Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Animoto In My Classroom
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
Just by looking at this tool, I think anyone can get a sense of its usefulness. It embraces the artistic and creative side of learning and allows for anyone to take pictures, even video, and make a completely original slide out of them. This would be great for emphasizing important vocabulary in a lesson or even just using it to show that the students understand a theme in a story by taking pictures they think match up with scenes from a book. If it looks difficult to make too, it is not. Any subject area can utilize this to its fullest. I am grateful that I have been opened to up to so many different outlets that can be used in the classroom. This media creation website will be something I will always remember and will continually use.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Podcast Reflection #6: Dropout Nation: The Importance of High Expectations
Harvard’s “Pathways to Prosperity” report explains in its pages a ‘“college for all” goal...seems doomed to fail” in our country. Less than one-third of students actually graduate college with a degree. In fact, this report shows that only 40% of 27 years-old in the United States have a degree. With the United States owning “the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world” (pg. 16).
What I gleaned from these project:
Our fundamental problem is that our system has not evolved to serve young adults in this radically different world. Behaving as though four-year college is the only acceptable route to success clearly still works well for many young adults, especially students fortunate enough to attend highly selective colleges and universities. It also works well for affluent students, who can often draw on family and social connections to find their way in the adult world. But it clearly does not work well for many, especially young men. (pg. 19)
This project was headed by Robert B. Schwartz, Academic Dean and Francis Keppel Professor of Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Ronald Ferguson, senior lecturer at HGSE and the Kennedy School of Government and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University
In response to this project is RiShawn Biddle’s Dropout Nation Podcast: The Importance of High Expectations. Biddle is an advocate for school reform in the United States and takes a liberal stand against what he deems “traditionalist” points of view concerning education like those at Harvard and those who support Harvard’s “Pathways..” which in a sense explains that the younger students who are minorities and often of a lower SES do not always benefit from a high education. So far the key efforts of the school reform movement according to Biddle have been overhauling curricula and aiming towards college preparatory education. Most recently, this has been seen as a revising of the common course standards. Biddle says these course standards, in fact, have been a cause of the nation’s dropout numbers.
While Biddle says that Harvard’s goal is in good spirit what they are really doing is just rehashing old concerns that this nation has had since the early 1900’s. As a pre-service teacher, I obviously want to do my best and promote the well-being of any and all students I come in contact with and teach. My education I believe is leading me to a certain place where I can be comfortable in a classroom as well as effective, engaging and understood at the level I want to teach. Yet, Biddle would disagree. He believes poor recruiting, poor training (especially for the urban classroom environment), poor help in the early years of a student getting an education to become a teacher, as well as a poor system (mainly the topic of tenure) has teachers who aren’t great educators are being protected while at the same time it is disregarding new and innovative ideas from new and/or younger educators. I agree with him in some aspects here. I wish I knew the field better. I wish I knew the technical side of the “business” because when I get into teaching am I safe and secure and are my ideas going to be heard?
In bringing up Biddle’s argument against Harvard’s propositions I mainly want to get a sense of what both sides of the coin are. Is our education system where it needs to be? Who, if anybody, is getting left to the side? Why now are these concerns coming to light if it has been noted multiple times how poorly our nation’s students are doing when they reach college. In the end, I would argue Biddle’s concerns are not to bash Harvard or the elitist Ivy League schools but rather his care lies with the kids. He believes “every kid needs a high quality education,” that we should “improve instruction early” or get to the source of the problem of education which can be in elementary. The students' successes really should be the mindset of every new or seasoned educator and I am hopeful that it is.
What I gleaned from these project:
Our fundamental problem is that our system has not evolved to serve young adults in this radically different world. Behaving as though four-year college is the only acceptable route to success clearly still works well for many young adults, especially students fortunate enough to attend highly selective colleges and universities. It also works well for affluent students, who can often draw on family and social connections to find their way in the adult world. But it clearly does not work well for many, especially young men. (pg. 19)
This project was headed by Robert B. Schwartz, Academic Dean and Francis Keppel Professor of Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Ronald Ferguson, senior lecturer at HGSE and the Kennedy School of Government and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University
In response to this project is RiShawn Biddle’s Dropout Nation Podcast: The Importance of High Expectations. Biddle is an advocate for school reform in the United States and takes a liberal stand against what he deems “traditionalist” points of view concerning education like those at Harvard and those who support Harvard’s “Pathways..” which in a sense explains that the younger students who are minorities and often of a lower SES do not always benefit from a high education. So far the key efforts of the school reform movement according to Biddle have been overhauling curricula and aiming towards college preparatory education. Most recently, this has been seen as a revising of the common course standards. Biddle says these course standards, in fact, have been a cause of the nation’s dropout numbers.
While Biddle says that Harvard’s goal is in good spirit what they are really doing is just rehashing old concerns that this nation has had since the early 1900’s. As a pre-service teacher, I obviously want to do my best and promote the well-being of any and all students I come in contact with and teach. My education I believe is leading me to a certain place where I can be comfortable in a classroom as well as effective, engaging and understood at the level I want to teach. Yet, Biddle would disagree. He believes poor recruiting, poor training (especially for the urban classroom environment), poor help in the early years of a student getting an education to become a teacher, as well as a poor system (mainly the topic of tenure) has teachers who aren’t great educators are being protected while at the same time it is disregarding new and innovative ideas from new and/or younger educators. I agree with him in some aspects here. I wish I knew the field better. I wish I knew the technical side of the “business” because when I get into teaching am I safe and secure and are my ideas going to be heard?
In bringing up Biddle’s argument against Harvard’s propositions I mainly want to get a sense of what both sides of the coin are. Is our education system where it needs to be? Who, if anybody, is getting left to the side? Why now are these concerns coming to light if it has been noted multiple times how poorly our nation’s students are doing when they reach college. In the end, I would argue Biddle’s concerns are not to bash Harvard or the elitist Ivy League schools but rather his care lies with the kids. He believes “every kid needs a high quality education,” that we should “improve instruction early” or get to the source of the problem of education which can be in elementary. The students' successes really should be the mindset of every new or seasoned educator and I am hopeful that it is.
Podcast Reflection #5: EdTechTalk Weekly
Another EdTech Talk podcast is EdTech Weekly with Jeff Lebow, Dave Cormier (mentioned in the earlier blog), Jennifer Maddrell and John Schinker
In Episode #183, they start with a discussion about the website Needlebase.com which takes content that normally a username/password combination would be necessary for in order to access and makes it available to link for users of Needlebase. It’s an interesting concept that is beginning to catch on but here the issue of privacy again arises, however. Dave mentions that at Purdue they use this to go through the LMS (Which I’m still looking for more info on, but it sounds like it’s their student database) and the administration looks at the kinds of connections people are making as well as how many people are going through it and from there can make a rating of how hard students are trying in their courses compared to peers. Basically, what it sounds like to me is Needlebase takes large amounts of data and makes it easier to reference. It can be used for how people learn online in online courses and such because, as Dave mentions, it can count clicks of links as well as tell how long people might be on certain pages like the "Help" page. This offers vast opportunities in the future to make computer learning and computer-based courses much more tailored to specific needs students and people have.
Where the interesting discussion begins to take place is when Maddrell poses the question Are K-12 requirements giving students the necessary education, the necessary skills, to properly prepare them for the college level? The problem is one suggests is possibly too much knowledge and comprehension-based curricular education and not enough synthesis and analysis. A look at Bloom’s Taxonomy may help here. This is a hierarchy of learning and effective steps to learn and process information in the best way. Achieve.org is referenced by Maddrell also, specifically Closing The Expectations Gap in 2011. This fact is also thrown in, 40 to 50 years ago 6% of the U.S. population went to higher college level education. Now it is 44%.
A Harvard study the EdTech hosts bring up addresses that maybe “not every is cut out for college and not everyone should be cut out for college.” DISCUSSION TOPIC IN ITSELF that could get everyone talking. I’m really going to have to find the time to read deeper into this. The hosts ask “Who decides?” Some kind of education, the hosts say, are hard to come by with just a high school diploma. Yet, some of them argue our society is built to where some people lead and others are set up to work the labor jobs. Can this be combated? How will this change in the future?
Also interesting is the mention of the Horizon Report. This takes into account the technology up and coming for next year, 2-3 years down the line and even 4-5 years. SO, as educators we can look at what we will have at our disposal before we even begin educating, even while we are still in school?! This is intense. Why not be ahead of the game and begin to pick up what you can learn on these new facets of technology that will soon be delivered instead of being left to learn it all at one time once it hits the scene.
In Episode #183, they start with a discussion about the website Needlebase.com which takes content that normally a username/password combination would be necessary for in order to access and makes it available to link for users of Needlebase. It’s an interesting concept that is beginning to catch on but here the issue of privacy again arises, however. Dave mentions that at Purdue they use this to go through the LMS (Which I’m still looking for more info on, but it sounds like it’s their student database) and the administration looks at the kinds of connections people are making as well as how many people are going through it and from there can make a rating of how hard students are trying in their courses compared to peers. Basically, what it sounds like to me is Needlebase takes large amounts of data and makes it easier to reference. It can be used for how people learn online in online courses and such because, as Dave mentions, it can count clicks of links as well as tell how long people might be on certain pages like the "Help" page. This offers vast opportunities in the future to make computer learning and computer-based courses much more tailored to specific needs students and people have.
Where the interesting discussion begins to take place is when Maddrell poses the question Are K-12 requirements giving students the necessary education, the necessary skills, to properly prepare them for the college level? The problem is one suggests is possibly too much knowledge and comprehension-based curricular education and not enough synthesis and analysis. A look at Bloom’s Taxonomy may help here. This is a hierarchy of learning and effective steps to learn and process information in the best way. Achieve.org is referenced by Maddrell also, specifically Closing The Expectations Gap in 2011. This fact is also thrown in, 40 to 50 years ago 6% of the U.S. population went to higher college level education. Now it is 44%.
A Harvard study the EdTech hosts bring up addresses that maybe “not every is cut out for college and not everyone should be cut out for college.” DISCUSSION TOPIC IN ITSELF that could get everyone talking. I’m really going to have to find the time to read deeper into this. The hosts ask “Who decides?” Some kind of education, the hosts say, are hard to come by with just a high school diploma. Yet, some of them argue our society is built to where some people lead and others are set up to work the labor jobs. Can this be combated? How will this change in the future?
Also interesting is the mention of the Horizon Report. This takes into account the technology up and coming for next year, 2-3 years down the line and even 4-5 years. SO, as educators we can look at what we will have at our disposal before we even begin educating, even while we are still in school?! This is intense. Why not be ahead of the game and begin to pick up what you can learn on these new facets of technology that will soon be delivered instead of being left to learn it all at one time once it hits the scene.
Podcast Reflection #4: EdTechTalk: Women of Web 3.0
EdTechTalk: Women of Web 3.0
Show #124
This show Women of Web is presented by Ed Tech and is hosted by Sharon Peters, Cheri Toledo and Peggy George. In this episode they discussed the book Online Education for Dummies which was written by Kevin Johnson and Susan Manning. I thought it was funny that Sherri has known Susan Manning for 7 years but only within the week of doing the podcast has she met her face-to-face! Also they all live in Illinois and are colleagues but none of them even live in the same town.
Manning is a 10 year veteran of online instruction who started as an administrator and was asked at that point to explore online education for immigrants learning English. What followed naturally was a lead into course designing and assisting faculties from many major universities in developing online courses, which is what she is still currently doing.
Kevin Johnson taught in a somewhat traditional classroom setting as well and has a Masters in Curriculum in Instruction. He began by programming education materials for others and again followed naturally into how technology and online education courses can benefit students and teachers alike, but also he wanted to find the most effective and efficient means to do this and really the two of them together have begun to head the creation of standards and ground rules for how a good online course should be run.
They discuss how helpful and beneficial the Synchronous and Asynchronous tools have been in the early stages of online courses. A wealth of information can be found regarding these online tools; here is just a few:
Mike Scheuermann, Drexel University
This is a YouTube video of a professor explaining the uses of Synchronous tools for an online course.
Tools for Synchronous and Asynchronous Classroom Discussion
A Chronicle of Higher Education article by Julie Meloni
Synchronous and Asynchronous Communication Tools
Most of what Manning and Johnson currently do involves instructional design and what institutions can do to increase job satisfaction with distant faculty. They also concentrate on “Online Pedagogy” which seems to be a growing trend in the media world as more and more we are seeing a full transition from face-to-face class time into online courses. They frequently mention the Illinois Online Network. This gives "An Online Course in a Nutshell." The two of them believe that online education is just as effective if the course is designed well and students can navigate things effectively. Yet, they stress that the energy and teacher interaction is just as important for keeping things on track and keeping the pace where it needs to be. They mention Dave Cormier’s work that is being done in the realm of online courses as well as George Siemens. Two big names in the future of online courses.
What is interesting in the discussion everyone has though is they mention the snags that can come with Accreditation agencies and those agencies assessing whether or not online courses involved the necessary standards worthy of getting accredited. I think this was the biggest “wow” moment for me because they seem to be sticking to their guns instead of really allowing faculty and students a say in the matter. In my own opinion, I would have really thought these agencies would run along side schools and universities when it came to inevitable technological progress within our education systems.
Biggest thing I thought was interesting, the question was asked “What are the top 5 must have’s for a successful online course? Student-to-student work (Collaboration, interaction with one another), Media: Manning says, “We are beyond the days of having text only courses.” Reflection is big, allows learners for metacognition and “Clean Navigation” with the presence of the instructor. This is much of what our course pertains to and I think it is great that these people list the criteria which I would say KSU’s DED 318 course works into very well.
Show #124
This show Women of Web is presented by Ed Tech and is hosted by Sharon Peters, Cheri Toledo and Peggy George. In this episode they discussed the book Online Education for Dummies which was written by Kevin Johnson and Susan Manning. I thought it was funny that Sherri has known Susan Manning for 7 years but only within the week of doing the podcast has she met her face-to-face! Also they all live in Illinois and are colleagues but none of them even live in the same town.
Manning is a 10 year veteran of online instruction who started as an administrator and was asked at that point to explore online education for immigrants learning English. What followed naturally was a lead into course designing and assisting faculties from many major universities in developing online courses, which is what she is still currently doing.
Kevin Johnson taught in a somewhat traditional classroom setting as well and has a Masters in Curriculum in Instruction. He began by programming education materials for others and again followed naturally into how technology and online education courses can benefit students and teachers alike, but also he wanted to find the most effective and efficient means to do this and really the two of them together have begun to head the creation of standards and ground rules for how a good online course should be run.
They discuss how helpful and beneficial the Synchronous and Asynchronous tools have been in the early stages of online courses. A wealth of information can be found regarding these online tools; here is just a few:
Mike Scheuermann, Drexel University
This is a YouTube video of a professor explaining the uses of Synchronous tools for an online course.
Tools for Synchronous and Asynchronous Classroom Discussion
A Chronicle of Higher Education article by Julie Meloni
Synchronous and Asynchronous Communication Tools
Most of what Manning and Johnson currently do involves instructional design and what institutions can do to increase job satisfaction with distant faculty. They also concentrate on “Online Pedagogy” which seems to be a growing trend in the media world as more and more we are seeing a full transition from face-to-face class time into online courses. They frequently mention the Illinois Online Network. This gives "An Online Course in a Nutshell." The two of them believe that online education is just as effective if the course is designed well and students can navigate things effectively. Yet, they stress that the energy and teacher interaction is just as important for keeping things on track and keeping the pace where it needs to be. They mention Dave Cormier’s work that is being done in the realm of online courses as well as George Siemens. Two big names in the future of online courses.
What is interesting in the discussion everyone has though is they mention the snags that can come with Accreditation agencies and those agencies assessing whether or not online courses involved the necessary standards worthy of getting accredited. I think this was the biggest “wow” moment for me because they seem to be sticking to their guns instead of really allowing faculty and students a say in the matter. In my own opinion, I would have really thought these agencies would run along side schools and universities when it came to inevitable technological progress within our education systems.
Biggest thing I thought was interesting, the question was asked “What are the top 5 must have’s for a successful online course? Student-to-student work (Collaboration, interaction with one another), Media: Manning says, “We are beyond the days of having text only courses.” Reflection is big, allows learners for metacognition and “Clean Navigation” with the presence of the instructor. This is much of what our course pertains to and I think it is great that these people list the criteria which I would say KSU’s DED 318 course works into very well.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Warhawk Matt Scott in Nike 'No Excuses' Commercial
Mrs. Lane (Block 1, EDSEC 376) shared this with us in class Thursday (2/3)...
Podcast Reflection #3: Moving at the Speed of Creativity
The particular podcast (Moving at the Speed of Creativity #368) I listened to and subscribed to, presented by Wesley A. Fryer, actually consisted entirely of Will Richardson's seminar Learning in a Networked World - for our Students and for Ourselves which was a part of the Teaching the 21st Century Student conference at the Education Service Center Region 16 in Amarillo, TX which was held Jan. 17, 2011. Fryer speaks very highly of Will Richardson and all that he is doing with technology for the field of education and explains that Richardson undoubtedly is a leader in the adaptation and "transformation of learning along with technology in the education system."
Richardson, who is an incredible speaker, is highly devoted to complete student immersion into technology in the hopes that it can educate them in ways we have never seen before. He asks the question, how much technology usage in the coming years is going to be driven by teachers? Which, to me, seems like a direct challenge to teachers to stay ahead of their students in the technological race and stay caught up with the leading innovations that pose so many diverse possibilities in the classroom.
"It's about connections. It's about networks." Richardson wants to know how can we, as educators, help students use the internet, use networks, to their advantage? He explains that, basically, there is nothing our students can't know if they know how to utilize computers. This completely exposes the differences of what you can do face-to-face. He goes on to say, "Change has to happen." It is imminent. "We have to begin thinking about different learning environments. Different ways to learn for our kids...ourselves as well."
Richardson would like to see 8 Shifts take place which will propel us into what he thinks a more highly evolved technology-based education for students. His ideas are progressive, yet not without their price; loss of privacy being the biggest. It goes beyond that, however. He wants to see more networking and broader communication outside of our "physical space." Sometimes those that are across the globe or country share our passions and we certainly should not rule out the possibility of learning from those people through blogging, twittering, all those internet communication vehicles that are available.
Last, but not least, we "cannot have a fixed mindset." "No big problems can be solved by big solutions; it is a series of small solutions" which lead to answers. We all have a part in Richardson's ideas, as well as in the system of how we move our students. To reiterate Richardson's thoughts, we must stop making our students wait for their lessons, but let them go out and find resources for what their passionate about online. Schools need to begin encouraging students to do this, as well and begin moving away from what has worked for so long but is now becoming an archaic style of learning, which is textbooks, handouts; the feeding of information at a time convenient for the school. I highly suggest checking out Richardson's notes as well as the full recording of the seminar. It's very eye-opening.
-Joseph Turner
Richardson, who is an incredible speaker, is highly devoted to complete student immersion into technology in the hopes that it can educate them in ways we have never seen before. He asks the question, how much technology usage in the coming years is going to be driven by teachers? Which, to me, seems like a direct challenge to teachers to stay ahead of their students in the technological race and stay caught up with the leading innovations that pose so many diverse possibilities in the classroom.
"It's about connections. It's about networks." Richardson wants to know how can we, as educators, help students use the internet, use networks, to their advantage? He explains that, basically, there is nothing our students can't know if they know how to utilize computers. This completely exposes the differences of what you can do face-to-face. He goes on to say, "Change has to happen." It is imminent. "We have to begin thinking about different learning environments. Different ways to learn for our kids...ourselves as well."
Richardson would like to see 8 Shifts take place which will propel us into what he thinks a more highly evolved technology-based education for students. His ideas are progressive, yet not without their price; loss of privacy being the biggest. It goes beyond that, however. He wants to see more networking and broader communication outside of our "physical space." Sometimes those that are across the globe or country share our passions and we certainly should not rule out the possibility of learning from those people through blogging, twittering, all those internet communication vehicles that are available.
Last, but not least, we "cannot have a fixed mindset." "No big problems can be solved by big solutions; it is a series of small solutions" which lead to answers. We all have a part in Richardson's ideas, as well as in the system of how we move our students. To reiterate Richardson's thoughts, we must stop making our students wait for their lessons, but let them go out and find resources for what their passionate about online. Schools need to begin encouraging students to do this, as well and begin moving away from what has worked for so long but is now becoming an archaic style of learning, which is textbooks, handouts; the feeding of information at a time convenient for the school. I highly suggest checking out Richardson's notes as well as the full recording of the seminar. It's very eye-opening.
-Joseph Turner
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Fun with Text
I think getting students to create a collage of visually appealing words can always help trigger their cognition and assist them in remembering terms or phrases easier. For English this could be especially useful as many times there can be colloquial speech within certain stories that need defining or are essential to remember. Specific words that are apparent and necessary to achieve a greater understanding of a stories theme are also always present. Wordle takes this sometimes unavoidable task of memorizing terms and makes it fun!
Wordle's Homepage
Wordle's Homepage
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)