Final Reflection Post

Final Reflection Post: 

         I am so thankful,  I signed up for Intro to Tech for Educators . In Intro to Tech for Educators, I had the opportunity of meeting new people, building a student to professor  relationship (which by the way was wonderful ) but what I found to be fascinating was discovering how out of touch I was with the technology resources that are available for today's teachers.

             There were many things, I enjoy in Intro to Tech for Educators. Reading Transforming Learning with New Technologies class textbook was one of them. Each chapter taught me a vital concept for teachers to integrate technology into their class lesson. All the chapters in Transforming Learning with New Technologies were simple, easy to read and share clear tables, vocabulary teams, images and graphs.

            What I enjoy sharing every week were the Digital Badges through Blogger. Blogger  is a blog-publishing service that allows multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. Through Blogger, I share with Professor Coleman and my classmates what I found to be the  three most  important topics from each chapter . Choosing this three concepts helped me focus on the key messages for each chapter. Blogger is a technology resources I did not know existed but would use to share my ideas with others. I also enjoy writing discussion post journals. 

              Through the discussion post journals, I had the opportunity to  express, share my experience and my believes in certain topics. However,  what I found most fascinating besides from writing my discussion post journals was reading my classmates post and sharing our thoughts together with respect.

            Overall I enjoy this course , I don't think there is nothing that need to be improve. What I believe is that as student we need to use our time wisely, write down in a calendar each class assignment a day before it due, this way  it's turn in on  time and will written! I would definitely recommend this class to students who want to become teachers and  want to understand today's technology, to teachers who want to break out of their old teaching habits and  included technology in their lesson plans. I had a great time working in groups and alone. 

             In the group activities, I was given the opportunity of meeting  new people and sharing our talents like I did in the Instructional Strategy Wiki assignment. When I work in my teacher portfolio alone, I discover my weakness, strengths, and discover ways I can become a better student academically and great future teacher!          

              Professor Coleman, thank you for this wonderful learning experience ! Classmates, I wish you all best of luck in your incoming college semester! I have attached a YouTube video to motivation you and know that you too can be successful . Follow your dreams and know that nothing is impossible!

Resources

Famous Failures. (2012, May 15). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLYECIjmnQs

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Badge #L

Digital Badge #L

Reserved google image tecnology education

After reading chapter twelve of Transforming Learning with New Technologies. The most important concepts I found  interesting were :

Stages of Technology Integration

Nowadays, it's so important for teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms. However, there are five stages when it comes to where you are with technology as a teacher.  The five stages are Entry, Adoption, Adaption, Appropriation, and Invention.

First Stage: Entry

In the Entry stage, teacher needs to gain specific skills in how to use computers and technologies before she or he is able to think about how to apply new knowledge to classroom situations .

Second Stage: Adaption

In the Adaption stage, the teacher knows enough to use technology in the classroom but only at a basic level and only occasionally.

Third Stage: Adaptation

In the Adaptation, the teachers fully integrate new technology into a traditional classroom practice meaning the teacher use technology in regularly as part of teaching.

Fourth Stage : Appropriation

At the Appropriate stage, a teacher is using technology  to as both and in the classroom and outside the classroom tool.

Fifth Stage: Invention

At the invention stage, a teacher is exploring new ways to creativity use technology in and out of the classroom as well as adding emerging technologies to personal  repertoire  of professional skills and practices.

Technology Integration Issues

There are six major issues  that take place in a classroom that directly affect the teachers efforts to  integrating technology into teaching.

1. Administration Support And Teaching Skills:

This issues is due to the lack of support from teachers who don't wanting to change their teaching style. Many teachers don't want to add technology into a classroom nor they want to be trained and be open minded in learning today's technology.

2.Unwillingness To Change Favorite Lesson Plans:

This issue is due to teachers who don't want to change their classroom favorite lesson plan to involve new technologies. This teachers are old school and don't want to learn about today's technology.

3. Relavtance To Use Technology In The New Lesson Plans:

This issue is due to teachers not wanting to add new technology into their classroom lessons that they have never taught. This teachers are not willing to give a little more extra  time to their students to help them understand the technology.

4.Use Of Technology As A Reward Or Punishment:

This issue is due to teachers using computers as an rewards or punishments instead of an educational tool. This strategy can is used to enhance their students learning.

5.Use Of Technology As An Add On To Other Activities:

This is when teachers use technology as an add-on to a lesson to help their students to have a better understanding or cause a distraction  in the class lesson . However, these teachers need to learn when  to add technology into their class lesson.

6.Use Of Technology To Separate Students By Ability Groups:

This issue is due to schools using technology to determine academic levels among students. It helps students to push themselves when their not doing well academically. 

Strategies for Single and Multiply- Computer Classrooms

A single or multiple computers can successfully transform teaching and learning in classroom through  four Single and Multiply- Computer Classrooms which are information, Interaction, Presentation and Rotation.

Information: Single or multiply computer and in a classroom perform as always on call librarians and always available tutors for individuals, pairs , or small group. Students can access educational information anytime through websites providing dictionaries, maps, weather pages, video links  and story read aloud  and a  writing formats.
Interaction: Students can access computer and online resources to which they interact with the computer for learning.. An example are online read aloud children's books.

Presentation:The computer becomes a large or small group presentation tool which connects to a digital projector or television which display  add videos, photos, maps another debates real resources to the presentation

Rotation: Computers become one of the three different learning experience in one to  three times instructional format.Students are divided into groups that are do learning activities on the computer, complete independent work with minimal supervision or review the rack academic instructions from the teacher.

References: Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Badge #K- Chapter 6

Digital Badge #K

After reading chapter six of Transforming Learning with New Technologies. The most important concepts I found  interesting were :

Photo Credits to: Webquests on Google

WebQuests

WebQuests are online inquiries by students that are designed and guided by teachers. In a WebQuests , students follows an electronic map, moving from one web resource to the other to gather and learn new information about the topic their teacher assigned. I decided to educate myself in WebQuest since am going to be creating a WebQuest for major project in class. Once, I finish reading about WebQuest. I become excited and wanted to get started right away!

Photo Credits to: Virtual field trips in the classroom on Google

Virtual Field Trips

Like WebQuests , Virtual field trips take students to places all over the world without ever leaving their classroom or school computer lab. Last semester, I have the opportunity in observing a seven grade Geography class. The students experience two different virtual field trips one to Mexico and the other to Canada via Google Maps. Their teacher educated them in both of the country's history, building structure, and government. The students were amaze by what they were seeing (I was too!). They were so excited that they couldn't stop asking questions about both countries. I would absolutely recommend teachers to take advantage of virtual field trips so students can  learn about the different cultures and  apply technology in class.

Photo Credits to: Video conferencing in the classroom on Google

Interactive Video conferencing

Video conferencing is a powerful learning tool that offers real-time access to people and places that students are unable to visit using video conferencing. Using video conferencing achieves interactivity between students and people or places the class is visiting electronically. Video conferencing requires two computers at each site . Teachers should definitely take advantage of video conferencing ,why? Through video conferencing students have the opportunity to interact with local or out of state students,  they can learn about each other ,educated each other  of the history of their states, ect. This technology tool allows students to make new friendships in a safe environment!

References: Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Badge: Chapter 11

Digital Badge: Chapter 11

After reading chapter eleven of Transforming Learning with New Technologies. The most important concepts I found  interesting were

The Role Of Assessment In Teaching And Learning

Assessment features in three equivalent elements which are a teacher, student and student self assessment. A teacher assessment is when you want to become an educator but you're frequently getting evaluated with your academic and classroom performance.However, before becoming a full time teacher, you need to pass a state teacher license test, attend classroom observations and completed written summaries of what you have learned about the academic subjects, classroom lessons, and teaching methods that relate to students, families and colleagues. In a student assessment, the  teacher provides data about the learning process of every student in the classroom through the school year. The majority of schools expected teachers to assign grades, complete report cards, make parent meetings and provide an oral or written feedback to individual students and families in a format of comments and suggestions about their academic work. Teachers benefit greatly in a student self-assessment when students are not submissive recipients  of your assessments, but active partners in the evaluation of their own learning.

           Digital Teaching Portfolio

A digital teaching is a collection of education and professional material stored in an electronically. A digital teaching portfolio helps an educator to organized material which will demonstrate their growth as educators over time. When should you begin building a digital teaching portfolio? A digital teaching portfolio should be built as soon as you start teaching, its a way to write down all the activities and ideas from classes, field experiences, and community service. Documenting a professional learning accomplishments in the digital teaching portfolio will provide a personal reflection on your development as an educator helping have a better chance of getting a teaching spot in the school of your choose.

Involving Students In Learning And Assessment

If learning is to be successful, assessment must be practice in the classroom by both the teachers and student from K-12. The school's missions are to prepare  student to be active and pro-active members in society. The teachers who recognize the irony in this practice encourage student participation and decision-making about the many different aspects  of school and classroom operations. All students need learning partnerships in which they work together with teachers developing a teacher to student relationship. In learning partnerships, students have the primary responsibility to ask questions, research information , practice skills , create presentations and use technology in all facets of  learning. Meanwhile, teachers primary responsibility is to guide his or her students studies, explaining the academic material and support the student  by differentiating teaching..

Resources:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Assessment For Learning. (2008, February 8). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BFGwg9vGJc

Digital Badge: Chapter 4

Digital Badge: Chapter 4

After reading chapter four of Transforming Learning with New Technologies. The most important concepts I found  interesting were:

Academic Content (What to Teach)

As teachers and future teachers we are  going to be making choices about our academic concept. What is academic concept? Academic concept are the facts, skills and understandings we as teachers are going to share with our students. It important that the school systems guidelines, the state and national curriculum frameworks define and in some cases orders what will be educated. As teachers,  it important  that our lesson development connects to local curriculum frameworks , which are aligned to state and national standards. Meanwhile, since there no local curriculum spells out teachers decide what they will be teaching everyday. Technology plays an essential role in assisting teachers, such as answering them "What to teach" question. There digital content available on the internet it includes a vast connection of curriculum resources and information. Using internet search engines, online encyclopedia, blogs, wikis and other technology tools both the student and teacher can gain access to powerful new ways to explore and regain information.

Teaching Goals, Method ,Procedures (How to Teach)

Teacher don't just decide on the academic concept. But they also decide the teaching goals, methods, and procedures they will use with  their classroom/classes. What are goals? Goals are the reason why a lesson is being taught. The Student learns new information that he or she would implied in their lives or can use in the future. Methods are the instructional strategies teachers used to convey academic concepts to student (large groups or small group discussions) case study, creative writing, reflection journals and  learning games. Procedures are the scheduling and grouping of students by teachers doing a lesson and the decision  of how much time to spend on each activity. Everyday  teachers are combining  their classroom goals, methods and procedures. However, academic content, goals, methods and procedures equally support each other  in a dynamic process of lesson development. Another support of lesson development is technology. Technology supports  in a variety of ways such as the following presentation Software: wikis, teacher developing websites, blogs and Web Quest.The video above demonstrates a teacher creating a lesson plan in which show what he or she wants their student to learn.

Learning Assessments (Knowing What Students Have Learned)

Teachers have many obligations .One of them is the Learning assessments . Learning assessments occur before, during and after the teaching lessons. The learning lesson enable the teachers to evaluate student in what they had learned at the end of the lesson, what's the student reaction as the class lesson unfolds and diagnostics what students already knows. Teacher include multiple-choice ,short answer essays , oral discussions class participation, portfolios and performances, all of which provide evidence of what students have learned and are able to do as a result of the teaching. Technology also  support the learning assessment by the teacher providing their students with electronic tests , quizzes , grade keeping software, and online surveys, ect.

Resources:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

The Revised 5 Minute Lesson Plan. (2013, May 23). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV4jo9f9ZWU

Digital Badge H

Digital Badge: Chapter 9

After reading chapter nine of Transforming Learning with New Technologies. The most important concepts I found  interesting were

Power Point and Next-Generation Presentation Tools

Today's students are all about technology. You will find there more students involve in class activities when their teacher involve technology in the class lesson. Teacher use technology such as PowerPoint. What is PowerPoint? PowerPoint is  a multimedia presentation software package that features in many of today's computers. PowerPoint  computerize presentations that were previously done with chance tendencies of an overhead projector or slice in a slice projector. In a PowerPoint, you will find images, text and data. Teachers take advantage of this PowerPoint features which helps their students' have a visual view of the information that is being displays in the projector. Teachers use different types of colorful graphics, pop-ups and words to keep the student attention in the PowerPoint slice their presenting. PowerPoint  is a useful tool for all teachers  and students at every grade level that I would recommend to included in a class lesson activity. The video above shows a tutorial of how a PowerPoint is done.

Videos In The Classroom

Like PowerPoint presentations showing educational videos is another way to keep the students attention and a great way to included technology in the class lesson. By showing educational videos it offer ways to present information while redirecting the method of instruction from the teacher to screen for part of the class time. There are teachers who read books with their class. Once, they finished reading the book, he or she shows the movie that goes along with the book so his or her student have a visual idea of what they read. In these days, students are been raised in a culture where televisions and computers screens are constantly present. Why not show an educational movie that would educate the student and keep them entertain instead of watching shows that are not appropriate for their ages!

Photo taking and Movie making with students

Students can have a fun time making a PowerPoint and watching a movie in class. Yet, they can have more fun by taking photos, editing them and presenting them to their classmates. In these digital era, students can include multiple mediums for photo taken and can be taken in every subject area at every grade level. Nowadays, students are more involved with technology to the point that teachers are asking them to video tape themselves doing a class project, introducing themselves or simply interviewing someone. When the students take photos they express who they are and by videotaping they build confidence, learn how to communicate and express themselves. I strongly recommend that teachers should take advantage this all this tools!

Resources:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Creating a Presentation - PowerPoint 2010. (2010, September 2). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZUwFwooMrY

Digital Badge: Chapter 10

Digital Badge: Chapter 10

After reading chapter ten of Transforming Learning with New Technologies. The most important concepts I found  interesting were:

 



Photo credit to Public Stock on 
https://flic.kr/p/g5uvX9

Word Cloud

There many types of educational tools that students can use to improve with their education. One of  many is a Word Cloud. What is a Word Cloud? A Word Cloud is a visual representation of text. It allows both the student and teacher to show a large amount of written text in a visually engaging format on a computer screen. Word Cloud  are generated by software programs that take a count of the words most frequently used in a document and re-position them in a nonlinear pictorial image as it shows in the image above. I believe that Word Cloud is an important tool that should be use in the beginning of the  school year . Through Word Cloud your students can get to know each other .You can have each student create their own Word Cloud where  they write about themselves: what they like, what they did over the summer, hobbies, family, the things they are interested in, etc. They can use the Word Cloud to give the 'big picture" of themselves and they can also easily see what their classmates are all about, too!

 

Electronic Spellers and Dictionaries
 

An electronic speller and dictionary are two of the many important tools that every classroom should have. An electronic speller helps the student find correct spelling, they have the opportunity of listening to words spoken aloud and they can also check the currency of their spelling with no adult help! The electronic speller helps students of all ages, hearing impairments, non fluent readers and  students learning the English language. Through the electronic speller the non fluent students have the chance to see and hear  the words that they may not be able to sound out. The electronic spellers does not cause disruptions in the classroom lesson, the student just need to plug in their headphones. Once, the student plug in their headphones they hear the pronunciation of the letter names and then the whole word. Also, the electronic speller check spelling. The student types in the word then the electronic speller accepts the word even if its spell incorrectly. The electronic speller offers a list of possible standard spelling and says each word aloud for the identification of the correct word.  Meanwhile, when the student need to find a definition, check the part of speech of a word, or find the English translation of a word in your language he or she can use the dictionary, too. Both of this educational tools are a must have in the classroom! I have attached a YouTube video above which demonstrates how an Electronic speller is use and how students benefit from it.

 

 

Handheld Calculator

 

 

Photo credit to Rich Foster on
https://flic.kr/p/cmj9HE

Like an electric speller and dictionary, a calculator is also an important learning tools that all students should have at their reach. A calculator is a handheld device that performs mathematical operations and computations. Calculators are small computers that perform specific data operations, have electronic circuitry and posses a limited memory function. There many types of calculators. However, am going to mention a few. The first is the basic calculator. The basic calculator is the most common type of calculator (as shown in the image above) , it does number operation and has a minimal memory function. Meanwhile, the scientific calculator is used by scientist, its more capable of performing more complex operations and  possess more memory. Last but not least, it the  graphing calculator.  The graphing calculator is used in math teaching, for scientific and engineering purpose, these calculators has a larger screen for displaying graphs, it has  an advanced memory capabilities, are programmable and can handle more complex formulas. As the students advances grade levels they use  different type of calculators.

Resources:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

(2011, August 24). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqlYvnR0D1E