My Technological Abilities - Epilogue

When I started this class, I thought that integrating technology basically just meant having students research on the internet instead of using a card catalogue. I had no idea how much one can do or learn while integrating technology in the classroom. There are innumerable free tools for creating presentations, videos, blogs, and more. I previously had not considered if or how I would integrate them into my classroom. I had only a little bit of exposure to the topic of fair use prior to this class. I had some vague idea of what it was, but I never really knew the details of it. My biggest takeaway from this class was what constitutes fair use, and the need to properly cite works when I use them. I had the misconception that if it’s on the Internet, it’s able to be used freely. This class has taught me that that is not at all true. I’m fortunate to have had this lesson from class; it may have saved me from a serious copyright infringement problem later in life. I would like to look into CIPA and COPPA more. I take great interest in censorship and privacy, and I want my students to be protected while they use the Internet in my classroom. I would also love to investigate whom it is that creates these filters and try to liberalize some of the content that is filtered out. I believe that censorship is generally a bad thing (though it is at times necessary). I am grateful that this class brought COPPA and CIPA to my attention because I intend to look into them more. Having now finished EDUC 422, my biggest takeaway is that using technology in the classroom with students can be fun and educational. For most students who have grown up in the early aughts, technology is intuitive and not difficult to learn. I’m confident that students will enjoy projects that embrace technology and ultimately learn more in classes that successfully integrate it. I created a movie about a topic I was interested in and had a lot of fun doing it. It turned out to be educational for the audience I showed it to, and best of all, learning the new program (iMovie) never seemed like work. It was fun to create the video, and iMovie would be a great tool for students to use to make a project about one of their passions that they could then show to their classmates.

Social Media in Classrooms

After reading the articles, I’m still pretty ambivalent about using social media as a teacher. At once, I see its benefit as an educator to share links, thoughts, lesson plans, tips for classroom management, etc with colleagues. Yet, I don’t see much utility in using it in the classroom with students. I agree with the article that pointed out that this would be very helpful for younger teachers who have less experience lesson planning and managing their classroom, and thus would find immense value in mining their peers for advice. I love the idea that one teacher can find a video useful for teaching students about a battle in the civil war, for example, and simply tweet a link. The sharing amongst my Personal Learning Network is exciting and it makes me want to be active in my community. I love the sense of teamwork I get from observing the way other teachers interact. However, I think that Twitter does not provide enough space for substance for it to beneficial for students. Twitter encourages short bytes of 140 characters or less, which is not nearly enough for a student to flesh out a complete thought. I would rather see at least a paragraph from the student explaining how he got to where he is in his thought process. For these reasons, I would prefer to have students use blogging for social media. This allows students to write longer texts in both the post and the subsequents comments. I would also shy away from facebook because it tends to be an outlet for personal social media sharing as well. This issue would also be eliminated by a classroom blog. For me, I would have students make posts and others comment on them, much the way we do in this class to allow students to write at length about topics, rather than quick thoughts.

AIM in Classrooms

I’d previously learned about the need to present information using various methods in order to accommodate different kinds of learners (audio, visual, spatial, etc), but EDUC 422 has emphasized the necessity to provide different technological tools to achieve this as well. I hadn’t considered how I would cater to students that could not read or read well. The article illustrates this very well with their example of a boy named Dylan, who spent two hours just doing math homework because he read slowly. I learned about the numerous tools that exist to help alleviate the problems students like this face when doing homework or other computer-based assignments. I learned about a couple internet browsers that will read the screen, as well as other software programs that can do this too. There is also software (such as Dragon) that allows students to dictate and their writing as opposed to having to type it all out. In addition to heightening my awareness about the need for AIM in classrooms, I learned from this article that it was a legal obligation to provide these materials. To ensure that I have them accessible for everyone in my classroom, I intend to keep everything digital to start. Having a digital copy allows me as an educator to easily modify the assignment to accommodate different learners with varying abilities. For instance, I can print something in normal size font for most of the class and enlarge the font and reprint it for a student who requires that. I would also like to design lesson plans that utilize computers in the classroom, which would allow students to have the screen read to them using software installed on computers at school. Additionally, by allowing students to use computers during class time, I can more easily monitor students' progress and help them with any basic computer literacy issues they might have. Lastly, I intend to maintain a classroom website for my students. On the website, I will post lesson plans, homework assignments, link to resources such as Dragon and Google Vox (dictation and screen reading programs), most importantly, post transcripts of lesson plans. With the lesson plan transcripts, students can have the material read to them either by the computer or with the help of their parent. I believe it’s essential to provide multiple ways for students to learn. Technology aids teachers in allowing them to digitize lessons and provides programs (often free) that can assist students who have learning issues.

Flipped Classrooms

Flipped classrooms are a totally new concept to me. They intrigue me because I think the way most classes are taught now is archaic and not the most effective method. The inertia of tradition seems to be the only reason we continue to teach in the lecture format. Flipped classrooms offer new ways for students to learn and for teachers to teach. The basic idea behind them is that through collaboration with other students and coaching from their teachers, students can achieve more. Students in flipped classrooms are able to engage more with each other and with the teacher. Students get significantly more one-on-one time in the classroom, and have the ability to start, stop, and rewind the lectures at home. I think there are a few important things to know about flipped classrooms and these should be considerations in changing one’s classroom over from traditional to flipped. First, there is immense responsibility for the student to do work on his/her own. If students aren’t mature and able to focus for an extended period of time, flipped classrooms may not work. It’s also a lot of work on the teacher’s part to prepare a lesson, film it, and edit it. Additionally, parents are required to be involved to ensure that the student is watching the lectures daily. After reading the two articles on flipped classrooms, I don’t think I would use this in my own classroom even though the concept offers a number of appealing advantages and solutions to problems. For instance, the specialized, one-on-one time that the student gets in the classroom with the teacher allows for advanced students to really be challenged while the slower kids have a pace that also suits them. However, the pros are outweighed by the cons here. Although the Forbes article snarkily mocks the downfalls of flipped classrooms, I thought that some of them were credible. For instance, this would drastically increase students’ homework load. They would have to watch hours of video a night. Flipped classrooms also seem like they benefit wealthy people disproportionately. They’re great for students who go home and have an ipad or computer waiting for them at home. However, many low-income students don’t have this luxury. With flipped classrooms inherently favoring technology equipped students, it will only exacerbate the achievement gap between rich and poor. Moreover, many high school students have to work after school or play sports. They would have no time to watch hours of videoed lectures. In conclusion, I do not see flipped classrooms as a possible tool for my own classrooms because students don’t all have time or access to the same technology, which creates unfair advantages for some (usually wealthy) students.

The Internet and Tests

I had never previously considered allowing students to use the internet during tests. It is when issues like this are raised that I begin to think that my high school was a long time ago (realistically, it was ten years ago). Since we did not have a computer with internet for every student as they do now, I'm left to speculate on the utility of it based on these articles. One of the best ideas expressed for the pro side relates to the need for tests to move beyond fact recall. I agree with the authors that this is not the purpose of learning, and it's more important to test what the students can do with their knowledge rather than merely test whether or not they have dates and facts memorized. Perhaps with access to facts via the internet, we can move our tests beyond fact recall. We can test students on their interpretation of those facts, and ask them what the significance of the facts is. On the other side of the argument, the author correctly points out that the internet may not be usable for every classroom. For instance, math is a subject where the internet would just give students the answers rather than force them to interpret data. Other classrooms have the problem of having too wide a range of students to be able to ask them all to use higher level thinking. Some students have not developed to this level, so they will struggle on the test even with the computer. Ultimately, the case made for allowing internet usage during tests won me over. It's true that classes contain students of varying developmental levels and that testing them is difficult; however, this is not something new nor is it exacerbated by allowing internet usage.The internet is a tool that students are accustomed to using everyday. Using it to look up facts whether for a test or not is natural for them. Problems with allowing students to look up facts on the internet during tests only arise when the tests are so simplistic as to merely solicit basic information. In my classrooms, I intend to allow the students to do research on the internet during tests. I don't intend on testing them on fact recall. In fact, I would much prefer to use essays that dig deep into an issue and require critical thinking rather than testing them on data, and the internet is an excellent tool for testing students in this manner. Whether or not the students use their cell phones instead of school computers with filters is not of concern to me. I don't believe in much censorship anyway, and students are able to use their phones at any time of the day and do whatever they want on the internet. Filtering the internet for students doesn't really serve much purpose in my opinion, so the author's argument against internet usage during tests because they can use their uncensored phones does not hold much weight. At this point in my career, I am excited about the opportunity that the internet brings for my classroom.

Digital Citizenship

I found it very interesting the extent to which employers and colleges use one's social media presence to guide their decision in hiring or admitting a person. It was also very disconcerting. To me, my private life should be just that -- private. I don't expect or want an employer looking at pictures of me from friday night. This isn't because they would be revealing in any way; rather, just this concept and this sort of infringement on my right to privacy bothers me. Perhaps this is naive and a self-induced problem. After all, it's my fault that there are pictures online. It's us as a society who've given up our privacy by posting (publicly) so much of our lives. However, as we discussed in class and the Lifehacker article points out, opting for total privacy and sharing nothing of your life online raises suspicions as well. Companies want to find you online in some capacity. I also find this disturbing. In applying for a job, I would hate to be overlooked because I didn't create a facebook page. The New York Times article discusses this concept with regards to college admissions. If social media presence is going to be a consideration for a job or admission to college, then it should be made clear. Candidates have a right to know the criteria by which they'll be judged. It's not only this sort of opacity that I object to. I also don't like that the higher-ups making the hiring/admission decisions don't distinguish between me as an employee/student versus me on Friday night. It's certainly not necessarily true because I drink or party on the weekends that my work would be negatively impacted by this. It could happen, sure, but it's not necessarily going to and it's unfair to assume that it will. I also thought the Mashable graph which showed that recruiters cared more about spelling errors than they did alcohol consumption or references to gun use in social media. This fact just emphasizes the arbitrary nature of analyzing a candidate's social media content. It shows that it really just comes down to obscure, unknown prejudices that a recruiter or employer might have against guns, alcohol, or how poor spelling might be a pet peeve. If these criteria aren't made clear to the applicant, it's not fair to judge them off of it.

Edutopia

What surprise me most about the article was how truly essential it is to integrate technology into classrooms. The article does a good job of illustrating the importance of this.  When I was in high school (about ten years ago), it seemed like utilizing technology in the classroom was more or less optional. There were teachers --usually younger ones-- that put technology into their lesson plans and others that didn't. At that time, it seemed that both methods were acceptable. Each teacher was just teaching differently. Now, as the article illustrates, there is no option to integrate technology. It's teachers responsibility to use technology in the classroom and prepare learners for a globally connected world. Teachers must provide them with the tools to work in today's technology-saturated society.

I’m not sure I’ve changed any of my ideas on education in the classroom because of this article; however, it does bring to light some of the ways educators can harness it and maximize its benefit. For instance, the article points out that new technology allows for more opportunities for feedback, reflection and revision. Moreover, and what’s best about technology in this regard, these features are almost instantaneous. I still feel though, that successfully utilizing technology in a way that measurable improves students’ achievement requires that teachers are properly trained to use these new tools. It’s not as simple as just having students do research on the computer instead of using encyclopedias. As the journal article points out, teachers need continued, in-depth professional training to learn out to really improve students’ performances. Another part of the article I liked was how it emphasizes the necessity for kids to know how to use technology outside of the classroom. ISTE highlights that today’s workers must exhibit technology literacy and information literacy. Truly, to be marketable in almost any career, one must have technology skills. As teachers, part of our job is to train students for their life after school, and integrating technologies into the curriculum will certainly help do this.