Week 15 - 16: The End of the Begining

FINALLY, We're at the end of this course. The truth is that I learned a lot. Through this blog, I learned the power of reflection combined with feedback from others. The course introduced me to a slew of Web 2.0 technologies, and I got a much better sense of what constructivist strategies and project based learning can be like. The presentation you see here is gives an overview of the Use of Computer Simulations and Gaming to Enhance Authentic Learning.

The Use of Computer Simulations and Gaming to Enhance Authentic Learning

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: gaming simulation)

Computer simulations and gaming seem like they will surely continue to be a growing part of educational technology in the years ahead, and ones that I think both teachers and students will welcome!
While there is much I would want to see changed about this course, I have truly learned a great deal. I appreciate that, and look forward to spending a bit more time with family over the holidays.
I've also included a self-evaluation rubric related to this blog. Let me know if you would agree with the rating!

Week 14 Reflections on a Newsletter and Reflections

This was as busy week for me, consumed by Teaching with Technology projects on either side of Thanksgiving.

The adjacent letter along with a couple paragraphs is submitted to fulfill assignment A7. In this assignment we are asked to use MS Publisher or an Open Office Suite application to create a class newsletter. Yes, I know, the artifact shown is more of a class letter, than a creative newsletter. (So be it. I put a lot of creativity today into a presentation scheduled for tomorrow evening. ) With the college's version of MSPublisher unavailable while the campus is closed for the holiday, this seemed like a good time to try using one of the Open Office tools. I chose Writer by OpenOffice.org (OOo). The letter was composed using a personal letter template included in my version OOo Writer. I wrote the letter as a hypothetical Physics teacher in "Room 101" contacting students and parents early in the 2nd marking period.

Communication between teachers and parents is important because it reminds each party of the role they play together in supporting the child's education. It avoids surprizes at the end of the marking period, demonstrates respect for the role the parent has in the childs life, and can help address any issues any of the parties may feel need to be discussed. I plan to communicate with my student's parents or guardians early in the school year, and then on an approximately quaterly basis thereafter. If I employ a tool like Engrade.com (mentioned earlier in this blog and in the letter) then the communication can readily be more frequent. Nevertheless, I would anticipate sending periodic letters or newsletters to parents to keep us all engaged, even if they are not regularly checking electronic communications. With OpenOffice.org's Writer, I found composing the letter was quite simple, but no better than MSWord. In fact when I wanted to make slight adjustment to the paragraph spacing, Writer suddenly started underlining text that I didn't want underlined. I probably could have loaded more templates for a fancier layout, but frankly the hard-drive on this computer is filling up. Using Mac software was not listed as a permitted option in this assignment. If I were doing a real class newsletter, I would probably keep the letter simple, without much graphics, so as to minimize use of photocopier toner or printer ink, while maintaining a crisp look on any color paper that is available.

I spent many hours this week researching and preparing for a presentation on the Use of Simulations and Gaming to Enhance Authentic Learning. The research was interesting and I feel that the subject is far more important in a Teaching with Technology course, than the allotted 10 minute presentation allows. In a way, I'm glad to have taken the time to do the research, but realize that it took me far too long to prepare the presentation for the micro-lesson.

I learned that a key component of using simulations for authentic learning, is the act of Reflective Assessment. As in other learning experiences, including this one, Reflective Assessment is the time when we construct meaning from the experience, develop our critical thinking, and make a personal connection to the material and learning outcomes. When we read and comment on each others reflections, this gives appreciation to the learning experiences of others. Our emotional response when appreciated leads to more memorable and effective learning as well.

Indeed, of all the assignments in this course, including the ones still pending, I believe these reflections are the most valuable, as they represent the meaning constructed by myself. As a teacher, I will try to use the Reflective Assessment technique, along with teaching my students the stages of observation, analysis, and reflection which help make reflection powerful and professional.

There are many papers that discuss the value and practise of Reflective Assessment. The following article, Reflective Assessment by Lynn Dominguez (2006) was a fine place to start.

Using ProProfs to make tests and quizes

Building an online quiz on ProProfs.com was a breeze! I liked that they were so easy to create, categorize, and edit. It was simple to add text or a picture. (See capture.) Because the tool allows photos, videos, and text to easily be incorporated in the tool, much more authentic images can be presented to the student than in a traditional paper and pencil test. The ease with which multiple choice, short answer, binary, or essay questions can be incorporated, made this tool particularly useful. The immediate feedback is one of the best features of an online quiz, and of course this tool incorporates this, as well as a statistics on the usage of the quiz. From the creators account, you can readily see how various students performed. The certificate at the end is a nice added consequence for passing. Overall, this seems like a very nice tool, easy to use, ideally suited for incorporating generalized, and authentic test questions, with excellent feedback.
Ready to check your knowledge of wave properties? Click here

Week-12 Reflections put to the test

This week focused on assessment and on grading software. The image above is a screen capture of a sample page from engrade.com electronic grade book software. The evaluation provided here fulfills assignment A6EES to critique that software. First let me say that I am not a teacher, and have never used a gradebook, so this was my first exposure to one, albeit electronic. I thought the 12 minute video demonstration on the website was clear, concise, and explained the features well for both teachers and students. I created a free account then tried the software including creating a sample class, adding students, grade categories, weightings, and grades. Afterwards, I signed in as a sample student, read the grade report, and sent an message to the teacher. Finally, I signed back on as the teacher, received the message, reviewed the grades again, exported them to a spreadsheet and archived them. In all cases, I found the software to work well, have an intuitive feel, and to format the data in a common sense way. At one point I entered grades but did not see them show up. As it turns out I failed to click on the "Save Assignment" key. I could easily see using this tool in a real class to record student grades. I like the "Archive" feature that lets the teachers save past classes. I found the Extra Credit feature took a little getting used to, but worked well. Extra Credit can be awarded as EC assignments, or can be added to the grade of a regular assignment. The reports exported nicely to Excel as well. A nice optional feature allows the teacher to receive email notification of messages sent via engrade to the teacher from parents and students. As a parent, I very much like the idea that I would be able to regularly check my child's grades instead of waiting for report cards or contacting the teacher. Engrade emphasizes the security of the software, however one reservation I have with this tool is that engrade.com does not automatically sign off when the web browser is closed. A teacher would need to be disciplined about signing out before closing the web browser. Otherwise, an unauthorized user with access to the teacher's computer can easily change grades. Overall, I would say this is a very nice piece of software, with 5 years of field testing, that requires that everyone (teachers, students, and parents) remain alert and vigilant.

This week we also reviewed the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) 2008 National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). In our collaborative groups we reviewed each standard and performance indicator and considered the applicability to each of our assignments this semester. We then build a matrix on our Group Wiki cross referencing the standards with our assignments with included reflections.

As mentioned at the onset of this week's reflection, our focus was to be on assessments. I found the emphasis on assessment to support learning to be a valuable refresher. However, I found it overwhelming to have 15 readings and videos, 5 written assignments, and preparation for a PPT presentation all assigned in a single week late in the semester while also trying to put together at least 3 semester long projects for this class.

A final word on assessment -- I feel it is a matter of basic fairness to be clear with students regarding how they're learning will be evaluated. Paradoxically, I remain perplexed regarding the assessment scheme for this course.

Week 11: Making Connections

This week I found myself recognizing and weaving new insights into Web 2.0 technologies, and technology assisted education into other facets of life and education. The day before the presidential elections, an article in Monday's New York Times (11/3/2008) examined Campaigns in a Web 2.0 World. The following night we saw a new president elected, probably in no small part, because of the organizing, communication, and collaboration skills he flexed through this technology. Three days later (11/7/2008) the Times reported on a "Web 2.o Summit" with the headline, "Al Gore and the Purpose-Driven Web". Is it just coincidence that these articles came out around the same time we've been reading about "Democratization of the Web" with Web 2.0? Or am I just taking notice? Either way, the transformative nature is coming to my attention.

Not to be outdone, the latest edition of Education Week's Magazine, Digital Directions, carried an article entitled, "Disruptive Innovation" repoprting on author Clayton Christensen's prediction that the rate of online high school courses will grow exponentially over the next 11 years, from low single digits now, to over 50% by 2019, transforming, who, where, and how teaching and learning takes place over the next decade.

Beginning this week, a small non-profit organization I work with is trying out these technologies as well, with a collaborative message board.

So clearly Web 2.0 is getting hyped-up these days. How real and deep the penetration will be in transforming social structures has yet to be answered, but the potential seems to evident.

Teaching with technology is weaving itself in an interesting way in my course requirements this week as well. I had proposed an interactive computer based simulation as a component of a student's behavioral intervention plan for a course in Applied Research in Behavior Management. The teacher requested that instead, I involve the whole class in the simulation based lesson, familiarizing him with the tools as well. Well, my Teaching Science to Adolescents course requires that I teach a lesson anyway, so I agreed. The lesson I plan to give next week integrates an interactive computer simulation lesson into a non-Regents high school science course. The school still relegates instruction like this to "the computer lab", whereas I would prefer to integrate the technology directly into the classroom. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the challenge.

Separately, while preparing to deliver a brief on-line lesson for this course, I sensed that I've got the gist of using constructivist principles in the lesson. That lesson is scheduled for later this month. We'll see how it goes.

Finally, one of the videos scheduled for this week touched briefly on the dark side of the proliferation Web 2.o, including the implications for privacy. This issue was echoed in two personal conversations I had as well. One was with an instructor. The other was with a friend. Tonight marks the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Personal experiences of this period of history reach deep into a family's and a people's history. Some believe such stories need to be shared with many. Others have reservations. Clearly the power to easily publish oneself and others calls for an extraordinary level of sensitivity and judgement. I'm not convinced our society is there.

Week 10 Collaborative Tools and Learning

During Week 10 we focused on collaboration and cooperation in the context of the Social Interactive Model (SIM) of learning. Some sources used these terms essentially interchangeably, while others sought to make a distinction. For me, an article by Ted Panitz (1996) in Deliberations seemed to distinguish the terms best, if not simply. Still the article did not offer enough examples to lead me to a point where I felt I could reliably make the distinction given an observation of the two. The language related to these two terms seems to still be fluid, used imprecisely and vary slightly by country (e.g. UK, Australia, and US). I did get the sense that collaboration connotes joint decision making, planning, refinement, and a synergistic form of working together, whereas cooperation referred more to a division of labor.

Perhaps the most stimulating resource of the week, was the We Think video by www.charlesleadbeater.net. The video provoked consideration of the potential transformational power of internet collaboration to potentially reshape virtually every social structure in our society-- not only education, but also business, government, economics, communication, communities, thinking, and even what we consider to be of value in being human. Furthermore, the idea of "mass innovation" seems valid and fertile in a world of intersecting and converging ideas across academic disciplines, cultures, industries, governments, and so on. Whew!

We also reviewed some examples of collaborative projects and software. I tested Yugma linked to Skype, and found that it worked well, but alas it does not yet offer audio recordings which are required by the instructor for this course. Our group did have more success with WiZiQ this week after two connection attempts, and learning to mute our microphones whenever not talking.

I thought the project based learning examples provided on the Edutopia pages helped me picture collaborative learning that might take place at the high school level. One interesting example that our group watched together involved a digital story photographed by children. Placing a camera and these tools in the hands of children can be an insightful window into a student's perspective, while giving them a unique voice and a powerful learning experience.

I found the SIM Quiz to be so-so. I did not do particularly well on it. I believe my performance had to do with the lack of a single clear explanation of the concepts of collaborative vs cooperative learning. Whoever made the quiz seemed to have one set of definitions in mind, and as I've already stated, the definitions of collaboration and cooperation still seem to be fluid in the general lexicon of education. So for example, one article indicated that the two terms are difficult to distinguish; another indicated that they are essentially interchangeable, and the authors of the quiz seemed to think they were not close in meaning. In another example, one source focused on the difference between the two terms in their emphasis on the finished product (cooperative), whereas the authors of the quiz didn't seem to hold that connotation. In the end, I find it less useful to spend time distinguishing the terms, and more valuable to understand the intention of good project based collaborative education. I appreciated that Paintz ended his article suggesting that we, "...view(s) education as a dialogue between the student and the curriculum." To me, this view demonstrates respect for students and links well to theories of developing cognitive skills.


In assignment HA5 this week, I extended my experience with the collaborative tool, Voicethread. I am impressed at the power, simplicity, and collaborative value of this tool, not only for educators, but for other communities as well. For example, I could easily see using this tool to collect ideas from members of a board of a non-profit organization, and even blending them with ideas from an interested public at large. For the assignment, I chose to create a Voicethread integrating ideas of collaborative learning together with learning Physics. I chose to incorporate a short video description of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Large Hadron Collider. I then asked my hypothetical high school students to first consider various phenomena of physics they recognize in the massive project. Next, I asked them to consider the role collaboration is playing in this international experiment. I feel it could lead the student to consider the prerequisites, challenges, and imperatives of collaboration in the real world. Finally, I learned that Voicethread offers the user the ability to identify who does and does not have access to the Voicethread. Just like blogs, a specific list of invitees can be added, (such as a class) or one can choose to make the Voicethread public. This confirmed my belief that use of Web 2.0 tools does not necessarily mean publishing content to everyone on the web, and therefore increases the likelihood that I would see fit to use tools like this with a class of my own.

Week 9 - Reflections on Digital Story Telling

This week we were introduced to several variations of digital storytelling. The links to explanations by Dr. Helen Barret were my favorite. The Educause Learning Initiative sites filled in my sense of the role digital stories can play in education, and the 7 elements of good storytelling listed at www.storycenter.org filled in my sense of the literary and compositional elements that make for good storytelling.
As highlighted in the EducauseConnect article, I like that digital storytelling facilitates different learning styles connected to student interests and technology. Moreover I like that it helps students develop their abilities to "evaluate and use online content and electronic tools as a means of personal expression." For the first time I can recall, this week's lesson also included examples. I love examples, as they help me form a much better idea of the expected assignment.
I decided to involve my family in creating a digital story of my own. We chose to create a story around a day trip to a Sheep and Wool festival. After taking some photos, video clips, and a collecting a few other photos, I set out to build the story. I used iMovie for the first time, in order to assemble all the components. To learn the software, and then assemble the story took several hours, but is likely to go faster next time. When my family saw the finished product, they were all very excited. Here's a link if you are interested: My Wooly Digital Movie. By far the member of the family most excited by the technology was my 6th grade daughter. Now she wants to use digital storytelling for a report on the history of Halloween. Of course that means having to first really learn the content. Isn't that just the way it should be? Very powerful. Imagine how this technique could add to the learning experience of field trips. Imagine the insight teachers could get from seeing the field trip from the perspective of their student this way.
A second experience was with Voicethread. In the context of an on-line class session, the instructor directed us to respond to 7 questions. The time was limited. The instructor did not properly connect members of the group to each other electronically, and presented what I felt were confusing directions. The following day I found that the instructor had posted that class session on various public websites. I promised myself, that if I ever were to take it upon myself to publicize the work of my students, together with their names, I would notify them and ask their permission first. Many of us have seen the results of high-school students who use clandestine means to record their instructors and the post the recordings on the web. Public school teachers may have to expect that this might occur, as they are public servants expected to act professionally at all times. That students should need to be concerned that their professors will record their responses during a class, then post them on the web without consent, seems uncalled for.
Rather than posting a captured class session on the web, or assigning us to tell a digital story with strong emotional content from our point of view, and post it on the web, I believe a more appropriate way to teach this subject would be to assign students to create the digital story and submit it electronically without also requiring it to be posted publicly. Similarly, the Voicethread exercise might have been a more positive experience had they been confined to the Moodle system designed for online class sessions.