My personal theory of learning of providing students a variety of instructional methods that encompasses many different learning styles to meet the needs of all students. I believe that if students are interested in the skill or knowledge than they are much more likely to master it. What this course has done is introduce me to several technology tools that will help me incorporate my personal theory of learning to my students. Technologies such as graphic organizers, VoiceThread, Wiki’s, and virtual field trips will help provide students with hands on learning experiences and motivate them to succeed.
I plan to use as many of these technologies as I can in my classroom. For our classes county project I plan to have students to create Wiki’s about their countries. The Wiki’s will contain basic information about their country such as foods, traditions, culture, landmarks, famous people, government, currency, etc. Having the project completed on Wiki’s will allow for students to work on the project at home as well as in the classroom. It will also make it a lot easier to be able to follow students’ progress because I can go to their site and see where they are at and who is doing what. I also plan to create and provide graphic organizers to help students enhance their note taking experience. They will point students in the right direction and help them focus on areas of importance. Having more in depth notes will help them understand the material more and earn better grades.
Two long-term goals I have for technology integration in my classroom is to try to stay abreast with upcoming technology that could be integrated into the classroom with positive results. To do this I will take technology classes where possible and stay in contact with the IT director of my school. I will advocate to fellow teachers and administration for new technologies to be used in the classroom. My other goal is to integrate at least one technology tool into my classroom each year. This will help me integrate technology into the classroom. I need to make sure that the technology is for hands on student learning instead of instructional technology.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice
The rabbinical saying "Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time." Sums up today’s education system more so than any other generations. With the advent on the computer, cell phones, the Internet, and etc students today grew up in a much different technological world. If you have a question you can google it or text someone to find out. We as teachers need to use technology which our students relate to so well and use it in the classroom as a motivational tool. Our students already are using social learning technology (Facebook, Myspace, Blogs, etc) and need to be actively engaged to learn best. Social learning is great because it has students learn and interact with each other gathering social skills, technology skills, and content knowledge. Some social learning practices I found interesting in the learning resources are Moodle, website creation, and web-enabled multiplier simulation games.
Moodle is freeware online classroom much like Backboard. I create a moodle classroom site for all of my classes because it is a great program. It is especially helpful in a journalism class I taught. It made it so we had an online classroom where students could post their ideas and stories. Then our copy editors proof read the articles and reposted them in their final draft. Then the layout editor could take the articles, pictures, and games off the moodle site and put them in the layout of the paper. Using moodle made for a great experience because we could all see what everyone else was doing, give suggestions, and work together. Moodle is also a great application for tests, quizes, polls, discussions, glossaries, etc.
Having students in small groups create websites or Wiki’s about a topic provides a deeper understanding of the subject than writing a 5 page double spaced typed paper about it. The example in Mrs. Cox’s classroom where students researched a city, created a tourism website for that city, and than contacted that city’s Chamber of Commerce to ask for feedback. ( Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). This project sounds like it would be a great way for students to work together on a meaningful project that has a real world application feel to it because you are interacting with the real city.
Web-enabled multiplier simulation games I had never truly had put them together in my head in an educational setting. They do provide for an excellent social interaction experience. I actually found it quite interesting because I’ve been playing Civilization III off and on this week and in the reading it’s mentioned as a great web-enabled multiplier simulation game. It is and teaches history, famous people, alliances, and diplomacy, trade, and working with others. Games like this that encourage working together and learning should be used more in the classroom.
Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Assocciation of Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Moodle is freeware online classroom much like Backboard. I create a moodle classroom site for all of my classes because it is a great program. It is especially helpful in a journalism class I taught. It made it so we had an online classroom where students could post their ideas and stories. Then our copy editors proof read the articles and reposted them in their final draft. Then the layout editor could take the articles, pictures, and games off the moodle site and put them in the layout of the paper. Using moodle made for a great experience because we could all see what everyone else was doing, give suggestions, and work together. Moodle is also a great application for tests, quizes, polls, discussions, glossaries, etc.
Having students in small groups create websites or Wiki’s about a topic provides a deeper understanding of the subject than writing a 5 page double spaced typed paper about it. The example in Mrs. Cox’s classroom where students researched a city, created a tourism website for that city, and than contacted that city’s Chamber of Commerce to ask for feedback. ( Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). This project sounds like it would be a great way for students to work together on a meaningful project that has a real world application feel to it because you are interacting with the real city.
Web-enabled multiplier simulation games I had never truly had put them together in my head in an educational setting. They do provide for an excellent social interaction experience. I actually found it quite interesting because I’ve been playing Civilization III off and on this week and in the reading it’s mentioned as a great web-enabled multiplier simulation game. It is and teaches history, famous people, alliances, and diplomacy, trade, and working with others. Games like this that encourage working together and learning should be used more in the classroom.
Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Assocciation of Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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