Final Reflection

Final Reflective Post - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Digital Blog Post L: Chapter 12

Digital Blog Post K- Chapter 6

Digital Blog Post J- Chapter 11

Engaging Students in Performance Assessment and Reflective Learning - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Digital Blog Post I- Chapter 4

Zoom into at least 150% on the Bubblus for easiest reading and navigation! Resources 1. Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. 2. Burke, M (November, 1, 2015) Digital Blog Post I. Bubbles created with bubble.us

Digital Blog Post H- Chapter 9

Chapter 9 talks about specific ways to use technology and multimedia to teach students and share information with them. Multimodal learning is particularly important when trying to do this. Multimodal learning is when a teachers use a couple different forms of presenting information at once. For example, they could teach a lesson with their spoken words and also provide a visual with it. (Maloy, et al, 2013, p.217) I think this is so crucial because all kids learn in different ways, regarding Howard Gardner's 8 learning styles. Multimodal learning appeals to a couple different learning styles at a time to accommodate more students.

There are several tools that teachers now have to present information. Two tools that seems particularly helpful is digital projectors (projects an image from a computer onto a big screen) and document cameras (project whatever is under the lens onto a big screen) to allow the whole class to look at something at one time. (Maloy, et al, 2013, p.220) These were found in almost any classroom I've been in and its hard to imagine not having them. They can make certain things much more efficient because teachers don't have to just write every single thing up on the board, they can just project it. However, it is important that all teachers know exactly how to use tools like this. I have been in a couple classrooms where the teachers had trouble using this kind of equipment which was a time consumer. I think this will be almost eliminated with the newer generation of teachers coming in though.

YouTube has also become a useful tool for teachers. There are so many great videos out there and you can even filter your search to specific education channels. (Maloy, et al, 2013, p.225) Teachers still have to be careful though and make sure they carefully watch all of the videos they use before showing them to the class. When I am a teacher, I will try to keep the longer videos to a limit and try to use shorter clips as more of an effective tool or break the longer videos into segments. Students usually find it difficult to focus on an educational video for too long and often zone out after a while so I will try to avoid this, because besides that they can be very beneficial, especially to visual learners.

All in all, technology has now become a crucial aspect in classrooms when giving new information to students.

Resources

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Burke, M (October, 19, 2015) Digital Blog Post H. Word Cloud created with ABCya: www.abcya.com

Digital Blog Post G- Chapter 10

Digital Blog Post F- Chapter 8

Digital Blog Post E-Chapter 7

Digital Blog Post D- Chapter 5

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Digital Blog Post C - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 goes into detail about different learning theories and how to use technology to accommodate different learning styles. I found the section on teacher-centered v student-centered learning. (Maloy, et al, 2013, p.51) I would definitely try to implement student centered learning in my class room. I believe students learn much better by doing, than just by watching and listening. I also believe that a student will learn something better if he is able to teach it to another student. A couple of our teachers in high school would teach certain chapters by assigning each student or group a section of a chapter, and then they had to teach it to the rest of the class with a powerpoint and some sort of visual aids or creative attribute like role play. I found this to be very effective.

Chapter 3 also shows us how useful technology is in to teaching certain topics and shows just how much we can use it for. There are so many interactive games that make learning more fun and painless. For example the probability game with the spinner that lets students practice probability. (Maloy, et al, 2013, p.53) Although I don't think computers should be used as the main mode for learning and that the teacher should still be responsible for teaching most of it to the students, computers are an amazing tool to further the student's education and practicing certain skills for each individual student.

I thought the section on group work and cooperative learning was intriguing as well. Please refer to virtual Ms. Morgan below who will further reflect on this section. (Maloy, et al, 2013, p.61)


 Overall, Chapter 3 was full of lots of cool information on how we can use technology in the classroom for so many different things to accommodate students and strategies.

Resources
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. Burke, M (2015, September 20). Technology and Groupwork in the Classroom. Created with Voki.com.

Digital Blog Post B Chapter 2

In Chapter 2, there were several interesting topics. A couple in particular really stood out to me. A High School Survey of Student Engagement in Indiana showed that two thirds of students were bored in class everyday and half of students only spent four hours or less studying or doing homework. (Maloy, et al. 2013,p.28) I was a bit surprised by this because I would often be up doing homework for several hours a day. The survey also said only 57% of kids said they participated regularly in class discussions.(Maloy, et al. 2013,p.28) I can relate to this more because I was usually one of the quieter kids in class that didn't always feel comfortable speaking up in class. Online discussion boards are nice because they give students another way to interact and have discussions with their classmates and teachers, other than just in the traditional classroom setting. 50% of students said they didn't ever get feedback from teachers on assignment in a decent amount of time (Maloy, et al. 2013,p.28) Again, technology can help with this because it can be used to communicate feedback to students almost instantly if needed.

Furthermore, on page 34 of 'Transforming Learning with New Technologies', it says only 1 in 5 teachers use technology frequently in the classroom. (Maloy, et al. 2013,p.34) It is a little odd seeing this considering it is the 21st century and how much we use technology. I think this statistic will change with the new generation of teachers coming up. Our high school used the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) system so we used technology quite a bit and maybe more than most other high schools so it is just what I am used to.

Another thing I found intriguing was the section on digital natives versus digital immigrants. The more recent generations are generally digital natives, who spend about 10000 hours playing video games and 20000 watching TV. As a bit of an experiment, a brand new tablet was given to a couple students, less than 20 years old. They set it up without any difficulty or instruction. After, they gave it to a couple of people a bit older who asked for the instruction manual and could not use it nearly as easily the younger generation.(Maloy, et al. 2013, p.38) This shows how much technology is evolving and how much more people are relying on it now. We have to adapt to the new technological age as teachers. 

All in all, technology is a very useful tool in a classroom and is being implemented more and more into the everyday routine. 

Resources

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Burke, M (2015, September 12). Created with Bitstrips http://www.bitstrips.com/r/WDP0Z

Digital Blog Post A - Chapter 1

There are many concepts that I found intriguing throughout this chapter. First of all, being a 21st century teacher is pretty interesting just in itself. You have to adapt to so much different technology and use it in the classroom while teaching your students to use certain aspects of it. It has such a huge role in the classroom now a days that it is almost impossible to avoid adapting to the technological age we are in.  84% and 73% of teachers said a personal computer and interactive white board, respectively, were  "must haves" for teaching. (Maloy, et al, 2013, p. 12) Growing up  in classrooms that had these things since Kindergarten, I can't help but agree and say that they are rather necessary in one of today's classrooms. When I am a teacher I plan to use these pretty frequently as a tool for students to learn.

Furthermore, I thought the chapter on social media (Maloy, et al, 2013, p. 16) was interesting because I wasn't really aware of how much social media could be used for learning. In high school, many of our teachers tried to stay away from social media because of how it can sometimes be difficult to keep professional and personal life separate on sites like Facebook. However, I saw that they were in fact okay to use as a learning tool. Of course, as a teacher you have to be careful to not mix personal and professional social media aspects but as long as you are using them responsibly, they can be very helpful while teaching to stay in contact with colleagues and students, and to have an open forum for discussion outside of the physical classroom. One of the things that I will obviously do as a teacher, is make sure I have separate accounts for school and my outside life.

On the other hand, although technology has so many wonderful benefits, it was a little troubling to see just how much we rely on it. The 8 to 18 year olds today are part of the iGeneration. They average 10 hours and 45 minutes per day of media time.(Maloy, et al, 2013, p. 3) I personally don't think we should be using technology quite to this extent. Of course it is a great learning tool, but we also have to learn how to function without Google to ask every little question to or without a smart phone glued to our hands. Being 18 myself, its almost embarrassing to think that we are using technology that much, instead of doing things outside of electronics. Today, its easier for most people have a conversation over text message, than it is for them to have a conversation face to face. I go to Canada almost every summer, where we have to turn off our phones and electronics to avoid the extra roaming charges. During these few  days, you have so much more time to learn things about yourself and other people or go outside and play a game of soccer, instead of just surfing the internet 24-7.

Photo Credits to Soren Rasmussen

All in all, getting the first glimpse of being a teacher in the 21st century in this chapter was fascinating. There is so much that technology allows us to do and so many different things we can do with it. However, I believe that sometimes we have to know when to know when its too much and when to put it down for a while.

Resources:

Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.