Social Learning Via Technology 2.0

Over a year later, I am amazed at how quickly social learning has exponentially expanded for high school students. My 14 and 16 year old kids regularly complete groupwork assignments and plan project presentations using facebook and skype. Frankly they wouldn't do it any other way -- couldn't be bothered to meet in the library at lunch or after school. They plan a time they know all group members will be at home and "meet online" using real time chat, email, facebook posts, or if working out a skit, for example, skype for the visual/auditory part. I have to stand in line to access one of our family's computers during after school hours.

The content of their projects has improved and increased dramatically from what I could ever have handed in while a high school student. They are producing resolutions for the United Nations to consider, critiques on the writings of published historians, to-scale drawn maps of Napolean's battle strategies, and up to the hour reports on current events. Kind of makes my galaxy in a shoe box project from my freshman year seem a little sad.

Technology Advocacy: Becoming An Agent for Change at School

Teaching through technology is coming to a campus near you. Call it paperless practices to sustain our planet or even teaching to the 21st Century learner. The inevitability of change is here. Teachers are faced with students who learn in different modalities than we did when we were kids. Student look the same, smell the same, even eat the same, but have remarkably different abilities than we did as students--some of which we haven't even figured out yet. And we may not even know just what we don't know about digital learning. We do know that caring, savvy teachers are becoming agents of change on school campuses everywhere and attempting to update teaching methods from the 19th or 20th century ones we are trapped in.
To effectively influence technology decisions at any school, a teacher must first get involved in that dreaded black hole of free time --the schoolwide committee. You know where I'm going with this, to lead technology change, one must be on the technology committee; to tranform curriculum, one must put time on the curriculum development committee. But, beyond attending meetings, be a role model for other teachers so that your lessons, your implementation into practice ideas are talked about. Be willing to share what you develop to bring others along. No one on our campus is the guru of anything, but we all know which teachers have a handle on the technology resources available and wonder what they are doing with all that time they reserved in the computer lab throughout the year.
In completing the requirements for my M.S. in Integrating Technology in the Classroom, I have learned to identify emerging technologies with applications for the high school classroom. They will have advantages and downfalls and almost always replace a different technology as they are implemented. To be worth the time and energy required for implementation, they must provide learning value at the level my students operate. I have practiced convincing colleagues and administrators to take up the challenge of implementing digital tools in meaningful and routine ways that engage students in active learning. In order for technology to be truly transformative in the education for my students, it must be useable and practical while logically teaching or reinforcing core content. I have even written a grant proposal for funding innovative uses of digital teaching tools. I found out that grant committees want specifics of the number of learners and teachers involved so their grant dollars can stretch as far as possible.
Through it all, I have had to make adjustments to my efforts. Surfing the web can be time consuming and completely distracting. So many pre-made online lessons there for the taking can waste the time of a curious educator. There can be so many multimedia, interactive, real world examples that can cloud the simple realities of teaching to specific learner outcomes and prevent true understanding.

Designing Online coursework for My students

The newest adventure in web 2.0 tools for me has been online course design. As a user of online education for over eighteen months now, I have come to admire the features and efficiencies of online learning. With a school district supporting online platforms for all classrooms, it has not been hard to make the leap to integrating an online component into my high school science classes. Not all my colleagues have made the effort though. Here is a presentation to convince a few die hards to give it a try: http://voicethread.com/share/1184439/

Reflection on Learning through Differentiation Groups

This course has meant so much learning in so short a time! I feel I have become a lifelong groupie of expert Carol Ann Tomlinson from the course videos and readings! Beyond that, I have learned so much about Universal Design for Learning, meaningful technology implementation, and differentiated instruction from and through my differentiation group. Our group was a talented bunch of individuals. We learned by example, through collaboration, and by doing. We set up a Ning to join and follow; advised each other and shared tips on our search for ways to implement technology in a differentiated classroom; and created a Voice thread each to share and comment about the overlap between Universal Design for Learning, Differentiation, and seamless classroom technology integration. As a group, we shared the great resources we found online. (Reading through discussions is easy at educ-6714-group1.ning.com )
Beginning with Universal Design for Learning, we agreed the all students CAN learn and deserve to be understood, instructed, and evaluated in ways that help them be the most successful. Everything you ever needed to know about UDL can be found on a wiki set up by a dedicated group of collaborative teachers at http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/. Many of the resources are elementary school related so, although I am a secondary school teacher, they work in my group collaborators’ classrooms. Who knows, someday our ning could evolve into a well-organized up-to -date resource for any teacher surfing the web like this one.
What are the best ways to use technology to gather information on and about our students? Once again, answering this question is easier through collaboration with colleagues on our differentiation Ning. We shared the online survey tools we had tried as well as the places on the web where we found terrific questions to ask our students in the beginning of the year as we are getting to know them both as people and as learners. The most flexible online survey site we found was survey pirate found at www.surveypirate.com
Next, we worked from the premise that one-size fits all education is outdated. As every classroom is likely to be populated by students with various levels of skill, readiness, and understanding, not to mention the various learning styles present in any student population, a clear case for differentiation of instruction exists. There are many web resources addressing differentiation in every type of classroom. At www.differentiationcentral.com everything from videos of differentiation in action to lesson plans on tiered instruction and more are available to the public. Planning curriculum around what students should know, understand, and do will logically lead to places where differences in instruction, assessment, and products students produce make sense.
Beyond even all this, our collaboration gave me access to free online graphing calculator as well as a cool art lesson from the Getty museum in Los Angeles to show my chemistry students in our very next unit!

Reflecting on My GAME Plan:

Integrating new technology tools into the high school science curricula I teach has been both challenging and exciting at the same time. I welcome the students’ interest and enthusiasm for using technology in new ways at school. My duty to educate my students for their futures will require integrating state curriculum standards with national technology standards from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf. Literacy at all grades must now include internet literacy, research on scientific topics now requires the ethical use of information and images found on the web, and critical thinking in science now should include skeptically evaluating the authority and authenticity of a web page.
So far it has not been easy or straight forward. I am, as they say, a ‘digital immigrant’ who has invested countless hours learning how to use new web 2.0 tools and other technology tools outside my comfort zone. The real work, the time-consuming work has been the planning in order to adapt their use in appropriate ways to improve student understanding of core content. Being out there on the leading edge of implementation of new technologies has its weak points. The learning curve has been steep and I need to make more use of online educator groups to find, share, and get help with resources. Quick implementation is not necessarily the best, so now I am focusing more on quality rather than quantity of technology integration.
My GAME Plan has followed the model set up by Cennamo, Ertmer, & Ross and now in the extend and evaluate stage, I can see so many areas that need improvement. First, I have relied more upon the paperless hand-in feature of our school’s network to get students to create and turn in more innovative work. Next,I have set up a Ning for my science students to join. This gets around the hassle of the prior platform which we were to use getting axed by our school district . This has been sooooo slow to get going as I wait and remind and cajole students into signing up and signing in. It is, after all, not really a social network. However,I can see blogging and posting via cell phone in my future as my two classes of seniors approach June and graduation and become less motivated about course requirements.


Reference:, J. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful ClassroomUse: A Standards-Based Approach (1 ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

GAME Plan Extension

I am excited to extend my Integrating Technology learning by exploring digital tools for science classrooms at the National Science Teachers Association National Conference in Philadelphia in March. There will be a huge exhibit hall full of tools and contacts with expertise. There does seem to be too many online resources for science teachers for one person to wade through, subscribe to trials, evaluate their use in class hoping they improve content knowledge for students. Integrating technology for technology's sake is a waste of every one's time. I need some time off to do this properly and without getting behind on my grading (86 lab reports, here I come.)
Now, implementing a GAME Plan with my students in order to help them attain proficiency in different National Eduction Standards for Students is a great idea. I especially like the E in the GAME Plan anagram. Evaluate and Extending thinking is critical to true learning. We seldom give students time to reflect on their learning. Wit my science students, I have focused this year on skills and behaviors that fall into NETS standard 2: Social, ethical, and human issues and 5: Technology research tools •Students should use technology ethically and understand the effects of its misuse in society. I believe students should be able to use technology productively--using the web to find whatever they need with minimal distraction. More importantly, critical thinking is crucial in evaluating web resources, in separating fact from fiction, and making informed decisions.

Modifying My GAME Plan

In setting up my GAME Plan I followed the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS-T) and Performance Indicators. The Goals of my GAME Plan were to facilitate and inspire student learning and to design and develop digital age learning experiences for my students.

While the project-based learning experiences I have been facilitating for my 12th grade science students have been engaging, I cannot say that they have been inspiring. For over half my students, I see creativity and ingenuity in the projects they create, but actually little science learning. Incomplete explanation or information is common in a project - even though the photos and diagrams they have found online are beautiful. Formative assessment to give students the opportunity to correct errors gave me mixed results. Some students simply weren't curious (or inspired) enough about the topic of their own choosing to pursue more than a superficial understanding and correct their errors. But I am undaunted, I will set better parameters for projects...hand out rubrics earlier in the assignment period and become more expert in the Web 2.0tools necessary to design better digital learning experiences.

I very much feel as if I have to grow into the connectivity available on the web. I would love to be involved in connecting my classroom to other cultures, to experts, and to other projects around the world but do not have the time yet to find the resources. I will seek out epals and contacts in the online community when I get some free time to explore eduwiki.us.

Evaluating My Game Plan

I have successfully set up a wiki online. (small applause) Not too painful to do, yet I can see it will take roughly two hours a week of my time to moderate. Now the challenge has become getting my students regular access to computers at school. Digital learning is bringing about growing pains, at least on our campus. The labs are usually booked and the laptop carts I had been relying on are more popular with other staff members so I'm sharing those more than using them as well. (Not to mention the entire prep period it takes to get then over to my classroom, plugged in and networked so students can make the most of their 40 minutes of class time.) I now know more about the wifi features of our laptop computers and the dead zones of the network that other teachers use me as a resourse at times.
This March we will receive inservice training on a new software platform to replace Blackboard Academy for online learning, discussion groups, assignment posting etc... After I already put 50 hours or more of my own time teaching myself Blackboard to be able to use it this year!
So, onward... this marking period, we'll try podcasting from mobile phones with my high school seniors. I am both excited and apprehensive since the cell phone camera project met with mixed success.
The success of my Game Plan can be measured, I guess, in my change of attitude. Obstacles are not road blocks; they are simply hurdles to jump over. I have begun wearing my running shoes to school every day.

So GAME PLAN, How We Doin?

In monitoring my plan, we have come through my second week and my second Friday reflection on my progress.
My first assessment realization: In a world where technology can get student instant results, spending time to learn to apply technology they already own is unappealing.
In my Contemporary Issues in Science classes this week, students took a tour of our school. Some of it has been newly renovated with updated lighting and energy conservation features, while some of it is twenty years old or more. Students brought along their cell phones to take pictures of features to inclued and discuss in their persuasive essay on the need or the challenges of conserving electricity in our high school. Not entirely sure how we'd get each student access to the images on their phones, I was able to rely on the fact that many students knew how to email themselves the photos. Others asked tech savvy students to take photos for them and gave them email addresses to use while easily a third of the class had no idea how to access the images stored on their phone and would rather lose the points in the assignment the photo would earn them than bother with the technology. This surprised me. "Couldn't I just get an image from the internet of a CF lightbulb?"
Second realization: web 2.0 tools are developed so rapidly that tech savvy teachers move on quickly. Needing to get on-the-job-training on the Blackboard Academy blog features, I found out that the district is moving away from that platform. My time and efforts would be better spent designing wiki spaces from free hosts on the web. So back to the drawing board with that goal.
Questions to follow up: Which wiki space will allow me the most free features, but still give me security for student privacy - a requirement fo my district?

Moving Forward with my GAME Plan

Its nearly Friday and time for my first week's Game Plan reflection. Happy with my goals? Yes, and excited as well to bring 21st century techniques to my 21st century learners.

I realize that, in order to improve the quality of my teaching through technology tools, I will need support and the shared expertise of my colleagues and peers. For example, my goal to implement the use of student blogging as a learning and reflecting tool has required me to seek out training in the discussion features on Blackboard Academy - the web page program our school district subscribes to. I have found a colleague in the Social studies department of our high school who has used student discussion boards for two years now and she is guiding me through the steps to moderate student postings. I'm slow at manipulating the program, but getting better. I'll certainly appreciate the mentoring of any colleagues out there using this feature on Blackboard Academy.

I have also run into challenges implementing my students' cell phone use for class projects. Many do not know how to upload photos they've take with their own camera/cell phone. I am having to learn the features of many different phones to guide them. I'll be searching for additional information online about two different phone models in order to assist students unless I can find one program online to coordinate this featue for the students. I am open to suggestions...

My Technology GAME Plan

My GAME PLAN:

There is an organization known as the International Society for Technology in Education. Their National Education Standards provide a guideline for teachers to become proficient in educating students with and through technology. For reference, please follow the link to the standards: http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf. This year I have spent a great deal of time in class modeling the use of technology tools and promoting digital citizenship. I both teach and expect the ethical use of online material in student work. I have also made a serious commitment to engage in professional growth in this area by focusing my free time on earning a master’s degree in Instructional Technology. My use of technology to facilitate learning, however, still needs improvement. I have set myself two goals to strengthen my proficiency. The first is to facilitate and inspire student learning and the second is to design and develop digital age learning experiences for my students.

In order to achieve these goals I plan to promote innovative thinking daily in class and develop an online place for student reflection and sharing. I have begun by setting up an online classroom with assignments and handouts posted but will expand, now, and use the discussion features of the software. My high school students come to class loaded down with technology and I plan to use their cell phones and cell phone cameras to full advantage when planning homework assignments and sharing learning. Imagine photographing and uploading your own home’s electricity meter when studying energy conservation. Podcasting from a cell phone when a student is standing by an idling bus or sharing a ride in a carpool is a great way to make understanding greenhouse gas emissions real.

In order to evaluate my progress I will invite colleagues in for peer observation and keep a weekly log --a Friday reflection—about my goals. What I’ve tried and what I feel was successful will inform my teaching practice in years to come.