Only the beginning

Today marks a special day not only for this technology class, but for my personal and professional life as it is the last day of my masters program, ever. I am proud of my accomplishments, but more than that, I am just so so happy to finally move on to my own classroom! This has been what I've been working so hard for and paying so much money for, and I pray to God that it works out.

As for my reflections on technology and education, I feel that technology will always have the potential to do help us learn better, make the environment around us more accessible, push creativity and imagination beyond its boundaries, turn us into robots... JK on the last one, but who knows? In the end, it is our human use of technology that will hurt or help us, and as teachers it should be our goal to keep up with advancements like Web 2.0 tools, AAC technology, smart software like SmartBoard and Kurzweil, and just plain ol' cool things. I learned a lot this semester, this year and a half in general, and I cannot wait to bring to my best abilities all the tools and strategies this class and my time at TC has given me to my new classroom.

ELOs

Extended Learning Opportunities?

Not quite sure what that stands for, but that's what its come to mean for me!

For my first ELO, I decided to explore Prezi a bit more and create a Prezi presentation on Dr. Richard Keller's interview from this blog post.

Here is the link to it and I hope you enjoy it, as I spent quite some time on it. Tip: use a mouse, not your trackpad.

An Interview with Dr. Richard Keller


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The medium itself may provide us with new ways of teaching and encouraging young readers to be purposeful, critical, and analytical about the information they encounter. The development of tools—such as online reading tutors and programs that embed strategy prompts, models, think-alouds, and feedback into the text or browser— may enhance the kind of strategic thinking that is vital for online reading comprehension.

- Wolf and Barzillai, 2009 

And now an extension of the previous post's thoughts on learning and technology... Here are some articles for background information:

• The Importance of Deep Reading, by Maryanne Wolf and Mirit Barzillai

• Crazy Busy, by Dr. Hallowell

From the Wolf and Barzillai article and the video summary from Dr. Hallowell, my initial reactions as an individual is to start putting down my iPhone. A bit of an overstatement, but generally, I would like to start leaving my phone in my bag when I am having a meal with friends/family, having coffee, or just chatting in the hallways. Especially this time of the year - finals, job searches, paperwork for employment - I feel like I have a thousand things to do and I am constantly on my phone trying to figure it all out at once. When I operate like this, I tend to lose track of dates and times, my prioritizing skills diminish because everything is on my brain all at once. What I have begun to do is to write in a planner, in order to better execute metacognitive functioning so I can feel like I have control in my life again. Again, it sounds like an exaggeration, but I promise, I am only slightly exaggerating.

It's really interesting how the Wolf and Barzillai article talks about brain plasticity, and how human brains were never meant to read and this is a new cognitive function from evolutionary processes.  That was 5, 500 years ago. Imagine what our brains would look like 5,500 years from now. That's too much of an abstraction for me, so let's take it back to 100 years from now. How will technology and new modes of thinking have shaped our brains and our lives that starkly transforms our brains? Will we really be doing this in our classroom 50, 100, years from now? [From my first post.]

As teachers I feel that we must embrace and engage in new technologies, but maintain control of our use of it. We've still got to work on executive functioning and critical thinking skills. We need those to help us understand text when reading out of a hard-cover book, and we still need those skills to help us understand text when reading off the screen. The new problem for me is that I'll hit CTRL+T and open up a new slate of endless possibilities of the web. 

For our students, technology should be used to encourage readers to be proactive, thoughtful, and critical readers. Teachers can use technology to support these cognitive functions during online reading and searching through use of UDL, as mentioned by Wolf and Barzillai. In the end, this may very well end up as a new way of teaching literacy, modeling good use and strategies when reading or searching online across all academic disciplines.

As an additional reading, if you can find access to this article, I highly recommend giving it a read. This was one of the earlier research studies done with high school and college students about online searching and epistemological development.

Hofer, B. K. (2004). Epistemological understanding as a metacognitive process: Thinking aloud during online searching. Educational Psychologist,39(1), 43-55.

Digital Minds: Intentional Implementation & Balance

“When we don’t practice different ways of thinking, we begin to lose [attentive modes of thought]” 

- Nicholas Carr

This week we took a look at a Prezi on technology and how it affects our learning processes and habits. This is a personal interest of mine, as during my undergraduate studies I was part of a research team investigating students’ use of web tools like Google and Wikipedia, and it’s relationship with their epistemological development. And like one of the consequences the Prezi discusses, we were seeing that often students did not engage in critical thinking about content and its sources when searching for information.

So, technology – is it good or bad for you? This is not the question we should be asking ourselves. Rather, the better question to ask is how your attitudes and behaviors affect what you believe about technology being good or bad for you. Because the best part of technology is that it is changing – it will always have potential to do something better for our lives. However, we also need to have better control of how we use technology at school, at home, for work, etc.

So as teachers and well, human beings susceptible to idleness…

What are the necessary skills?  

We should be teaching students to think critically about the information they are receiving and who/what they are receiving it from, which is no different than what we require students now, but we should be actively applying this mode of thought and learning towards the things we see and read through technology.

What are reasonable expectations for our students and ourselves?

It is our own attitudes towards technology and behaviors in using technology that should be deemed “bad” or “good”. In the end, the most reasonable and logical expectations we should have for ourselves and our students is to monitor our own thinking and our own use of technology; we should never stop setting goals to develop our metacognitive skills.

How do we avoid the costs of a pervasive digital environment in the classroom in the presence of adaptive and instructional technology? How do we prepare students with good strategies for using technology in their “outside” lives? What about in your professional practice?

We must keep our behaviors in check and use the technology in a way that will most benefit us as learners. As teachers, we need to directly instruct our students in their own habits and use of technology as a tool for learning, and model the most beneficial way to use technology in our daily lives.

Cool Things

It must have been serendipity that we would discuss these cool things at a time when I am christmas shopping, moving out to a new apartment, and starting a new job!

Sifteo Cubes

Perfect gift for your geeky loved ones! Seriously, I love the idea of shaping the way we interact with digital games. It would be great for young children who have that draw towards things shiny and digital, while also engaging their creativity and fine motor skills. It also has the great capacity for interactive play, which is not frequently possible for handheld devices like the iPad or iPhone or iEtc.

OXO home goods

I became a huge fan of the OXO brand when I was using them in the kitchen of the family I used to nanny for (the father is an amazing chef). The measuring cup blew my mind, the kitchen utensils had such great grips, and the design was simple and sleek. They were also AFFORDABLE - found on shelves at Target! Amazing stuff, really. Must remember to pick them up when I move in to my new apartment!

Thumb Thing Book Holder

Ahem - this would make a great stocking stuffer! As a teacher, one of the most frustrating things during a read aloud is not the student is chattering away, or the one dozing off in the corner, or the one with ants in his pants, it's trying to angling the book so that everyone can see while reading the book upside down, all with just one hand so that you can use the other to flip the pages.

Testing and Accommodations

The NYS Test Access and Accommodations Policy Guide is a comprehensive and well-organized tool
in helping educators in the process of getting students necessary accommodations for state exams. It seems like it would support any future decision making on providing the appropriate test accommodations and modifications for students. My biggest takeaway from the guide was the importance of meaningful selection (by the team, including the student) of appropriate testing accommodations based on the student, not on his disability label. I feel that many times, the accommodations are spoken about as if they are standard for students with a certain disability - "time and a half" - and the guide draws out specific difficulties that educators may be able to address with certain accommodations. What surprised me the most is that the accommodations that we may allow students for classroom assessments may not always be allowed for state exams.

A question of the difference between a testing accommodation v. a testing modification

  was raised, and I think this may explain why some "accommodations" we make for class tests are not allowed on state tests. Accommodations are supports that allow the student to better access the test material, without making any changes to test content. This means we could change the way the test is administered and responses are recorded, but changes to the test questions/information given are not allowed. That, changing test content, would be considered a modification.

Which leads to another important question - Should these policies be applied to teacher-created tests as well? 

I believe there should be a balance between the amount of modifications a teacher should make to a test. Word banks, as the guide explicitly pointed out, are a frequent modification on teacher-created tests, but not allowed on state exams. For example, I understand that giving word banks may be useful for a student with issues in working memory, but I also think that the teacher and the student should explicitly practice strategies to use on state exams the rest of the year to support this need in some other way, so that when the day of the state exam arrives, the student has had ample practice in test-taking skills with the appropriate supports.

Thoughts on AAC

Among all the thoughtful questions that were asked in the vimeo, the one question that struck me the most was how educators create the space in their lessons so that all students are able to communicate their thoughts and ideas. I remember one exercise my undergraduate elementary education class had to do throughout the semester was first see how long we wait for responses when we would ask questions during our presentation and then actually wait 5-8 seconds for a response. This may not sound like a long time, but I think the longest I waited for a response was 3 seconds before I asked it again or rephrased the original question. It was also uncomfortable, having 5-8 seconds of complete silence, almost as if I had spoken a completely different language! The vimeo put the memory of that exercise into a whole different light – how much time do we allow all our students, especially those who need Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices, to gather and communicate their thoughts? This question leads us to the main take-away from the vimeo, that communication is a process and requires thoughtful planning and balance of student needs/goals and the classroom environment. Collaboration with the family, the student, and other professionals should guide not only the decision-making process, but also the maintenance of the device throughout the year.

Planning with Technology

As a soon-to-be employed full-time teacher (some positive thinking going on here), a recent class discussion on utilizing technology efficiently really tied together how educators can use technology based on the three UDL principles to support the three primary brain networks that affect how we learn as individuals. While a lot of technology can support two or even all three neural networks, it is also beneficial to think about specific learners and their difficulties and find a way to utilize technology for that purpose. As teachers, I think it is beneficial to be familiar with all the new technology, but at the same time, to also take on the perspective of the need, rather than how we can transform the technology to meet all the needs. At times, we may just need a more concrete lesson with manipulatives than an intricate SmartBoard lesson, although we should never rule out technology if it supports students' difficulties. In the end, thoughtful consideration is always required in lesson planning, including what technologies and other forms of supportive materials to use, and how these will help students meet their goals.

I think the way that Jill Osview presented the different tools really organizes and can support teachers well in tracking down appropriate tools to use for supporting different learning styles. I've expanded this chart to include some of the other Web 2.0 tools we've been discussing and other educational software applications that should be considered when selecting tools. I encourage readers (mainly my classmates if they read this blog) to expand upon the list!

	Recognition Network	Strategic Network	Affective Network
BoardMaker	Uses pictures to support receptive language	Uses pictures to support expressive language
Popplet	Can use to show "bigger" picture; concept maps	Can be used in organize support details to represent main ideas	Interactive - popplet map can be accessed and edited by other users
Styxi		Can be used to organize thoughts/ideas for projects or general school work	collaborative - can allow access to other users to create and edit boards
Little Bird Tales	Authors voice record their story and use their own illustrations to create an online book	Students can narrate their stories and use their own illustrations or pictures	Students use their own voice to narrate, their own illustrations/pictures to create their stories
LiveScribe	Audio recordings sync to the notes you take
Prezi	Non-linear presentation; can see “big-picture” of a presentation, and focus on various supporting details	Planning is non-linear; presentations visually focus on main idea, and supporting details as part of an overarching theme	Fluid, presentations are interactive and can be collaborative