Week 5 
Tech. in Ed. AEDU209

Blast Off!

I was brought up on Web 1.0 discussed in Education 3.0:  Altering Round Peg in Round Hole Education, and have taken many college courses taught in the same way, but without the web.  The one that stands out most, is an American History course up to 1877 that I took two years ago.  The class met twice a week and started out with a quiz that was multiple choice, based on the notes we took in the previous class. We then proceeded to take notes from a power point so that we could memorize dates, people and events for the next quiz.  I received 100 percent on 13 quizzes, (sheer memorization), and scored high on the midterm and final. Both of these tests contained multiple choice and 300 word essays that we had to originate containing three people, three dates and three events.  I received an A for the class and cannot remember a single thing.  Not even the 2 essays that I wrote and memorized in order to write them down for the midterm and final. I learned absolutely nothing.  So when I read Web 2.0 Tools and K-12 Challenges by Ruth Reynard, I was intrigued.

To go from a stand up, teacher to student, oriented lesson where students take notes, and then get tested is a form of education I have always disliked.  The 2.0 education that was discussed involved so much more concerning technology, but the 3.0 education, where content is self-directed and  interest-based, with problem solving, is similar to a type of education I researched  for Early Childhood Education.

The Reggio Emilia approach was a philosophy developed in Italy, soon after WW1, by Loris Malaguzzi’ who believed that children acquired knowledge best by becoming actively involved in their curriculum development. He believed that children acquired knowledge best by construction rather than instruction and should have numerous opportunities for hands-on multisensory experiences and active exploration.  (Edwards, Carolyn, Forman, George, Gandini, Lella (1998).  The Hundred Languages of Children.  Norwood:  Ablex Pub.Corp.) I had always hoped that this educational approach would expand to all ages around the world, but never did I think, when I did this research so many years ago, that it would happen.

3.0 is very similar to the Reggio Emilia Approach, and with the social media discussed in the video Explaining WEB 2.0, this type of pedagogy is going to blast off like a rocket, to expand all over the world for all age groups, and I find that to be so incredible.

Technology, the very thing I hated, feared and was against from the “get go”, is actually making what I thought education should be a reality.  Go figure that.  I am so excited!

  

Week 4 Tech. in Ed. AEDU209

Flip to the Bridge

After reading “What Does a Good Flipped Class Look Like?” by Brian Bennett, Jason Kern, April Gudenrath and Philip McIntosh, I recollected when I first heard about this type of educational instruction.  It was the last of four math classes I had to take as a prerequisite while attending College of DuPage (COD).  I was enrolled in an evening class, and the teacher was there to instruct us on the basics of Geometry.  When he introduced himself to us, he mentioned that he was also a math teacher in a middle school and part of a new process called the flip classroom.  He said the instruction to all the lessons was done on line at home by the students, and the homework was done during school and therefore flipped.   He was not really sure at that point how it was working, but was very excited about it. 

I am a visual learner, and have found that during any math lesson, I always missed the actual process of what was being delivered because I was too busy copying everything down.  I love the idea and think that if I were in a flipped classroom, I could replay, and replay and replay any, and every lesson delivered, and figure out what was going on.

I feel like teachers are leaning toward the flipped classroom without even realizing it.  The four authors in “What Does a Good Flipped Class Look Like?” mention that during classroom time there is more student-led tutoring and collaborative learning, and less prompting from the teacher.  This brought to mind another math class I took in Algebra.  After the teacher gave the lesson, he would put up the numbers of the problems he wanted us to work on from the book and have us form a group.  I remember the first time, seeing about 50 problems to do, and was aghast.  My group of five spent 30 minutes on the first problem, and worried that there wasn't going to be enough time to finish all 50, I brought my concern to the teacher.  He said to me, “but I see how you are working together and figuring it out and that is all I care about, so if you only get three problems done, you will still get the full amount of points for the assignment, as long as you continue to work”.  After I shared this information with my group, it allowed all of us to stop feeling so panicked and we were able to face the challenge with more enthusiasm in every class after that.

In “The Flipped Class is Here to Stay”, mention is made about good and bad pedagogy.  Regardless of the tried and true traditional way of teaching or the flipped classroom, pedagogy does have to come first, and I believe it all comes down to the teacher building that bridge and I would like to see that bridge lead to the flipped classroom.

Week 3 Tech. in Ed. AEDU209

Making Connections or turning a deaf ear and a blind’s eye to it all?

I clearly remember going to an open house eight years ago for my then first grader, and watching a screen presentation on how the students were using the internet.  The teacher put up an e-mail address for us to get in contact with her and I froze…. instantly, I turned a deaf ear and a blinds eye to it all.  I could not grasp the necessity of it, knew absolutely nothing about e-mail or internet, did not even have a computer and felt outraged at having it shoved down my throat….until I became very ill a few months later. 

The internet became my best friend when I was recovering from surgery, chemo and radiation due to cancer in my throat, and lymph nodes.  In fear of not being able to speak, or communicate via the phone, I relented to not only allowing a computer being brought into the house, but also to a whole bundled package that included internet, and cable.  That, in itself, was huge for me, and after the Comcast service man sat down and showed me how to navigate through the internet and e-mail; I had indeed, or so I thought, “made it” into the world of technology!

After reading “How Does the Internet Work”, by Jonathan Strickland, I somewhat froze again.  Starters, routers, servers and packets?  How does one make a connection to all this?  The diagram shown looked like New York City, vast and powerful and like New York City, if you don’t know your way around, you are lost.  But then I kept reading and came across “hypertext transfer protocol”.  I thought it might be something I already knew about?  And it was; as the article stated, “it is what we use to view Web sites through a browser - that’s what the http at the front of any Web address stands for.”

As I continued to read over “How PCs Work”, by Jeff Tyson and Stephanie Crawford, and “How Computer Memory Works”, by Jeff Tyson, I had difficulty picturing it all, and piecing it together.   I decided to Google "packet switching",  for a more simplistic explanation and found a wonderful site called ExplainThatStuff!   It was explained, and I will quote here, “Packet switching is like breaking your house into lots of bits and mailing them in separate packets.  Because the pieces travel separately, in parallel, they usually go more quickly and make better overall use of the network.”  I liked this explanation and found a lot of valued information in the site. It also had diagrams to go along with the explanations.

I have a lot to learn on  how technology works, but because of the internet, I can find out anything I want, and that makes me feel very encouraged!

Week 2 Tech. in Ed. AEDU209 

To Tech or Not to Tech

Mr. Wolfe’s blog, posted August 2, 2010, on:  Why Use Technology in The Classroom, described me as one of many who view technology as a nuisance, rather than trying to find a way to utilize its positive force.

    
It brought back to mind, a few years back, when I was tutoring a middle school aged student, how technology solved some learning issues that I was experiencing. My student was just as intellectually impaired as he was in his fine motor and verbal skills, and resistive to my traditional classroom, old school techniques. When his mother decided it would be best for me to work with him on his iPad, I then became the resistive teacher.  I had never worked on one before, and did not even know how to turn one on.  My student’s mother told me quite simply, that he would show me, and he did. As we sat together for the next two hours, we transformed from my teacher directed method, where I made all the decisions, to that of the constructiveness method described in Melissa Taylor’s January, 2011 post on, What is a Constructivist Classroom? My student, who had poor fine motor skills, could not talk, and had sever intellectual impairment was manipulating this technological device, communicating likes and dislikes before my very eyes.  As I learned to use this device in further lessons, resistance on both are parts faded away completely.  Although my student was not diagnosed as Autistic, he took to the iPad just as easily and was completely drawn in by this tool. Studies shown in Apps for Autism – a 60 Minutes Story, where iPads increase the attention span, proved to be the case with my student as well.  Just like the little girl that crinkled up the page with numbers, unable to concentrate, who suddenly was able to focus on the numbers presented in the iPad, so was my student when he worked on the letters of the alphabet.  

I am beginning to understand what Mr. Wolfe’s paper suggests, that today’s student sees technology as a necessity, and that I need to as well.  Also mentioned in his blog, is the word “part” in that technology needs to be part of every teachers curriculum. Part is not all, which makes it less threatening to the novice educator like myself.