Week 3 Assignment: Adding media

Image from my Wiki

Embedding a Video:


Embedding a Map of where I would like to go someday:

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Link to my photobucket:

http://s1209.photobucket.com/albums/cc385/MelissaShugg/

Reflection #3

Chapter 1.

What was most surprising to me in this chapter was that there was this huge of a debate about defining the field.  Maybe I’ve worked with younger students for too long to require a precise wording on anything. I’m just happy to have them put their names on each assignment!  I can understand refining the title as technology of the media advances and new insights in methodology are developed.  Refinement of something should clarify it. Creating new mission statement for the field every few years blurs the definition in my eyes. 

The most concrete definition to me in the book is from 1994:

“Instructional Technology is the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning.”  

It’s not restrictive, it doesn’t use fluff words, and it doesn’t need to be reread, yet is still broad enough to be applied to the field as a whole.  Our school is working on interdisciplinary curriculum units for our district that merge subjects into a focused learning experience.  For example if we are teaching insects in science they would be writing a paper on bugs in language and drawing.  Technology allows for bridging a lot of these disciplines into a cohesive learning experience.  I’ve already thought of ideas that I will be bringing to this summer’s meetings. 

The biggest thing missing to me what were the driving changes in each of these time periods. What changes in technology or methodology brought about these revisions in defining the field?  Most specifically what drove someone in 1977 to break it down into a quick 120 page read!

Chapter 2.

We are using a new program called Curriculum Crafter this year.  It allows you to look up cores and standards as well as published assessments and incorporate it into our lesson plans. It’s almost a wiki for curriculum materials.  Traditionally I would look up the state standards and use that as a framework to develop my lesson plans.  I’m sure I internalized methodology like ADDIE and learned similar methods in school and professional development meetings.  I’ve just never formalized it into a process.  Reading this chapter is sort of a refresher on why you need a structured approach as I can see it with the program we are using now in our district.   The part that breaks down for me is that not every lesson plan layout should follow a methodology like this and that different age groups will have widely different structure for design.  As an example is gauging meaningful performance (one area listed as a characteristic of instructional design) when there often is difficulty in measuring this.  I’ve only been teaching and student teaching for just over a decade and I’ve seen four or five different approaches to measuring performance.  Our current system is extremely confusing to parents and to doesn’t really accurately measure students.  It was designed by some large education group who clearly put a lot of time, research and effort into it.  This is an area where a structured design failed to produce a good result.

Week 2 Reflection: Technologies, Cones and Imaginations

Let me begin with a summary:  So far we’ve covered cones and immersives, Luddites and new technologies (in 2002) for learning, and built our own blog and wiki and set up an RSS field.  This is a lot of information for a kindergarten teacher!  I’m wading through as best I can.  It’s taken a lot of time but I’ve learned a lot as well.  It’s been nice to be pushed outside my comfort zone a bit.

Creating a blog was a smooth and fun experience.  It made sense right off the bat.  I found some useful stuff online about new posting of blogs: http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/. Some of the stuff is way over my head but there’s basics in there as well that’s useful.  I’ve always enjoyed writing so this was a natural format for me.  I definitely will be keeping this going after the class finishes.   The RSS field was not so much a fit. I subscribed to a few websites but haven’t figured out how to get the other student’s blog addresses added.  Is there a list we can cut and paste from?  As for its use it seems like signing yourself up willingly for spam.  I’ve already removed a site that I thought I would like due to the massive amount of links that it gave me.  It would probably be more useful if you could get to filter the sites a bit more for content I want.

Applying Dale’s cone to a blog media format has it fall across the top four layers of the cone.  Most blog content is text, but it can be enriched by pictures, visual symbolism and links to videos or audio tracks.  It matches the majority of the technology we already use for teaching students.  Having a student create and maintain their own blog would include match Dale’s Cone definition of Direct Purposeful Experience but only on teaching how to create a blog or use the technology.  It would be useful tool to allow students to organize their thoughts, share their work and dabble in technology.  I can see it being a handy tool for secondary grade level students.  It could be made imaginative by allowing students to use their blogs not just as a digital notebook but as a tool to interact with each other.  I could visualize a savvy teacher grouping students in to small groups then give each of them a section of a problem to solve.  By sharing their answers and checking with each other they could learn together what the bigger picture problem they all are working together to solve.  This would let them to learn from each other as well as the course work.  It would be a new twist on small groups where the students wouldn’t have to meet together face to face.  This solves the problem we all remembered of group work being social hour back in high school!  Of course blog time would have to fight with Facebook and video games but that’s already more of a war than a battle.

An RSS feed I don’t see as being a good fit for K-12 students.  I subscribed to a learning feed but it wasn’t much better than a random Google search would be.  It feels akin to flipping through the channels on the TV in hopes something good is on.  You control the channels you click too but have no idea what’s coming on them.   Applying Dale’s cone to an RSS feed has it also laying in between the top 4 layers.  It incorporates text as its primary medium of communication but can link to videos, pictures, and possibly invites/schedules to more hands on events.  Having only scratched the surface of using an RSS feed I have a bit more difficulty figuring out a good use for it in learning.  An easy answer would be as we are using it now to share our blogs, but that’s no different than email alerts or similar.   If content could be shaped and searched, students could perhaps use an RSS feed to save time on long term research for a project or paper.  A news feed on a weather site would allow content to filter directly to you for a paper on weather and climate.

                                                          

When Wikipedia first came out it seemed to be a science experiment more than anything else.  People updated what ever they wished when ever they wished.   There seemed to be skepticism on if it could ever really “work”.   Now most people use it as their primary source of information on a given subject.   Editors strive to keep the content as close to truthful and useful as possible.  Companies use their own internal wikis for their files and information, and there are specialized wikis all over the internet. Here’s a list of some of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wikis.   Once again it falls short of actual experiences or being hands on like the other computer accessed media so it lays in the top 4 layers of Dale’s cone.  It can link to exhibits or educational videos but is hampered by its digital format.   It’s unique layers of hyperlinking allow for some really imaginative layouts for presenting learning media.  I remember reading about someone using wikipedia to write a “choose your own adventure” style of novel but I can’t seem to find a link to it.   Layering of hyperlinks can provide a more three dimensional access to data, not in a visual sense but in how we can dig deeper in to parts of it with out moving away from the main focus.   For example in an entry on volcanoes I can choose to read the entire content or drill deeper on tectonic plates or a list of active volcanoes.  Using technology in learning needs to allow for more of this as it empowers the students to take the lead on their learning rather than sitting back and trying to absorb it.

Week 2 assignment: Creating a Wiki

My new wiki page is up:
http://melissashugg.pbworks.com/w/page/40229917/Assignment-week-2

Week 1 discussion

Technology in the classroom is a touchy subject in these days of government cut backs, layoffs and budget shortfalls.  Is it better to purchase an updated computer lab or to retain a handful more staff to keep classrooms at a reasonable student to teacher ratio?  Where is the money better spent?  And at what point does it become diminishing returns on either end?  I recently read about schools with rooms full of computers, but no one on staff that knows more than how to turn them on.  Technology offers a lot of potential to improve learning but with out resources to utilize it or build curriculum enhanced by it, then it falls short of the price.

When I started reading the article by Reigeluth and Joseph I had to look at the publish date. It looks like it was published in 2002. At this time, the internet was everywhere, and computers were starting to show up in every home from computer geeks to little old  grandmother’s.  There was no such thing as social networking or Facebook, and hand held devices like Ipods were still brand new and seemed like something from Star Trek.

The authors sort of seem like visionaries when they say buzz words like peer assisted learning or self regulated learning as these are powerful drives for social media formats of learning.  They would probably be blown away if you could show them Wikipedia way back then.  So in about a decade we have made leaps and bounds in the field of technology, but most schools are using computers as just fancy electronic books. Students use them as the encyclopedia world books that we grow up with in class, or to update Facebook when done with their assignments.   Learning is often done the same as it was a decade ago just flashier and in a smaller box.  I’ve never really thought about why this is from a technology perspective as I’ve always focused on the teaching perspective in the room.  The computer has always been a facilitative teaching device not a method to reform education.

I had to Google what a Luddite was when reading the second article.  When I began teaching I was enthusiastic about technology in the world but now I fear I may be bit of a Luddite myself.  I’m curious to know what the author thinks about technology in 2011 as his article from 1993. Does he still refuse to use a word processor? Does he know his articles are linkable from the internet (by ~1.6 billion internet connections in 2009)?  Does he still feel that Al Gore’s 50 billion dollar investment in to the internet isn’t a solution to anything?

Despite sounding akin to my grandfather talking about the good old days, some of Postman’s Luddite fears have come true.  I just read an article about the extinction of the secretary position in American business due to the rise of the smart phone, highly organized access to data and budget cuts.  Call center positions are flowing overseas due to the quick internet connections and cheap labor costs.  Technology helped the bankers funnel money back and forth in shady deals that caused the crisis in 2008 that we still haven’t recovered from. Right now as I write this, the news has on an article about minors using Facebook and the dangers of the information and people they have unmonitored access too.  So maybe we shouldn’t ask what problem does technology solve, but instead what problems is it creating? A Google search of “social problems and technology” returns almost 3 million hits…

Putting the luddite in me aside, I am a fan of technology.  Between my husband and I, we have 6 ways of getting on the internet: 2 smart phones, 3 laptops and his stupid Xbox that he plays until late in the night.  I don’t often have time to use it, but it’s always nice to be able to have any piece of information available at any time.  Who was that one guy in that one movie? Oh yeah, ask Google!  My students enjoy computer time in the classroom and we have participated in web learning with other schools.   Cut and paste has saved many hours of writing the weekly classroom newsletter and those darned lesson plans that my principle is always hounding me for.   We are better off in some ways than we were in 1993 or even 2002.  In others we are falling behind.  It would be nice if not only education but other areas of our society could be updated from an industrial era view point as discussed by Reigeluth and Joseph’s article.

First post of my blog for my Class :201120 Intro to Educational Tech

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