Technology Inquiry

The technology inquiry was a big project and I’m glad that we had most of the whole semester to work on it. It was not a hard project, just one that took a lot of work to complete well. Since we had so much time to work on it, I was able to work on it bit by bit while working on other projects for this and other classes. I probably put a total of four to five hours of work into this project to make it meet the standards I expect of myself. I spent a good chunk of that time looking for resources to use because I wanted to make sure I had information that really answered my question. After I found all my sources, it was easy to write the annotated bibliography because I had read through my resources to decide if they would even make the cut. My screencast took a little longer to do than I expected because I kept fumbling over my words. Finally, I wrote some key points on a note card so I could keep track of what I was talking about. I think this was a helpful project because as teachers we are going to need to go through enormous amounts of information and decide what is and isn’t relevant to a certain topic. Doing the research for this project taught me how to use advanced features in Google Scholar and the resources available to me through the UWSP library website. This project was helpful in refining the skills needed to write an annotated bibliography; which may be used while doing research as a teacher. The technology inquiry was also helpful because I could use this idea in my own classroom as a project for my students. By doing a similar project, it increases my knowledge and gives me the base needed to explain and help my future students with a similar project. I did my project on wikis and learned a great deal about how they can effectively be used in a classroom. I want to incorporate wikis into my classroom some day either to be used for projects or as a place my students can go for information. I think creating a classroom wiki is a great idea because it is an easy way for your students to get a hold of information they need or may have missed due to illness. It’s also a great way for you to stay connected to your students’ parents and let them know what their children are doing in your class. Getting parents involved in their children’s education is a great way to keep students on track outside the classroom. If their parents know what they are working on and when it is due, they may be more likely to ask questions and make sure students are getting their homework done. This was a great project and really opened my eyes to the ways a wiki can be used in a classroom. I’m glad I have access to my peers’ wikis so I can learn ways to incorporate other types of technology into my future classroom.

Exit Slip

During this semester I have learned a lot about technology and become much more comfortable with it.  Before this class I depended on other people to help me figure out things when it came to technology, but now I am able to figure things out for myself and feel confident doing so.  I have learned that using technology in my classroom is something that will be important in helping my students learn.  I want to keep my students engaged and get them excited to be in my class and learn what I am teaching them.  I am excited to introduce my students to new technology or help them learn how to use the technology they are already using for academic purposes.  I feel like teaching students to use technology is almost more important than teaching them the actual content that I have to teach them because not all students are going to be science majors in college, but all students will be using technology in the future.  I'm glad I worked toward the A contract because I learned so much about technology by completing those assignments and how to use them in my classroom.

Integrating Technology into My Classroom

I'm a high school science teacher and these are some of the ways I will be using technology in my classroom.

1. Using wikis - wikis can be used to communicate with parents, teach students to collaborate on projects, or develop the skills needed to design their own projects that can be viewed by people other than their classmates and teachers
2. Using blogs - having students reflect upon what they are reading in a blog post gives them access to feedback from outside sources.  These sources are another pair of eyes and may be experts in the subject the students are writing about and can give better feedback than you as a teacher who may not be as knowledgeable about a certain subject.
3. Using a smartboard - helps students stay engaged because it is less boring than a teacher using a regular whiteboard.  It is more interactive and students can watch the teacher use it, students can use it by themselves or with a group of students.
4. Make podcasts - I can make podcasts of my lectures so that students who may have missed class can listen to and not miss what happened in class.  I could also have students make their own podcasts about content that we are learning about in class.  This could be a way to assess what they know about the subject instead of making students take a test on the content.

IRLO Reflection

Creating my IRLO was an interesting process.  I looked at the program a few times after being introduced to it, trying to figure out how to use it, but had little luck.  I watched some of the tutorials that Professor Boyer suggested we watch and that helped a little bit, but I still felt lost on where and how exactly to start.  On one of my rare Saturdays off, I spent six or seven hours figuring out how to use the Scratch program and designing my IRLO.  The easiest part about this whole project was deciding the topic I was going to use for my IRLO because I had already done my interactive whiteboard lesson; I used the same topic.  Once I figured out how to use the program and what the different blocks actually did when I inserted them into my workspace, I actually enjoyed designing the IRLO.  I admit that it was tedious work the way I did mine, but it was worth the time and effort I put into it.  Sharing my IRLO with my peers helped because they gave me good feedback about ways to improve my IRLO and make it a little more interesting.  One suggestion I received was to insert music, which after I thought about it was a really good idea because it was pretty boring otherwise.  Getting feedback from my peers also prepared me to take constructive criticism from colleagues once I get a job teaching.  I may not always agree with the feedback I get, but I have to be able to take it and use it to improve whatever it is I am doing.  I never would have thought about designing my own question game on a computer had it not been for Professor Boyer assigning us this project.  Now that I have done it and know I can do it, I will be more likely to use a program like this in the future to create learning tools for my future classes.  I may also have my students design their own since I would now be able to help with basic problems that they may run across.  My design would make it easy for me to adapt it to any topic that I may be teaching in a science class.  I just asked questions and the students have to type in their answers, so I could easily just change the questions and answers that appear.  I’m glad I decided to do this project, along with all the other things that were part of the A contract because they took me outside my comfort zone and introduced me to new technology.  I also had the most fun with the projects from the A contract and I feel like that is something that I can take to my students if I want them to do projects similar to the ones I did in this class.  School should be fun for kids because if it’s not, kids are going to be less likely to pay attention and won’t learn anything.  This IRLO project especially has taught me that using technology in the classroom helps students stay engaged and makes learning fun.

 Background music by Kevin MacLeod

Exit Slip

We talked about grades today and how Professor Boyer resolved the situation between his grading system and the traditional way of grading.  I like the way Professor Boyer grades and thought it was a good example of how to problem solve to make his way of grading work in D2L.  We also discussed how a teacher in Canada has integrated technology into her classroom.  We talked about the different ways she integrated technology and how it can be used to increase student engagement in the classroom.  It was nice to see a teacher integrating technology into her classroom, it shows me that it is possible and that schools are trying to incorporate more technology into the school setting.  Professor Boyer gave us a strategy to use when deciding whether or not to integrate technology into the classroom.  If we can do something better or something now that we couldn't do before without technology then we should integrate technology into that activity.  This way we aren't unnecessarily adding technology into something that doesn't really need it.  The new things I learned about today will be helpful later when I want to integrate technology into my future classroom.

Exit Slip

We learned about using each others Delicious accounts to add to our own.  We can network with each other to find more resources and have more resources available to us.  Networking with your peers is a great way to learn new things and find information in easier ways than just Googling things and picking through it.  By networking, you can find information that you know is good and not have to look through it yourself to see if it is relevant.  People that we are networked with have already checked out these resources, otherwise they probably wouldn't have added them to their Delicious accounts.  We have access to these same sites and can use them in our own teaching or in our personal lives.

Book Chapter Presentation

This was a good project because it gets us up in front of our peers to discuss with them something they should have read.  I like projects like this because I am shy and have a hard time getting up in front of people and talking sometimes.  I feel the more often I have to do it, the more comfortable I become and since I want to be a teacher I should probably learn to be comfortable talking in front of people.  I may not always enjoy doing the project itself, but I am always grateful for the experience and practice I get from doing the actual presentation.  My group and I spent about two hours going over the chapter and deciding what we wanted to incorporate into our discussion.  This chapter was quite long so we knew we wouldn’t be able to cover everything, but we wanted to make sure we touched on the bigger points and pick topics our peers would find interesting and relevant to their future as teachers.  Like I mentioned earlier, facilitating course content prepares us to get up in front of our future classes and teach.  We must learn the content and be confident in our knowledge of the material before we can teach it to our students.  Having to do this project prepares us for that task.  We had to read the chapter, make sure we knew what we were going to talk about and then put it together and present it in a way the rest of the class would understand.  Discussing this content with my peers prepares me to discuss content with my future classes.  It makes me a more confident speaker and helps me to practice my ‘teacher voice.’  It also teaches me to use different technology and not only rely on the familiar, but get me out of my comfort zone a little bit.  If I’m not willing to make mistakes in front of my students, I shouldn’t expect my students to take chances and potentially make a mistake.

I thought our presentation went well.  We had a good discussion with the class and many different people participated and gave their ideas.  I know personally I had some uhms, but tried to fix them once I realized that I was doing it.  I thought that we did a good job of getting the class to talk about the chapter and think about how these things will affect them as future teachers.  I was a little nervous before we started and at the beginning, but after I got going I felt better and was not as nervous.  I thought the discussion was really good, especially for the last question.  Overall I thought our presentation went well and that the class participated well.