Final: Reflective Post

Second time's the charm, right? I finished relatively strong this time around, and I can say that I have learned much more than I thought I would. The last time I took this course, the blog posts overwhelmed me. I found a way to have fun with those this time, and to even do the extra credit blogs...who am I?!

What I loved most about this class was that I was "forced" to read into the text enough to reflect through these blog posts. I wasn't just writing word for word from the textbook, but instead forming an opinion and looking back on my personal experiences. As a student in the technology era, I see new advances everyday and learn to use them as a way to update my own understandings. I never think about the "one day" when my student's technology knowledge supersedes mine. There will be a time that I will need an instruction manual, or need to ask my kids where the heck the power button is!

Thanks to this course, I found many new useful websites to use. My personal favorite is Piktochart because it totally outdoes PowerPoint. The graphics are clean, it's user friendly, and I'm sure there are many different ways to use it. For my preferred age group of middle school students, this program would come in handy. It is something I would be able to teach them and hopefully they would use it for years to come.

Overall, I’m glad I finished up my undergraduate degree with this class. I learned a lot and will be able to take these new technological advances with me! The only critique I have for this course is sometimes the description of assignments (mostly discussions) is too wordy and I find it hard to understand what the assignment actually is. To wrap this last post up, here's a (you guessed it) piktochart!

References

Novak, B (2016, Dec 7) Tech created with Piktochart https://magic.piktochart.com/

Digital Blog #L

Steps of Technology Integration
I suppose I had never considered a step-by-step process for introducing a new technology to a classroom; every class I had ever been in always had one already. According to the textbook, there are five steps including entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention. Basically, the steps start at having little knowledge about how the computer works, to ultimately using it as a regular instructional tool. I think it is important to have these steps now that I've read about it. Technology is ever-changing, and I wouldn't know how to use a SmartBoard, for example, so these steps would help me with that in a real life scenario.


Technology Integration Issues
Of course, not everything can go as planned. The book says that administrative support and teaching style, unwillingness to change favorite lesson plans, reluctance to use new technology, use of technology as a reward or punishment, use of technology as an add-on to other activities, and use of technology to separate students by ability groups can all be issues when technology is introduced to a classroom. I can't imagine that a teacher would not use the technology because they have a favorite lesson plan... I imagine that they could just add the technology to what they are already comfortable with. I have witnessed students using computers as rewards or punishments. Whoever finishes their work first gets to use the computer. That isn't fair for those who are slow but accurate every single time! This may cause them to rush their work just to get to use the computer for once.

One-to-One Laptop Computing
I grew up in a wealthy county, and I never had my own laptop provided by the school. The text states that every student in every grade, school, or district has his or her own computer to use in school. I've never heard of such a thing! When I was assisting a first grade class, the students had their own lap tops for the technology class, and we had a supply of six iPads to choose from for their center. But even with both of those technologies, these computing devices weren't their own. This was a surprising paragraph to read!


References

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.

Novak, B (2016, Nov 22) Tech created with Piktochart https://piktochart.com/

Blog Post #J

Pre-assessments:

I recall throughout my k-12 career that on the very first day of school, my teachers would present a test that was not for a grade. They wanted to test my knowledge to see where I match up to my fellow classmates. The book says that pre-assessments can be used before tests, when introducing a new topic, and to make sure there wont be too much material that students have already learned and mastered. I didn't like pre-assessments when I took them. I felt rushed and didn't like looking uneducated if I didn't do well. 

Online Surveys:

I LOVE online surveys. Even now I create them and post to social media to get an answer from my friends and family. When my dad was creating a food truck, I made a survey asking what types of food or drinks people prefer over others. In a school setting, surveys can be used for so many things. Students can fill them out to rate their groups, learn prior knowledge about the assessment, and more.

How would you rate your understanding of the video? (1-10, 10 is high)

1-3

4-5

6-8

9-10

Poll Maker

(A very simplified survey corresponding to the video above)

Clickers:

This topic seemed relevant because I did my group project on them. I recall in science my teacher would use clickers in a jeopardy-style review game. Each clicker had a number and only you knew that number, so when I would answer I would anonymously be up on the board. It took away from the embarrassment. I love clickers. It feels like you're just playing a game!

References:

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.

Novak, B (2016, Nov 13) Tech created with Poll Maker http://www.poll-maker.com/

Blog Post #H

In chapter 9, the author mentions PowerPoint presentations and that is something many millennials are very familiar with. Time and time again, instructors have used this program to portray their lessons with short bullet points and graphics or videos. This draws students in and is also effective for note taking. In a college setting, and probably high school and/or middle school, teachers will upload these PowerPoints to an accessible place where it becomes a great study tool for reviewing. I love PowerPoint, it has come a long way and there are so many templates, animations, graphics, charts, and more. It has been an essential tool for me and I always enjoy making them my own!

Youtube is another technology noted in the textbook, and I have a different opinion than most I'm sure. When I think about youtube videos in my own classes growing up, I remember my teachers using very old videos with poor sound and video quality about sciences or history-- I hated them! It seemed as though the teacher never even watched the video themselves. Other videos were voice overs to meaningless graphics, and all in all seemed to take my attention elsewhere. I loved NatGeo videos and other quality films and videos. Anyone can access youtube, and the quality isn't always there for me.

Here's a cute powtoon video from youtube!

The strategies for utilizing videos was important, though. I did find myself paying more attention when the teacher would pause the video and reflect on what we had just watched. I would pay attention better after that while I waited for the next pause-in-play. Also, having a worksheet to follow along with helped, too.

References:

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.

Novak, Brittney. Adam Lindstrom. (2015, May 19). Educational Technology in the Classroom. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9kdIBlM424.

Digital Blog #G

Chapter 10 had a lot of useful and new information for me including different assistive technologies, and traditional helpful technological tools. A word cloud was something I had recognized from this class, but I did not know that it was used as an analysis tool. I had always assumed it was used for attention grabbing purposes. The book says that word clouds take counts of words used most frequently in a text without using words such as and, it and has. Because of this, the word cloud is able to grab main points and ideas from documents. Word clouds are great for students that prefer a visual representation. It would be neat to show a word cloud before assigning text to infer and predict what the reading will be about.

Speech recognition softwares had always seemed like a good idea to me, but the book illustrates a problem I had not considered. A typical first grader does not have the formal speaking skills that a book or document would possess. So, when a child is speaking to the software, it will pick up words like "uh" or "yeah". Editing these would take up a lot of time, and that would essentially change everything about what the student was trying to get across.

Interactive storybooks were always my favorite as a child. The narrator would have many different accents and personalities for the characters, and it would really engage me. I was able to feel like I was in the story! Also, children are almost forced to pay attention to the books because they need to click next, or click a certain object when prompted. I would encourage all students to use an interactive story book, with or without a disability.

References

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.

Novak, B (2016, Oct 16) Tech created with Piktochart https://magic.piktochart.com/

 What is AT? - Assistive Technology Industry Association. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2016, from https://www.atia.org/at-resources/what-is-at/ 

Blog #E

For chapter 7, I decided to skim the text first to see if something jumped out at me...and something did! Bloom's Taxonomy is something I have heard about in many different classes; from psychology to human growth and development. Bloom's Taxonomy is scale of types of thinking, it includes the following forms: Remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. This scale was designed to determine higher-order and lower-order thinking. The book uses the example of memorizing a sentence as opposed to writing a poem. This example illustrates the understanding level versus the creating level. This can be helpful for many teachers to categorize their students, are they all on the same page? Probably not! There are many challenging games for students that may be falling down the comprehensive ladder.

Link to a Voki!
(I was unable to hyperlink unless I was a paid subscriber!)

The next topic that caught my eye was the debate about games and gaming. Personally, I'm still a little skeptical about video gaming in education. They are a flashy tool and do catch a child's attention, but I feel that they miss the main idea of the learning games sometimes. In the text, it says that violent games at home desensitizes children from horrible violence. I had never thought about that before. If your child is playing a game where the idea is to blow someone up, they won't think a shooting is that catastrophic. The first violent game I played was Grand Theft Auto when I was in the stage of copying my older brother. But I was also exposed to inappropriate content from a non violent game when I learned how to play The Sims. I side with the people against video games until the child is 10 or so. I played Jumpstart and other games like it as a child and remember those being awesome. The games kids use for learning through iPads are from apps created by God knows who!

Relating to my last paragraph, the book illustrates strategies for using games with students. This was something I was just wondering! It instructs teachers to minimize the use of games that teach isolated skills such as a game that isn't actually teaching you a skill, but answering it because it helps you advance in the game. This means the child is mastering the game, not the content behind the skill. Another strategy is to scrutinize games that function solely on points won or lost. The last thing you want is a child to hate a math game because it says he "loses" if he does not answer correctly! I think these are really awesome and important points!

References:

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.

Novak, B (2016, Oct 2) Tech created with Voki http://www.voki.com/hb7ft66

Blog Post #D

In chapter five, I found it interesting that the percentage of seventeen-year-olds who read for fun everyday decreased by thirteen percent in just twenty years. When I read over that statistic I kind of said "whoa" to myself. That information ended in 2004, and when I think about where we are now with so much new technology, I'm worried to know that statistic. But I argue, who's to say people aren't reading on the computer, iPad, Kindle, iPhone? The list goes on and on. I don't think it would be fair to rule out that possibility! I know that those devices make it more convenient to read. You can find so many different types of reading besides books; You can read the news daily or read articles. That list goes on, too! It would be interesting to know what the statistics are now. 

By bnovak1994 | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

 Next I thought I'd dive into writing's biggest rival: Wikipedia. Since this website has been of existence, it has masked itself as a reliable source of information. People all over the world Google one noun and they will get Wikipedia as the first source. I decided to test that hypothesis by typing the word "jazz" into the Google search engine box. Low and behold, wikipedia was the first result. The problem here is that it is the first amount of information to click on, and seems like it will give you the information you need. I distrust this website personally because I have come across false information TWICE. It really bothered me that so many people were reading that information thinking it was factual. The book states that many teachers discuss this website with their students to make them aware before they make the mistake. 

 Finally, as I wrapped up the chapter the book mentions cyberbullying. Although this topic is addressed a lot and practically everyone is aware of the issue, I do not think it can be overemphasized. Cyberbullying is defined as "willful and repeated harm through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic equipment"(Hindjura & Patchin, 2009, p.4) What bugs me about that definition is the word repeated. Why is it not considered cyber bullying the first time? I think that is a flaw and should be revised. I know there are some apps in place to protect against a cyberbully attack like ReThink. ReThink delivers a notification after a harmful text is about to be sent. This may make someone double take what they had said and possibly choose not to send it.

References:

Hinjura, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2008) Bullying beyond the schoolyard:Preventing and responding to cyberbulling. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

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.

 World's fastest way to create cartoons! (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2016, from http://www.toondoo.com/MyToondoo.toon