Takeaways

This Five Star course has been a wonderful introduction to blended and online learning.  Having had prior experience with online courses through my Masters program, I wasn't a stranger to this approach.  As a teacher in a traditional brick and mortar structure, having MY students move to a more online based approach to traditional public education is scary.  It disrupts everything that I've spent years to build.  However, this class has helped to to focus on what my priorities should truly be as an educator.  I should always be working to grow and develop as a teacher and consistently put what's in the best interests of my students first. 

For some students, an online classroom is going to be the best place to learn.  There are things in the brick and mortar structure that interfere with their educational opportunities.  Those things can be dampened, but never fully eliminated.  Other students thrive in the traditional classroom and setting them in front of a computer at home wouldn't work well, or serve their interests.  Most students in upcoming years are going to start to see more of a blended curriculum, taking the best of both approaches and combining them into a new curriculum model. 

This is something that I as a teacher need to be ready for.  Often teachers will moan and groan about changes in education and are slow to adapt to changes.  Change is difficult to accept, but teachers need to be on the cutting edge of these changes so the best interests of their students is constantly at the fore of their professional thinking.  At the point a teacher gets comfortable in their teaching is, when I believe, they begin to lose effectiveness. 

This course has given me several applicable items I will be able to take and share with my colleagues to make every teacher in my building more ready than what they currently are for this new shift in education.  We have to delve into this shift prepared and practiced, because the students we teach look to us as the model of effectiveness within a profession.  If we aren't prepared to do our jobs effectively, what kind of a message does that send to the students?  We should be the ultimate models of professionalism for them to see.  

Using Social Media in the Classroom

As with most things where control is handed over to the students, utilizing social media in the classroom makes me apprehensive.  By the eighth grade, which I teach, most of my students are utilizing different social media platforms.  As a building our technology policies do not allow teachers to communicate with students through these means.  I'm pretty sure from the administration's point of view, there is more that can go wrong with these interactions than benefit their learning.  Our Internet security system Lightspeed comes with My Big Campus.  This is a safe and educational online environment similar to Facebook.  Students utilize this to save papers, access homework, upload projects, connect with groups, and message teachers.  It has all the same features of non educational sites, but goes through the school's filtering system.  We have had to remove computer priveliges from students for innappropriate usage of the site.  They know that communication is monitored thoroughlyI can only imagine the problems that might come with allowing the students non school regulated social media.  As a parent, I would not want my children interacting with their teachers through mediums like Facebook or Twitter.  We do not allow teachers to contact students directly via cell numbers or any other type of private communication out of safety concerns.  I have given students the opportunity to "create" Facebook pages for famous historical figures.  I have a PowerPoint template which simulates a Facebook page and the students input information for that person based on who they were and what they did.  This type of project straddles the line, because it allows the students to bring in what they know about social media, but allows for the professional teacher student relationship to stay intact. 

Curation Tool

In looking through my classmates curation tools, the one that I would like to attempt to implement in the classroom would be...Class Dojo!

I started Class Dojo after Winter Break of this school year and was using it through the 3rd nine weeks of school.  By now things have rapidly fallen apart and the students have even commented, "Hey whatever happened to those monsters?"  The problem I ran into was that it ran up against the current behavior management plan that I was already using in the classroom.  Next year I would like to fully implement Class Dojo as my one and only behavior management system and make that aspect of my instruction completely digital.  I am going to make it a daily open as soon as my computer boots up. 

I want my students to be able to see where they stand compared to their classmates at the start of each class as they complete their bell ringer activity.  I want to set levels for the points and implement a reward system to go along with the points.  Things like using Ipods during study time, use of bean bag chairs, selecting seat in the seating chart, extra hall privileges, and the like.

I love the weekly parent email feature and am now embarrassed that parents have received little to no communication from their little monsters in quite some time.  

Course Application

This will be difficult to narrow down.  I feel like we've had so many new things, in addition to new ways of thinking about old things, that it will be hard to narrow my options.  I think it will be easiest to pinpoint the thing that I will struggle with the most. 

This weeks topic of Authentic Assessment will give me the most trouble.  I love doing projects with the students, but using those as my only form of formative assessment is very scary.  Its radically different than anything I've done in my teaching career.  It's very difficult as a teacher to give up the control of the classroom to the learners.  I feel so hemmed in by the outcome instead of the process of learning.  I know it shouldn't be that way, but I feel that's the present state of our educational system today. 

I will probably be able to utilize the information from the 4th module, New Tools - New Rules the most effectively in my classroom.  I feel like I am very good at taking what I already do and utilizing technology to enhance that.  The SAMR method has also given me a new way to look at the "tech tools" that I use in the classroom and making sure I can use them in a way that truely makes learning the outcome and not just substituting one thing for another.    

Digital Classroom Tool

As teachers, how we assess student learning is a difficult process to master.  When I first began teaching, I created my own assessments to give the students and then would pour over them for hours on weekends grading.  Then I switched to using scantron sheets for the multiple choice / true false / and matching portions of my tests.  This fell into the substitution level of the SAMR model.  All it did was save me time as the teacher in grading student assessments. 

At our last textbook adoption, I selected a new "tech package" to add to our texts.  It is called Class Performance Systems. This company offers hardware and software through textbook adoptions.  I was given a set of "classroom clickers" to use in my classroom.  They are kind of like a small cell phone where students can digitally insert their answers to an assessment and I can track them "in real time" from my computer to monitor progress.  Students simply "text" their answers to me and I see them pop up on my screen.  I can see how well the class as a whole is responding, or if individual students are struggling.  The clickers work for most of the assessment except the extended writing portions. 

The students love taking their tests using the clickers!  I feel like they have moved the assessments I give in my class from the "substitution" level from the scantron sheets to at least the "augmentation" or possibly even the "modification" level.  The ability to track the students performance using real time data allows me to see where I have erred in their instruction.  This allows me to change my teaching for upcoming units.  It also lets me see where I may have placed poorly worded questions into the tests.  It's not always the students' fault when they miss an item.  If the entire class falls below a certain percentage on a test item, I will often try to point them back to that question and provide clarification or allow them to ask questions about it. 

The CPS system can also be integrated into PowerPoint presentations to create a mini quiz for instant teacher feedback and informal assessment data.  After a few slides you can have a few questions that students respond to using their clickers.  I can create pretests to see what information my students know prior to starting a unit.  The system allows me to give reports to each student on their performance and study guides showing them incorrect answers, so that they may prepare for the final summative assessment. 

I know I don't use CPS to its fullest potential.  There is still so much more that I haven't used or discovered.  So far though, I have enjoyed not only the time it saves me as a teacher, but the interactivity it has created with my students in what can otherwise be a very dull circumstance (test taking). 

 

Technology Integration Matrix

It is very tough to put myself into a spot on the Technology Integration Matrix.  I feel like depending on the project or what I'm doing I could fall into one of a few areas.  It's not like I fit in one box and never any others.  If I were to choose the boxes I feel most comfortable in, I would say I fall under authentic under the characteristics of the learning environment.  Adaptation is where I feel my curriculum fits the best.  I don't think my teaching or approach to my curriculum will change much by the end of the school year.  Growth requires time and dedication.  Many teachers need to see something working with students to be encouraged to put the time and dedication into learning new skills.  I know that's what has happened for me each time I begin to use a piece of technology in the classroom. 

Barriers in Education

The way I see it students have at least four options when it comes to schooling within our state.  Traditional "brick and mortar" public schools, charter schools, homeschooling, or cyber schools.  As with any form of education there are barriers within the traditional "brick and mortar" classroom.  Sometimes enrollment reaches so high a number that students "fall through the cracks."  They receive less and less face time interaction with their highly qualified instructor.  For one reason or another, several schools see high mobility rates of students coming and going throughout the year.  They may not thrive within the social hierarchy of the school.  The pacing of the course is dictated by the instructor and peers can cause continuous distractions which prove harmful to the educational environment.  Some schools have moved to attempt to solve these issues by trying a variety of programs such as computer assisted instruction, distance education, or competency based learning.  I feel that creating a blended environment for students is what would work the best.  Each student's situation is going to be unique, but if the majority of students are provided with the best approaches from differing educational pedagogues.  From my own experience I wouldn't want our educational system to be completely converted to digital learning.  There is still value to the "brick and mortar" classroom.  One of the biggest strengths I see to online content and curriculum is the possibility of the content repository.  Having access online to everything a student needs to be successful would eliminate many of the barriers found in a traditional classroom.  The biggest weakness I see is the asynchronous learning.  The time laps can be quite a hurdle in itself!