Teaching+with+Technology+Reflections

Week 1: Learning Theories and Implications for Teaching with Technology
After completing this week's material, I better understand the importance of teaching using constructivist methods. As a classroom teacher, I always found applying constructivism difficult. I am certain the main reason for my difficulty was that most of my educational experiences were in traditional teaching environments. Learning as a Personal Event: A Brief Introduction to Constructivism(Southwest Educational Development Laboratory [SEDL], 1999) gave specific and concrete examples of how a learner-centered classroom should function, and it emphasized the importance of students accessing prior knowledge, being actively engaged in constructing knowledge, and communicating with other students. In If I Teach This Way, Am I Doing My Job: Constructivism in the Classroom (Sprague and Dede, 1999), teachers are encouraged to organize problem-based activities that require students to solve relevant real-world problems. I feel I now understand how to change my teaching methods to allow my students to make personal connections with the curriculum, rather than delivering the connections to them.

Technology can play a key role in student learning in a constructivist classroom, as it allows students to gather data, construct representations, reflect, and communicate with others. One of the most intriguing examples of technology in education was the use of simulations and computer-based models to enable student to visualize and manipulate the problems they are solving. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, 2000) explains that "learners might develop a deeper understanding of phenomena in the physical and social worlds if they could build and manipulate models of these phenomena" (p. 203). The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) refers to this as computational thinking. In their Computational Thinking PowerPoint, they describe computational thinking as "integrating human thinking with the capabilities of computers" (Microsoft Corporation, 2007). Like our readings, they emphasize that simulations help students visualize ideas and solve problems. Their Computational Thinking Brochure provides links to simulation tools for every subject area. I am excited by the constructivism success stories, especially those involving the use of simulations, shared in each of this week's articles, and I feel that I can now use these constructivist principles with students and as I deliver technology professional development. Even our adult learners benefit from accessing prior knowledge, being actively engaged in constructing knowledge, and communicating with other learners. I plan to model constructivism in my professional development sessions, and I hope this will encourage our teachers to incorporate more constructivist practices in their own classrooms.

Week 2: Technology Strategies that Positively Impact Student Learning
While the main theme of this week's material was specific technology strategies that positively impact student learning, I saw that each video and reading emphasized the importance of teaching using constructivist methods. In Technology-Enriched Classrooms: Effects on Students of Low Socioeconomic Status, Page (2002) describes ways that technology-enriched classrooms improve student achievement, interaction, self-esteem and attitudes toward learning. His examples of constructivist teaching methods were inspiring. Page (2002) says that "when students work in cooperative computer groups, as opposed to working alone at computers, significantly more learning takes place as a result of the student interaction" (p. 403). As I read Page's research, I began to realize that because I was taught using traditional teaching methods, I have biases against constructivist methods, and this affected the way I taught my students. In watching videos and reading about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), I realized that allowing students to choose how they will learn and how they will demonstrate their knowledge is key in making learning personal, which is also part of constructivist theory. By differentiating instruction, we allow each student to make choices, which they will have to do as adults, and to customize learning based on their strengths and weaknesses. In Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning, Chapter 1 (Rose and Meyer), James Joseph O'Donnell is quoted as describing the role of educators "to advise, guide, and encourage students wading through the deep waters of the information flood" (O'Donnell, 1998, p. 156). I believe this quote sums up why we need to use constructivist methods of teaching. If educators simply present information to students, we are preparing them only for our classrooms, where the teacher is the source of all knowledge. However, if we allow students to collaborate and to use technology to gather data and to create products, and if we teach students how to be discerning as they gather data, we are helping prepare them for their 21st century lives.

By using the UDL framework to differentiate instruction, teachers allow their students to express their individuality and their creativity. In "A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future," Daniel Pink (2006) describes the importance mastering "high-concept, high-touch senses [that] can help develop the whole new mind this era demands" (p. 65). Pink says that it is no longer enough to master facts and figures. To succeed in the 21st century, a few of his recommendations are that a person must consider design in order to create beautiful products, and a person must tell a story, not just make an argument. In "Literacy in the New Information Landscape," David Warlick (2007) believes that "students must know how to use appropriate tools to find information, decode it, evaluate the information to determine its value, organize the information to add meaning, process, analyze, synthesize, manipulate, mix and remix the information, and then express their findings in compelling ways using appropriate modes of communication" (p. 21). As we use constructivist teaching methods to individualize learning, and as we integrate technology to create information rich experiences, we can guide our students through the vast amount of information available to them and encourage them to create 21st century products that tell their story.

Week 3: Planning for Student-Centered Learning with Technology
In Chapter 2: Providing Feedback of "Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works", Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007) describe methods of using technology to provide students with timely, criterion-referenced feedback so students can improve their achievement. They also recommend technologies that encourage student-led feedback. Some of the examples that stood out to me were the use of Track Changes and Insert Comments in Microsoft Word to allow students to edit and comment on each others' writing, the use of student response systems to deliver questions at all level's of Bloom's taxonomy and to assess and address student misconceptions, and the use of computer simulations and learning games that engage students, allow them to practice skills, and provide immediate feedback. In Chapter 2, as well as in Chapter 1: Setting Objectives, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski take a unique approach to the discussion of technology use in the classroom. I have found that many books and articles focus on describing the steps for using a particular hardware or software and then describe possible ways it can be used in the classroom; the primary focus is on learning to use the technology, and the secondary focus is on how it can be used instructionally. However, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski approach technology use from a different perspective. They describe teaching and learning strategies first. Each of the strategies they present can be accomplished using traditional teaching methods, but they describe how a specific technology can make the teaching or learning strategy more effective for student learning. For example, students could give each other feedback on their writing by passing their hand-written or printed rough draft to their neighbor, and their classmate could write comments by hand on the draft. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski describe how using Microsoft Office's Track Changes and Insert Comments features can allow multiple students to edit and comment on a student's writing, while providing a digital record of which comments were made by each reviewer (p. 42). By approaching use of technology in the classroom from a teaching and learning perspective, rather than from a technology skills perspective, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski make technology integration more palatable for teachers and more concrete than simply presenting technology skills.

I believe educational technology leaders should use this approach when planning professional development for teachers. I firmly believe that teachers need foundational skills in technology use. However, my experience in delivering technology professional development to teachers in my own district has shown that while teachers may feel comfortable with the skills they are acquiring in class, if they do not immediately apply them with their students or in a relevant activity, they are likely to forget most of the skills. By planning professional development activities that focus on technology use in the classroom from a teaching and learning perspective, we may be providing the teachers will fewer skills in using a particular piece of software, but teachers may be more likely to retain the skills and use the strategies with their students. The two-year Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) project Applying Technology to Restructuring and Learning (ATRL) showed that there were "weaknesses with skills-based technology instruction. First, in spite of its inevitable focus on the creation of an academic product (e.g., using PowerPoint to present a lesson), technology was the focus, and curriculum was merely an adjunct. [This] cast technology and curriculum as separate entities in teachers' minds and made technology manipulation appear all the more important" (Burns, 2002, p. 298). We must modify our professional development models to "focus not on proficiency but rather on comfort, embedding technology within the curriculum activity and stressing the cultivation of a minimum set of technology skills - just enough to create a product" (Burns, 2002, p. 298). I believe this will allow teachers to view technology as another way to present information to students and another way for students to demonstrate their learning, rather than viewing technology as another topic on their already full schedule.

Week 4: Designing Student-Centered Learning Activities with Technology
Again this week, the readings about professional development made an impact on me. In Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools, Solomon and Schrum (2007) describe the "emphasis on the social and cultural context of learning" including the "process of participation in communities of practice" (p. 103). "Sharing interests is not enough for people to form a community of practice; rather, people form a community of practice through interaction while pursuing their interests (Wenger, 2001)" (Solomon and Schrum, 2007, p. 105). The concept of a community of practice reminds me of a personal learning network (PLN). It is important for educators to interact with other educators and innovators to share their knowledge and cultivate new ideas. In a personal learning network, people form a community by choice as they share information.

Karl Fisch describes the benefits of a personal learning network in his blog, The Fischbowl. Fisch (2008) points out that "a PLN isn't a particularly new idea". In Building Your Personal Learning Network, Daniel R. Tobin, Ph.D. (1998) states that "learning doesn't take place just in training programs, but should be part of every employee's everyday activities. You learn every time you read a book or article, every time you observe how someone else is doing work similar to your own, every time you ask a question. An important part of learning is to build your own personal learning network -- a group of people who can guide your learning, point you to learning opportunities, answer your questions, and give you the benefit of their own knowledge and experience." It is important for teachers to build a community of practice, or a personal learning network, within their school or district and with teachers around the world. There are many Web 2.0 tools that allow teachers to network with other teachers and innovators, and one of the most popular is Twitter. Using Twitter, teachers can follow others who share their interests, make short posts about topics that interest them, and read the posts of others in their personal learning network. It is important that teachers remember that we are all lifelong learners and that we learn best when exchanging ideas with others. If we stop learning, we stagnate. By participating in communities of practice, or personal learning networks, we can continue to improve our skills and broaden our knowledge of teaching and learning.

Week 5: Reflecting Upon Teaching in Technology
This week I was really moved by the Edutopia video "James Paul Gee on Grading With Games". Gee (2009) explains that we need "schooling that stresses the ability to solve problems" and schools that encourage students to "innovate, not just solve standard problems". He explains that today's learners are not interested in being consumers of information. They want to be producers of information. He describes one specific way today's students and many adults are information producers. Students want to "mod", or modify, games, not just play them. This is different from children even 10 or 15 years ago, who were engaged just by playing games. Today's students want to master a game and then create more or different content for the game. When I taught Computer Science, my independent study students proposed a game mod project. We researched games that had a mod engine that used a language similar to Java, which my students were proficient in, and that were not too violent for the classroom. We settled on Neverwinter Nights, and my students began modifying the game to create their own worlds and storylines. The results were amazing! Their storylines were unique and creative. Throughout the course of modifying the game, they used problem-solving skills to determine whether the game had the intended outcome. They tested their hypotheses and revised their solutions, as necessary. Modifying Neverwinter Nights was an important and worthwhile project for my Computer Science Independent Study students. Alice is another program that teaches students problem-solving and programming skills in a graphical interface. As students select logical statements, the characters in Alice act out the instructions. This program can be used at all age levels and can be used in many subject areas. In fact, a middle school language arts teacher in our district is considering using Alice as a way for her students to deliver stories, rather than using PowerPoint. I am excited about the possibilities Gee shares for using game creation as a method of teaching problem solving.