June 12th Readings

Lead, Don't Lecture: A New Approach to Teaching
by: Ninive C. Calegari and Daniel Moulthrop

This article goes along with my own personal teaching philosophy. It states that "teaching is about coaching-understanding the specific needs and skills of each student, and then, to a certain extent, teaching them individually." This quote makes complete sense! If you notice a child struggling with a certain topic, why would you continue teaching to the rest of the class, while that child continues to regress? I believe teachers should present the idea, guide them through the process, allow students to problem solve and collarborate together, while you are able to then rove around the room assessing student progress and pulling flexible groups based on student need (either to break down the lesson or to give an extension).

Transforming Learning with Technology
funded by Joyce Foundation
This article seemed to connect with the majority of the other articles on integrating technology and what we have discussed in our class. It is essential to integrate technology into our curriculum, but to make that learning authentic, relate it to the real world. When students are able to understand why they are learning a certain concept and how it relates to their own personal lives, they are able to make stronger connections. A great way to continually integrate technology into our daily lessons, is to collaborate with other educators. Listen to what other teachers are doing in their classrooms. With so much on our plates, it is important to not "reinvent the wheel", but learn how to tweak our instruction in ways to make the learning more engaging to meet the needs of our individual students.

How do Teachers Become Tech Wizards?
By: Rosemary Shaw
Rosemary suggest three strategies to use to become stronger in the field of technology:

1. Be open to new ideas (continually read up on new ideas, attend conferences, and subscribe to professional articles and journals)
2. Problem Solving Skills (instead of reaching out to others when you can't figure out a problem, try first to solve it on your own. You might just learn something! Who would have thought that was possible??)
3. Determination (know that if you have the drive to make change happen, continue to find ways to keep educators positive)

Making Good Change Happen

by: Jamie McKenzie

This article was very interesting, because it discussed the gap between district administrations and classroom teachers. Districts get ahead of themselves, and spend millions of dollars on technology for schools, but fail to teach teachers on how to successfully implement this technology into their instruction. Principal Don Weatherby states, "Change doesn't happen in a school simply because you install new equipment." Funding needs to be made in appropriate measures, and discussions between administrations need to include the teachers! Teachers are the ones in charge of their students, and they know what's best. A bad example of how this was done in my district, was the installation of Smartboards a few years ago. Luckily I was in my room when the installation process began, because I was able to explain where I wanted the wall port in relation to my desk. Other teachers were unfortunately not in their rooms when the installation process began, and they had to completely rearrange their rooms so that the technology would work the way it was made. Frustrating!! Are we supposed to live in our rooms, so that changes are not made to completely reuine the flow of our days?

June 11th Readings

Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply and Questions to Ask
This article was written by UC Berkley. A very well written article to refer to when trying to validate a webpage. One suggestion that this article suggested to use when trying to find the source, was to Truncate the url. This means that you get rid of most of the url, to help locate the main page. This site offered a lot of suggestions, many that we have learned in Dr. Christie's class. I think Nicole discussed the site, alexa.com, in one of her past blogs or maybe we discussed it as a reading group during class. This site would definitely be helpful when wanting to find out what other links connect to a site you are researching. I wonder what sites would link to our websites??

Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools
It is important that many web version articles show similarity to a print version. Some key differences that readers may notice would be color and graphics. Clearly it costs much less to have a web page in color rather than a printed page. This article specified 5 criteria to look for when evaluating web sites:

1. Accuracy of Web Documents
2. Authority of Web Documents
3. Objectivity of Web Documents
4. Currency of the Web Documents (is the site updated...do the links work?)
5. Coverage of the Web Documents

Implementing the Standards into Projects by Rosemary Shaw

Rosemary is a huge advicate for project-based learning for a number of reasons. One of the reasons was that it provided an array of curriculum options. With high stakes testing and administrators breathing down our necks on increasing student achievement...there never seems to be enough time to get it all done! This is when it is really crucial for us (the educators) to familiarize ourselves with the standards in all areas of our grade, and see what standards may cross-so we can develop lessons that can "kill two birds with one stone". This article made me laugh when it gave suggestions on how to find our state's standards. If we are in the field of education and are able to take graduate courses, we better know how to find our state standards! Better yet-we better understand how to use them to help us create our lessons. Standards are the cornerstone of what we teach. I thought it was interesting that this article mentioned NAEP. My school was selected to take part in this testing this past year. I actually never knew what this test was till now (sad day for the teacher!). Not all of the kids in my grade level had to take the test. Students were randomly selected based on many different variables (ethnicity, gender, etc). I am not sure if we have access to those results yet, but now that I have a better understanding of what the test was assessing, I will keep my eyes peeled for the results. The light is almost bright!!

June 10th Reading

An Internet Tour of Your School
Funny that we are reading this article. My school just implemented the virtual school tour on our website. This tool has provided future parents and new-teacher candidates valuable information about the district and school philosophy, mission statement, and campus information. My only concern with the tour, is that it won't load on my faculty computer! Kind of a big deal right? I can never download any new programs onto my teacher computer without my Technology administrator's permission. She has to accept the download, because I do not have administrator priviledges. Currently, the tour requires a more current form of Window's Media Player that is not installed on our computers. I have never viewed the virtual tour, but apparently it is a big hit!

Seymour Papert on Project-Based Learning
Professor Paper, a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence and a professor at MIT, is a huge advicate on project-based learning. He suggested throwing out curriculum maps and standards, because we are segregating the child based on age and grade. Learning needs to be done based on common student interest. Although I partially agree with this learning concept, I also find it hard to completely accept and follow. Unless teachers, administrators, Departments of Education, and test writers follow this concept across the board, the way our society measures student achievement, following an entirely based project-based learning curriculum would not work. I do agree that we should try to base a great majority of our curriculum into engaging lessons that relate to student interest, because this is where their true creativity shines through. Baby steps starts with more funding to support project-based learning and more professional development across the board to support teachers in their learning and execution in implementing and planning for these types of lessons.

Designing School Web Sites to Deliver
I really didn't learn that much in this article, because most of it was already covered by Dr. Christie in our class. I did like the rubric for evaluating school websites. Since parents are having more of a choice of where to send their kids, school web sites are used as a way to "shop" for the perfect school. In order to draw our future clients, we must create safe, effective, and working web sites.

How to Plan Your School's Web Site
Again, this article was fairly similar to the previous article about school web sites. Dr. Christie has done an excellent job going through important steps on how to design our site as well as give us tips on what should be found on our sites. Key topics mentioned were the following: make things easy to find; simple navigation bar; eliminate audio files and large graphics (always resize them...we do all know how to use PhotoShop now); and add information that is important for parents and students to know, especially if they are using your site to choose between your school and the next. Make your site offer something that is key but also make it almost identical to any hard copy you would offer parents. One thing I did learn that I almost always look for in a site, but never gave a lot of thought about, was to include on-line forms. Not only are they easy and accesible instantly, they are also time and money savers down the road. I guess we can all now view our own school sites with a constructive eye and possibly offer some tips and suggestions on how to improve the site for whatever audience we are trying to attract.

June 9th Readings

Caught in the Digital Divide
I found this article very true. In the school that I teach at, it is in a lower socio-economic area, where diversity is high (Hispanic, African-American, native American, and Caucasian families reside). The Digital Divide has definitely effected the majority of my students, in many different ways. A lot of them have computers, but no Internet access. But then I get frustrated with the families who do have this technology at their homes and more (Video games, etc), but can't provide for their kids in other ways. Sometimes I think the families in these areas have their priorities out of order. Two of my friends were recently in the Teach for America Program in the South Bronx, NY. Their schools were at the center of the digital divide. They both entered their schools with so much knowledge and experience in many different avenues. The teachers and students in these schools were very similar. Technology was lacking in these schools, and it was almost like the educators who chose to teach in these areas did nothing to make that change. Both of my friends worked hard writing grants, contacting outside corporations to have technology donated for their classrooms. Now those classrooms had the opportunity to explore learning in new and exciting ways. But those are only 2 people making a difference in 2 classrooms! I guess change takes time, but if we are able to discuss the importance with all educators and show them how to find resources for their schools, the opportunities are endless!

Community Technology Centers: A National Movement to Close the Digital Divide by: Mark Sargent
This movement was started by a math / science teacher who I also see as a technology entrepreneur. Antonia Stone opened the first technology center in Harlem in a low income area ("Playing to Win"). This small idea offering access in a small community expanded into a national movement (CTCNet) of more than 600 affiliates with more than 4,000 locations (i.e. public libraries, Boy's and Girl's Clubs, church programs, etc.). Now low income communities, as well as people who lack these services because of other circumstances have the opportunity to educate themselves through the use of technology. This article highlighted two after school programs that took technology instruction to the next level. One, Plugged in Greenhouse, inspired learners to use their creativity and art to express their learning and understanding. Students worked on projects and implemented different technology to explain and expand on their ideas. At one point, they were even allowed to display their art at the Palo Alto Art Center. Students love to display and present their finished and published work. This gives them a sense of self and boosts their confidence levels. Angela Booker (program manager) said, "give a child the ability to take technology to a new place, then eventually, you'll bridge the gap." I see this happening in our EDT 545 class every day with the student interns. They are not just going through the motions of using boring technology, but are given a few essential skills, and each day they are exploring more and more to create new ideas that are all student centered.

June 8th Readings

Teaching Information Literacy (Tips and Resources) & Media Literacy
The first article broke down the topics according to imporant areas of concern in most classrooms. It is so important to teach kids how to differentiate between good and bad websites. I though the QUICK site was an excellent student friendly guide to use with our students to help them understand what to look for when searching for information on the Internet. I have had a few instances of plagiarism in the past, and it just breaks my heart to know that the child had to stoop that low to turn in an assignment. Usually, they just ran out of time and thought instead of coming to me for help, that cheating would be the easy way out. It all goes back to reading comprehension. If a child is reading something that is above their reading level, then of course they will have difficulties making any common connections with the text. This article said that if students "understand what they are reading, it will help them paraphrase" the cited text into their own words. This is a crucial step that I know I will have to work more on with my upcoming class.

Reading Information Literacy: Strategies for Developing Informed Decision Makers and Independent Lifelong Learners
Literacy is constantly changing, because our use of staying informed on a daily basis has gone beyond just reading the morning paper. People not only read for information, but listen to talk radio, read BLOGS, listen to the news on tv, etc. All of these different forms of literacy require different skills. We need to teach out kids how to be "literate in a technical world". Because things are contantly changing, we must always be prepared for change, which also means we are constantly learning. I agree with Alvin Toffler's quote, "students need to be information literate, lifelong learners." In this day in age, we are learning something new every day that we can hopefully apply to our own lives (aka...this class!). Toffler also states that the definition of illiterate is changing. Illiterate is "those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." The educators in our schools who refuse to learn new teaching strategies (i.e. technology) or new ways to reach all of our learners (i.e. learning modalities) will soon become illiterate. In order for learning to be legitimate, we have to think about what it is we want our kids to know and formulate our questions (higher level: Bloom's) off of our objective. This article specifically discussed specific learning outcomes for different age bands. The outcomes always start with the basics (speaking and listening) and our goal is to get them to write and represent their ideas in a new and creative way (technology based). Because education is constantly changing to better the learning of the students, it is up to us (the educators) to continue to take professional development courses and to not become the "illiterate" bunch who have become set in their ways.

June 6th Readings: Internet Surfing Safety

Safe Passage: Teaching Kids to be Safe and Responsible Online
This article seemed pretty self exclamatory to me about the roles of parenting, but for some parents that are not involved in their child's life, it could be a scary reality check. I did agree with the quote that kids think "that if it's on a computer it must be true". They have the illusion of a published document being factual and non-fiction. What most kids are not aware of, is that anyone can publish something on the Internet no matter what their educational background or expertise in that particular topic. One of the biggest ideas that was spread throughout this arcticle was protecting your identity. Having had my own identity stolen in high school, I know the long rode of uphill battles it takes to re-deam your name in crystal clear condition. One thing that I learned new in this article was "File Sharing". I was unaware that you could search for other files on other peole's computers and then make that file your own. Talk about stolen identities and copyright fraud! If you weren't sure about sharing information about your personal identity before, the scare of file sharing should hopefully make the decision for you.

Child Safety on the Information Highway
by: Lawrence J. Magid (2003)
This article is sponsored by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This article also talked a lot about parenting skills and what to look out for as suspicious behavior of your child as well as ways you can help prevent your child to come across any inappropriate content on the web. This past year, our school had a visit from Robin Stamp who works for the Arizona Attorney General's office in its consumer outreach division. Mr. Stamp came and presented an interactive lesson to the entire 4th grade (using the Smart Board) on the importance of Internet Safety. He also presented the website (NetSmartz4Kids), which helps promote Internet safety and proper rules and guidelines for surfing the web. It is important to remember that no matter how hard we try, the Internet is a large place and can be filled with sites and pop ups that are not okay for our children. Our kids must be aware of these inappropriate sites and must tell an adult if they see anything that makes them feel uncomfortable or isf anyone approaches them on-line in a inappropriate manner. As eductors and parents, it is our job to do everything in our power to protect our kids, but we can't be looking over their shoulder every second, so it is up to them to act "streetsmart" and to make wise judgement calls when it comes to the Internet.

June 5th Readings: Technology Transforming Education

Big Ideas for Better Schools: 10 Ways to Improve Education
This was a well organized article that linked the idea that several different factors had to be in order to have a successful learning environment. My mind is stuck on the idea of Web Quests, because this article also touched on the idea that learning must be "project based-engaging for students-hands on-not from a textbook". This goes along perfectly with my philosophy of education and also the way my school district looks at hiring potential teachers. Everything we do should be student centered. Everyone in the community (students, teachers, schools, parents, and members of the community) must work together to help make our schools more successful. The section on parental involvement was interesting. I would be nervous to go out to the home sites of all of my students, because of the areas that some of my kids live. I always send out my first Welcome Newsletter before school starts, with their first homework assignment attached, so both the parents and students are able to get to know me as well as the curriculum before school starts. Also-my school district offers parenting classes for those parents who struggle in any shape or form with their child (i.e. disability, ADD/ADHD, young parents, etc).

Rearrange the Desks: Reposition the Students' Seats to Help Retain their Attention
No desk arrangement should every be permanent. My kids are so used to having their desks moved around, and having to work in cooperative groups, that they almost get excited during AIMS testing when I have to put them into rows! They always think that is such an exciting arrangement and beg me to keep them like that for the remainder of the school year (like that will ever happen!). I did learn some good advice on how and where to space the student desks in the classroom. The article stated that each desk should not be farther than 15 feet in any direction from the instructional source. I will keep that idea in mind when I set up my classroom this fall.

Counting on Computers
This article started out as somewhat sad and depressing, because of all the hardships this Chicago school district has dealt with and the blasphemy from politicians. This district seemed to have had enough, and finally decided to make a change! After 4 years of change, the district's test scores have been rising. Many think this phenomenon is linked to the additional technologies that have been placed on school campuses. Teachers are no longer using technology as a way to drill and kill their students, but as a way to tackle today's learning objectives in a more hands on and inquiry based lesson approach where the student takes charge of his/her learning and the teacher is the facilitator.

The Next Step
I enjoyed this article by Howard D. Mehlinger, because he took a step back and observed the entire teaching process and what steps need to be accomplished so that computers and other forms of technology can be used to their fullest potential to support academic achievement. Technology is here to stay, and it is important that the earlier we introduce our students to these skills, the easier the transition to higher education. The same applied to teachers. Teachers must be trained and given the time to experiment with various forms of technology before they are expected to become experts. Modeling is key! Teachers were at one time the same age as their students. We all know that sometimes our kids work for an incentive. The same thing applies to teachers. More responsibility and leadership roles are being dumped on educators with no reimbursement. If we want our teachers to be able to support others at a particular site, they have to know that their work is valued and appreciated. I can just assume right now, that without them, far too many teachers would have already left education, because of lack of professional development and guidance. One of the most valuable parts of this article that I will walk away with is assessing our technology and providing feedback. It is our job as educators to know what needs to be changed in order to improve student achievement. I believe that technology can and does improve achievement, but if there are not proper forms of data that can prove these factors, school boards will not approve and more money on expansion or additional programs.