Final Blog Posting: February 23, 2010
This course has forced a modification of my personal theory of learning in that I realize my own learning is identical to my students. I have needed to learn to use new technology and understand how it will help my learning and understanding of a topic. I have had to step out of my comfort zone with new technology that I was not comfortable using, such as the VoiceThread assignment. But now I am determined to have my students use the site to present their topics for their science fair projects, a major assessment in the last nine weeks of the year.
It is my hope the concept mapping site will help the students become more organized with their project planning. I have a timeline they will follow, but the technology use of the concept mapping site Bubbl.us and their organization hopefully will improve this year. These technology tools will be integrated into the lesson plan and will also give the students experiences to help their understanding of the technology itself and future uses of the technology applied in future units. With such artifacts being constructed, the Constructivist Theory is heavily involved with this unit of study. I think the technology being used by the students will enhance their learning and increase their involvement in a topic, Science Fair, which has been lacking for many years.
My long term goals will be to integrate more technology that is student-oriented, such as the Bubbl.us site for students and the VoiceThread. I use the Inspiration software now, but the Bubbl.us site helps students to use the technology tool at home as well as school. I don’t want the students to only use the presentation skills, but also learn new software such as these new tools. I also will have a long term goal of using my technology in the classroom in a more student-friendly way, not reading the presentations and installing more images to enhance student learning. With these two goals, student-oriented technology and changing my own presentation and usage, I hope to have an engaging classroom. These two goals are long term, but with each addition of technology experiences in my teacher toolbox, they should not be difficult to achieve.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sorry JoAnne I was not able to post my reflection in my own blog due to cut and paste issues I hope posting it in other peoples blogs will be good enough for TIM GREEN..
ReplyDeleteMy original “Personal Theory of Learning” was the students will learn exactly where they are in their own unique way. After taking this course that theory has been altered to say the students will be actively involved in all the different stages of learning from introduction of the lesson to the final learning assessment. Dr. Orey and the different models of learning had a major influence on this change.
Lecturing can be one of the worst ways to teach a new concept, as explained by Dr. Orey in one of the video presentations. A teacher who reads from a power point word for word with their back turned away from the class is even worse than a lecture. Two immediate adjustments intended to be made to my instructional practice are shortening the length of lectures and replacing the words on a power point with images and to elaborate for 1 minute on each slide. At the end of the lecture adding a question and answer session and during the power point students will come up and physically demonstrate by pointing to the image how to perform the task on the slide.
Many websites did not have virtual field trips for Health/Physical Education. This is one of the technologies I would like to incorporate to help support student learning. The other tool is a blog for childhood obesity. The final tool I would like to use is voice thread. My students are very familiar with voice thread from assignments we have done and blogging from their English class. I like virtual field trips, blogging and voice thread (learning tools) because the students work in groups and create from scratch but it extends from the lectures and power points (instructional tools) and puts the learning into the hands of the students.
The PE department doesn’t use the computer lab very often or do projects with technological components. My goal is to have a student centered project due at the end of each unit. PE courses and sports run in seasons so each semester two- three projects will be due. Long term goals to the instructional strategies are like I stated before replacing the words on a power point with images and at the end of the lecture adding a question and answer session. This class has been great!