Walk It Out.......

This has been an awesome class and I can honestly say I learned a lot from Dan, my classmates, the readings, and blog posts.  I did not have access to technology in my classroom at the beginning of the school year and I around Christmas right before break I got a Smart board and my student computer fixed.  I put my Smart board to use right away but I never used my student computer.  I now know how important it is to implement technology into my classroom and lesson plans.  Thank you GED 628 for showing me the lightJ.  

Web 2.0

Web 2.0…… Prior to taking a technology class I had no idea what Web 2.0 was.  As a matter of fact, I had never even heard of it.  Well web 2.0 is a source of media designed for social interaction in the form of blogs, wikis, forums, and etcetera.  Teachers use them as a means to bring technology in the classroom.  I had the pleasure of reviewing several Web 2.0’s and I found several that I could use in my classroom.  The one I will be discussing today is Edhelper.com.  As a special education teacher I sometimes need supplemental material to pair with the core curriculum.  It is sometimes hard to find supplemental material and Edhelper.com provides me with numerous resources.  It does require a membership fee however, it is well worth it.

            Edhelper.com has a table of contents on its homepage.  There is a reading and writing section with categories that focus on reading comprehension, books, literature units, and writing.  There is a section for students in grades K-3 that focuses on phonics, handwriting, and etc.  There is a language section that focuses on ELA, spelling, and vocabulary.  There are sections designed for special education, foreign languages, math, social studies, and science.  What I found to be most helpful was the reading, spelling, and math resources.  I use centers in my classroom and I would use the resources from Edhelper.com in my center rotation.  The students loved them and they were set at their instructional level.  Edhelper.com is a great resource and I highly recommend other teachers use it.

           

           

Current Software

           Software! Can’t live with it….. Can’t live without it!  Computer software is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do.  Software has many functions in the computer world.  There is currently computer software that helps students improve their writing and provides teachers with feedback of student progress.  In the article Software helps students learn to revise their writing students learn to independently revise and edit their writing.  Writing is such a difficult task for many students and I believe new advances with this current software will continue to help students improve.  The author of the article, Jenna Zwang, discusses several curriculums that help students improve their writing skills.  In the beginning of the article Zwang states that students who struggle with writing tend to fall behind in multiple disciplines (p.33).  I agree with that statement because if students cannot successfully write an essay how can accurately answer short answer questions if they cannot write?

            Zwang discusses several software programs that available in helping students improve their revision skills.  One of the programs discussed in the article is Writing Reviser gives students feedback on areas they could improve (p.33).  The program is designed to score students according to wordiness, overuse of prepositional phrases, or jargon aka fluff and puff (p.33).  The feedback given to students is not negative it is all positive feedback.  The software does not fix the problems for the students but it guides them in helping them see their mistakes as well as get them thinking about what they need to revise and how they can change/ make their writing better.  The software is also beneficial for teachers.  It allows teachers to see what students are making improvement as well as areas they need to continue working on.  The Writing Reviser program was designed for students in grades 8^th-12^th but there are other software programs available to assist other students with their writing revisions.  For students who have trouble organizing their thoughts there is also software available for them.  The program Kurzweil 3000 is a reading, writing, test-taking, and learning tool for students who have learning difficulties (p.33).  The software I discussed can help students improve the way they revise and editing their writing. 

            Attached to this post is a video I downloaded from you tube.  This guy is signing a song about NOT revising.  Although revising is very important, this song was funny and is a shout out to all the people who are against revising their work!

Article Citation:

Zwang, J. (2011).  Software Helps Students Learn to Revise Their Work.  eSchool News, Volume 14 Issue 7, p.33.

Lets Take a Wiki Walk........

What is a Wiki?  I thought the same thing when I heard the term.  A wiki is a shared online space that invites collaboration from users.   A special education teacher at West Elementary School developed a school wide program that would help develop language skills in special education students.  The students involved were part of a writing project that used wikis to facilitate collaboration among the students, parents, and teachers.  According to Clements and Nastasi, technology use can promote social interaction, peer teaching, and collaboration, and the group of teachers that created the wiki made sure they put those skills to use among students.  The beginning of the program began as a graduation requirement as a graduate course in educational leadership at a local university.  From that requirement the Wiki Writers program was crated and evolved into a yearlong collaboration that required students to write projects and communicate internationally with pen pals.  It also required parents to get involved and promoted collaboration between students. 

The collaborative team determined what students participated and then determined what students needs are.  The collaborative team consisted of the Title 1 teacher, two special education teachers, and a technology coach.  While in the planning process the team determined that the chosen group of students needed vocabulary and language development.  The parents of the students were also involved.  They supported the program and participated in events that celebrated student progress and accomplishments.  Throughout the duration of the program assessment data and work samples were collected to monitor student progress.  Each month the students had an assignment they were required to complete.  A list of the assignments is listed below.

• September- Journal writing
• October- Collaboration with a school in South Africa
• November- Created a list of places they would like to take their e-pals
• December- Writing holiday poems
• January- Reading biographies of famous people
• February- Family PowerPoint project
• March- Animal Photo Story
• April- Created a virtual investigation of historical and recreational sites in a state

This project lasted over one school year and the participants were excited about learning and writing there pen pals.  The students reading progress was tracked using the county’s reading benchmark exams and the Houghton Mifflin’s leveled reading passage assessment.  In the end the majority of students participating in the program demonstrated an increase of 3 to 5 reading levels (p.347). 

            According to Ertmer, in order for a technology integrated program to be successful, it must provide training, exist on site, and supply support that is immediate to teacher needs and this project contained all of those components (p.347).  This was an amazing project that got students involved and excited about learning.  The support from the staff and parents played a vital role in making the project a success.  If you are interested in participating in this on your school campus I advise you to read the article.  Below is a list of suggestions that may help you implement a program of this sort at your school. 

• Get approval from the school administration
• Develop a collaborative team
• Solicit support from the PTA
• Solicit parent consent from participating students
• Create a wiki
• Select students
• Acquire pen pals through networking this in the school system

Article Citation:

Andes, L., Claggett, E. (2011).  Wiki Writer: Students and Teachers Making Connections Across Communities.  Reading Teacher, Vol. 64 Issue 5, p345-350.

Walking Into Action Research

The reflective process is not only essential to student learning but it is also essential to teacher development.  Reflection on your own practice + reflection on current research = action research!  There are numerous ways that teachers can reflect on professional practices.  There are several different ways that teachers can professionally reflect on their teaching teachers can video tape a lesson and later review it, they can be observed by another professional (fellow teacher or principal), and they can keep a journal where they write about how a lesson(s) went.  There are also various sources of educational material available for teachers to research.  This information can be found in education journals, magazines, and on the internet.  Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer state that literature about the use of technologies can be grouped into for major categories.  Those categories include:

·         Descriptive papers- they describe the state of something.

·         Evaluation studies- used to determine the effects of an intervention

·         Experimental research- test hypotheses and use control groups to determine the effects of an intervention

·         Quasi-experimental- statistical techniques are used to determine the extent to which any observed differences between the experimental and control groups may be due to chance alone

Teachers can conduct research in their classrooms to better determine what works for their students.  This is known as action research.  Action research can be done in various forms (individual, small group, school-wide, and strategy based).  I will be completing an action research project this year in my classroom using either a small group of peers or a strategy.  The topic I will be researching is co-teaching.  How does co-teaching benefit special education students, co-teaching as a strategy, and is co-teaching effective for special day class students are some of the topics I am considering.  When completing action research there are several steps in the process which include:

·         Goals- determine the focus or goals of the investigation

·         Action- what will you investigate?, what evidence or data will be collected, what research strategy will be used?

·         Monitor- access how your plan is working

·         Evaluate and extend- reflect on the collected data and what you have learned

Technology can also be incorporated into the action research process.  Computers can be used to complete internet research, to keep track of data, and to analyze data.  Tape and video recorders can be used to record interviews as well as lessons that have been taught.  Surveys and questionnaires can also be used with students and adults.  I will start my action research project in October of this year and I hoping it goes well.

Cultural Walk

My technology journey continues as I learn about how to be a culturally responsive teacher.  A culturally responsive teacher is a teacher that understands and capitalizes on the unique cultural attributes of students, including their experiences, as resources promoting student achievement (Gay, 2002; Villegas & Lucas, 2002).  I always thought I was a culturally responsive teacher but reading this chapter made me fully understand what a culturally responsive teacher is and how I can fully incorporate my students culture in my classroom.  Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer state that being a culturally responsive teacher consist of several components and those components are as follows:

·         Teachers understand that students understanding is influenced by their culture

·         Embrace students diverse backgrounds

·         Take on the responsibility of helping schools be more responsive to all students

·         Understand how learners construct knowledge

·         Know about the lives of his or her students

·         Designs lessons that builds upon what they already know and challenges them to think beyond what they are familiar with

Those are all things that I take into consideration when I teaching and planning lessons for my students.  With all the components listed above collaboration also comes into play.  It is important that teachers create a collaborative environment and that students collaborate in the classroom setting and that they feel comfortable when doing so.  It is important that guidelines are set and that students understand different people have different views and that they should not be criticized if others do not agree with others opinions.  There are several components that go along with creating a collaborative environment which include:

·         Teacher modeling

·         Questioning

·         Quality Responding

·         Peer Interactions

·         Group Inquiry Skills

·         Reflective Journals

Those are practices that can be used in the classroom to support a collaborative environment for students.

            Chapter 11 really made me think about all the strategies I can use to support student learning in my classroom.  Some of those strategies include promoting content learning and promoting student reflection.  Promoting content learning can help students make connections and link activities with the content they are suppose to be learning.  A second way to help students would be to directly reinforce learning goals.  Reinforcing learning goals will inform students of what they are learning as well as keep them on track for the duration of a lesson.  Make sure they are of aware of what they need to know and how they are going to learn it.  Promoting reflection makes students think about their own thinking.  According to Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, reflective thinking helps students make connections between their learning goals, the processes they use to achieve those goals, and the content they are learning.  Those are all strategies that need to be used in the classroom to support student learning.

            It is important that students understand culture and that they are aware that their classmates come from different cultural backgrounds.  Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer state that Culture is manifest in a wide variety of behaviors and beliefs some of which are visible and some of which are not.  This past school year my students were not familiar with what culture is.  Giving them explanations and examples really helped them understand their culture as well as other student’s culture.  It is important that students understand that different cultures have different beliefs.  Some discussion topics that can be held among students include:

·         Styles of dress

·         Greetings

·         Beliefs

·         Values

·         Holiday customs

·         Music/ dancing

·         Food

Those are all topics that can discussed when teaching students about different cultural backgrounds.  Another strategy to use is to have students right a report about their family history using presentation software.  That way the lesson has a technology component and it will teach students about other student’s cultural backgrounds.  From those presentations discussions can develop.  It is important that we as teachers promote and support cultural understanding to our students. 

Tech Walkin' It Out!

Policy, Procedure, and Safety!  Those are three things that have played an important role in my college career.  Chapter 10 covered policies, copyright, academic honesty, security, and safety.  Those are all important factors to consider when using technology in classroom.  Many school districts have acceptable use policies in place when technology is involved in the classroom.  Acceptable use policies are a schools line of defense in preventing unsafe, illegal, and unethical use of school or district’s technology resources.  The district has a document in place that that outlines what acceptable use of technology is.  They also have internet protection that blocks inappropriate internet sites.  The school district I work for has an information technology department and there technology policy is located on the district website.  Copyright is also an important topic when dealing with technology in the classroom.  There are laws in place to prevent people from copying material that does not belong to them.  Public Law 94-553 is the current copyright law in place that has to be followed when using technology for teaching and learning.  This is information that I am familiar with but it will be new to my students and it is important that they understand it.

It is important that students understand the importance of academic integrity.  Academic integrity encompasses a variety of topics.  Those topics include plagiarism, cheating, and security.  My teachers in high school stressed how it important it was to NOT plagiarize and my college professors stressed it even more.  My motto is when in doubt cite and cite everything that you did not originally create on your own!  That way there will be no confusion about plagiarism.  Internet safety is also very important.  Without internet protection a computer can become infected with spyware, viruses, malware, and Trojan horses.  There are several highly effective software programs that can be downloaded to prevent the computer from becoming infected.  Cyberbullying and cyberstalking cases are on the rise.  Students have been hurt physically because they have been victims of cyberbullying.  It is important that students understand how serious cyberbullying/ cyberstalking is, that they know not to do it, and that they understand the consequences of their actions if they participate in it.