EDC 665 - Week 7 Blog

For your ARP, how did you select the technologies that you are utilizing? How have your learners responded thus far?

For my ARP, I selected the Internet in general as the main technology I am using. In teaching fourth grade, I realized that many of my students were intrigued with the Internet, but were not wise in using it. When asked if they knew even the most simple things about web browsers, and search engines, many had little to tell me about why they chose the technology they did other than to play a few video games and "google" topics of interest.

With a wide range of students in my classroom at all levels of understanding, I made the decision to teach them to be more conscious Internet consumers and show them the WHY of what they are using.

After having Gary Stager as a professor last semester, I was also taught that technology is essentially anything that is assisting you to fulfill a need. Given this definition, I am also using student pair groupings to encourage students to work together with a common mind and goal to "solve" the "problems" I give them.

So far, they have only visited the computer lab at our school once but they are enjoying it and learning a lot. I spoke to a few students after our last Wednesday's session and they were really enthused about what they were learning. This Wednesday will be another visit.

More updates to come! I have another fun day planned for them this week that includes using Google to solve math problems, using Google images to research and using advanced google searches to find factual information and weed out information that may be incorrect.

I am hoping to make my students great (and smart) consumers of the technology they already use (but don't fully understand).

EDC 665 -- Book of Choice -- update #1

I am currently 2/3 done with my book of choice for Melissa's class. The book is by Will Richardson and is titled Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Webtools for Classrooms. Jessica and I selected the same book because our backgrounds and ARP's are similar.

At first, I read reviews about the book and was a bit apprehensive because a couple people commented that the information provided was "nothing innovative" and information they already knew how to do. Well, given that I am relatively new to using these tools (although I know a bit about each one), I really was looking for ways to incorporate what I, an adult, use at home with my students (fourth graders) in the classroom.

The first 50 pages or so are devoted to Will's accounts of blogs. He speaks in great lengths about ideas for blog use within the classroom and hits on the richness of using blogs to teach writing (of which I had a bit of an "aha" moment given that I love writing and have a background in that, as does the author. I wasn't too impressed with the blog information, but appreciated the links to other popular education blog sites. I was also not as impressed with the blog section because I recently did my own online research on blogs for my ARP and just learned all of the first 50 pages from reading other people's blogs to learn how to create my own. I then set up a blog and added my entire class of 31 kids to it at learnerblogs.org. If I had read the book a week prior, I would have had more to highlight.

I then learned quite a bit about wikis. I understand the use and all, but really appreciated the real-life accounts from actual educators who use wikis for group projects with kids, etc. I did feel a bit outcasted given the majority of examples are from the high school perspective. I learned a couple cool things about wikipedia and how they have wikirecipes and wikitravel ---of which I love both ideas. The wikirecipes is for people to share their favorites. Wikitravel is used to update on best travel deals.

Back to education... I leared about PBwiki of which I've only heard Margaret mention a few times in class. I might play around with one and set one up during the third phase of my ARP.

Finally, I ended today's reading with learning about RSS feeds. This is something I have struggled with, but also don't know how applicable the feed is for my students as we use the blog site. Given their age (9-11) and their conservative parents, I selected an education blog site that allows me to add only the kids I want and it is password protected. I think for now, that is all I am comfortable with. It didn't require any RSS feeds but just me using my blog to add users.

The final, really cool thing I learned was about RSS feeding of information I would like. For example, I could subscribe to all the RSS feeds out there about "global warming California"...etc. I could also subscribe to feeds from my favorite news sources so I no longer have to go to my favorites and run down the list everyday.

I am looking forward to learning about podcasting (if there is anything new to learn). Fun fact: Alan November was mentioned under good blogs sites. We just met him at FETC. It's cool to place the education connection.

EDC 665 - Week 6 Blog

As learners, we are often focused on completing assessment activities successfully as opposed to acquiring the outcomes indicated by the course- why is this? Describe a learning experience where either you have combated this learner tendency or you felt a teacher handled this well.

This might be the most applicable blog to date. As a student/learner (for the majority of my life) and now teacher, I have struggled with this aspect of the "hurry up and finish" mentality. As I am writing this, I wonder if I am giving enough thought and time to this posting as not to finish for finishing's sake.

As a student, I always felt a threat to complete before everyone else for the reason that I am competitive. But moreso, I wanted my teachers and professors to feel validated as they have students who take their teaching seriously and want to contribute. I also admit a sense of arrogance to completing first as I know this is the way to shape others' responses and "set the bar" so-to-speak. Finally, I am also the type to like to see a clean slate and not mull over things too long. I don't like seeing 10 assignments left to finish but enjoy "knocking them out" one-by-one.

This blog is perfect to add that I recently posted a blog under the name "zeros are heroes" (or something to that affect). I am sure if you scroll down it will appear... this posting explained my OCD issue with seeing zeros rather than seeing many postings to read. I climbed Mt. Whitney last year with my fiance and our two friends and was asked to be in the back because I lead the group too quickly and would have run us out of energy going too quickly. I'm also a pretty strong type A. (no laughing Brent, Todd, of Greg who give me plenty of crap for this...)

All this to say... I don't know where I picked this up. I see my students rushing often and not putting thought into everything they do. I encourage them to take a few breaths and mull over their thoughts to fully formulate what they want to expand on. I wouldn't consider myself the best role model for this behavior but know this struggle is something I live with everyday. I watch fellow hardworking classmates put a lot of thought into their work and wonder if I should slow things down a bit.

If I were to take a guess of why people are this way, I would say that everyone likes to be validated and the compulsive nature that pushes us to achieve the "assignment" as opposed to seeing the greater outcome is a way of checking a box. With so many "outcomes" to fulfill, I think as learners we settle for some lost outcomes and some gained, as long as we can save face with others seeing our completions. ?!? Looking forward to hearing some others' responses to this... I am struggling!

EDC 665 - Week 5 Blog

Identify a standard that impacts your local environment or practice. Reflect on the value of the standard and its intended affect on student learning.

I am a bit unclear about whether this "standard" needs to be a content standard or whether it is the literal interpretation of the word standard as a set of rules or ways expected of being achieved...

I will answer the question in both manners.

I teach 4th grade and use state standards to guide my teaching of content. My students obviously are taught more than the standards give, but I do use them as a guideline to teach. In addition, our textbooks are aligned to state and national standards. In 4th grade math, I teach a high, gifted group of students. Currently, we are finishing up a unit on fractions and moving on to their relationship with decimals. A standard I am recently addressing is:

1.5 Explain different interpretations of fractions, for example, parts of a whole, parts of a set, and division of whole numbers by whole numbers; explain equivalents of fractions.

I see enormous value in teaching this particular standard, but really in teaching all of the standards. The reason is because I know my students will be using this material in their daily lives (I am a fan of Ms. Foster's grocery store wisdom -- saving money in the grocery store... how to compare ounces and get the best deals) and I often use life examples to illustrate the point among other manipulatives, etc. In addition, students will see this material in upcoming grade levels, in college, and beyond. I feel it is my duty to expose them to the content they will need to pass the tests (sadly) to get into college and create successful life opportunities for themselves. Although 4th grade grade is not significant grade wise, I feel that my job is to prepare them with as much as I can so the rest of their schooling is made simpler for them and one less thing to have to force into "learning" later.

Answering this question from the other perspective, a standard I use in my daily environment/workplace is this: Work amicably with other teachers as peers to create better learning environments and ultimately better learning opportunites for students that achieves success.

Our school/district recently went to a PLC model ---professional learning communities, out 45 minutes early/week for teacher collaboration to ultimately raise student achievement. Not necessarily student test scores, but achievement in all areas. We want our students to be successful. This is absolutely valuable. As professionals, we should see value in our students always achieving higher than they did yesterday. Not in a manner that pressures or hinders learning, but that teachers and staff commit themselves to constantly working on their end to better the opportunities for students to fulfill their own standards at an above optimal level. Being a teacher who is simply "okay" with status quo is not acceptable for students.

EDC 665 - Week 4 Blog

Using the same learning experience you reflected on last week, did each activity explicitly map to a goal? Implicitly? Did this impact your learning during the activities?

As far as the learning experience was mapped, not every activity mapped to a goal. There was a goal explicitly stated, however, there was a large amount of empty steps for reaching the goal. This makes me believe (and understand) that there are multiple ways to reach a goal. What I see in my teaching is that when I allow students the opportunity to select the "how" rather than give explicit directions, I am far more pleased with the outcome.

As a tangent, my students were learning about animal adaptations and they took an animal and were asked to (goal) change the environment of the animal... hence adapting them to their new environment. For example, a polar bear in the desert or a fish in the sky. As silly as the goal was, the students were extremely interested and creative.

Getting back to MicroWorlds and my own learning experience, I believe the mapping of the project was mapped implicitly, given the amount of tutorials and purpose of the learning activity. I believe the expectation was to work together, hence sharing our ideas to create a "how to" base. In the end, I was surprised with the amount of diversity, but impressed with the knowledge I gained mostly from others in the process.

This absolutely impacted my learning. Given a specific tutorial, I believe our voices would be one in the same as would our products. I am often pleased and hope to share these same kinds of experiences with my students as I am open and allow for the implicit side of goal setting and mapping.

Presenting Data - Florida trip

Our group finished presenting our data on the google groups document we created for Action Research. Here are the steps we took:

1. Compare and analyze the data collected through Survey Monkey.
2. Select and divide cadres to group members.
3. Meet and discuss options for presentation.
4. Research education trends based on popular information per cadre.
5. Create graphs and clean up document.

Here are some things we learned from this presentation:

1. Create a basis for the words we analyze in the data.
2. Multiple people should be able to interpret the data in the same way given the words used, etc.
3. Since we focused on self/learner/mutual benefits in the definition of action research, we should be able to easy mark self/learner/mutual... in some way.
4. Use the same research materials throughout to make the research "controlled."
5. Give the information for each graph explicitly (n=). Make sure the numbers are defined. If only two questions were used and one of the two were answered "yes", the graph would show 50% answered yes... clearly the data should not be shown in this manner without addressing the number.

Overall, I learned some great things. Most importantly, www.aera.net seems like a great resource for further AR needs.

Zeros are heros

My OCD continues to kick in with this program. Former students comment about their "withdrawals" from the constant feedback the OMET program brings after their graduation and I have a confession to make: I love seeing zeros in Blackboard. I know this may come back to haunt me, but I have to say, I love to see accomplishments. I know that is not the point at all with the medium, but I have a sense of freedom when numbers turn to zero.

Most people want more in the form of numbers; more money, more of everything really... but I like the zeros.

Zeros are heroes.

Sub plan torture, my OCD nature, FETC 2008

I just spent the majority of today synchronizing my sub plans for when I'm gone in Florida for the FETC. Let's just say that my OCD nature does not work well in these situations as I must leave everything in the utmost perfect condition. If you want to know just how OCD I really am, try 16 pages of sub plans for 4 days. Am I crazy?!? I guess... but I really like things to go smoothly and I really like my kids taken care of. Subs love my class because of the organization madness. Haha.

I am a bit behind on my reading too and pretty bummed about that. I plan to be a good reader on my 5 hour flight to the east coast.

This is hectic... but I am excited to see my OMET friends, and even more excited to get through January and onto a new month.

I'm ever-so-anxious about my wedding... 7 months down, 6 months to go! I just can't believe that in less than 6 months we will be done with OMET. Seriously!!!

EDC 665 - Week 3 Blog

Think back now to a learning experience you have recently had- were the goals explicitly stated? If not, were they still clear? Were you aware of them as a learner during the learning experience?

Thinking back to last semester with Gary Stager, as MicroWorlds comes to mind, I had a learning experience trying to learn commands to move my virtual "turtle." In the beginning of our 4th learning adventure, I was excited to create a quilt piece of which I would later learn to attach as a quilt to others' pieces.

The goals of this project were explicitly stated. Gary told us to use MicroWorlds commands to create a quilt piece. We could do anything we wanted, as long as the piece was the same size as all the rest would be. While the goals were explicit, I did not, at times, feel like the "directions" were. Then I think, "do explicit goals always need directions from point A to point B? Or is the goal enough to supply a learning activity with its purpose?"

I grew beyond creating the quilt piece, an enjoyable activity, onto creating the quilt itself and had real difficulty. I hated the process as I struggled and realized there was no tutorial or "direction" to take that would end in my desired result.

I was completely aware of the goal the entire time, so much that I wanted to stop at nothing until it was achieved. While my quilt was sub par to a couple other cadre mates, I achieved my goal of having a symmetrical quilt piece.

Going back to my original internal reflections, I believe that goals can be stated and yet directions can be excluded from the equation. It is not entirely necessary, if the goal achieved is not the exact same for everyone, to have directions. Otherwise, the goal would look identical for all.

Gary never gave us explicit directions, yet supplied us with a clear goal in mind. Looking back, no two formulas were identical (although some alike) and no two quilts turned out to be the same either. It was a matter of the creator-- which is what I love about open-ended learning. It's also the most challenging of all learning... because without directions that are certain, there in lies the risk of failure.

Mentoring, Mentor Letter, UbD - Differentiated Instruction

One of the assignments in my 639 Mentoring and Leadership class was to write a letter to a mentor I've had in my life that has positively affected me. I selected my principal, Joyce because of her support and encouragement throughout my first two years of teaching. Because of her, I still have a job... who knows what the future will hold for me next year... although I have been dreaming middle school. :)

Anyhow, I wrote the letter... but found it really hard to release it to my cadre of OMET students. There is a part of me that faces difficulty sharing my feelings with others as in my brain, I feel a sense of weakness. I didn't, however, have any problem with handing the letter over to my mentor. She was grateful and expressed her gratitude with a few words-- me being a light, sunshine to the staff and coming with confidence and fresh ideas-- something of which I also pride myself with and hope that I will remain for the duration of my teaching professional years.

I have been reading some of the books on our agenda and have been getting a bit out of each one. The information in UbD and the Differentiated Instruction book is not necessarily new information to me (I would struggle a great deal without being an educator) being recently trained in a teaching program and seeing the "new wave" design of curriculum that our education system is morphing into, but I do pick up a few pieces of encouragement for what I do read: On page 22 of Integrating Differentiated Instruction-UbD, I loved this quote:

"Learning happens within students, not to them."

This quote remains an eye-opener of sorts for me, being so new to the profession and observing so many teachers I don't want to emulate in the way of teaching. There are others, however, who remain to be a light for me (unfortunately lesser in number).

One final story: A friend of mine, Jen, of whose personal blog is posted as a favorite on this blog site to your right... is a high school math department chair and teacher for an inner-city school just a couple miles from the ritzy, pretentious schools in our beach city area. She has been driven to want to quit multiple times within her 6 years of teaching and has quickly worked her way up the ladder. She has gone through 3 principals and 2 superintendents of her school district that is in utmost turmoil--in addition to the gang shootings and lock downs which are commonly in the news. It is also the school in which students from Lennox, a city with the highest murder rate per capita in So. California, attend. So, as you might guess, teaching and learning isn't much of a focus for these students. Surviving is. Jen has recently had it on her heart to investigate other options in areas of Redondo Beach because of the difficulty of teaching in her school... apparently attendance is a joke as kids simply don't come to school. She has been looking into RUHS - the high school in which I attended in a pretty nice area. By no means is it a Beverly Hills type of school, but it certainly sits in a nice part of town. She has good rapport with the principal and sat in during a math meeting and observed some math teachers to get a feel for the team and job she may be entering. As she left, she expressed to the principal that there was a lot of "untapped potential" within the staff and overall, her experience was "boring" -- which brings me to think that learning should always be fun. I really truly believe that there are ways to help students see the passion that YOU have in teaching what you love. IT IS CONTAGIOUS. Anyhow, I encouraged Jen that although she may feel like teaching there would be a difference, there is an obvious need for teachers to spice things up a bit. It requires someone to take a leap of faith.

Finally, my fiance was also in this conversation with Jen and he talked of his pretentious high school in Middletown Maryland of whose AP Calculus scores were through the roof... but having "smart" kids who can teach themselves does not necessarily mean that the teacher is the root cause of success. As he put it, "the teacher was boring, but with the textbook, we taught ourselves" -- and then test scores go up, no one complains and teaching is just the same as always, boring.