SIPS Self Assessment

How did completing this integrated study project help your think in greater depth about planning for effective technology integration into a core subject area?

This study really made me think critically about how I could bring technology in with a project without having the technology be the focus of the assignment. So often it seems that once you introduce technology, the quality of the content lowers drastically. I wanted the content to be enhanced through the technology, which is why I had such a focus on comparitive elements, technology allowing us to bring Lenin, Chamberlain and Mussolini all into the same room to discuss current events with us.

I also really wanted to be able to talk about responsible digital citizenship during the project and address these ideas in a way that didn`t take over the project as well. This curriculum piece if often addressed separately or not at all, but I wanted it to evolve as a natural part of explaining and working through the project.

How did you ensure that technology was an integral part of the study, not just an add-on or an electronic way of doing exactly what could be done without technology at all?

The way that we accomplished this was to use it as a tool, where there is a message about using technology responsibly. Also, I wanted it to relate to the ways that real politicians use these technologies, and if you look in the resources section, you`ll see Mayor Nenshi`s feed, which would be useful to examine and use as an example for our own work. Then we are not simply using facebook as an electronic way of accomplishing our goal, but also looking critically at the tool and what it does.

These kinds of real world examples are exactly what I would use to start a class, to focus the class and get them thinking before allowing them to work on their project, so that my students would have a mix of both traditional teaching, a discussion and a facilitator in a 90 minute period.

How did completing this integrated study help you meet additional personal/professional goals of this seminar?

It really helped me refine my own understanding of how to teach higher level concepts and getting really high levels of engagement from my students. It also was one of the few collaborative projects that I felt really allowed me to see how collaboration could make for a much better final project. Group work has been the norm for this degree but I`ve rarely found it an enjoyable experience, but both Jackie and Derrick were fantastic and make great contributions to the project.

What are you learning about possibilities and pitfalls of planning with others as you learn new things?

Always include a non-history buff when trying to design new projects. Having a voice from someone outside of my discipline was extremely useful, as it provided us with a good idea of the actual research that would be needed. As someone who loves history sometimes I think I forget that not everyone would sit down with the history channel every Saturday. Getting another voice in there was fantastic, and I hope to seek out ties to other departments in my school for just that voice.

In what ways might you use this integrated study with your own students next year if the opportunity arose?

I would use exactly this project if I was teaching the grade 12 curriculum. Regardless of where I am placed, I hope to use fakebook, because it provides some real opportunities for critical thought and developing deep connections at a couple of levels, all the while proving an interesting tool for the students.

Creation of my Sidebar

If you look to the right you will notice that there is a feed with technology news that I customized for my blog so that it feeds in stories that are tagged with the three search terms ' education, technology and teaching.' This was incredibly easy, because it's an widget that goes out and searches the stories and feeds them into that space. The particular widget is called Newsreel and it's both stable and user friendly. Blogger makes it exceptionally easy to add widgets in if you go to Design on your blog, then look on the menu on the left for Layout. Then you have the option to add in all kinds of widgets in preset locations based on your template. These little touches can really make your blog look tailored and crafted, even within a free template.

Barry Allen - Learning Specialist (Presentation Reponse)

Stars: I loved the focus and demonstration using student work, to show pragmatically what can be produced and the explanation of what was going on with each example. The focus on different grade levels and applications was also fantastic, with different subjects being covered and competencies being covered.

I particularly loved the slide on Meaningful Learning Will Result when Technologies Engage Learners in... because it was really showing that higher order work that we should be getting our students to create and cultivate. The wiki page was really interesting too, that's going to be very useful to us in the future.

Wish: None for this one! I liked the broken up format, discussions, demonstration, etc. Really interesting, I was taking notes pretty much constantly.

Great Task Reflection

To see our great task from IO: Put Yourself in the Picture

https://www.iomembership.com/projects/showcase/index.jsf


Technologically, I acquired no new skills from the project but that was actually a function of how I decided to complete the project. We divided up our duties based on our previous skills, mine being research and writing from my social studies teacher background. As a group project, that almost became a weakness because we certainly didn't all learn the same things nor did we all acquire the same skills from the project. While that is the heart of personalization, it also allowed us to avoid new learning!

The technology was somewhat incidental though, providing the opportunity to explore different tools, like photoshop or gimp but it would be a particularly time consuming task. The best use of technology was where we could use the internet for research, and finding valid sources and citing them correctly. So while the technology use in this task was interesting, it certainly wasn't perfect.

Our task was interesting because the original idea was extremely creative but lacked parameters to really make it a practical, achievable task. That came out in our intial discussions around how to accomplish this task, how wide open it was in terms of the images we could find and our ability to judge if a picture was historically signifigant. At every level it would be important to provide very specific instructions and preparation in order for this project to be well recieved in a classroom. Means to do this could include giving a collection of pictures for students to use, doing lessons on citation and validity before this and smaller taks with photoshop/gimp to ensure that the students have sufficient skills to complete the task beforehand.

My biggest weakness to the group I would say is a lack of coordination. While my group were emailing the final draft and changes to one another, I found myself unable to look at a screen due to some eye testing that left me 'snow blind' for a good eight hours. Dispite having cell phone numbers, emails, and the space on the moodle, I was still unable to contribute much during this final phase of the project.

All in all though, it was a very engaging task because it was given immediacy by looking at an event, a moment in time and looking at it from a personal prespective. Tweaking this project to perhaps be a multistep, indepedent or in pairs project would probably make it a lot more successful - But as with all lessons out there you need to adapt them to your students, subject and relationship with your students.

Khan Academy - Response

Stars: Thank god! A math resource! So many online resources don't touch the math curriculum and finding something that would be useful to teachers and students alike is fantastic.

I loved all the back and forth, the interaction and asking questions of the group. It felt very engaging and interesting, even without access really profound technology. We could bring up our own experiences, issues with this kind of teaching, etc. It felt like a true discussion, which is rare in this program.

Wish: A little more discussion on what it would mean to have students having their primary instruction outside of the classroom and having class time primarily to work, was a really interesting idea. I'll be checking out what's been written on Khan!

Dan McWilliams of the Science School

Two stars: I loved the discussion about the ipad project. Dan was very honest about the student's frustration and issues, but at the same time looking at the what a student did manage to produce. It was nice to see the different projects built on the laptops verses the ipad and the discussion on the different products that came from that. His explicit discussion of how to use the right tool and plan for that tool was interesting as well. Given our discussion that we started this class with, that you shouldn't build your lessons around the tool, but instead find the tool afterwards is a bit idealistic and it was nice to see the other side of it, the practicality of only having the one tool, (iPad) available for students.

The second star was for the full use of the rubric, explaining the choices and issues with using a rubric. I love the idea of student assessment, so the idea that you use the exact same rubric and allow peers to assess projects. This ability to show exactly how marking occurs and how a rubric is being utilized is powerful to our students and I loved that.

Wish: I wish we had this presentation lined up with the iPad one, so that we could play with all those student assignments and use the apps and ideas brought up in this presentation.

Skype - A Response

Stars: Skype Education Site! What an awesome place for us to find resources for our classroom! The collaborative element, the ability to connect with real experts... All of this speaks to authentic learning experiences for our students. Rather than consulting a text book or a website, being able to talk to an expert live really allows students to directly interact with a primary source

I like the frank discussion of the issues associated with the tool. Limitations are just as important as the potential for us to understand when and how to use skype and it really reinforced the idea that the task, not the tool comes first. Understanding the limitations of a tool helps us find the tool that fits well in our school environment for our task.

Wish: More interaction perhaps?What might have been really awesome is to skype with someone in class. Show us something authentic rather than videos of it. That really the only thing I wished for.

iPads in the classroom - A Response

My response to the presentation this morning....

Stars: Really fantastic depth for different, cutting edge uses for a tablet! The augmented reality portion in particular was interesting, allowing students to interact with their environment in a totally new way.

I also liked the little moment to go out and find interesting apps-So that we were up to something to directly relate your presentation to our particular area of interest.

Wish: You acknowledged the structure that these presentations have been taking, (everyone of these has a video!), but then followed that same structure anyways! I wish that along with that admission, was an acknowledgement that either that structure was what works best for us-Or find a different thing to do for those five minutes!

My response to today's UDL presenation

(Also found on the forum, but here I am being all thorough)

By looking at technology from a UDL perspective, it seems that you really have to ask yourself the hard questions of 'How is this technology enhancing my lesson and my student's experience?' Swapping out an overhead projector for a powerpoint presentation doesn't make the cut because it really doesn't give multiple means of expression or multiple means of representation.

I loved the inclusion of robotics in UDL, it really is the cutting edge and brings up some really interesting ideas about what it means to be a distance verses a physically present learner. I also really loved the acknowledgement of what I've heard called, partial continuous attention, the multitasking that has become a part of being a technology immersed individual. While the presentation was going on, I was replying to another email, exploring the UDL site and only occasionally staring at the screen. Rather than seeing that as an indicator of poor attention, it was an expression of further interest in the topic, or perhaps just a symptom of being a busy student/teacher.

My wish would have been a different format. If you're an expert in UDL, why were we given only visual/auditory means of representation? Although I acknowledge that it would be a tall order to do that in a 30 minute time frame.

First Post - Me, my machines and what they do

(i) I think my strength with technology is a poverty of wealth and a wealth of time. If I didn't learn to fix my computer/phone/Palm Pilot, then I wasn't going to have one. I began to further refine my troubleshooting by working with Central IT, answering the phones. It led me to some very interesting problems and taught me a lot about what to do when you don't know a lot. What I have always struggled with is a lot of cynicism, as I tend to question the practicality of solutions or IT innovations for students. My first thought is always 'will everyone be able to afford that??' because that was a hurdle to my own education.

(ii) I have always been interested in emerging technology, particularly SMART boards-but I am not overly knowledgeable in them yet! My own skills are rather limited as of yet with anything distinctly educational, but so many tools are not billeted as educational, but rather they turn out that way. Blogs for example? What better way to create something for formative assessment.

(iii) I am interested in just about anything tech related to be honest. If it's kids with cheap digital cameras making movies, or how students use their phones in schools for school work, I'm interested.