I have found this course to be extremely beneficial. Because the path that brought me to the classroom was not the traditional path, I have not had many education courses. In the past, I have tried to incorporate technology because it seem really interesting, however, it was not relevant to the course and the students complained. This left me discouraged and doubting whether I would attempt to integrate technology again. However, through this course’s content and assignments, I have learned how to properly assess technology for use in the classroom and how to incorporate the technology so the students will see it as relevant and benefit from its addition to the course. In upcoming semesters, this knowledge will help me revise my face-to-face courses and my online courses.
Two major lessons I learned from this course was how to assess potential technology for the classroom and to not fear new technology. In the textbook, the chapters that cover the plethora of options for integrating technology in the classroom offered evaluation rubrics to help decide if the technology in question really fits what you need in your classroom. In my example I mentioned above, I had asked my student to produce a 10 minute video as a final product for a group research project they worked the entire course on. I left the instructions for this project fairly vague because I wanted to see how creative the students could get with their video. What ended up happening that was one student spent most of the group research time developing the movie and not benefitting from the research. There was too much of a learning curve for the students to overcome while also trying to learn the subject matter I was teaching. The students did create really good videos, however, I had to remind myself that my class is an immunology course, not a movie-making course. If I had used one of these rubrics to think through all of the aspects of that assignment, I might have come to that conclusion before I implemented the project. This may seem a simple lesson to learn, however, I can see how it will save my students and myself many semesters of frustration! The other lesson that I will hold on to from this course, is to not be afraid of new technology. Making videos and podcasts of my lectures seemed extremely daunting to me before I actually did it for this course. There is a lot of work to do before you actually start recording (making a script), but the actual recording and editing is not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. The learning tools provided in this course were very useful and abundant. One of the standards we covered in our blogfolio mentioned presenting the information in several different formats in order to accommodate as many learning styles as possible. Because I have a preference for visual and kinesthetic learning, I mainly used the written and interactive learning tools. Therefore, I cannot say that I used all of the learning tools provided, but I was really grateful for the ones that I did use. I will discuss ach of the learning tools in detail to explain why I did or did not use them. The blog was a new technology for me to work with. I have read plenty of blogs, but I have never created one. I like this tool because it forced me to think about content of the course with enough detail that I could articulate my thoughts to others. I also thought the requirement to read my classmates’ blogs was useful. This allowed me to see where my opinions and thoughts differed with those of my classmates. We had some really good discussions this summer! While trying to determine if this format would be better or worse than a discussion board for use in my classes, I am drawn to the fact that this blog belongs to me. I teach a laboratory management course, where I could see the potential of using a blog instead of a Blackboard journal because the students will continue to have access to the blog after the course is over. The podcast clips are one of the learning tools that I did not use. This goes back to my preferred learning style. I would rather read, make notes, and highlight in my book than listen to a lecture. I think this might have been different if I were commuting up to Hattiesburg everyday this summer, like I do during the fall and spring. The use of the podcast then would serve to use my time efficiently, more than learning in my preferred style. However, because I do know that many of my students also commute to school and that many of my students may be aural learners, I do intend to incorporate podcasts into my courses in the future! I did watch several of the video clips, especially when they were explaining how to use one of the tools we were learning about. I found being able to watch someone perform a task was very useful. The videos met my visual learning preference. I already use a good deal of videos in my courses. I have heard it said that many teachers will teach the way they prefer to learn. I suppose I am guilty of that in this case! However, some of the hands-on projects we did have shown me ways of how to use videos in my course more effectively. I am planning on using some of those tools in the future. The hands-on projects were the most useful learning tool in this course. Because I am a kinesthetic learner, I prefer to learn by doing. These projects gave me an opportunity to work with tools that I have never worked with before. These tools make it so easy to teach to every learning style and to make online learning more dynamic. My students will be seeing some of these tools in this fall semester! The tools that I liked the most were the Scoop.It! page and the Edpuzzle videos. The Scoop.It! page allows the instructor to keep their students up to date with current events and research in the content field. This also can demonstrate to the students which resources are reliable. The Edpuzzle video tool will allow me to make sure that the students are learning something from the videos that I use in my courses. I feel the same way about the e-portfolio as I do about the blogs, I like that I have a record of what I have accomplished in this course somewhere other than on Blackboard. I have also noticed that I worry a little more about the quality of what I write when I know that it will be put on a website for the world to see and not just tucked away on Blackboard. I think this natural response could entice an otherwise underperforming student to put forth more effort in their written responses. I will be incorporating e-portfolios in my laboratory management course in the future. I can see myself using many of these technologies in my courses. Especially the ones that just add a new perspective to my already developed content. I think being willing to try new technologies is one of my strong points. I am probably more willing to try new technologies because the use of new technologies come easily to me. It does not usually take me very long to figure out how to use a new program or tool. However, I can see myself resisting the new technologies that will require a lot of prep time. For example, writing the script for a podcast. I see the value of the podcast, but I am not sure I will have the time to make them for all of my lectures. I may just do a few lectures each semester, until I have them all recorded. In the future, I would like to learn how to incorporate more kinesthetic learning tools in a content heavy online course. Many of our students are kinesthetic learners and in my face-to-face Immunology course we have a laboratory component that allows those learners to get hands-on with the content. However, I do not have this option in my online courses. I have looked for virtual immunology labs, but have not found one. I would like to learn how to develop a virtual lab or other ways to incorporate this learning style into my online courses.
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C11.Q2. Privacy is a controversial issue in the Digital Age. Schools have an obligation to ensure student safety, both physical and virtual. When using the Internet or the network, this requires keeping close tabs on student’ activity when they are using computers. Do you think this violates students’ privacy? Justify your opinion and consider both points of view. This particular subject takes on two different meanings when discussing K-12 students versus college students. The book concentrates on the K-12 age group. For this age group the top priority of teachers is to protect the children from harmful influences online, be it images, people, or websites requesting personal information. In 2012 the Children’s Internet Protection Act was amended to include the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act. This amendment makes it a requirement for schools to filter the images and websites children are exposed to and to monitor the children’s website activity. It also requires schools to educate the children on appropriate online behavior. Therefore, this age group, by law, have no internet privacy at school! I agree with this law. Just like adults, a child can stumble upon inappropriate material on the internet very easily. These filters and safeguards will not allow this to happen as easily. I remember looking up curse words in the dictionary as an elementary student and getting a good snicker at the definitions found there. Today, a child has a lot more information available to them by doing a simple Google search. Kids will be kids, so I think it is very important to have these filters in place and to monitor the children’s online activities. My attitude toward privacy for college students is completely different. Most college students are at least 18 years old and they are in classes that may have them doing research on topics that we would not think appropriate at a high school level. Therefore, I do not think it is a good idea to filter what types of websites that can be accessed from a college’s library or network. C12.Q3. Of the emerging technology trends presented in the chapter or those you discovered through your research on the Web, which emerging technology or trend do you think will have the most significant impact on education? This chapter was really exciting to read, especially the section on emerging technologies. There were two technologies that caught my attention. I am most excited to see how the electronic paper idea develops over the next few years. As it stated in the book, this technology has potential application wherever a sheet of paper is used in the classroom. As an instructor, I am dreaming of having my fifteen page final exams graded in an instant!It is not practical to have my face-to-face students take exams electronically. I have tablets available to use with these students. However, nineteen tablets can become very cumbersome to transport. Electronic paper will be extremely useful! The other technology that caught my attention was the increase emphasis on learner analytics. The book used the example of Netflix being able to suggest movies to people based on their viewing history to describe what learner analytics could potentially do for academics. By analyzing large amounts of data, educators can determine how students prefer to learn and what learning strategies have been successful over large populations of students. This will allow educators to use targeted instruction for their students. This chapter discussed many other technologies that are equally interesting, however I do not think they will have as big of an impact on the classroom as the two discussed above. My Project 10 links can be found below: As the Information Age moves forward, distance education, or online learning, will only become more important. This will occur for many reasons, but availability and affordability will be two of the biggest ones.
Availability effects all levels of education; high school, college, and workforce training. High schools in rural areas can now offer courses that they would not traditionally be able to offer. At the college level, online learning allows many working adults to further their careers by furthering their education! Workforce training allows businesses to develop and deliver training for employee worldwide. Also, as students become comfortable with the online format, there will be a higher demand for it. Affordability relates both to the educators and the students. Colleges can admit many more students to an online course than a traditional course. Also, it is much more affordable to hire working professionals as adjunct instructors to teach online courses than to hire additional faculty. Businesses take advantage of online learning by designing online instruction for the entire company rather than hiring an instructor to train employees at each site, on each shift! Students also benefit from online education’s affordability. As college tuition becomes more expensive, more students will need to work while taking courses. The asynchronicity of online learning is perfect for a working student. In order to meet this growing demand, educators will need to make sure that they stay abreast of what technologies are available to enhance online learning. I see this as being the major obstacle to online learning. The educators, whether high school or college faculty, or the educational department of major corporations, will need to embrace the new technologies and receive adequate training to be able to use the new technologies. If online education is not designed properly, it can result in a course that fails to ensure academic integrity and academic quality. Proper training of the educators can prevent this from happening. The tools and resources on the web must be applied to help students become productive digital citizens of their 21st century global digital society. What do you see as your role in preparing your students for their place in their world? What specifically will you do in your classroom to ensure that preparation? Teaching in my field of medical laboratory science is fairly unique, in that we are actually training our students to take on a specific role in the much larger healthcare team. This close student-learning/employee-training relationship is emphasized even more by the fact that most of our students are hired by hospitals in the Gulf Coast region. Therefore, it is not uncommon to find myself in a conversation with lab techs from local hospitals about the quality of our recent graduates. This feedback allows us, as a faculty, to make adjustments to our curriculum as needed. Much of this feedback cannot be addressed by technology, such as teaching the students how to multi-task! However, I do believe that we can emphasize the importance of collaboration more with our students. Medical laboratory scientists (MLSs) collaborate with doctors, patients, nurses, and other MLSs on a daily basis. I incorporate group research, or problem-based, projects in each of my courses specifically to emphasize communication and collaboration skills. However, as hospital systems grow in size and offer laboratory services over a larger geographical area, much of this collaboration will be done digitally. By requiring the students to complete some of these projects online, I can make sure the students are familiar with some of the collaboration tools available online. One of the hurdles an educator must overcome is her/his own fear, or unwillingness, to use unfamiliar technology. This was a hurdle I had to overcome this week myself. As with many other people, I am not a fan of the sound of my recorded voice. Therefore, I have never pursued creating my own multimedia materials. Because, all three of the projects this week involved recording my voice, I was reluctant to even start these projects this week! However, after completing these three assignments, I can see how useful they can be for students. Using this multimedia format, it allowed me to make instructional material that would be appropriate for aural and visual learners. I have decided to incorporate more self-made multimedia materials in my online courses. I loved the final products I made this week! The first project was to produce a podcast. The first thing I did was to write a script. I found this to be very helpful. I was able to read and reread what I was going to say. This allowed me to identify weak areas of my ‘lecture’ and bolster them before I ever recorded a second of audio! I downloaded Audacity to record my audio for both the podcast and the video narration. It was not as easy to use as I was hoping it could be. I wanted to be able to add music at the beginning and end of the podcast to give it a more professional feel. However, I could not figure out how to import sounds. I was only able to record using a microphone. I would like to incorporate podcasts, or audio recordings into my course materials for two reasons. First, I don’t usually have a script for my face-to-face lectures, so I’m sure some of the material I added to the scripts get left unsaid in the classroom. Second, we have many students in our department that commute to Hattiesburg from up to two hours away. This would give them a study tool that they can listen to in their car on their commute. The second project was to produce an instructional video. Again, I liked writing the script before actually recording the audio for the same reasons as stated above. I used Microsoft Live Movie Maker to make the video. This program was very easy to use. The video produced would be a great resource to visual learners. The third project was to create an interactive video using Edpuzzle. I think this may be the most useful program we learned about this week. I love to use YouTube and TedTalks in my courses. This would be a good way to make sure that the students are actually watching the videos and that the videos are being useful. I can very easily incorporate this technology in my class this coming fall semester! Overall, I’m glad this assignment made me try these new technologies. Now, that I have overcome the hurdle of trying something new, I can see myself using all of these technologies in my future classes! Educators have a plethora of software at their disposal. There are many types of software. Chapter 7 divides the available software to three major groups; productivity software, classroom management software, and online tools. Our assignment for this week utilized software that blended two of those groups. We were to create instructional material using online productivity software; Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Forms. I have never used these particular Google Apps before this project. All three apps were very easy to use. If you were familiar with other word processors and presentation software, the use of these online apps were intuitive. However, Google Forms allowed a new dynamic in the online classroom. It made making a survey and analyzing the data gathered extremely easy. I am not familiar with any program at my disposal that would be as easy to use and distribute to a class electronically. This part of the assignment went very well! The second part of this assignment was meant to show us how we can use this online format to encourage collaboration among our students. However, I had much difficulty trying to collaborate with my own group members. One of the major hang ups seemed to be how to share our files with permission to edit. Also, account names were different. All of my files are available on my Google Drive, which I access using my gmail account, not my USM email. However, my group members sent the invite to collaborate to my USM account, so I had to access two Google accounts repeatedly to complete this project. In the future, I need to think ahead and start the process on my Google account registered to my USM email. This part of the assignment took me much longer than it should have! I do see the potential this online editing tool can have in a group project situation. The online editing allows all of the students in a group to see the status of the project as it is being built. Students even had the ability to chat with each other if they happen to be online at the same time. I have my MLS 315 students work in groups on a research presentation. This fall, I will suggest to my students that they use Google Slides to collaborate outside of the classroom. I think this will allow the students to keep track of what their classmates are or are not doing throughout the semester. As far as using Google Apps in my everyday workday, I do not see myself leaving Microsoft word behind and using Google Docs. There is no benefit to that change. However, because of its potential in making group collaboration so much easier, I will try to incorporate the Google Apps in my classroom. C4.Q2. Students with special needs include both those who have disabilities and those who are gifted. Technology can provide solutions to help meet the unique needs of both groups. However, schools typically have limited budgets for technology. Considering that the needs of all students should be met, what do you think the best allocation of limited technology dollars should be to meet these students’ needs? Give examples to support your views. Initially, when considering how to spend money allocated for technology for special needs students, I thought the amount should be divided evenly. The goal when teaching a student with special needs or abilities is to help each child reach their full potential, regardless if the program is for disabled or gifted children. Two of my children are a part of the gifted program at the elementary school they attend. I would love to see my children use the most innovative technology available to them. However, after reading the chapter, I realized that, although the goals in teaching disabled and gifted are the same the methods and tools educators use to accomplish the goals are different. The disabled children need to have assistance that will allow them to perform at their potential level. The gifted children need to be kept engaged with material and master critical thinking skills. The chapter in the textbook clearly states how disabled children can be assisted through technology, however the textbook was not as clear on how technology can be used to help gifted children as much. I do not fault the authors for this. I believe that there are other, more traditional, avenues that can be taken to keep gifted students engaged with the material and to help them master critical thinking skills. For example, project based learning and introducing them to design thinking. As a result, I have changed my opinion on how money should be allocated to the special needs students. I believe that disabled students have more of a need for technology in the classroom than gifted students, therefore, more of the technology funds should be allocated to the disabled students. C5.Q3. What is the most significant opportunity presented by technology integration? What role does training play in effectively integrating computers in the classroom? Technology integration in the classroom has opened doors for communication like never before. I believe that this has been technology’s most significant contribution to the classroom. Both the instructors and the students benefit from these new routes of communication. Educators can discuss ideas and solutions to problems with other educators using discussion boards and list servs. Our professional organization has an educational branch called Clinical Laboratory Educator’s Conference. You can sign up to receive emails from their list serv. This is very useful because it connects you to hundreds of other educators that are facing the same issues in the classroom that you are on a daily basis. Instructors can also use technology to bring other subject-matter experts into the classroom via Skype, TEDtalks, and Youtube. When I was asked to teach a course on laboratory management, I knew that I lacked the expertise to teach with confidence certain areas of that course. I turned to TEDtalks to supplement my lectures on topics such as motivation and leadership. These examples benefit the students somewhat indirectly. However, the students benefit directly from this greater ability for the instructor to communicate by receiving quick answers to questions via email, immediate feedback on quizzes, via iClicker, and access to course materials in multiple formats via the school’s learning platform (Blackboard). The students are also able to communicate with each other more effectively. While working on projects students can jointly work on presentations and papers via programs such as GoogleDocs and EverNote. All of the programs and applications listed above will not be helpful in increasing communication unless the instructors and students understand how to utilize them correctly. This is where training, for both educator and student, is critical. The administration of school systems and universities should invest in this training. USM has made an effort in doing so. The Learning Enhancement Center offers courses in many of the programs necessary to successfully integrate technology into my classroom. C6.Q1. After considering the various types of digital technologies presented in this chapter, what three pieces of equipment do you think you would most want for your future or current classroom? Explain why you selected these three and how you would use them for teaching and learning. This chapter presented many different types of stand-alone digital technologies. I was surprised and pleased to see that I already had access to most of the technologies discussed. Of the technologies I currently use, I find that the overhead projector, the iClicker, and a digital camera are the most useful. I use the overhead projector on a daily basis. I build PowerPoints to direct my lecture. Embedded in these PowerPoints I usually have links to supplemental material, such as videos, that I can show to the class during lecture time. I also use the overhead project to utilize my other digital technology which is the iClicker. I give short review quizzes at the beginning of each class. The students can get immediate feedback as we go over the answers to each day’s quiz. The last item on my most useful list is the digital camera. Last fall, I was able to capture a video one of my white blood cells eating a yeast cell using a camera that fit into the ocular of a microscope. That has to be a personal favorite! This camera can also be used in other classes in our department because the subject matter of most of our classes are on a microscopic scale. C1.Q2. Lifelong learning is not just a teacher preference; it is also a requirement for maintaining state certification. Technology literacy courses and workshops are some of the most popular learning experiences for certificate extension and renewal. Do you believe that taking additional courses in technology literacy is an important as those for your content or discipline? Is too much emphasis being placed on developing and maintaining technology competency? Defend your view. The world our students live in, and will eventually work in, has become a technology filled world. Therefore, it is imperative that we alter our teaching styles to reflect the world around us. I teach junior and seniors at the university level, so not only are the students needing to be prepared to work in this technology filled world, they are coming to us expecting to be taught in a technology filled classroom or not in a classroom at all. My department, Medical Laboratory Science (MLS), has put many of our courses online. Although our field is extremely technology dependent, one only needs to walk into a medical laboratory at a hospital to see just how technology dependent, it is a different type of technology than what the book is referring to. As educators in this field, I think we tend to want to use our continuing education credits to learn about the newest and greatest technology in the laboratory. We are excited about our field and would like to bring what we have learned back to our classroom – which is a good thing! However, because we are educators, I think we could, and should, dedicate some of those continuing education credits to keeping ourselves abreast on the newest and greatest technology in the classroom as well. I do not think that we require enough continuing education in technology literacy at a university level. It has been my experience that we require more of our students than we do of our faculty. C2.Q3. You have learned about a variety of technologies useful to support learning in this chapter. With which one of these are you most comfortable? Which are most useful in helping to prepare 21st century learners? Describe the technology and its potential applications in the grade level or content area you wish to teach and demonstrate why it is most appealing to you. When trying to integrate technology in my classroom, I have been overwhelmed by the plethora of tools available to educators. Many of the tools seem exciting and attention grabbing, however I am left questioning their actual usefulness. I try to guard myself from adding technology to my classroom for the sake of adding technology. I appreciate this chapter’s attempt to identify which tools could be useful in achieving certain goals in the classroom. Of the tools listed in this chapter, I have not used any of them, however Blackboard does accomplish the tasks that many of the tools are designed to perform. I am looking forward to exploring A.D.A.M., OnLine Labs, and the Inspiration software. These could all be used to reinforce the material I present in the lecture portion of my courses. As the chapter states, the students are entering the Information Age workforce. They will need to be equipped with a different skill set than previous generations. I can see where many of the collaboration and creativity fostering tools can be used to enhance the students’ skills in these areas. I incorporate a group project in each of the face-to-face courses I teach because, as stated above, collaboration and team working skills are essential for this generation. However, I have not found a way to incorporate group projects into my online courses. When taking a closer look at Elluminate, a collaboration tool, I discovered that it had been acquired by Blackboard and incorporated into Blackboard Collaborate. So, I probably do have these tools available to me, I just have to find ways to incorporate them into my online classes. C3.Q1. Instructional planning is a skill every educator at every grade level must master. To integrate technology into instruction, a logical, sequential approach is needed to help teachers to clarify which technologies are most useful and at what points they should be included in the process. Discuss Design-Plan-Act (DPA) system – what it is, how the three distinct planning components of DFA differ, and why it is helpful to use a system approach to integrate technology? The Design-Plan-Act! system is an example of a systematic approach to instructional planning. It concentrates instructional design down to three processes. The first of these is to look at the big picture, or to design the overall content and sequence of the instructional unit. The second process is to plan the daily activities that will need to occur in order to achieve the goals set forth in the design phase. The planning process will include identifying which learning and teaching strategies that will be used, and what assessment tools will be used. The last process in implementing the plan, or act. In this phase, the educator is to determine how the learning activities, identified in the plan phase, are going to flow smoothly. As I have stated in one of my reflections above, I try to guard against using technology in the classroom for the sake of using technology. By using a systematic approach to design instruction, I can plan the instruction first, then decide if there is a technological tool available that might help me deliver the instruction or help the students understand the content presented. I have done the opposite. I asked my students to create a fifteen minute video to summarize a project they had worked on. The actual project content was great, however, it soon became clear that the students were spending too much time on the video instead of on the content of the project. I have since eliminated the video portion of the project. Hi, my name is Mary Warden. As stated in the 'Author' comments, I am a first-year student in the doctoral Instructional Technology and Design program at the University of Southern Mississippi. I am also an instructor in the medical laboratory science department, here at USM. While teaching, I like to create authentic learning experiences. This preference leads me to use problem-based learning projects in my face-to-face courses. I also like to bring technology into my face-to-face classes as much as possible. My immunodiagnostics course has a project that is based on a game the students can download to their phones. My online teaching course load has ranged from two to eight credit hours a semester for the past four years. I have also taken at least five online courses as a student. Therefore, I am rather well versed in the online classroom. However, I do not believe that I am using the technology available to its fullest potential. I am really looking forward to learning about these technologies and how to incorporate them in my virtual classroom! In the course of my work day I can count on using most of the Microsoft Office tools. I am most comfortable using Word, Exel, and Powerpoint. I am also familiar with email, again I use it on a daily basis. Through teaching and learning online I have become familiar with discussion boards, and live chats. Although I have read and listened to blogs and podcasts, I am unfamiliar with how to create them. |
AuthorI'm Mary Warden, a graduate student at the University of Southern Mississippi. I am currently working on my PhD in Instructional Technology and Design. Please read my self introduction to learn a little more about me! BlogrollXavier Agee
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