short readings-related reflection

Hi All,

I would like to write a little about my reflections and thought which are related to the readings we had.
First, Creating and Connecting - As I saw the words social networking, I immediately thought about the risks involved in letting kids use those services. How to prevent them from being those few that meet strangers? How do you protect your child from seeing and being exposed to harmful contents? How do we limit students from doing improper use of blogging in the classroom? Those are very important issues to think about when dealing with social networking as a teacher, parent or school policy member.

"The vast majority of students, then, seem to be living by the online safety behaviors they learn at home and at school" (p. 6).

It is reassuring to read that if you teach safety measures, most of your student would follow it, but still, we have to be aware of the minority students.
In addition, I was surprised to read that the majority of the students who use social networking talk specifically about schoolwork, hence, I agree that social networking can be directed towards educational and school work purposes!

In Learning Connections article, I enjoyed to find out about new technologies!
I especially liked the ReadPlease 2003. I think it can be a helpful tool not only for vision impaired students but also for students who are learning to read, or as it is written; "students can listen to their written products for word and punctuation omissions...and content of the sentences".
Lastly regarding this article - the Quality Images for the Classroom - I was surprised to think that I might have not been always aware of the copy rights unless it was right in front of my eyes! Reading about it definitely increased my awareness.

To Keyboard or not to Keyboard -
Here I was yet again surprised :-)
I haven't given the thought I would have to teach children to use the keyboard. Rather I thought - oh, it is something every child knows how to do this days... :-)
I liked the methods described here, and especially the opportunity to teach kids additional subjects such as Left and Right. I also liked the idea of having floor keyboard that the students can walk on. I always think that activities that involve the whole body and not only the mind, are very beneficial for young learners.

Have a good weekend, and see you Wednesday,

Anat

ISTE

...TO BE CONTINUE - STUDENTS STANDARDS

1a. "Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes."

Knowledge students earned in class studying prepositions watching Rosie’s Walk, was used towards generating a new product – Students’ Walk presentation, through a process of engagement in physical activity and peer interaction.

2a. "Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media."

Same can be said here: in I Spy and Student’s Walk, students were interacting and collaborating with their peers.
Usually when I think of working with technology the image I see is of an individual work. Hence, it is great to realize that use of technology can be not only a one-person engagement but a fun way of face to face interaction.

c. "Develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures."

Although there were students from different cultures who worked together in our class, I do not think a development of cultural understanding and global awareness can be achieved only by engaging with learners of other cultures. Rather, I believe this objective can be achieved if this matter is directly inquired or targeted as a separate project.
In many ways, the activities took place in class last Wednesday did not relate to cultural understanding or global awareness. I feel that only one-sided understanding was achieved, in which the foreigner (me) became aware of the local culture and history (getting familiar with American literature). We did not discuss any cultural or global issues while working together but were more tasks oriented.
Please let me know if you have different thoughts on this one, or if you learned differently in your groups.

d."Contribute to project teams to produce original works."

In both projects - Student’s Walk and I spy - students had to collaborate in order to produce original work, therefore, all team members contributed to the project.

4. b. "plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project."

I do not have much to comment or reflect on this one. Students managed their activities and worked towards completing their projects.

5. a. "advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.
b. exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity."

Again, I do think there is much to add here…

6. a. "understand and use technology systems.
b. select and use applications effectively and productively
d. transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies."

All the above three objectives were achieved. Students definitely understood technology systems and used applications effectively, for this was the only way to complete their tasks. The students also transferred their current knowledge of technology to learning of new technologies. I can reflect here from my personal experience: since there are many similarities between, for example, Kids Pix and Word management, I was able to apply my current knowledge of Word software to Kids Pix.

ISTE

I have to write that I really liked all the activities we had in class last Wednesday! I had some thoughts and reflections while doing them, but now when I have the ISTE in front of me, I will just go over the standards one by one, and share what I think about it with connection to the activities.



Standards for teachers:

1. "Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity...
a. Promote, support and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness".

I think this standard (1a) applies for all activities. Spilt Milk activity encouraged using students' imagination and creativeness by thinking of a new image that would fit in the story. In Rosie's walk students had to be creative by thinking about new examples for prepositions they learned from the story. I Spy is the most challenging of all in terms of encouraging student's innovative thinking and inventiveness skills, as it required students to take random objects and create a short poem which connects all of them together.

2. "Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning....
a. design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
b. develop tech-enriched learning environments that tenable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in their own...."
c. ...diverse learning styles..strategies..abilities.."
d. ... resulting data to inform learning and teaching."

2a - Teacher created digital opportunity for learning: In all 3 activities - Spilt Milk, Rosie's Walk and I spy, the teacher encouraged not only learning of target terms and learning material but also learning of new digital softwares and tools through self exploration. The teacher let children paint and write using Kids Pix software; take photos using digital camera and present study outcomes using Power Point presentation tool.

2b - My comment here relates specifically to the Power Point management in Rosie's Walk and I Spy. Both activities were done in groups of three and when it came to sitting in front of the Power Point, uploading pictures to the computer and manage the presentation, not all three students got equal opportunity to work and operate the technology. Here, in my opinion, the teacher has to explicitly ask that each student will make at least one Power Point slide in order for all of the group members to learn the technology.

2c - All three activities incorporated digital tools that enabled children to use their visual skills (e.g. drawing), linguistic skills (e.g. typing) and diverse learning styles. It had integrated multiple intelligences such as * individual work versus group work (Spilt milk versus Rosie's Walk and I Spy) * kynesthetic activity (Rosie's Walk) and * musical intelligence (the option to include music into a Power Point / Kids Pix softwares).

2d - All activities enabled the teacher to get good assessments of student's learning. The outcomes students presented represent in a great way whether a learning process accured or not. For example - if the student took a picture of his friends UNDER an object and wrote it on the top of the slide, the teacher can very clearly know if the student understood the term UNDER. However, in the Spilt Milk activity it might be a little difficult to know for sure, since sometimes students' painting skills, especially with a mouse, may be somewhat misleading (it requires a good fine motor skills to paint with a mouse). Hence, it can not always indicate on student's comprehension.

3.” Model digital-Age network and learning
a. Teachers…transfer current knowledge to new technologies and situations. “

This standard (3a) applies for all three activities, and I will give an example of one of them: In Rosie’s Walk, the knowledge gained was prepositions. The teacher transferred this knowledge to new technologies (e.g. digital camera, power point presentation) and situations (the student went for a walk instead of Rosie who went for a walk).

4. “Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility
b. address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner centered strategies and providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.”

All students had equitable access to computers in Spilt Milk, but, as I mentioned before, in other two activities, there is a possibility that work is not distributed equally among students. Only one student was the one who downloads files From camera to computer and created the slide show. If the teacher wants to achieve equitable access to resources and tools, she would have to explicitly and clearly ask students to do so.

5. “…engage in professional growth and leadership
d. contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self – renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community.”

I think that engaging students’ learning with innovative digital resources contributes greatly to vitality and renewal of the school community. It enables school to use not only traditional learning tools such as books and work sheets but new digital technology trough which learning objectives can be sometimes achieved more effectively.

TO BE CONTINUE... (students' standards)

Finally

Finally after almost two weeks I get to publish my first Blog post. I had some technical difficulties but I assume they are solved. I never had a blog or an idea of how it is done and I am very excited to learn about it. I have always felt behind with technology, and I think CI 556 is going to be a wonderful and fun experience for me.
I feel that a blog might be a central tool in a classroom nowadays, (as well as in other educational settings) and I hope to find a way to incorporate it in my creative component this year and in the future, to use it with my students.