ASSESSING MEANINGFUL LEARING

         In this unit, I’ve learned about several different assessment tools that benefit both teachers and students. The first time I heard the word ‘rubric’ was from my son’s fourth grade teacher. I thought it was brilliant! The teacher was basically showing the students exactly what to do to earn their best possible grade; it was like a little contract. I don’t recall ever being given rubrics when I was growing up, and as a result, there were a lot of times when I had to guess at what my teacher wanted. Rubric Gallery is an extremely comprehensive site, where the user can tailor a rubric by filtering grade level, subject, type, and specialize the details of an assignment. The end result is a ready-to-use rubric, complete with a breakdown of the percentage of the grade allocated for each section. With Quizdom, using any web-enabled device, students are able to build confidence by preparing more effectively for state mandated testing. Students post-test scores increased by an average of 42% by using Quizdom’s online tools, including quizzes, instant feedback on errors, and information on how to correct them. Quizdom also helped teachers assess the overall knowledge base of their students to determine areas that needed more emphasis. Software programs available through Inspiration allow users to integrate visual learning into the curriculum by mapping, graphing, or diagraming their topics, while the program simultaneously creates an outline that will subsequently guide students in their writing assignments, or provide them with a PowerPoint ready outline to help them verbally explain their thought process and ideas.

       

      Over the course of this semester, I have learned about quite a few valuable tools for my own classroom. Some of them I’d never heard of before, and I learned some new ways to use those tools I already knew about. Webquests were new for me. My focus is on teaching high school English, and Webquests will be very instrumental for students’ research and writing assignments. MS Office will be beneficial in creating assignments using Word and Publisher, and I will undoubtedly use Excel for keeping track of students’ assignments and grades. The Multiple Intelligences Lesson Plan was less of a technology lesson, and more of a teaching lesson. It provided a necessary reminder that students learn differently, and their needs should be accommodated through the use of multiple learning formats. Blogs are a really great way for students to demonstrate their knowledge and express themselves creatively. The student composing the blog has a sense of working individually and can personalize a lot of aspects of it, but the ability for a teacher and student peers to critique and comment on blog posts makes it a collaborative effort, allowing for the sharing and assessing of knowledge. I intend to use Screencasting to eliminate the cumbersome process of shuffling papers back and forth by grading students assignments online and providing them with instant, personalized online feedback both in writing and with verbal recordings. I have used PowerPoint in the past, but I was able to refine my skills with it and learn some new tricks. The program will come in useful as a visual aid for classroom lectures to help keep students engaged. Prezi was fun to use and play with, but since I’d never used it before, it took me a really long time, and the constant moving of everything on the screen drove me a little crazy. I may try it again, but at this point I don’t think it would be my first choice, especially in front of an audience full of high school students. And finally, the e-Porfolio we created on Google Sites was new for me. It was a little complicated getting it set up initially, but I can certainly see the benefits. Being able to organize and store all of a students work in one place, and having it there to refer back to has some real benefits for the teacher and the student. Although it will take some time to get it going initially, I think the e-Portfolio is definitely worth the effort. 

TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION STANDARDS

My concentration is teaching English and Language Arts at the High School level.  The following information was obtained from Chapter 110 of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English, Language Arts, and Reading, Subchapter C.

§110.31(1) Introduction:  The English Language Arts and Reading Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) are organized into the following strands: Reading, where students read and understand a wide variety of literary and informational texts; Writing, where students compose a variety of written texts with a clear controlling idea, coherent organization, and sufficient detail; Research, where students are expected to know how to locate a range of relevant sources and evaluate, synthesize, and present ideas and information; Listening and Speaking, where students listen and respond to the ideas of others while contributing their own ideas in conversations and in groups; and Oral and Written Conventions, where students learn how to use the oral and written conventions of the English language in speaking and writing. The standards are cumulative--students will continue to address earlier standards as needed while they attend to standards for their grade. In English I, students will engage in activities that build on their prior knowledge and skills in order to strengthen their reading, writing, and oral language skills. Students should read and write on a daily basis.

According to the Technology Applications Standards for All Beginning Teachers, technological terms, concepts and applications are to be incorporated into lessons and integrated with the TEKS standards into the curriculum for English and Language Arts. Technological skills are clearly required for research and locating sources. As an English teacher, it is my intention not only to instruct my students on how to locate sources with a multitude of online search options, but also how to identify the origin and reliability of those sources. The Texas Education Agency’s English, Language Arts, and Reading Standards indicate that teachers will provide students will opportunities to develop skills in the areas of producing visual images and messages in various media forms. Reading and writing are required for internet research, as well as the creation of multi-media presentations to exhibit the student’s acquired knowledge. I think that allowing students to create these types of technological presentations, individually or in groups, can enhance the learning process, while also providing them with the opportunity to simultaneously hone both their technological and Language Arts skills.

The most important TEKS in the introductory section shown above actually jumped out at me. The last line specifically states that “students should read and write on a daily basis”.  Most notable is the word ‘and’, not ‘or’.  Teachers are directed to provide their students with instruction and lessons that incorporate both reading and writing, every single day.  By following this simple but direct guideline, it will take care of nearly all of the rest of the directives. By assigning students to read and a wide variety of texts, organize their ideas, and write them out clearly and concisely each day, they will have already complied with over half of the standards listed. “The standards are cumulative” is an indication that the students’ knowledge, with regard to reading and writing, is an ongoing process, meant to be continuously worked on and improved upon, with no conclusion noted.

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2. aspx?id=5938&menu_id=2147483671&menu_id2=794

http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/CurrentCourse/Files%20Management/Tech%20apps                     %20for%20beginning%20teachers.pdf

VISUALIZING WITH TECHNOLOGY

Visualizing with technologies is a way for those of us who are not particularly gifted with artistic talents to use computerized programs to illustrate and explain complex ideas or concepts. Programs such as Sketchcast, TinkerPlots, GIS, and Fathom can be used to create short films or complex illustrations of concepts, and there are multiple ‘draw and paint’ applications that can be used to create and modify pictures. The visual aids produced by such programs cover a wide variety of subjects and grade levels, and they can help students to more easily comprehend both basic and complex ideas by using a multi-sensory approach. Teachers can develop their own material, or access the work of their peers or professionals through a wide network of sources for educational materials. Videos can take students to see places they have never been, and enable them to hear from people they have never met. Tools such as hand-held graphic calculators allow students to input mathematical material and watch a visual representation of how the often confusing formulas and equations affect the problem. The visualizations of the problem is an effective way for the student to see the effects of their actions, and determine whether or not they are on the right track. Technology has led to the production of a lot of electronic devices and applications that are not necessarily beneficial for learning overall; however, visualizing with technology is a valuable educational tool for both teachers and students alike.

Visualizing with technologies has impacted the learning process in many ways. Up to now, students attempting to learn about the often abstract concepts involved in algebra, geometry, and the gamut of scientific courses, including chemistry and biology, were essentially at the mercy of their instructor’s ability to verbally explain the principles involved, and perhaps awkwardly attempt to demonstrate the material two-dimensionally via chalkboard. With visual technology, instructors are now able to create or obtain multi-dimensional, layered explanations of essentially anything. Complex ideas can be broken down step-by-step to facilitate greater understanding of the basic concepts, providing for more complete comprehension of the subject matter. Students who may need further clarification can also make use of visual technology by accessing further, more in-depth explanations of virtually any concept through on-line platforms such as You Tube, where instructional videos are easily accessed by the public. Visualizing with technologies has made both the teacher’s job of explaining, and the student’s job of researching and comprehending, easier and more effective overall.

http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/ CurrentCourse/Files/Management/Ch9/VisualizingTechnologies.pdf

http://www.discoveryeducation.com/

http://www.safarimontage.com/

PODCASTING

Since I did not know what Podcasting was prior to this week’s lesson, I learned a lot about it. Anyone with a microphone or video camera and internet access can create a show for a podcast. Users who like what they see or hear can subscribe for future issues of the podcast, allowing them to filter what they would like streamed to them based upon their preferences. Podcasts can be used in the classroom to educate students with a wide variety of lectures and videos. My son’s Language Arts class is equipped with iPods so that the students can use them to listen to grammar lessons. I did not actually realize that the lessons were podcasts until now. According to him, the podcasts are pretty entertaining and the students get a lot more out of them than they would listening to the teacher lecturing them about a dry subject. 

Podcasting is very similar to some of the other Web 2.0 applications. Just like social networking sites, blogs, and YouTube videos, users can subscribe to their favorite sites to have new podcasts streamed directly to them. While the material from these sources may vary in terms of format, the premise of subscribing to a site for the purpose of receiving share information is the same. Like podcasts, wikis are also a concentration of collective material about a given subject, but wikis differ because there are multiple contributors working on an ever-changing content. Social bookmarking and web quests can almost be considered the opposite of the other user subscribed aps. Web quests are typically produced by teachers, and are a creative way to present students with an online research assignment. With social bookmarking, researchers come upon sites marked as relevant by others, and contribute by marking sites they find useful. In both of these aps, the originator has laid out the groundwork, but the bulk of the researching is being done by the user. Unlike the other formats, these two aps are not spoon-feeding the user their material so much as they are directing them where to go to research it for themselves.

I use my iPod primarily when I go to the gym or out walking for exercise. I put a lot of songs on it when I originally got it a few years ago, but I haven’t really added to it since then. I probably don’t get as much use out of it as I could. However, in a classroom I can absolutely see the advantages of allowing students to independently listen to lectures, with the ability to go back and listen to something more than once if they are having difficulty understanding it. The advantage to teachers is that they do not having to repeat the same lecture over and over again throughout the day, giving them time to work on something else. The only disadvantage that I can see would be if students were using their own iPods, rather than the school’s. It would be difficult to be certain that they were actually listening to the assigned material, rather than music or something else they’d downloaded. Of course, it would likely be evident by their scores on the correlated assignment. For the most part though, podcasting is an excellent way to both store and access a wide variety of educational material.  

WEB 2.0 TOOLS

What used to be done in the classroom on chalkboards, and later whiteboards, can now be accomplished with much more detail and efficiency using Web 2.0 tools. Various forms of multi-media presentations can be tailored to suit a teacher’s purpose using the internet, wiki spaces, blogs, web quests, screencasting, social bookmarking, podcasts, and more. Wiki’s allow students 24-hour access to the information provided by their instructor, with the ability to communicate, update, and change the information. Detailed instructions for assignments, due dates, and calendars can be accessed from home, which is particularly useful for student absences, and for students who may need visual reinforcement with lectures. Podcasts are extremely useful in subjects such as math and science; students having difficulty understanding a process can watch on-line examples, with detailed explanations of all of the steps involved. Web quests are an excellent way for teachers to initially engage their students, and to provide detailed directions and expectations for projects, and social bookmarking is an useful tool for teachers and students to share their favorite websites on a subject as a network. 

The impact of the Web 2.0 tools on education has been tremendous. Gone are the days of students using outdated encyclopedias to write reports. The amount of information available on the web is virtually unlimited, and much of it is in real time. Students can now publish their work in a variety of electronic formats, choosing whether to make it available to a limited audience, or public. With wiki’s, students are able to work with a wider audience, allowing for peer reviewing. Screencasting gives teachers the ability to work one-on-one with their students electronically by giving them direct feedback on their work, including verbal and written explanations of concepts that they may be having difficulty with. Students also benefit by being able to review information provided on-line multiple times for clarity and better understanding, rather than hearing it only once in the classroom. Although teachers are outnumbered and unable to give students a lot of personal attention in their limited class time, they can now reach out to them electronically with a variety of formats designed to help them communicate more efficiently. There are a lot of useful options in the Web 2.0 toolbox, and some formats that may be more useful in one subject than in another. A resourceful teacher will stay up to date on technology, and then mix and match the appropriate tools, using fresh ideas and formats to keep their students engaged.

COPYRIGHTS, FAIR USE & ONLINE SAFETY

Through this week’s assignment, I learned quite a bit about copyrights, fair use, cyber-bullying, and netiquette. I have actually studied this information before in my law classes, but I really liked the way that the Copyright and Fair Use Guideline for Teachers “cheat sheet” broke it all down and simplified it. The fine print was extremely specific with regard to how many copies can be made by whom, and how often. It also stated that workbook pages could not be copied, and that a copyright symbol must be visible on the copies. I doubt that a lot of these details are well known, and a lot of teachers are probably routinely violating them without realizing it. Online classes have exploded in popularity, and I think that 2002’s TEACH Act, allowing the use of copyrighted material for teaching in an online forum was an important part of that. I hadn’t heard of the act before, but in limiting the liability of educational institutions with regard to what students may do with the material used by a school for lessons via computers, it essentially opened the doors for on-line learning. 

The way that I feel about the laws protecting printed, recorded, and artistic material is that they are justified and necessary. The creators of the works used their time and energy, and likely make their livings from their craft. It is unfair for them not to be compensated for their efforts, just as we would expect to be compensated for our work. Prosecution is necessary in some instances, not only to penalize, but also to set an example to those who would attempt to unlawfully use, steal, or attempt to profit from another’s work. I think that the Fair Use Law has provided some generous exemptions for the educational community. It’s great that copyrighted materials can still be used in an educational context, as long as the right is not abused. Clear boundaries have been set regarding how and how much of various works can be used, and it is important as educators that we not only stay within those boundaries, but also teach our students to respect them. Equally important is teaching our children and students about online safety, netiquette, and what exactly constitutes cyberbullying. The more information we provide children with, the less likely that they are to become either a perpetrators or victims online.

http://dwb.unl.edu/dwb/courses/CURR880/copyright_chart.pdf

http://www.wtvi.com/teks/02_03_articles/copyright.html

INFORMATION LITERACY

     Prior to the Mapping Information Activity, I conducted an online search by simply logging onto my computer and putting what I wanted in the search bar. I will be honest and say that in doing this exercise, I actually had to go and check to see just what search engine I was using because I didn’t know (it was Google). I know I’m going to sound really naïve, but I was not aware that you were able to use different search engines. I assumed that you were locked into whatever came with your computer or internet provider. Only in doing this exercise did I find out that I could actually go through different ones.  I found the information on search techniques to be very useful. I already knew about putting quote marks around something that you want searched in its exact form, but I learned that you could use country codes and file extensions to narrow your search.  

     After doing the Mapping activity, I think that my habits in searching the internet will change. In the future, I will probably consult more than one search engine when I am looking for reputable sources. I was already aware that certain file extensions were more reliable than others, but this exercise has taught me to pay particular attention to them. I will be using country codes and file extensions in my searches because I think that it will save so much time by not having to sift through so many irrelevant sites.  This knowledge will affect my teaching, and it will definitely affect my students. I think that alerting students about the different meanings behind the file extensions is really important. My focus is on becoming a middle school English teacher, and that is where intensive research and writing really begins for most students. I can see myself going so far as giving my future students a list of file extensions that I will accept, as well as a list of those that I will not.

     I think that my search of the Pacific Northwestern tree octopus was an eye opener, (Zapato). By checking into it on other search engines, I was able to quickly establish that it was an internet hoax. Further investigation into the links attached to it revealed that the purpose of the site, and the hoax, was to market related merchandise. The information contained in the November Learning article was of a far more serious nature. The article advocates the use of www.easywhois.com to verify just who exactly publishes a website. Without realizing that the author of an article on Martin Luther King was actually a white supremacist group, students would be taking in a lot of misinformation and assuming that it was fact. This exercise was very useful to me, both as a student and a future teacher. It emphasized the importance of verifying your sources and using only those that are found to be reputable. This is something that should be taught to children at a very young age. It is important for them to understand that they cannot believe everything they read on the internet. I believe that it would be useful for elementary school teachers to present the Mapping Information Activity to their students as soon as they are old enough to begin conducting internet research. 

(n.d.). Retrieved from http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/ 

           information-literacy-resources/5-find-the-publisher-of-a-web-site/

Zapato, L. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/