Building Online Classes

My experience building my class website is a lot of work. I am concerned when teachers build sites to assist students they must be dedicated to keep up with the class. We need to see how we as teachers can best use our time and present a informative site that is up to date for our students.

I have fallen behind in my building process and I have dedicated time to meet this in my teaching prep time. Life and other teaching obligations get in the way at times. How do teachers keep up with the process? I have fallen behind in my blogging as well...

When is the need for technology helpful and what is just enough okay? Finding the answer to that question is my goal at this point.

http://www.tstechnoteacher.com/ is my new site. I have dedicate much time and energy to this project and I hope to keep it current! So, holiday weekend come so I can work to keep the site informative an deffective for my class.

Future thoughts...

As I am working through my M.Ed. online in Curriculum & Instruction Technology, I am pondering where this will take me in my career? Education is a funny thing... Ten years ago we were heroes and now we are lazy and over paid! So, where am I going as I take a pay cut and have less time to do more work? This is the question?
Will education be the same in the future? Are we destined to have charter schools? Our we the last generation of public school teachers? Will students learn on-line and be transported to social events? I think the answer will be in technology and the school will be unable to exist under the budget issues. We will see what the future will hold.

Are tests the only objectives in student learning?

Are tests the only objectives in student learning?

Depending on your experience teaching and the training program you went to, you would answer the question differently.

If you are a veteran teacher of 20+ years you will be irritated since you have seen so make “flavors of the month” come around when it comes to assessment and curriculum. Of course you need tight lessons with an outcome in mind, however the way you learned to teach is to leave lessons more open ended. It is not that a veteran teacher thinks that a test/assessment is wrong but the idea of “teaching to the test” keeps creativity out of the equation.

If you have been a teacher for 10 to 19 years you have seen the way it was done and the way it is now. The change over was not quietly in any manner. You finished your teaching program and then 5 years into it you were thrown into many changes. Technology entered the classroom and then “No Child Left Behind” came into play. You were still rolling with the old but trying to implement the new aspects that are expected of you.

If you are a newer teacher you have always seen objective written on the board and making sure you had to align content standards with the curriculum. Those standards were matched with the testing that would be given by each state. Those test score would then affect a school AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) at your school. It did not matter where or who you taught progress needs to be made on those tests.

I am a teacher in the middle and have been for 15 years now. I have seen the beauty of well funded schools to this teach to the test atmosphere, it is difficult to do at times because students do not see where these tests are important to them other than they have to meet the goal to graduate from high school. This current state of constant testing does not allow for project based learning which is more what students want to do and are motivated to work on. Being in this state of flux is difficult since I need to promote the achievement of my students but I think they are missing out on more authentic learning environments.

So, my answer is tests are not the only objective in student learning. However, they have to be in our current state of education.

Technology-Infused Classroom

What does the technology-infused classroom looks like...

This image is from http://fuz-elogic.blogspot.com/

This is an excellent visual example of what I would like to see as an technology infused classroom. When we think of technology this is what we would want to use as a teacher. However, do we have this in our classroom? The budget cuts in education across the United States make this almost impossible. Yes, there are grants out there, but even those are disappearing. I do not want to sound negative about this, but only newly built schools are able to have this technology to educate student with.

The other aspect of this is training teachers to use technology in the classroom. How many teachers know how to use these items and include them in their instruction? Does this mean we need to add another class in their teacher training program? 

What is being used now in classrooms.

• iPads - http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/10/13/ushering-ipad-into-the-classroom.aspx and http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/ 
• SMARTBoards - http://www.scholastic.com/interactivewhiteboards/ and http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?m=01
• PowerPoint lessons 
• Overhead projector with document camera
• Wireless Laptop Labs - http://its.leesummit.k12.mo.us/wirelesslab.htm

Many districts do this better than others and some schools do this better than others as well. It is often the younger teacher that is motivated to use technology in their classroom. However, the more senior teacher on staff needs to tune their skills in technology or their students will fall behind the others. It should be part of their professional development plan to keep their licencing up to date. Kids respond to technology since it is infused into their daily life, so educators need to keep up with the students needs. 

What all of this looks like for success...

1. Teacher training
2. Up to date equipment
3. Student literacy using technology
4. Meeting and setting standards for success
5. Think beyond paper, pencils and paper books

Interesting article

There are times when I find an article that speaks to me... I am very passionate about education reform and meeting the needs of students in this nation. Sometimes another country has better ideas of how to have positive and pragmatic educational reform.
http://www.nea.org/home/40991.htm

Visual Literacy in the Classroom

Teaching students of mixed ability and some lacking basic reading skills, I must look at how I am to deliver the content information. In this I need to rely on visuals. I am lucky that I have a document camera, a hook up from my computer to a In Focus projector. I am able to show visual documents and point out ideas using the document camera. What is even better is being able to link the computer with the InFocus projector. I am able to stream video clips, show Powerpoint slide show and even take my students on a virtual field trip to the White House all in one class period.

My students can gain the knowledge and experience using the internet in the classroom. This was not even a thought 15 years ago when I first started teaching. The only thing I was able to use in my social studies class is the computer lab and CD Rom of educational games on each computer. There was no interaction between students and only between the student and the game. Students can still do that, but now there are ways for them to interact with each other in a learning game/simulation. 

Using the internet and visuals has opened the world to students who would not be able to experience due to poverty, learning difficulties and/or physical disabilities. It opens the world for new experiences and to broaden the students visual vocabulary. It is the most exciting teaching tool I have been able use. I can only hope that there will be more options in the future. A few links that I suggest for teachers are...

www.khanacademy.org excellent for math and science.

www.neok12.com/ an excellent resource for elementary school teachers, but good for basic concepts in high school.
www.kids.gov/k_5/k_5_social.shtml Social studies resource for elementary and middle school teachers
youtube.com an all around resource for about every topic or interest

Technology & Instructional Strategies

             I was teaching a unit on multiple intelligences and learning styles to my students a few months ago. I had never taken the test before, so I took it along with my students. It is hard to believe that I have taught and had my students do this without actually doing myself! When I did it I was surprised! After all these years of thinking I was an auditory learner and to find out I am actually a kinesthetic learner. You would think I would know this about myself. 
           After my students took their quiz at http://literacyworks.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html Then we discussed what that would look like when they are doing their school work. We then talked about how different types of technology can work with their learning style. When you have 9th grade students in a class you can have an in-depth discussion and brain storm on this type of topic. It is not always that easy when students are younger and do not have a self-concept. This is an example of using "interactive instruction" with a blend of "independent study" using the internet quiz to discover their learning style. This is an excellent way to have the students use technology in a constructive manner.
           Learning strategies can be done in many ways and as a teacher it is best to implement a variety of them when you are teaching. It allows the student to use their own strengths and learn how to do others as well. The more exposure a student has to ideas and implementation of these ideas the more adaptable they are to the learning process. An excellent site for teachers to get ideas of different strategies is http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/pd/instr/index.html .
          Teaching is more than delivering the the information to the student. It is knowing the student and making that information apply to their experiences in the world. They need a base knowledge and then you can help expand from there. As we know not every student learns in the same manner and they do not have the same experiences in their lives either. We need to build knowledge, which is most meaningful to each individual.