Sunday, November 21, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Game Plan for strenthening confidence with teaching technology
The National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Teachers list 20 areas that effective teachers need to be able to model and apply. Some of the standards and indicators I presently use and others need some practice and polishing. Two indicators that I would like to strengthen my confidence in are 3.c. – Model Digital-Age Work and Learning, communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats and 5.a. – Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership, participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.
With regards to the first standard, my Goal is to create a classroom wiki. I have created one in a previous course at Walden but have not pursued it further. I remember that the process was a bit daunting at first but towards the end of the course the process flowed easier. I admit to being nervous at the prospect. I would love to use the wiki at a place to store curriculum updates, share information with the students, and have them share information with me. The Action I need to take is to create the wiki. I will re-visit the course where I made the wiki to look for notes I took regarding the process. There are websites that host wikis and I remember liking wet paint so I will most likely go with that one. I do not anticipate this being painless.
The second standard involves participating in global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning. My Goal is to subscribe to some teacher blogs that pertain to technology. I will start my quest at google. It will take some time to pinpoint some blogs that have good, creative ideas but it will be time well spent. I am a high school teacher and my subject is reading and research so that will narrow my search some. I believe that being creative is a pursuit that should be modeled daily by teachers so it is my goal to find teachers that are creative and look for new ideas to use in my classroom with regards to technology.
With regards to the first standard, my Goal is to create a classroom wiki. I have created one in a previous course at Walden but have not pursued it further. I remember that the process was a bit daunting at first but towards the end of the course the process flowed easier. I admit to being nervous at the prospect. I would love to use the wiki at a place to store curriculum updates, share information with the students, and have them share information with me. The Action I need to take is to create the wiki. I will re-visit the course where I made the wiki to look for notes I took regarding the process. There are websites that host wikis and I remember liking wet paint so I will most likely go with that one. I do not anticipate this being painless.
The second standard involves participating in global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning. My Goal is to subscribe to some teacher blogs that pertain to technology. I will start my quest at google. It will take some time to pinpoint some blogs that have good, creative ideas but it will be time well spent. I am a high school teacher and my subject is reading and research so that will narrow my search some. I believe that being creative is a pursuit that should be modeled daily by teachers so it is my goal to find teachers that are creative and look for new ideas to use in my classroom with regards to technology.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Reflection on Information Literacy Skills in the Classroom
At the end of a course surrounding information literacy skills I am asked to reflect on any striking revelation I have had. An issue that comes to mind is realizing how important it is for me to stress to the students that they need to be critical readers of the Web. What this means exactly is that I need to explain to my students that what they are reading, albeit published material, may be biased or, even still, untrue. This is a factor that they do not have to worry about with published books. The internet, however, is a completely different animal. The strategies I learned in my graduate course will go a long way towards helping my students properly evaluate a website.
When constructing an inquiry project for this course I was involved in helping the students to generate a question for the project, elucidate how to effectively find good sources, evaluate those sources and finally to synthesize their information into idea they could call their own. I will depend on the topic + focus stratagem to not only help the students better concentrate on what their question should look like but as a tactic that is useful to find sources on the internet when plugged into a search engine. This is a valuable skill that has helped me in the classroom and will be incorporated into every inquiry project I create both on line and off line.
Finally, I am passionate about sharing my new found information literacy skills with my colleagues. We have a Professional Learning Community meeting once a week and I would like to put together a series of lessons wherein I can pass along all the effective tools and skills that I have learned in this class. There are numerous handouts that I can share as well as putting forth the experience I have gained from completing an inquiry based unit that involved the students researching on the internet. I would not be surprised if some of my colleagues are in the dark regarding checking for the validity of websites. Unfortunately we live in a time when you have to demonstrate rigor towards safety and cannot trust information as easily as we once could. I am looking forward to generating these lessons and passing them along to my colleagues.
Ruth Crawford
When constructing an inquiry project for this course I was involved in helping the students to generate a question for the project, elucidate how to effectively find good sources, evaluate those sources and finally to synthesize their information into idea they could call their own. I will depend on the topic + focus stratagem to not only help the students better concentrate on what their question should look like but as a tactic that is useful to find sources on the internet when plugged into a search engine. This is a valuable skill that has helped me in the classroom and will be incorporated into every inquiry project I create both on line and off line.
Finally, I am passionate about sharing my new found information literacy skills with my colleagues. We have a Professional Learning Community meeting once a week and I would like to put together a series of lessons wherein I can pass along all the effective tools and skills that I have learned in this class. There are numerous handouts that I can share as well as putting forth the experience I have gained from completing an inquiry based unit that involved the students researching on the internet. I would not be surprised if some of my colleagues are in the dark regarding checking for the validity of websites. Unfortunately we live in a time when you have to demonstrate rigor towards safety and cannot trust information as easily as we once could. I am looking forward to generating these lessons and passing them along to my colleagues.
Ruth Crawford
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Technology
I am looking for new ways to use technology in the classroom. Aside from power point projects I would be interested in any ideas that high school students could use.
Ruthie
Ruthie
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