Effective Instruction

These are two good articles.  I did see similarities in both the articles.  The articles seemed to focus on students' needs the most.  They both talked about the prior knowledge of the student and how it relates to the material to be learned.  They also stressed that in order to have effective instruction it needs to be well paced, motivating, and have a purpose.  Feedback was also common for these articles. 

However, the first article went more into detail about QAIT (quality of instruction, appropriate levels of instruction, incentive, and time).  It also mentioned cooperate-learning, collaboration, talked about time, and some ways to motivate students.  It also expressed that students need to be excited about the material to be learned.  It went into how classroom management can help or hurt effective instruction. 

The second article mentioned reflection as a way of being a part of effective instruction.  It also talked about feedback more than the first one.

Why is effective instruction so important for us as TIS professionals? 

• Feedback is important
• Work with various groups of studetns
• Teach different concepts across the curriculum
• Creating motivation 
• Collaboration within school or classroom
• Is held accountable

What is our role when it comes to helping teachers be effective?

• Help them with motiviation
• Collaboration in the classroom or school
• Purchase materials, software, and provide professional development with training when necessary
• Work with all types of students, staff, and teachers
• Is liaison between teachers and administration
• Follow the rules and help support the goals of the school and teachers

Concept map

I hope that this will work.  I used wordle.net to create it.  

This week we began studying presentation design. I had no idea...

It is funny but I have been talking to my students about how to design a better powerpoint.  I have watched Life after Death by Powerpoint several times before and agree with him completely.  Some of the things that I can't stand is when my students go crazy with the animations.  It is like he said, the flying lines are so distracting.  I used to like them and think that they were interesting but now they are just annoying.  I like to use a few to put my point across but only a few. 
As I went through these presentations, I realized that some of it looked familiar.  I have seen some boring powerpoints in my time.  They left me feeling tired and bored.  Then I have seen some great ones and I get excited about the topic.  These powerpoints capture my interest through their use of effective images.  I think that images are awesome at grabbing my brain.  The more interesting the picture, the more I want to find out what they picture relates to.  I had no idea about the different places you can find pictures to use and to get higher resolutions.  I am starting to realize that I hate using clipart.  I would rather go and find pictures and I will check out the sites from these presentations.  One other thing that I haven't really thought about was the practice and prep time.  I have slapped together presentations with little thought and put too much info on the slides.  I have started to come away from that.  I now look more into using images and less words on my slides.  Plus I stick to a few points and then talk about things that relate to those points in my presentation. 
I also like the idea about CRAP.  It is a great way to set up and check your presentations.   Notice that I say presentations instead of powerpoint.  I have started to expand away from powerpoints.  I have used glogsters, prezi, posters, classtools.net, and others to create presentations.  I want to learn more about other presentation tools.  Hopefully, I can start creating more with these other presentation modes. 

Video in the Classroom

a. Based on Prensky’s descriptions, are you a digital native or a digital immigrant?
b. How are you equipped to teach the “digital natives” in your classroom?
c. What further steps could you take to learn the “language” of multimedia?
d. What steps can you take to keep students safe from undesirable YouTube content?

a.  As I read the first article by Prensky, I got to thinking about how I think in technology terms. This article gave an example of a digital immigrant being someone with an accent.  They think and talk with this accent.  Digital immigrants also tend to think with a single-mindness of doing only one thing at a time.  They sometimes just don't get what a digital native can grasp with ease.  A digital immigrant has to change pieces of themselves to adapt to the technology environment around them.  Sometimes these digital immigrants don't want to do that and resist that change.  This means that they struggle to interact with the digital natives.  

A digital native, though, is someone that grew up using technology on a daily basis.  They tend to multi-task.  They do things fast and want their information fast.  Instant gratification and rewards are things that digital natives look for.  They prefer games to over work.  They want to learn using these games instead of reading books.

Now that we have explained a little bit about digital natives and immigrants, let's see where I fit into it.  If you think in terms of age, I might be considered a digital immigrant because I didn't grow up with technology.  In fact I wasn't really introduced to technology until I was 12 when my parents bought their first computer.  However, I happen to think that I am a digital native. 

For starters, I look everything up on the internet.  I can't go one day without looking up information with my smartphone, Ipod, or laptop.  If I could afford it, I would have an Ipad 2 and a Nook as well.  I love playing games to learn new concepts.  I also multi-task and have a tendency to want my answers quickly.  I use technology for almost everything that I do.  I am like a sponge that wants to learn new things and I want to try new things.  It is so funny.  I have been teaching technology for 4 years and every year I change my projects.  LOL  I think that I find something new and I want to try it with my students because I think that they will like it.  I want to connect with them on their level.  I believe that people learn things better by doing and teaching themselves.  It is how I like to learn. 

That is why I believe that I am a digital native.  Oh one more thought, I have played the piano since I was in 2nd grade.  I believe that has allowed me to be open-minded and think outside the box.  It has also helped to multi-task with ease.  Just pointing out about the part when he talked about playing a musical instrument.  :D

b. Well I am wondering if I answered this question with a.  LOL  Well I am sure that I can come up with some other ways to teach my digital natives.  Let's look at what I do in my classroom.  I have an ongoing wiki that I use with my students.  We interact, comment, and work on this wiki as a whole.  We collaborate on assignments and they get to choose their mode of presentation.  I attend conferences and now am working on this master's so that I can become more of a digital native.  What I learn I bring back to the classroom and work with my students.  I try to use as much technology as I am allowed to with them.  I just hope that what I am doing is helping them. 

c.  I think that I have a good concept of the language, but it never hurts to expand your education.  I think that by reading about different media sources and technology is one way.  Another is to join online educator groups like twitter or facebook to name a few.  You can also keep in touch with other educators, professors, or colleagues who work with multimedia.  You can also become part of an email list or wiki that works with multimedia.  The big thing is to constantly educate yourself.  This way you can keep up with what is new and what students want to learn. 

d.  Youtube is quite a big sensation.  People are becoming instant stars with youtube.  Our students are posting videos of themselves on a regular basis.  These videos could be about something or about nothing.  However, some of these videos can be quite educational.  Students like learning with videos.  It is a visual representation of what they might have to read about.  They might understand it more if they see it.  But just like anything that has to do with the internet, you run a risk of obtaining harmful material.  So how can we keep our students safe from this.  Well the article talked about a K12 education group to use.  This group consists of videos that are teacher and students submitted.  This can help your students because they see that others students have produces a video about something that has to do with education.  Another way to keep the students safe is to use the safety mode.  At the bottom of the screen is a link to change the safety mode.  What it does is to help prevent objectionable material from coming up in your search.  This isn't a full proof plan of keeping the material out but it is a start.  One last way is to monitor the students closely.  Students who see the teacher walking around as less likely to put the wrong key word in.  Lastly, if you teach students about how to be safe online they are more likely to stay safe.    

10 things that make you go Hmmm....

10.  What I can't understand about people sometimes is when they can't access the internet they come to me to fix it.  Well, for starters you internet light isn't on.  All you need to do is push it. 

9.  Please don't ask me to fix your computer while I am teaching.  It is very distracting to my other students.  I do have other responsibilities besides trying to fix a simple problem with your computer.

8.  Remember to save after a few minutes.  You could lose all your work.  (Too many of my students want me to find their work after their computer crashed or shut down due to low battery.  I ask them if they saved it every few minutes and they say no.  So I can't replace it.)

7.  Save on your FLASH DRIVE!!!  Especially if you are having problems with your computer.  (I am always telling my students and colleagues to save onto a flash drive or back up their files)

6.  Type the URL in the address bar not the search bar. (my students always type the web address in the search bar and it gets annoying when they say they can't get onto the website)

5.  Can't understand why schools have to block so many websites that could be useful to students.  How can they expect our students to use technology safely if we can't access sites that could help them.  Hello, kids are already using these sites.

4.  Hey students sometimes you have to read the content on the webpage to find the answer.

3.  Parents please monitor your child on the computer.  A 10 year should not have a Facebook account or a Twitter account.  If you are allowing this then you are showing your child that it is okay to lie about their age online.  You should really put the computer in a central location in your house so you can monitor them better.

2.  Texting, and publishing online is great but be careful what you say it could haunt you later.

1.  Finally, remember that you too can become a viral hit so be careful of what you publish online and youtube.  

Instructional Design.... Education missed the boat.

"Education has missed the boat, with respect to instructional design. Teachers come up with lesson plans on the fly, with little thought to why they are presenting information or even who their audience is. Teacher training, at the university level and during Professional development, needs to focus on helping teachers become comfortable with instructional design principles."

Lesson plans, lesson plans, lesson plans.  These can be a teacher's headache at times.  I remember learning about the Madeline Hunter Model in college.  I can honestly say that I really didn't like writing out everything for all my lesson plans.  However, I do understand why we needed to learn how to do it.  It was used to teach us how lesson are formed and what we need to do within our lesson to attain the goals or objectives that we set.  I would say that Dick and Carey's model is like Madeline Hunter's.  It is very structured and follows a specific order.  We had to follow the structure and emphasize Bloom's Taxonomy as well.  Some other things that we had to do was to work on different learning styles.  

I did have trouble with this model.  I am NOT linear.  It is hard for me to follow all the steps without changing it all the time.  I like to be flexible and change things if it isn't working.  That is why I think that I like the Morrison, Kemp and Ross model more.  I like the idea that I can skip steps and come back later on.  Or I can even leave a step out if it isn't necessary.  I wish that my professors would have introduced this model to me in college.  I think it fits my personality better.  

As to my own plans, I have moved away from the linear model now.  I have to teach K-8 Music and Computers.  That adds up to 18 different classes that I have to develop plans for.  Granted some lessons can be spread through the different classes, but they need to be adjusted according to the grade level.  That is why I prefer the MKR model.  

I would hope that my colleagues aren't slacking in their lessons.  I am not sure if some of them just follow the plans in their books or if they adjust them to fit the needs of their students.  Considering all of them have come from different colleges and have been taught different forms of planning.  It is easy to see that they might be slacking.  Some may have been teaching the same format for years and have not thought about developing a different one.  I feel that it would be essential to our teachers if more professional development was directed toward instructional design and formatting lessons.  

I just hope that teachers can see it as a benefit to their teaching.  It would help them evaluate the end result better and allow them to figure out the next step in problem-solving.  My hope is that all teachers realize that instructional design can only enhance their teaching. 

Week Two- Online Communities

I have chosen to use Facebook for my social networking.  I have used others like Ning, wikis, and twitter.  I like Facebook because I can talk to friends that I wouldn't normally talk to.  I have reconnected with some great friends that I had in the past.  I see how their lives have changed over the years and I enjoy getting to know them again.  I also see how others communicate with each other.  For instance, a friend of a friend was injured in a car accident recently and their friends started a Prayer chain for him on Facebook.  So many people started sending thoughts and prayers for him and his family.  Every day more and more people like the page and send prayers even if they don't know him.  That is a wonderful, powerful way of communicating for prayer. 

I have also done this when my mom was sick with cancer.  We asked for prayer and received it by the tons.  I really appreciate all the people who prayed for my mom.  They comforted me, knowing that many others were being affected by my mom's illness.  They also comforted me when she died last March.  It was so good to know that many people were with me on that day.

I can see a school library using Facebook as a means to give notices to people about what is going on in the school library and upcoming events at the school.  They can connect with the students that they serve by sending messages about overdue books and any fines.  However, I see this mostly in high schools and colleges.  I am not sure if elementary levels would really need to use it all that much.