EDLD+Teaching+with+Technology



EDLD5364 Teaching with Technology  

**Week 5 Reflection ** What a whirlwind of a week! I was struck by several new concepts found in our videos and our readings this week. The first, addressed in several of the videos, is using online and computer games to enhance learning. I love playing games on my computer, but gravitate towards hidden object games. There are many in which I must use strategy to find particular objects or solve puzzles to move on to the next level in the story. I have used them in my classroom (some of them, anyway) and the kids love them too. I especially like when they must find a compass, since there are three different types usually used (mathematical, directional, and spelled out). Or a mace (old weapon) or pepper mill or other objects that have multiple meanings, are not used in today's world, or are not used in common language now. Students can learn quite a bit as they are learning how to focus and find objects. Another game they love is a rollercoaster building program where they build roller coasters, test them, and attempt to make one that can be ridden to the end with the highest number of "thrill points."

But I honestly have some serious reservations about the use of violent games such as Warcraft and Final Fantasy 11 (or are we up to number 62 now?). Occasionally I will allow free Internet time if the students have just finished a grueling section of work and have had good behaviors, or are just in need of a "mental health" period. But their rules are very stringent: no blood, guts, knives, guns, music videos, hitting, kicking, biting, etc. I realize that leaves them with non-voilent sports games and cute woodland creatures, but children see enough violence in their own neighborhoods now. They should not have to be exposed to it at school. There must be some place where they are safe.

Given that, I watched the videos on gaming, and watched them a second time to see if I learned anything new. More accurately, I watched them the second time to make sure I didn't miss anything because my "feelings and attitudes" were in the way. I admit, I got a lot more out of the second viewing, so I am sure my attitude was getting in the way. While I still have qualms about using games such as WarCraft and Final Fantasy (whatever incarnation), I can see their use to help students learn problem-solving skills, strategy development, team work, communication skills, and a whole host of other skills and knowledge that are more "esoteric" and less directly "teachable." And to tell the truth, children today are brought up in a more violent society, so the almost reality aspect of the program is not as unnerving as it is to me. My youngest daughter (now 21) plays Final Fantasy, WarCraft, and another game who name slips my mind. She has played online for years.

I can't help but wonder if she put that kind of effort into communication with the same people (without the game between them), just how successful she might become. She already communicated globally, they just all wear "masks" of some variety.  In all our readings this week, I kept returning to this section in by Rose and Meyer (2003): "Although using the same assessment tools and procedures for all learners might //seem// to be a fair and equal approach, in reality, this approach yields inaccurate results for many students. Any test that relies on a single medium inevitably, albeit unintentionally, evaluates talents that may not be relevant to instruction goals-talents that are bound up in the medium or methods being used. Thus, students' ability or inability to work with particular media and methods may confound evaluation of their knowledge and skills."
 * Week 4 Reflection**

A teacher or a principal or a school district administrator may not know this. But an EDUCATOR does, no matter what level they are in a school district hierarchy. Educators fight against this type of ignorance daily. There are many, many employees of a school district, legislators, parents, and school board members who believe that all students should pass a certain test in order to pass to the next grade. And that to be fair to all students it should be the same test, administered in the same way, on the same day. If students do not do well, it is the teacher's fault and the teachers are censured.

This kind of mentality is the main reason that all tests such as TAKS, TAAS, Stanford, Iowa, etc., ad nauseum, do NOT actually derive a true measure of student knowledge and growth. The students used as examples in Chapter 7 are no different than many of my students who have difficulties in school but do not qualify for Special Education services. And while TAKS-Accomodated and TAKS-Modified are adjusted so those who qualify for Special Education services, neither one provides a fair and just measure of student learning. Our system of testing, legislated for us by non-educators, is a failure for the vast majority of students in the Texas school system and works only for a very small percentage of students at best.

My brothers had no trouble in school, making A's with little effort. I studied, I suffered, I failed: again and again. I had a teacher call me "stupid." I had fellow students call me "stupid." Hear it often enough, and like many others, I started to call myself, "stupid." (Which is stupid in itself, but created a vicious cycle that took years to break) I knew the information. I could orally answer questions. I just could not sit down at a paper test and ever hope to pass. But having a test given in a way that I could pass was just not done 45 years ago.

And truthfully, it still isn't. That's why in spite of No Child Left Behind, we are still failing our students. I believe strongly that students should be challenged and on a consistent, daily basis. Standardized testing makes honest (and fair) assessment of students impossible.

So the 64-thousand-dollar question still remains: How can ALL students be tested in a way that is an honest assessment of their learning? The answer is, of course, to assess the students in the ways they learn. But that would require those in power to understand and accept what research has been showing us for years: Students learn in different ways and at different times in their lives. We watch, we try many things, and we celebrate their successes, whatever they are, whenever they are.

References: Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Chapter 7. Retrieved December 7, 2009 from [|http://cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/]. **Week 3 Reflection** The readings this week helped me understand even more about Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). I found though, trying to make a lesson using UDL very difficult. Although used to creating a variety of ways to differentiate instruction, looking at a lesson from a UDL standpoint is more difficult for me. I chose to focus on the technologies that are available to use in classrooms now. I was struck by the following quote from the Rose and Meyer (2002) book, // Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning: //"Digital materials provide an ideal vehicle for supporting background knowledge because they are flexible and because they can be linked to other information resources such as those on the Web. In this context, students can access background knowledge if and when they need to, on their own schedule. further, digital background supports can be provided in multiple media."

For students who have access to digital technology at home, the library, a friend's house, etc., education can happen outside the school as well as inside. It ties education to their lives. While they learn more and more outside the confines of school, they might not realize that they are getting an education. I do not think it is a bad thing to "trick" a student into learning something. Teachers have been using it for years as a way to reach disinterested learners. With more technology at our fingertips, "tricking" students into learning isn't quite as hard as it used to be.

This is one way that students start down the path of being life-long learners. They find they can learn outside of the big brick building the state insists they must go into 180 days of the year. They practice games of strategy at home and enter the school building each morning not even realizing that those strategies they practiced the night before will be used to solve a problem in math class. Or help provide an explanation for why an event happened in history. They begin to take responsibility for their education.

References: Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). //Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning//. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved November 30, 2009 from [].  
 * Week 2 Reflections:** The readings and videos this week, especially those on Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), really piqued my interest. As a Special Education Teacher and Department Chair, I am always on the lookout for way to vary teaching to include all learning abilities, particularly those with special needs. I suppose sometime during the past few years I had heard about UDL, but did not until this week realize what it encompassed and how easy it could be to implement into my classes.

I think what strikes me the most is how UDL does not require me to in essence create a different lesson plan for each ability level in my classroom. I do not need to have one curriculum for my lowest achievers, another for my highest achievers, and yet another for everyone else. While taking into consideration the lowest and the highest ability levels, UDL also includes all the levels in-between. UDL takes into consideration that there are not just three levels of students in a classroom (Special Education, Average, or Gifted and Talented). There are a wide range of student achievement levels and student needs in every class. Some years it seems that if I have 30 students in my classroom, there are 30 levels of achievement, all of which need me to adjust the lessons just a bit to accomodate the students' need to ensure that every one learns what they need in order to continue to move on through school.

The videos and readings on Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) were of such interest that I've been doing reading outside of the courseware. Rose and Meyer (2002), in their book, //Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning//, say of Universal Design for Learning: "UDL is not 'just one more thing;' it is an integral component of improving student learning, compatible with other approaches to education reform" (p. 3). That tells me that I am not going to have to try and cram one more learning "best practice" into an already over-scheduled academic day, but to use what I have more effectively.

What a concept! What a welcome change!

Rose, D.H. & Meyer, A. (2002). //Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning//. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. **Week 1 Reflections: ** When I first began this week's readings, I was immediately transported back to my first days working towards earning my first degree in education. I was not pleased at first. I did not particularly need to know any more learning theories. And I most assuredly did not want this class to focus on them. I felt (during the first part of the videos and my readings) like screaming! As I read on and started looking beyond the constructivist learning theory into the Connectivism and Cyborg theories, I began to feel something akin to excitement.

Connectivism explains wonderfully the way I build my knowledge and knowledge-use. Constructivist theory is good up to a point: Each time I start a new task, I start from where I am. . . take in new information. . . and make new knowledge. I knew I did not stop there, though. But I had no way of explaining where I went from there. But Connectivism perfectly explained it for me. While I listened and read I kept thinking to myself, "Yes!". I cannot start learning from a brand new place. I can only start from where I am, with what knowledge I already know, and experiences I already have. New knowledge is introduced and if I do not have enough pre-knowledge to make an informed analysis, I look farther afield, using others' knowledge, incorporated with my own, old and new, to connect my learning both within and without.

I am afraid of the Cyborg theory. I am a child of the Star Wars era and do not have a problem with a hand or foot being replaced and wired into one's nervous system. I do have a problem with Kevin Warwick's theory that "unenhanced" humans may become "sub-humans" and that humans will choose and desire to be machine rather than human beings. I will not totally disregard Warwick's experiements and findings, but I find it somewhat distastful and scary to think that humans would choose to be inhuman and relegate humanity to a sub-group. How is that not as discriminatory as believing one group of people are lesser because of their lineage? And this is with science and technology working towards defining and in essence, advocating discrimination. Part of what makes humans superior to other animals is our ability to choose. If connected to others via cyborg technology, then we cannot be truly individuals or able to withstand the "collective" should they choose to assimilate us (Star Trek, the Next Generation). We lose all shred of humanity. I am not ready to give that up yet. 