helping to make them more marketable for when they graduate and are looking for jobs.

• Identify at least one professional development goal you would like to pursue that builds upon your learning in this course and develops your own information literacy or technology skills. Describe the steps you will take to accomplish this goal.

My goal as a result of this course is to give more opportunities for my students to question and research. As a German teacher, the majority of my time in the classroom is spent teaching my students vocabulary and grammar concepts. It is a lot of teaching and not much questioning. However, as Eagleton and Dobler (2007) note, humans are natural questioners. They also cite being around a 4-year old for an extended amount of time will prove this! My inquiry-based unit plan was a research project on a famous German-American. This activity allowed for students to ask questions such as how German-Americans have impacted our society. I love this project and I have already begun to implement it in my classroom.

Unfortunately, I do not feel that I provide very many opportunities to my students for inquiry-based lessons. A lot of this is because I feel rushed enough as it is just to teach the facts, but it is also because as a foreign language teacher there is not too much information to question. Students cannot question or research whether something is a direct object or a predicate nominative. Those are just facts. Cultural information is really where students can inquire. Usually I just teach cultural tidbits when they come up in class and I only spend a few moments discussing them with the students. I plan to allow more time for students to research and discover more about German culture. Instead of just telling students information, I hope to allow more time for them to question and research cultural information.

References:

Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.