Final Reflection CEP 811

Whether it is whole class, small group, or partner instruction it is important to incorporate a variety of instructional strategies. The same is true when integrating technology into lessons. Variety in strategies ensures students are engaged in lessons, practicing different learning styles, and demonstrating their knowledge in many ways. Direct instruction is most effective when introducing a new type of technology in order to provide students with clear directions and expectations for using the technology effectively. Providing students opportunities for independent practice helps solidify their understanding of the technology. Finally, providing students with a rubric and allowing them to use their creativity to construct a project using the technology allows them to apply concepts they have learned. 

Integrating web-based technologies provides flexibility for students to collaborate and construct projects outside of the four walls of a traditional classroom. It also provides opportunities for them to work with students in other schools, states, or even countries. It is important for individual teachers not to ‘re-invent the wheel’ and I have discovered that there are a wide variety of web-based technologies such as web quests that are already available that I can incorporate into my lessons to supplement my face to face instruction. It is very important for teachers to explore and evaluate the effectiveness of technology tools before using them with students for many reasons. First, it ensures I am able to help my students troubleshoot problems, meets the learning objectives, and is appropriate for my students. Once I have identified my lesson objectives I am able to search for web-based materials that fit my plans. I have found Quest Garden, Read, Write, Think, and Scholastic very useful websites for finding quality web-based resources for classroom use. 

When I began this course my personal goals were to learn more strategies for successfully incorporating technology into my classroom. I have learned a variety of effective instructional strategies, written a lesson plan that utilizes technology, collaborated with classmates to evaluate resources, and created a stand-alone instructional resource for use with my fourth grade students. I am most proud of the class website I have created to share resources, pictures, and ideas with students, families, and colleagues. I am really excited to use a blog to communicate with parents and to help students hold collaboration discussions during book club. I am exploring ways to incorporate collaborative writing through GoogleDocs into our writing assignments. Overall, I am inspired by my work and those of my peers to continue taking small steps and incorporating technology throughout the fourth grade curriculum. As I plan for the upcoming school year I have bookmarked many websites I plan to use and I am looking forward to continuing my technology journey.

My new goals are to continue to keep my class website up-to-date, utilize blogs for book discussion, use GoogleDocs for collaborative writing assignments, and create my own webquests to supplement my inquiry science instruction. In order to meet these goals I first develop a plan, gather resources, align the activities from the resources with my lesson objectives, create a rubric for students, and then monitor the implementation process for things to improve for next time. As technology continues to change and evolve so must my ability to remain flexible. I have learned to take things one project at a time and providing clear expectations for students produces the best results. Additionally, I want to be mindful of the principles of Universal Design for Learning when writing my lesson plans in order to meet the needs of all learners in my classroom. Technology provides excellent opportunities to address multiple learning types and styles both to help students highlight their strengths and provide practice for other areas. Another way to help me meet my goals is to collaborate with colleagues in my building because working together to share the work load helps with creativity and allows more to be done in a short amount of time. I am also looking forward to further exploring all MERLOT has to offer. I appreciate all of the feedback and support I have received from my classmates and professor. I hope everyone has a productive and technology-rich school year!

Online Teaching and Learning

I have first-hand experience with online learning completing the courses for my Master's degree in a completely online setting. These experiences are beneficial to draw from when incorporating technology into my own teaching with elementary students.

The amount of background knowledge regarding specific technologies can make or break an online learning experience. Therefore, as an elementary school teacher I feel it is important for me to expose students to a wide variety of online learning experiences with LOTS of guidance and scaffolding. This will help them when they enter middle school and beyond to engage in online experiences effectively and independently. Given the 20 hour requirement of all students in grades 6-12 to engage in quality online learning experiences; I want to ensure my elementary students are familiar with a variety of online learning tools through teacher modeling, group projects, and enrichment websites that can be used with support from home.

Technologies that qualify as useful online learning experiences in my fourth grade classroom include webquests, blogs, and educational gaming. Incorporating technology into my curriculum requires careful planning, modeling, providing examples, and sustained practice in groups and individually. I use technology to help me teach all content areas: math, reading, writing, science, social studies, and spelling. In order to not overwhelm my students (or their families) I introduce a new technology each month of the school year, so by the end of the year students are comfortable using a variety of technological tools.  The beginning of the year is spent introducing students to navigating their way around a computer and our class website (safely). I use our class website as our home base, so I know where students are headed when we visit the computer lab. I am very limited in my classroom by having only one student computer. 

Webquests help my students explore a variety of topics including endangered animals and biographies of famous people. I like that the websites have been set so students can spend time processing the information instead of searching for information. Blogs are a great tool for shifting book discussions online. While reading a book in class individually or in groups students can post their responses in a place where other students can easily leave comments. I utilize a variety of educational games bookmarked on our class website for repeated practice for students. These sites can be used as a free choice in school, assignment, or assigned for homework outside of school. I especially like Arcademics for online math practice with a variety of topics and Spelling/Vocabulary City to assist students with practicing their weekly lists.

When using technology in my classroom I utilize the gradual release of responsibility model. To introduce an online tool I show my students the resource in a whole class setting using our projector and model how I would like students to use this resource. This process may take a few days depending on the complexity of the tool. I then schedule time in our computer lab when students can practice using the online tool individually or with a partner. Once their exploration phase is complete I will give students a task to complete individually and demonstrate they are able to successfully use the tool.  I have found this strategy very effective with fourth grade students.

I would like to see typing practice become a focus for technology instruction in my fourth grade classroom. The ability for students to type efficiently and quickly is essential for future success in using online learning tools. We spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year learning the location of the keys on the keyboard and practicing typing.  Even though it is not an online learning tool, I personally believe it is very important for students to understand how to effectively use Microsoft Word, or a similar word processing software. 

Technologies that are harder to use with my students are ones that require them to have an individual email account. Technologies such as Wikis or subscribing to RSS feeds are very useful for older students, but not as effective with my age group.  My students and I use sources like Wikipedia to locate information on the web, but I am not expecting them to contribute to the website. We check current events, but because my students do not have one-on-one computing everyday of the week most of the accounts for online learning tools are managed by myself or the district. Students have individual logins, but are not yet responsible for managing their accounts. Exposing students to a lot of experiences should provide them with a strong set of background skills for the upper grades when they will be asked to independently monitor their online learning.

Using Wikis in the Classroom

I was happy to see a page for my school district did exist on Wikipedia. I added a link to our school's homepage (Roosevelt Elementary), as well as, a comment about our summer learning wiki. Our building staff collaboratively created a online summer learning resource for our K-5 students to keep their skills sharp over the summer. We created links to online activities students can work on independently, and calendars so students can track their progress. Students who track their progress over the summer and bring their calendars to school will earn prizes! I included a link to the summer learning wiki for reference. Fellow teachers feel free to check it out for great ideas for learning activities for your grade level that can be used throughout the year.

I love the idea of using a wiki in my classroom to organize and coordinate parent volunteers. Our current system is inefficient and creates complex email chains. By creating a planning wiki through Wikispaces I can invite the parents in my classroom to join as editors and coordinate events and materials in ONE central location. I have set up sign up spaces for field trips, class holiday parties, guest readers, center volunteers, and copy parents. This will facilitate keeping times, dates, and supplies clearly communicated, and should make it easier for parents to communicate with myself and each other. Parents are essential partners in the learning process, and I hope that making volunteering easy will lead to lots of participation!