A Time for Reflection

I am a firm believer that in order to truly grow as a person and become more successful, you must take the time to reflect. So with that being said, I am taking this opportunity to do some reflecting on my first Technology Specialization course that I have completed through Walden University.

Overall I am very excited about what I was able to take out of this course as an educator. Being only 25 years old right now, I consider myself a digital native and technology has never scared me. However, this course was able to open my eyes to the fact that the types of things people my age are doing such as social networking, blogging, podcasting, and using wikis, can be extremely valuable learning tools for students as well. Before this course I had never attempted to conduct a podcast and I never really saw any use in me creating one. Now, after learning what types of things can be done with podcasting, I’m addicted to finding ways students can use them in my classroom. My 5th graders this year absolutely loved being able to use the Garage Band program to create their own podcasts to prepare for oral presentations they had to give recently. They saw it as a great resource to be able to actually hear how they sounded so they could change things up if they found they were talking too fast, too quiet, or had too many “umms” in their speech.

Not only has this course helped me incorporate new projects into my classroom, but it has also helped me understand more thoroughly the importance of teaching 21st century skills. Now, instead of spending time every day telling students exactly how to complete a certain task, I try to take a step back and let them work collaboratively to do some problem solving first. As educators, we need to be preparing our students to survive in a world where they do not even know what jobs will be created and out there by the time they get out of college. While sometimes it seems easy to do the thinking for our students, it will not benefit them. Yes, my students certainly did struggle the first week or so when I refused to simply tell them an answer and told them to think harder and try to figure it out. However, now I find myself standing in the background smiling a lot more, as I watch my students put their knowledge to good use to figure out things they never thought they could do on their own before.

As always, there is always room for improvement. I have prided myself as an educator who looks for ways to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading. What this course has helped me do, is see so many ways that I can expand in all of these areas by utilizing technology. The research, tips, and discussions that are available online to help educators succeed is amazing! There is yet something that I have searched for that I have not been able to get help with. Not to mention the 21st century teaching that I am able to do by having students complete projects that allow them to communicate to the world through wikis and blogs.

To help me stay on track with making improvements, I have created two goals for myself.

First Goal: To totally transform my classroom environment so that all students will automatically try everything possible to figure things out for themselves and with the knowledge of their groups, rather than taking the easy way out and asking for the answer from the teacher. To accomplish this, I will need to let the students know from day one, that they will not be spoon-fed any knowledge while in my classroom, and should not ever expect that in the real world either.

Second Goal: To create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable with each other, and where they are constantly working as a team. In order to accomplish this goal, I must always be showing students how one person can affect the whole group. They succeed as a team, and they also struggle as a team. However, my hope is that students will quickly realize that by working as a team, their chances for success are greater, and that they can achieve so much more as a team. For students to see that as being true, I will be giving them constant opportunities to work collaboratively. Having students aligned in rows for the year, working alone, will not cut it in my classroom.

So, with all the knowledge that I have been able to take out of this course, I hope to use it to continue to improve on my teachings and my own learning. There is always more to be learned, and this class has definitely motivated me to try new things in my classroom and to see what is out there!

Magan

21st Century Skills

As I continue on with my Master's program in Integrating Technology into the Classroom, we were given a website to check out and familiarize ourselves with. The website is "The Partnership for 21st Century Skills" and can be accessed at http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ for those of you are curious. It really is a neat website with a lot of useful information for not only educators, but really anyone who is interested in where our future is going. After all, our students are our future and everyone should take and interest in making sure they have the necessary resources to succeed and keep our world going, while hopefully making some much needed improvements.

One thing about this website that I found particularly interesting was the State Initiatives tab. It was neat to be able to read the different things that certain states are doing to assure their students are indeed getting the necessary 21st century skills. The part that struck me a little worried however was the fact that there are only 10 states listed on this website. Are really only 1/5 of our schools in the United States showing commitment to revising standards, creating assessments, and implementing 21st century skills professional development programs?? I sure hope as a country we are doing better than that!

There is no doubt that we are in need of some big positive upgrades around us. This is not however something that educators can do alone. I was very glad to see that this website addressed that issue. Right in their mission statement, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills talked about how this change must be a collaboration between education, businesses, community, and government leaders. It is so important that we all work together on this issue. This website seems to be a great resource to helping to get the ball rolling. Check it out. I would love to hear what you think about the website and this topic in general.

Magan

Blogs and Bridges

Earlier this year I attended a workshop on Engineering and Technology. The main purpose of this workshop was to get educators better informed on ways we can get our students excited about engineering and technology. One of the lessons that I received from this workshop was a building bridges project. I immediately saw a great opportunity to integrate 5th grade science with technology. After talking to the 5th grade teachers at my schools, we came up with the plan that students would create blueprint type plans of bridges during their technology time with me. The bridges would be designed using a drawing program and printed off so the students could then build their designed structures in their science class. This would continue for three class periods, allowing students to redesign their bridges as need be depending on the success they had during the weight tests.

Now, as I become more familiar with blogs, I can see great benefits a class blog would have on this project. My plan now is to have each small group of students who are working together to create bridge plans, also then blog about what their design consists of, how well it resisted the weight test, and what changes they will make to their future designs and why. Students will then continue making posts after each new design and test trial. All students can then read and respond to other group’s blogs offering suggestions and encouragement. This way, the blog not only serves as a place where students can discuss science and engineering content, but they can also showcase their own work and accomplishments.

Since I teach technology classes to all elementary students, I only see each grade level for 45 minutes a week. This would make it entirely impossible to allow every group to give a full explanation of their bridge design, successes, and weaknesses each week. With blogs, students can give each group the time they deserve and offer insight without having to be interrupted because of a bell. This allows students to work together as an entire class sharing designs, mistakes, and ideas rather than just having one group compete against another. Students then would get a really good idea of how engineers really do work together. Ideas are being built from one group to the next, hopefully allowing all groups to have success in the end. On top of all that, the discussion that each group has before, and while writing the blogs, creates opportunities for great critical thinking.

Teaching with Technology

There is no doubt that the world around us is changing at a rapid pace. The knowledge students are expected to know now before leaving elementary school has by far surpassed the level I would have ever dreamed of when I was growing up. In an article written by Dr. David Thronburg titled "Technology and Education: Expectations, not Options," he discussed how technology is growing and changing at a much more rapid pace than pedagogy, and the gap seems to just be getting larger and larger as the years go by. So what do we need to do now as teachers and as communities to help close that gap?

As an educator, I strive to find new technologies to bring into my classroom to enhance student learning and create an interest in my students that will help them take an active stance on their own education. I have taken my students on virtual field trips around the world, had them create multimedia yearbooks, create PowerPoint presentations in place of the standard essay format reports, shown video clips of science processes, and the list goes on. However, even though I am proud of the use of technology that I use in my classroom, there is still that overwhelming, yet exciting, feeling that there is so much more out there that I can be exposing my students to. My two main goals for next year is to get students involved in creating and keeping up with a class blog and having my students build and be able to control robotic devices.

What are some of your thoughts out there? What technologies do you feel are becoming crucial for our student to learn and be exposed to?

Links between strategies of ELL students and poverty students

This past Friday my school district had a professional development day where we were fortune enough to have an amazing speaker come and give a presentation on poverty based off of Dr. Ruby Payne's book on Poverty. What an eye opener this presentation was! Right off the bat she was showing us graphs on the high increase in multicultural students and pointed out the percentage of poverty for each race. One of the stresses she then made was that we as educators have to do something about the high poverty rates, especially in our Latino students who have the highest of all. While she did not just focus on one particular race throughout her presentation, I found myself connecting many points she was bringing up to multicultural students. I have always known that students who live in poverty to do have the same advantages than others, in more ways than just money, but I never realized before how judgemental I actually was towards these students without even purposely doing so. I am talking about even the simplest things of being hard on them for not getting assignments turned in and not even taking into account the fact that all they were trying to do once they got home was simply survive. They were living in the present because they did not see themselves as having a future so to them, homework meant nothing. For myself though, I could not see that before because I did not come from where they do. I never had to worry about if there was food on the table when I got home, or if I had to take care of siblings because I had a single parent who was out trying to work a double shift. Now what I, and all educators, must remember to do is help these students build a future for themselves. Help them see that there is more out there for them than just working flipping burgers for the rest of their life.

It was that thought that immediately made me think of what Dr. Eugene Garcia said in his DVD presentation. He stated that "we as teachers have the power to crush the kids or let them fly." Working with ELL students is really not much different at all. We as teachers have to be aware that we are not coming from the same background as these children. They have not had the same opportunities than we probably had, and their idea for a future might not be the same as what we see and home for them. In Garcia's 5R's and T he expressed the importance of being reasonable and being aware of the theories that drive us. We cannot expect students to come into our classrooms knowing our language as we know it without losing a step. We have to be reasonable and understand that we are going to have to work to help them and teach them! I can honestly say now that I am going to be paying a lot more attention to the judgements and assumptions that I hold toward my students and my future students and make a constant effort to remind myself that these students did not come from what I did.

Magan

CREDE Standards

I used to be unsure of my stance on immigrant students in our schools who did not speak any English. Since I have not ever had any students who spoke anything other than English, it was hard for me to really have a strong opinion either way. I did notice though that my thoughts tended to sway to the belief that students should speak at least basic English before entering our school system. This reason came mostly from the fact that I personally would not know where to begin with a student who spoke another language, and would most likely have to learn to speak their native language fluently in order to get through to them. However, now I am aware that there are so many strategies out there that teachers can implement into their lessons that will allow ELL students to get a lot out of daily lessons while still being respectful of their native culture.

I have always had a great compassion for students and work hard to create a learning environment that is friendly and accepting. Dr. Eugene Garcia made great points when he discussed the importance of getting families involved in the school and classroom. He reminded me that being respectful to a student’s culture and helping them feel as though they belong does not just come with the actions that take place in the classroom. These things are also highly impacted by how much and the type of interaction that is had with the students’ families. We cannot force students to learn, so it is so important to help them want to learn!

The CREDE Standard number 5 pointed out to me that part of getting students to the point of wanting to learn is allowing them to be comfortable and included in group work and conversations by meeting their preference needs. When there is a room full of 30 students all with different backgrounds and different personalities, it can become easy to overlook individual learning needs and preferences. However, it can and needs to be done. One of the best ways I think I can do this is by modifying groups in the classroom. By grouping students with those who encourage as well as challenge each other, this strategy can be done effectively. There are so many things that needed to be taken into consideration when creating groups, and indeed will take a lot of tweaking throughout units. I’ve learned however that once students really start feeling comfortable with each other and having the sense of family, the whole class benefits in extreme ways and the idea of learning being a chore tends to fade.