My MACUL Experience

In anticipating this event, I thought that I would learn more about tools that I am already familiar with, and be introduced to new ways to use them in the classroom. This was true for a portion of my experience. I sat in on a presentation about providing constructive feedback, in which the presenter was talking about using Google drive. She informed viewers that there is a research tool on Google docs and slides that allows you to search for information and photos in a sidebar, and when you insert these photos or information, they are automatically cited at the bottom of the page. This would be useful for my middle school students, the majority of whom are unclear when they need to be citing information. 

However, during this event, I also encountered a number of new tools and practices that I would like to try to work with and perhaps implement. For instance, one presenter talked a little about Lanshark, which is a site that allows an administrator type to manage the screens of all students in the classroom. The administrator has the power to freeze the screens of students who are not working, as well as redirect them to where they should be. When students are working on computers in my classroom, there is often a great deal of off-task behavior (youtube, games, etc.) and I think that having something like Lanshark would deter much of this behavior. 

Although math is not my content area, I sat in on a presentation from a math teacher's perspective on how to incorporate differentiation in the math classroom. She talked about Menus, which are projects that students work on throughout the semester that have 3 layers. The 'C' layer asks students to perform the bulk of the cognitive work of learning how to perform a particular math skill. The 'B' layer asks students to apply that knowledge, and the 'A' layer asks students to create a project (film a video, build something, etc.). 

Additionally, each layer has several sections, and students must perform one task from each section to complete that layer. This presentation was about math, but I could just as easily see using Menus to teach literary concepts or as a reading guide. It was amazing to see some of the work her students were able to come up with, and I think that much of it was because they were able to choose the activities they were most interested in. One student created a stop-motion video, for which she said that she had to take over 700 screenshots and put them together. When students are motivated, they will produce amazing pieces of work. This work may not have been possible had the teacher assigned every student the same project, and certainly would not have been possible if she followed the notes-homework-test style of teaching math. 

Altogether I learned about a number of tools and practices that I had not come across, and am interested in researching and implementing when I have time. I also saw a number of presentations from impassioned individuals, who reminded us that all of this is really about students. It was really a great experience. 

Technology Teach-In: Google Forms

Teachers (mentors and interns) at my placement are teaching a genre study Science Fiction unit in the coming weeks. This unit is pretty novel and exciting considering that Scarlett, along with Mitchell Elementary and Huron High School are moving toward accepting the IB framework, and this is the first lesson being planned using the IB unit planner and framework. It is exciting because it is new, but most especially because the IB framework is fundamentally student-centered. From what I understand, not having been to the training like my mentor teacher, International Baccalaureate schools use an inquiry-based approach to education. Students are at the center of this inquiry, and these are classrooms in which lessons are based on student developed inquiry questions and interests. Some teachers are apprehensive about this move, and I think that those apprehensions are primarily linked to a feeling that in a student-centered approach, teachers lose some of their control. Teachers move from being student-directors to facilitators of student learning, and oftentimes act as cooperative learners along with students. 

Part of the IB unit planner insists on students becoming more globally conscious both in their thinking, and in their use of technology to connect with and research various perspectives. In thinking about this "Tech Teach-In" assignment, I considered that technology could be entirely useful for this unit because it supports the IB framework, supports one of the major themes of Science Fiction in which there is generally futuristic technology that both positively and negatively affects a protagonist, and provides students an avenue to research and explore their own perspective as well as the perspectives of others. 

I am not the lead-teacher on this unit, however the role that my mentor teacher and I have discussed me playing in this unit, is acting as facilitator of student reflection through technology. We have signed out the computer labs for both Wednesdays and Thursdays throughout the five weeks of the unit. Students will use Google Forms two ways. One way will act as a check for understanding, where students are simply answering a short comprehension quiz on the novel they are reading. The second way, which is entirely more interesting to me, is as a way to explore their own inquiry questions. These Forms will be referred to as "Weekly Posts" where students are reflecting on the novel they are reading, the inquiry questions that the teacher poses, as well as the key concepts of the unit, in order to develop and explore their own interests. 

These Forms will consist of main unit inquiry questions like, "Does scientific advancement help or harm humanity?" and students will be asked to give information on whether what they are reading in their novels supports, challenges or adds to their initial answers to these questions. They should then form their own questions, based on what they are most interested in exploring in their novel. We will take these student-generated questions, and use them as topics for small-group discussion (perhaps grouping students by interest, if that seems applicable). Overall, I think that Google Forms is going to play a central, constant role in the inquiry approach throughout the unit. I know that there will probably be some hiccups with technology, however, all of my students have Google Accounts provided by the school, and we are providing them opportunities in class to do this work. I anticipate that this will run fairly smoothly. 

Edublogger Concerns: Bullying or Teasing? & How often to use Technology?

      In flipping through many of the suggested Edublogger websites, I noticed that there were a wide array of interests covered by teachers. Some were using technology to supplement student learning with video games and online language learning and math tutoring sites. Some were relating the issues they were experiencing at school, to their own lives and families. Some were merely tracing the events of their life, with sprinkled in happy teaching moments, when students were particularly engaged or had some sort of "Aha!" moment. Most of the English teacher blogs I looked through were dealing with the issue that David Theune spoke to us about...audience. One teacher mentioned that she didn't necessarily have to go outside the classroom to find an audience that students would help students be more dedicated and work harder to present a good project; she found that audience in their peers.
      This English teacher began full-class workshopping in a high school class, which was something that I did not experience until college. This is a workshop where all students are asked to write a particular piece, but only a few student would have that piece workshopped by the entire class. Everyone in the class was expected to read the piece, give physical feedback, and come to class prepared to have a lengthy discussion about how that writer could improve the piece. Students are then asked to revise the piece multiple times, and form small groups where they workshop the various revisions together. In this case, students are motivated to do well because they will be under the scrutiny of an entire group of people, rather than just their best friend who they may or may not be motivated to work well for. In college, I found that this was an excellent strategy that motivated me to produce a first draft that I was proud of, and knowing that I would be expected to change my paper significantly throughout the revision process, made me motivated to revise multiple times and revise well. Some professors that I had would enter the better pieces into writing contests, which was a huge motivator to me, and something that I would suggest to this teacher as an additional motivator or reinforcement for producing great work.
      The two Edublogs that I actually commented on, were ones that focused on issues on how to tell the difference between bullying and teasing, and on how to talk to parents about using technology outside of the classroom. The first was interesting to me because I have been experiencing a great deal of teasing in my placement middle school, and I have often wondered whether the teasing is actually just teasing or more severe. According to the article posted on Elona Hartjes' blog, bullying is more explicit than teasing in that bullying is a repeated act performed by an individual who is attempting to make another powerless; in other words, there is an inherent power struggle to bullying. This is why, Teresa Fisher's article notes, negativity directed toward students with disabilities is almost necessarily bullying if it is between a student with a disability and one that does not have a disability. The power struggle is inherent in that relationship, where the student without a disability works to make the student with a disability feel powerless in the relationship. I found this distinction between bullying and teasing to be very helpful in my thinking about how to approach student negativity at school.
      The second blog from Bud Hunt focused on using an iPad outside of school. Hunt notes that oftentimes when there is an assignment, students will come up to him and say, "How long does it have to be," to which he responds (to the students' dismay), "As long as it needs to be." We grad students know that answer well. He relates this question to one he finds similar, "How long should I spend on an iPad?" or more often from parents, "How often should my student spend on an iPad?" Hunt responds that the task on an iPad should take nearly as long as the physical task. So, if a student is asked to create a movie, they might have to spend a great deal of time on an iPad to complete that task. I noted in my comment that although length of time and relativity are implicated in both questions, the second is more likely to come from parents who believe that students should not be spending all of their time using technology. Parents are told to limit the amount of time students are spending playing video games and watching TV, and they relate using an iPad to those things. IPads are technology too! Whereas the former question typically comes from students who are actually asking, "How little can I write to get by on this assignment?" There is a struggle here in that a teacher cannot say to parents, students should spend 30 minutes a day on an iPad, but it is also difficult to help parents understand that the iPad is a tool to supplement their learning and might actually make learning more efficient.

Prezi

   There were several Tech Tools in Use presentations that were interesting and informative, but did not present on tools that I found myself likely to use in the classroom, or to supplement student learning. For instance, I presented on Padlet, and although the tool is easily accessible and it makes it possible for many people (teachers, students, educators and the like) to communicate on one screen, it also requires strategic implementation. If I would like students to make use of the Padlet wall, I must be able to expect that they have access to the internet and a device. I may use Padlet to present a wall with particular information in class, but if I wanted to engage with the more interactive aspects of the tool, I would have to find some way to access technology in the classroom. The same can be said for Voice Thread and Socrative. Both require students being able to access technology. Prezi, on the other hand, is used more as a presentation tool, and could be used in the classroom in place of Power Point. The group presenting argued that Prezi is more than just a fancy Power Point, and I immediately disagreed. Prezi seemed to me like a Power Point that made people dizzy, however, after the presentation I thought of some ways to implement Prezi that might be more beneficial for students than a Power Point.
    Power Point presentations move only in a linear manner. If one is presenting on a topic that necessarily calls for the use of linearly sequential information, then Power Point is a great tool. For instance, if I was presenting the summary of a narrative for an English class, and it was necessary for me to organize information in a chronological order, a Power Point might be the correct tool. However, if I were to present on a topic that was more relational than sequential, Power Point would still work, but Prezi might offer a more clear and comprehensive method of presenting those relationships. Last week I was teaching my 7th grade students about the ingredients that make up a mystery story, including types of characters, problems, settings, clues, etc. I wanted the students to be able to organize the information in a way where they would see how the topics relate and combine to form a mystery story. In this case, the genre 'mystery' is at the center and characters, problems and clues work together to make up the mystery. Although I could present this information in a Power Point, it occurred to me that it would make more sense to present this information in Prezi, where I would be able to create a presentation that takes the form of a concept map. In this case, the spatial organization of the information is important for student learning and understanding, so Prezi makes more sense.
   The group did note that there are some disadvantages to using Prezi including, it might make people sick as it jets around from one topic to the next, it takes more time and thinking to create as you have to be aware of not only the information but the spatial arrangement as well, and it can only be accessed online. Whereas tools like Padlet and Voice Thread seem interesting and useful for me to use once in a while as an option for summative assessments, for students who are interested in and have access to technology, Prezi might be the type of tool that I could implement often as an English teacher. I would not necessarily ask my students to create Prezis, and rather offer it as an option along with Power Point, but I myself could use the tool more than I see myself using Voice Thread or Padlet. I would just have to be careful to move slowly, so as not to make students sick!

Tech in My Placement

  In all honesty, I am often a bit depressed in class when we go into great depth about how to use all of these really wonderful tools like Socrative, Padlet, Blendspace and Voicethread in our classrooms. The reality, much of the time, is that the technology most simply does not exist to interact with these tools inside the classroom. Additionally, I am placed at a Title I school, so to assume that most students have technology or internet access in their homes, would not be wise. Many students note that they do not have internet at home and therefore need paper copies of documents that their parents need to sign, or of their grades from Power School.
  The technology that teachers have access to on a daily basis is rather limited at Scarlett Middle School, although altogether, I think that the technology programs offered to students in the media center is extensive. On a daily basis, teachers have access to an LCD projector in their classrooms, which we make use of every day, and may have access to laptop carts or two computer labs. These labs are often taken up for standardized tests, and it is amazing to me how often our students take standardized tests. I felt as if the first two months of school were mostly dedicated to testing. However, when testing is not going on, it is fairly easy to reserve these rooms. For both laptop carts and the computer labs, there is a google document that all faculty share, and teachers may enter dates and times they will be using laptops or occupying labs. I could see interacting with either laptops or a lab once a week, but so far this year, the only time that my students have spent in the computer lab was for testing. My mentor teacher does not make use of these resources very often.
  In the media center, there are about 20 computers, and on these computers there are many software programs to support students like reading and math games, concept map software, Power School to check grades, and software for creative projects like iMovie and Garage Band. Students do not have access to social media or email other than their google accounts on school computers. Additionally, I was interested to find out that each student has a google account, and the majority of them seem to be experts at navigating the basic functions of Google Drive. Over the summer, students were able to share documents with my mentor and myself without much guidance, and seemed familiar with how to find credible information and site sources. It does surprise me, however, that we do not make use of these skills as much in class. Perhaps when we get around to their final assessments for the unit, where students are expected to write a paper or newspaper article, these skills will be called upon. I am also interested to see how my mentor organizes and manages student work on drive.
   Generally though, technology cannot be relied upon at Scarlett. Resources are limited and it is sort of lucky to beat all the other teachers to labs or laptop carts, so when I think about using a site like Socrative for quiz-taking, it makes me leery to plan a lesson around that tool when I cannot be sure that technology will be available. Recently I have seen my mentor become more lenient about the use of cellphones and tablets in class because we have had a shortage of books, and as Liz Kolb mentioned in her presentation, cellphones can most certainly be a resource rather than a hindrance in the classroom. I will be interested to see if my mentor and I can think through some useful ways to include cellphone technology in the classroom. We cannot expect that all students will have cellphones, but we can safely expect that one out of three students will.

The Classroom as a Stage

  David Theune's presentation reminded me that a world exists outside of the classroom. I know it sounds obvious, but I think that the purpose we often give for assignments, is that we are providing students with information that will be beneficial to them in completing classroom formative and summative assessments. Often the purpose for these assessments is that, "this is they type of thinking that your teachers will expect in high school or college." In both of these cases, the purpose for the assignment is related to the classroom, the reward comes far later, and students do not see immediate results for the hard work that they do. In the eyes of a student, what is the incentive to work hard? When students are not motivated by college, how do we get them to participate in a meaningful way? How do we make the results of their work immediate and purposeful to their lives?
David Theune looks at these questions in consideration to both creative and analytical writing assignments.
  Theune made an interesting point in his presentation, and one that I had not considered previously. Parents are involved in their students' lives in so many ways. They go to theater productions, sporting events or orchestra concerts, but they are hardly ever asked to come into the classroom and view how their children interact with the learning process. I think that this might be why, often, there is a disconnect between what teachers understand as the capabilities and dispositions of some students and how their parents understand their capabilities and dispositions. For the most part, unless invited by the student, parents do not often get a real insight into how their children perform as learners. Theune invites parents into the classroom for culminating events where students read essays to their parents, and more generally, parents may stop by whenever they would like or have time. In this way, the purpose for working hard on the essay is that the audience will not only be the teacher, but someone who is close to the student and who they care to impress.
   Audience is the focus of many of the writing activities that Theune performs with his students. He has them participate in community projects, and he has them interact with students in other schools on the internet. According to Theune, audience matters! Students are much more likely to produce a project that they are proud of and put their best work into, if they are deeply concerned with appealing to their audience, or in the case of community work, if they know that their work affects people other than themselves. I found this presentation to be so useful, especially considering that my content area is English, and I often see my students struggling with the question of why the writing they do is purposeful. My mentor teacher often does a project where students each come up with a short story on a topic, and those short stories are compiled into a classroom novel. The novel is published and they may get a copy and copies for others. We are starting this project next week, and I am interested to see whether the work that students produce is of higher quality simply because the audience has changed. I imagine that they will be excited about this work.

Bio Connections

         I think that Sara, Jesse, Wilbur and Sarah's lesson plan provides a great avenue for students to make use of technology in and out of the classroom. I could see this lesson working really well with a group of students in my placement at Scarlett, much like over the summer. The lesson involves teaching students about different species of trees both through traditional instruction, and a not-so-traditional activity, in which the students go outside, gather photos and data of various trees, and use that information to discover what types of trees they encounter. I think that the lesson is well-balanced in that, the students are provided with adequate information about species, and different ways to identify species prior to going outside to do the work. 

          I also think that the time constraints will work to the advantage of the educator(s), in that the warm up is a fun/short activity where the students start out activating their prior knowledge of parts of the tree, and the mini-lesson is both short and interactive. These activities keep the lesson moving, and provide the students with adequate information to do the final activity, where they actually get out into nature and move around. I see this lesson as being well-received by students because the majority of it is interactive and keeps the students moving. I think that the final activity benefits from time constraint as well. The students are given a limited amount of time to go out and collect their data, and additionally, they are given "one technology" per group restrictions, and I think that both of these things will keep students on task and diminish the possibility of them using technology for distracting purposes. 

        Additionally, the final portion of class, after students return to the classroom, is spent using technology to assess whether their identifications of the trees were correct, and to have a whole class discussion to assess how the students responded to the activity and whether they made any interesting discoveries. I like that the assessment for this lesson is a discussion rather than a formal test because I think that a discussion is an appropriate assessment for an activity and their experiences. Students will be much more excited to share the information they found with their classmates rather than do a formal writing or test assessment to show what they've learned. It also seems appropriate for a lesson that is primarily interactive. 

        Finally, this lesson was adept at providing ways for students to interact with technology. Students use technology when they are taking pictures outside, are provided an opportunity to use smart phones and tablets to look up information about their species, and it is suggested that if time remains, students might be able to put their photos on a smart board to share with the class. I wouldn't have necessarily thought of all of these very useful and diverse ways to integrate technology into the classroom.