EDLD Week 5 Reflection on Learning

Helen Barrett writes, “An electronic portfolio provides an environment where students can collect their work in a digital archive, select specific pieces of work (hyperlink to artifacts) to highlight specific achievements; reflect on the learning demonstrated in the portfolio, neither text or multimedia form, set goals for future learning (or direction) to improve and celebrate achievement through sharing this work with and audience, whether online or face to face.” (Solomon & Schrum, 2007.) 

From third grade, and up, students should be encouraged to create an online portfolio. This is the primary reason I chose this medium as my lesson focus and means of assessment for our third grade science lesson in this course. Not only does the online portfolio offer evidence of student learning over time, but it provides a more public venue for student work – increasing student motivation. Additionally creating an online portfolio through venues such as http://edmodo.com, http://kidblog.org, or http://sites.google.com allows students to develop critical thinking, analytical, writing, and technical skills that will transfer across all needs from school through work. I currently use this format in my classes through my learning at Lamar so I have access to student portfolios without dragging home endless piles of papers from my science students and they can access their information from anywhere that has internet connection; including their phones. 

References

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

Teaching with Technology Final Reflection

EDLD5364 Teaching with Technology afforded me a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with others in the design of a UDL lesson unit. Already working collaboratively during my other courses made this a fairly easy process. Our team had a strong grasp of Google Docs as well as Google Sites, making the flow of the project nearly seamless. We used the live chat feature and the new social-media based “discussion” functionality within Google Docs for meaningful and real-time communication assisted with some emails. Some fo the other tech tools that we used, but that I was already familiar with were Prezi and YouTube; a new tool that I plan to use in my own classroom is Book Builder. I liked that our collaborative assignments were somewhat open-ended, giving us the opportunity to explore these various tools and come up with exciting new ways to integrate technology into real-type scenario lessons.

New to me, was CAST’s Universal Design for Learning site with the lesson builder. This is the type of lesson planning and pedagogy I am interested in developing, personally and find CAST’s UDL Curriculum Self-Check a valuable tool in helping me develop this skill. I am very excited to learn more about UDL tools such as speech to text, Braille keyboards, structured search-engines, text linked to glossaries, visual dictionaries and screen-readers to increase student performance by helping eliminate some of the barriers that stand in the way of many students. In keeping with UDL expectations, providing multiple ways to learn will removes obstacles to learning that can skew assessment results. This tool can really strengthen a student’s ability to communicate and reflect on their learning providing the teacher with an authentic assessment. Communicating and evaluating learning through rubrics and ePortfolios as well as setting high expectations for student peer and self-evaluation are simple means through which to vary assessment and thus provide for more accurate appraisal of student mastery of objectives. (Solomon and Schrum, 2007, p. 65).

I also enjoyed learning about voicethread. I learned about voicethread at the 2012 TCEA convention, but had not taken the time to sit down and actually learn how to use it. I was very impressed by how simple it is to use as a learning tool that exemplifies UDL principles, “break(ing) from the traditional classroom model-that of a teacher standing up in front of rows of students to deliver ‘truth” and later using a test to check whether “truth” sank in (Rose & Meyer, 2002). since there are so many means (text, audio, visual) by which to create and add to a voicethread. It is definitely a learning tool that I will work to have “unblocked” in our district.

References

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society    

     for Technology in Education.

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. 
     Chapter 1. Retrieved on March 1, 2011, from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

Reflection as a means of assessment

Reflection as a means of assessment is a solid way to allow the student to demonstrate learning. There are many ways to allow a student to reflect but the use of technology gives the students more options in the way they can reflect. Podcasts and Blogs are reflection activities that can be incorporated into the lesson planning. These along with short Animoto clips or eBooks made by the students to summarize learning will not only solidify for them what they have learned, but can help them make connections as to why they are learning. The teacher can also very quickly see where the student disconnects are and correct them before formal evaluation of student accumulation of knowledge. These, then, also make great assessment tools. Instead of having students just go through the motions of the labs they can be given questions to consider and answer while involved in the activities and again at the end. This also ties in to KWHL Chart to help wrap up what they are supposed to be learning, how they will accomplish that learning, and what they actually learned. Some other types of Tech-Savvy reflective tools may include the Flat Classroom Project, Project Exchange, Voice Thread, or Classroom Displays as described by Suzie Boss (2009) on Edutopia.


The key advantage of this type of learning is students being able to use what the are comfortable with so the teacher can have a more authentic assessment. The student choices gives them the safety in the classroom needed to explore the learning and express that learning in a manner they can demonstrate what they are wanting to communicate most effectively.

Boss, S., (2009). High tech reflection strategies make learning stick. Edutopia. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from http://www.edutopia.org/student-reflection.

Differentiated Instruction through Technology

Have you ever wanted to say something and forgot what is was exactly but it was hanging on the tip of your tongue? That is the feeling I have had for a long time. If I have had a predominant weakness in my pedagogy it has been differentiated instruction. Sure, I make modifications and reduced TEKS per the IEP but I have been clinging to idea I could find that "something" or the "it" that would make the difference in overcoming the barriers to learning that my students faced knowing it was there but not really knowing how to grasp it.

What I have learned from the CAST site and our readings, especially the book "Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age", this week is beginning to pull together some thoughts and ideas I have had and I feel like I am about to remember what to say...or in this case, know how to differentiate my lessons for every student in my classroom; not just the ones with an IEP or 504.

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Chapter 6 retrieved from the Center for Applied Special Technology web site on March 18, 2012, at http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

CAST's UDL and Research Based Technology Lessons

This week in review is a delve into the way the brain learns and how technology has repeatedly shown to increase the interest level and engagement of the students/learners and subsequently increased the performance level of the student on standardized assessments. This is my particular breadth of interest and was very excited to be introduced to the CAST site and read this specific research presented in out readings.

In the specific application to my practice I will use the UDL Lesson Planner to direct my planning but frame it within the concrete UDL learning aspects addressing the “what”, the “how”, and the “why” of knowledge acquisition.

Constructing Your Own Learning

I have been a champion of Piaget for many years and run my classroom on those same principals outlined in his theories. This course (EDLD 5364) is a very exciting one for me as it is starting off with the principals of a constructivism learning theory, using technology as a basis of engaging the student while allowing them to experience or explore what is needed to be learned for a higher level of knowledge.

I always try to take what I am learning in my classes and incorporate it into my classroom for my own real world experience and relationships. This past week we were having a planetary alignment and my 8th grade science students were also beginning a unit on the Solar System. I had the laptops set up on the lab tables when they entered the room with a statement on the front board that there had been an event, astronomically, that occurred over the weekend that only happens about every 50,000 years - what was it? That was the only information I gave them and they had to research, collaborate, problem solve and critical think to find out. Then they wrote a 150 word article to describe what they learned and included an image. This, I believe, is what we are learning about this week. How to take this learning theory and apply it to the classroom to give the students a experiential process in which to construct their new knowledge. They learned many new things this week just by investigating the question. They emailed astronomers on their own initiative and some even wrote additional articles about things they learned about because they though it was interesting. It was a great teaching week for me and a great learning week. 

Graphic Design Reflection EDLD 5366

The major assignment this course was the collaborative web site. I found the experience to not only be good for me as an online collaborative activity through the use of ooVoo but in graphic design as I had the opportunity to see through other people’s eyes as we developed our logo and web layout. Exposure to the different perspectives allowed me to have more ideas. I have always tried to implement what I am learning in class into my classroom. I am taking knowledge from this class and combining it with what I picked up at the TCEA conference to infuse my lesson plans. This new six weeks we are studying the solar system and I am having my students create a website. The home page is all about them (thank you, Holly Dornak), but the first page of the website will be all about the solar system. I will have them add a page for each new unit we cover, plus a review page for each unit we have already covered as a resource to study for the STAAR exam (thank you, Lamar). The parents and students are all very excited about this project and I am having even the most reluctant students doing their work. I hope this is a sign of things to come with students “working on the work” and creatively learning in the process. The graphic design class has been a wonderful lesson for me and my students and I can’t wait to see their end products.