Upon Reflection....

This course has not only taught me more about classroom technology, but more importantly, helped shape my thinking towards education strategies.  At the beginning of the course, I was very traditional in my thinking in terms of education.  In reviewing Dr. Michael Orey’s various learning theories, I would categorize myself as a behavior and cognitive learner.  I personally still feel I learn best this way, but when looking at the theories in a deeper sense, it is clear that for today’s student, it is not the most effective method.  One area of learning I am intrigued by and would like to learn more about is the social learning theory.  My students communicate frequently communicate through the different avenues and platforms the internet provides them.  I have tried to embrace this new form of media and utilize it in a way where it not only benefits the student’s education, but is something they are used to doing.  21^st century skills and utilizing web 2.0 tools will indefinitely be needed when our youth reach the workforce and to deprive them of fully developing and learning how to properly and efficiently make use of this, is in a sense handcuffing their future development.  In addition to the previously mentioned, I have a much better understanding of how the brain rationalizes, retains and references information.  Not only myself, but any teacher can benefit from understanding the natural thought process of humans.

There have been so many ideas, lessons and thoughts presented throughout the class discussions and in reading other blog entries that it is like light bulbs going on saying “wow, what a great idea”.  This is possible through modern technology, the same technology that I have learned more about in this course and would like to better and more efficiently implement in my classroom. 

I currently do not access to the modern technology that I would like.  Our district is in the middle of making enormous cuts and it seems like budgets are failing and more and more programs are on the chopping block.  I currently use wikis, power point, blogs and have more recently implemented the use of twitter.  A few ideas have been moved around regarding twitter and in class assignments being that just about all students have a cell phone and regardless of the rules, access them during class.  My question is, instead of banning cell phones, why not embrace the students “know how” and use it in an education platform.  Have students answer questions, ask question, and communicate with other classmates through this internet crazy technology called twitter.   Michael Orey sums up this thought with “allowing the students to use the technology will make the students the center of the lesson and keep them actively engaged” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010).

A new form of technology I had never heard of but already have ideas in the works for, is Voicethread.  Voicethread could literally be the next step upwards in the already technology trending classroom.  There are so many different ways this amazing tool may be used.  For the voicethread application a few weeks ago, I put together a small presentation regarding Giant Sequoia Trees and immediately had the idea of creating lessons to put on the internet.  What makes this different than other sites is that a voice is attached to a slide(s).  Think of all the ideas an educator can use here?  Homework, projects, lesson/test review, grading, notes to parents, etc.  I am very excited to get this program up and running and see where it takes my 8^th grade Health class in the future!

A long term goal I have after this class is learning and keeping up to date in regards to all of the new technology and web 2.0 tools.  I would like to keep learning about this and add them to my educator’s tool belt, one by one if that’s what it takes.  The education is an ever changing field that is constantly evolving.  The only way to stay with the curve is to keep up with what the students are doing and using.  If students are using a new form of technology for personal use, wouldn’t it benefit both the educator and student to utilize this in the class? 

Another long term goal of mine is to introduce these new and innovative ideas and forms of technology to other teachers.  If we can all collaborate and work together, the students will benefit…isn’t that why we chose to teach in the first place?  If my fellow educators can utilize some of the technology I do, the students will be more familiar with it (they already know how to use it better than most teachers) and at the absolute worst, sharpen their skills. Technology is making it easier to collaborate and put our minds, thoughts and ideas together to produce a common outcome; that common outcome being to provide our students with the best chance to be successful.  In terms of spreading technology throughout my building, I would also like to construct a central technology area where students can try the newest things out there.  I think it would be a great idea to have a place where students can really see how far they can take technology.  Currently, I am unsure of how this will play out as we are very limited in space and classrooms.  I have looked into maybe conducting a weekly meeting where students throw ideas around, it is amazing what a few brains and young, eager, technological savvy minds can produce…on top of being exciting! 

At the completion of this course, I am confident and comfortable with the new ideas and technology to implement in my classroom.  I have always tried to use as many new and interesting ideas as possible, but this course has really opened my eyes as to what is truly out there. 

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program thirteen. Technology: Instructional

       tool vs. learning tool      [Webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology.

       Baltimore, MD: Author.

Connectivism....

While I do find this theory very interesting and something I agree with...I do want to raise a question before I move along.  Towards the end of the short video we saw, the speaker raises the question "Why are teachers needed then?" then follows with a short list of why a teacher is still needed.  I find the answer provided simply does not answer the question asked...it seemed to me more like the teacher turns into a guidance counselor, motivator, organizer and a "middle man" for learning...nowhere do I see "educator" there.  I am by no means discounting the credit to connectivism, not in the least, just stating I do not see where an educator is even needed and the answer the video provided I feel suits my opinion.  It would seem like the teacher is more like an "assigner" - someone that just gives the topic of study out and checks to make sure the resources are accurate...that is not what a teacher does.  Again, this is my opinion, hopefully I am not offending anyone reading this.

I totally agree with social learning and the idea or theory that cooperative learning is beneficial to students.  Humans are social creatures and we learn best by watching others and copying or communicating and gaining the knowledge conversed about. "Social learning is the process of students being actively engaged during learning while conversing with others" (Laureate Education, Inc. 2010) The only disagreement I think here is the theory's main concept is that some students will be "masters" at certain subjects and be able to teach others about it.  Students may be slightly stronger than others in certain areas, but to think a young student is able to have the knowledge to give other than a very basic idea is some what unrealistic.  At any rate, I do think this theory is accurate and I feel humans learn very well simply through communication.

Resources:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program eight. Social Learning Theories
[Webcast]. Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction and Technology. Baltimore, MD: Author

Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/share/2095604/

Constructivism vs. Constructionism

This week’s resources were again, very interesting an enlightening.  Michael Orey lectures regarding constructivism and constructionism and the differences relating to the classroom.  Orey gives two very good examples demonstrating the differences between these very closely sounding words and the reader, or viewer, in this case, can differentiate quite easily. 

Constructivism, according to Orey, basically is that each person learns on his or her own by developing unique and personal meanings (Orey, 2001).  The chair example provided made this understanding much easier for me to grasp this concept.  It makes sense because we all have very unique and personal views regarding certain objects; an example I immediately thought of was the word dog.  Think about all of the different ideas, thoughts, opinions, recollections, memories, etc., that this word conjures up.  To you, “dog” may be a four legged animal that is scary, mean and vicious, but this is strictly due to how you and the word/idea of “dog”, developed over time.  To me, “dog” is obviously a four legged animal, but something of an entire different nature than mean and scary, and that is due to my development when learning about what a “dog” was. 

Constructionism is on the same playing field as the close sounding constructivism, but a different idea and concept, that in my opinion, are somewhat related.  Constructionism is “a theory of learning that states people learn best when they build an external artifact or something they can share with others” (Orey, 2001).  The example given here, was that of what “dog” means (a complete coincidence that I thought of “dog” for constructivism) using this theory.  To be more specific, a little boy or girl associates everything he or she sees that has “four legs and is furry” as a dog…until he or she sees a cat!  Seeing that the cat has four legs and is furry, he or she refers to it as a cat, where upon saying this; Dad quickly corrects the child and says, “no, it is a cat”.  This is building upon an existing idea or “constructing” an idea in a larger idea or concept.  Orey states the main idea behind the constructionism concept is “getting involved and building stuff”, and for this example, the child is building upon the idea of a four legged animal that is furry (Orey, 2001).   I also agree with Orey about the use of powerpoint as a technology that demonstrates the idea of “building” in the classroom.  Students are at the freedom of their minds to build whatever they can think up with this amazing program. 

Even though I understand this concepts, it strikes that me they are extremely similar.  The more I look into the meanings and concepts behind each, it seems to as if the two terms, constructivism and constructionism are almost the same, just different stages of the learning process.  Looking at the two examples given, constructivism would be developing your own idea over time and constructionism is building upon an idea.  If someone were to begin to gain an understanding of something or an idea, that would be constructivism, but over time, building upon that idea, concept, object, in whatever direction that thought or idea may go, isn’t that just building upon the original? That would be constructionism…correct? I do understand the difference between these two words, just thinking and posing questions!

Michael Orey states that “constructionism is more important for teachers (Orey, 2001). I think this is the case simply because in the classroom, teachers are constantly building upon previous ideas and concept.  One subject that is purely constructionism is math- the entire life’s learning in regards to mathematics are based on the concept of building and using previous information to move onto the next form or step. 

I did find this week to be very interesting to look over and review as it pertains directly to the classroom.

References:

Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology.

Behaviorism...

This week’s resources were very interesting and enlightening as they are dealing with students and learning theories.  Before I begin this, I must say, I was somewhat up in the air about the behaviorism and its place in education.  After reading through the various weekly resources, I feel I have a better grasp on what exactly behaviorism in the classroom entails.

“Operate conditioning”, coined by B.F. Skinner, sits on two foundation concepts (Orey, 2001).  The first being reinforcement of desirable behavior while the second is punishment or discipline of undesirable behaviors (Orey, 2001).  Reinforcing is the more powerful of the two and an idea that all educators should implement if he or she is not doing already.  To put this a little more blunt, James Hartley clearly states in his key principles that “reinforcement is the cardinal motivator”. (Smith, 1999)  If reinforcement is so essential in education, why are more educators not tying motivation into course work?  That being said, I do think there is a time and place for everything; college students do not need nearly the same motivation and/or praise that a second grade student would, as college learners are more self motivated and self driven.  In my opinion, we need to keep in mind that some of the behaviorism fundamentals are built on ideas or concepts completely dependent upon the age of the subject. 

Another theory I want to touch upon is one by John B. Watson, he claims that the amount of time taken between learning an idea/action and reinforcing the action are in direct correlation to how successful the learner will be.  (Smith, 1999)  I find this to be as accurate as can be, a human can’t learn a new action and wait any significant length of time before reinforcing it.  There have been many studies produced about professional athletes “mastering” an action that are quite interesting.  I believe it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to “master” an athletic technique. What is funny about this is that these studies always show that the action needs to be practiced not only daily, but almost immediately after it has been acquired or the action will not take.  A more academic example would be a young learner working on his or her times tables.  The times tables are not something you can look at and just remember, it takes work…and many hours of that work if I remember correctly!  If the learner were taught those functions, then not shown again for a few months, there is absolutely zero chance the learner will be able to recall the times tables.  An action needs to be reinforced in a short time frame for it be successful.

James Hartley adds, in my opinion, an excellent concept to this learning theory.  He states “activity is important. Learning is better when the learner is active rather than passive”.  (Smith, 1999)  I can think of no better example of this than when a future educator is doing his or her student teaching.  I think someone would be hard pressed to find a teacher that does not feel he or she learned more in six months of student teaching than the entire three and a half years of undergrad work!  While student teaching, you are actually in the classroom “getting your hands dirty” so to speak, and teaching, educating, motivating, encouraging and everything else that fits the daily transcript of an educator’s career.  There is no question as to why this theory is so accurate; when given the chance to get active, the brain processes this information in a much more effective manner.  A seventh grade student that dissects a frog or worm will indefinitely recall that lesson and all the details involved much easier than a lecture, it is a simple equation: when a learner is being active and not “passive”, information is attained much more efficiently. 

It is hard to say whether or not behaviorism is the right or wrong way of educating the human race.  I can say, with a fair amount of certainty, that a combination of behaviorism and other forms, theories, methods of education in conjunction with the use of technology, will put the modern day educator on the right path.

Smith, K. (1999). The behaviourist orientation to learning. In The encyclopedia of informal education. Retrieved from http://www.infed.org/biblio/learning-behavourist.htm

Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved           from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page

Upon reflection...

After taking a thorough look at the last seven weeks of course work for Walden, I am extremely excited at all of the new possibilities and doors that have opened.  Up until this point, this has been the most productive and enlightening course I have been a part of within my graduate work.  I have been exposed to technologies I had heard of but never really been a part of; web 2.0 tools such as blogging, wikis, twitter and pod casts to name a few. Before this class, these were purely "out of school" internet tools that I was unsure of how to utilize.  This course has entirely changed my perspective and now I realize just how beneficial they can be in the classroom...not to mention just how powerful a teaching tool and "real world", 21st century learner tool they are!  On my own personal time, I have joined a few blogs about things I enjoy and also subscribe to golf pod casts, so not only have I learned about this new technology, I am using them outside of the classroom.

A note I feel I should add to my blog is that I was aware of the lack of technology in the district I teach in, but I was ignorant as to just how lacking we truly are. There is nobody to blame, budgets are failing, schools are running out of money, teachers are being released, the education system is struggling but I really feel like the students will be the ones to suffer from the systems lack of funding to educate students for what they will encounter once in the real world (21st century learners).

I was raised in a teacher centered classroom where the teacher spoke, we were quiet and did the work assigned.  Today's learner, and classroom for that matter, should be much more student based where the students work toward finding the information.  A huge positive for the students will be a key word known as collaboration.  Collaboration is something students will be doing once they enter the work force and when is there a better time than to practice but in the classroom while learning.  This task is somewhat already in the works as I have always been somewhere in the middle of teacher based and student based learning.  Learning about technology will undoubtedly make the transition to a complete learner based classroom much easier.

Being that I am somewhat young in the grand scheme of education, I feel it is relatively easy to stay on top of new technology and learn about the existing technology.  It seems as if most of my friends use blogs and podcasts already and we all know some people that play with every new gadget and toy that comes out, so I really just have to pay more attention to what is trending and what people are using.  Another excellent tool that I use will be my graduate work.  The course at Walden U is so far excellent and something I look forward to furthering my education base regarding technology and how to utilize it in the classroom.  All of these resources combined should be more than enough to stay on top of current and up-and-coming technology.

A goal of mine is without question bringing more technology in my classroom.  Up until this point, my use of technology was very limited (some fault due to the district's financial situation, some fault in my own ignorance), but that will change with this new influx of information at my fingertips.  Another goal I have set for myself is being more in tune with modern day technology.  Up until this point, I have been somewhat slow in engaging everything available.  I use the internet for very few reasons, I use my phone purely for phone calls and to text (I do not have a "smart phone"), I had no clue what a pod cast or blog was, and I definitely was lacking in my knowledge of the world of twitter.  Being a young guy, this is somewhat embarrassing and in some ways, unacceptable for my line of work.  I was almost doing an injustice to the students by my personal ignorance of technology.  Those two goals I have set should turn my classroom into one full of 21st century learners technology where students are using the tools they will need on a daily basis when they enter the real world.

As an educator, it is solely our responsibility to teach our students the knowledge and tools needed to be successful in modern day times.  The coursework at Walden U is giving me the knowledge and power to pass along to each and every student that comes through the door of my classroom.

Podcasting...

I have been listening to podcasts for a few years now.  It started listening to baseball recaps, then moved onto reviews of bodybuilding shows to golf podcasts...I now have produced my own podcast.  It was a simple, but time consuming project to put this together but well worth the time and effort. 

The project began in the classroom with a simple poll asking students about technology and their use and ideas of technology. I would have liked to conduct the poll online, but do to the volume of classes and students I have, it was not feasible.  At any rate, the poll went smooth and I was provided with some excellent information to use.  I then interviewed four students, two young men and two young ladies.  The answers they provided were pretty much parallel with the poll results. 

Now came the tricky part of this particular podcast....editing the interviews into a three-five minute single, piece of information.  This actually took a few hours and some ground work to produce and make it run relatively smooth!

All in all, this was a fun project and somewhat of an eye opener!

Ken

Link to my podcast:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/p1umnwyzd37ansv/completepodcast.wav

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Before anything should be said, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, or "P21", is an enormous website with an unbelievable amount of information at the fingertips of the viewer.  I looked through this site for well over an hour and felt like I barely scraped the surface all of the options and pages available to view.  I do find it interesting that the gap between what is being taught and what is actually needed to work in today's world is so big.  This site is dedicated, or acting as a "catalyst" as the mission statement says, in an attempt to fix this monster problem.  I find the "3 R's and the 4 C's" to be an interesting concept to look more into; the graph that accompanies this idea is also very accurate.  While New York state is not listed in the state initiatives section, there is so much to learn and read about it is truly a wonder why New York is not listed being a major city in this country (and world).

After looking through the main branches of the page, I found the "videos21", in the tools and resources section to be one of interest.  There are so many videos to view (I viewed some of the "most viewed" ones to get an idea of what to expect), relating to many different ideas.  I also found the FAQ page under the overview section to be a great place to start when trying to learn more about this program. 

It is hard to really disagree with anything on this website as everything included makes so much sense.  What is being taught in schools today is far from what is needed to be successful in this world.  Our curriculum's are often based on what was relevant many years ago...not what is relevant for the future (aka modern day students in the next 8-10 years).   It is also somewhat difficult to personally look at a way to implement this into a classroom without other teachers collaboration and the school backing you, financially and academically.

There is no way to say if P21 will really take off or fall by the way side.  It does pose some excellent ideas and concepts with the framework to support it.  Even though I am just one educator, I would love to see the great state of New York join in this program and find a way to implement some of the basic ideas.

Attached is the link to the Partnership for the 21st Century Skills
http://www.p21.org/index.php

New to this "wiki" thing...

The weeks assignment is to join a "wiki"....I am entirely unfamiliar with this form of internet technology.  After joining, I am excited to get going and see where it takes us and what exactly a wiki is.  I have had a few ideas about creating some kind of internet site for local golfers to setup matches and post scores, reviews of local courses extra...hopefully with all of the information I am learning in the class, I can put it to use and get this summer golf site up and running!

As I said, I am not familiar with wikis.  I have read a little about it in the textbook for the weekly reading, but until I actually am involved in it, I am unsure of what to expect.  The internet and other modern technologies are an exciting new venue to learn about and use. I very much look forward to it...

Ken

Week 2

Good afternoon everyone, this is the second installment of my blog and this post will be dealing with technology. The resources for the second week of Masters course @ Walden is one of interest to me.  I found all of the videos engaging, especially "Technology's Influence" and "Alvin Toffler's Wave Theory".  Very interesting listening to the theories and ideas about fed ex vs. the Maine education system.  It does bring up a great question, and this very question is one posed to the class from Mr. Kevin Jarret: is technology something that occurs due to another trigger, or is that trigger the reason for the technology occurring?

I am unsure of the answer, also as noted by the resources and Mr. Jarrett, this is the age old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg?  I am leaning towards technology occurring due to the environment around it as opposed to technology evolving regardless of the environment, it would have taken place.  Hall Davidson, an expert in the technology field, says that "war is a great thing for technology", I understand this statement as saying that any given technology that is developed during a time of war,  is developed strictly DUE TO the war taking place.  That technology would not have been founded without there being a trigger (the war, in this case) occurring.

This whole discussion is a good, philosophical question that could be debated back and forth, but in the end, regardless of how the technology is occurring...it is occurring.

Ken

First blog...

This is my first blog.  I'm sitting on my couch watching golf (what a surprise...) and doing some homework.
My legs are sore from Rebecca beating me up in the gym this morning for our weekly, Sunday "big legs day" workout.

-Ken