Integrating Technology in P12

            One aspect of this chapter that really stuck out to me was the possible reasons for the mixed results of integrating technology into P-12 education.  Specifically, the reason of “The intensity, focus, or amount of professional development may not have adequately prepared the teachers to effectively develop and implement lessons that fully support achievement of curriculum standards” (p. 212).  From what I have seen, this is all too true.  In most cases, professional development days are never long enough for how much the staff wants to accomplish.  As educators, we are constantly required to adjust our curriculum, and trying to change too much at once leads to very little change overall.  What we need to focus on is not drastic changes, but effective, well-developed changes.  Establishing good foundations for integrating technology will allow us to more easily integrate technology in a more complex way in the near future.

            Additionally, this chapter seemed to lament the use of technology for low-level tasks.  I agree that such high-level technology needs to be used to a higher capacity.  We want to make effective use of our technology so that we are not wasting our resources.  That being said, there is still benefit to using technology for low-level tasks.  With the near-constant access to technology, it seems that it is assumed that students know how to use these tools for their low-level tasks.  However, these assumptions can lead to students not developing the basics skills such as effective and efficient typing, research, and formatting documents.  So while we need to strive for higher-level uses, we need to make sure we do not ignore the low-level basics.

Google Maps Activity

Being a math teacher, I could not help but think of a Geometry lesson using maps.  I have done activities similar to this, but using the customizable Google Maps allows for some more flexibility.
My initial idea would be for the students find the perimeter and area of the footprint of the Gerald R. Ford Airport Terminal, since our school in on the property of the Airport.  Students could use the scale on the map to calculate the perimeter and area of the main terminal.  This would be an activity integrated into a lesson about composite shapes, since students would have to break up the terminal building into a bunch of different shapes, find the area of each, and add all the areas together.
As a challenge, I would have them approximate the area of our school's property, as I have already outlined.  Since there are many curves to the property, students would have to come up with strategies of approximation.  Additionally, I would give extra credit for students who decide to approximate the footprint of our building.  This would be far more challenging, since the images on Google Maps are not up to date.  Our newest addition was finished in August, and you can see that addition being built in satellite view when zoomed in.  When zoomed out, there is no indication that we have even started to build!


View Areas of the Airport in a larger map

Applying Business ID in the Classroom

            The role of the team member/leader in the business and industry world is something that can easily be applied in the classroom.  The description in this chapter discusses the “increased globalization and decentralization of organizations” (p. 179) that has been occurring recently in the business world, and the school setting is also experiencing the same thing, so far on a smaller degree.  As we want to give more educational opportunities to our students, we need to provide more options for acquiring that education.  This, as we are currently experiencing, is becoming more prominent through online classes, but there are movements in the education world that also allow for the decentralization.  With the prominence of social media and communication technologies such as video chat, students can work with each other from afar.  This works great in schools like mine, where we have students coming from around 20 districts prior to coming to our school.  This provides situations where students that are working on a group project together may live over an hour apart.  Some of our students have overcome this by using iMessage and Facetime on their iPads to collaborate.

            Another aspect of ID that is extremely applicable and extremely useful to the classroom setting is cross-cultural training.  As educators, we need to have a good understanding of the factors that influence our students outside of school.  Again, since our school serves students from a wide variety of geographical locations, it also, in turn, means we are serving students from a wide variety of educational experiences, socioeconomic backgrounds, and ethnicities.  As a result, we need to focus on how to best serve all students, and realize that what works for one of our “clients” may not work for the “client” sitting next to them.  This can be challenging for teachers that do not come from the same culture as a students, so teachers need to put in a lot of effort and be flexible as they figure out how to best serve their “clients.”

Podcasting

TED Talks: Education Podcasts

            I have watched many TED Talks before, mostly for only my own enjoyment.  In my searching, however, I found these TED Talks that were focused on education that I had never seen before.  One of my favorite things about TED Talks is that the ideas are usually quite revolutionary, but also practical (for the most part).  This holds true for their education podcasts.  Even though some of the podcasts that are from several years ago (the first one I watched was from 2006) still provide inspiration for the future of education.

            Podcasts can be useful in the classroom because students can have access to a wide variety of professionals as resources.  In many cases, podcasts provide a concise look into a topic, and is usually quite focused.  Podcasts allow easy access to a topic that is more than just words on a page, becoming a useful resource for students who are strong auditory and/or visual learners.

            One thing that does need to be considered is quality control.  The first TED Talk I listened to for this assignment was called “Open Source Learning,” and the speaker, Richard Baraniuk, emphasized this in our learning tools.  I have seen a wide variety of podcasts out there, and there are some things that would not be appropriate for classroom use (including some of the podcasts that were labeled as “educational”).  Additionally, we need to be mindful of the source of the content, paying attention to the credibility of those making the podcast as well as making sure credit is being given where credit was due (i.e. no plagiarizing).  The sources we provide to our students should live up to the same standards we set for the students themselves.

Embedding Media and Discussing Learning Theories

Behavior Learning Theory:

            Using this theory of learning, I would bring in several different brands and sizes of the same serial.  I would cover each box with a general cover, but label each box with the correct price.  Next, I would have students measure the mass of each box, and then come up with a unit cost (such as dollars per kilogram).  Since there will be several brands and at least two sizes for each brand, they would get varying unit costs.  After they calculated the unit cost of each item, I would have them check their answers with me.  If they have them all correct (or if they go back and make the corrections), I would have them predict which different size boxes were the same brand.  After all groups had guessed the pair, I would reveal which boxes were which.

Situated Learning Theory:

            For this theory, I would have students come up with a simple meal (5 items or so) that they would like to prepare for several people.  Each student would need to decide how many people they want to feed.  Based on this information, they would need to calculate the unit cost of each item in the various sizes that they are sold.  Based on the unit costs, they would need to decide what sizes they would buy.  They would also need to consider that though the larger sizes usually have a lower unit cost, is it worth buying more than you may use?

Constructivism:

            My procedure for this would be similar in nature to my activity for the Situated Learning Theory, with students figuring out what and how much they would buy to make a simple, 5-item meal.  They would do the initial stages of selecting the items and calculating unit costs together, but then they would individually decide which quantities they would buy based on the number of people they intend to feed.  After making these individual decisions, the two students would get back together and discuss what they chose and why.  I would also have them come to an agreement after this on which sizes to buy, and the pairs would share their results with the rest of the class.

Piper Cub hanging in the commons of West Michigan Aviation Academy

View Larger Map

Not Always Picture Perfect

 My Flickr

Technology initiatives can be ineffective for a variety of reasons, including the descriptions described in chapter 3 regarding the technologies implemented throughout the 20^th century.  In our hypothetical situation of giving students and teachers constant access to laptops and the internet, the first possible reason that came to mind was lack of proper training, both for the students and especially for the teachers.  I have seen it happen many times in schools (and have experienced it myself) where new technology is pushed out before everyone is fully prepared, and the tools are used only for the most basic functions as a result.  Proper training is needed all around.

            Another reason that came to mind is the quality of the product.  In my own experience, I have worked with tools such as digital versions of textbooks and have been underwhelmed by their quality and complexity.  From what I have seen, many textbook publishers are still placing the vast majority of their efforts on the hard copy editions while not dedicating much time to the digital version.  Some use the fact that they have a digital version of the textbook bundled with the hard copies as a marketing tool to influence potential buyers, but, so far, most of the digital textbooks are just digital images of the hard copy.

            The resistance to change is another issue that has plagued many advancements in education, not just regarding technology, and my guess is that is what happened in our hypothetical situation as well.  Teachers work hard and spend a lot of time developing their curriculum to best fit the learners’ needs.  Pushing such a drastic change on teachers is not always well received, especially by those who do not want all of their previous work to go to waste.  As a result, many teachers simply use technology to present the material in almost the same way they always have, just now with some more visuals.  This is really quite a small overall change considering the huge amount of possibilities for incorporating modern technology into the classroom.

            Two possible strategies for mitigating such issues are additional training and additional time.  As noted above, it is important for all users of technology, meaning both teachers and students, are properly trained so that their uses go beyond just the basics.  We have been able to do the basics for years, and if we are not doing more than that, we are underutilizing our resources.  In terms of time, easing into such an initiative, even more so than just limiting it to four teachers in the 7^th grade, is preferred.  Such quite and drastic changes make it hard to adapt quickly, even with proper training.  My recommendation would be to use the laptops only for a few hours a day at school to start, and gradually incorporate it more and more as the year goes on until eventually allowing 24/7 access.

Social Bookmarks Apparently Taste Good

http://delicious.com/dbrasser

            I have had a little experience in social bookmarking in the past, but I was more of a viewer than an active user.  When I first started teaching, our curriculum director shared links about my content and potential textbooks with me via Delicious.  I found this quite effective, considering the only alternative I could think of would be for her to send me links in emails, which would get annoying considering most people don’t find all the links they want at the same time and, thus, there would be many emails.

            One use for social bookmarking that would work well to my school specifically would be posting articles about our school and about our theme of aviation.  From time to time, especially considering we are a young school with a unique theme, there are news articles posted about our school and the changes we are making, so it would be nice to keep links to those all in one place.  Additionally, since most of our teachers come from a non-aviation background but are expected to integrate aviation into our classes as much as we can apply, social bookmarking would be a good place to post interesting resources that could relate to our theme and our content.

            I feel that probably the easiest and most natural use of social bookmarking in schools would be between teachers and student.  As I am looking more into the idea, I am finding that social bookmarking may be a very useful tool for my honors physics class.  Most of what we will be doing in that class will be the same as the regular physics sections, but there will be a lot more reading and writing relating current events to the topics we are studying.  Social bookmarking would allow for me to post options of articles that students can select to read and respond.

           

            More or less, the definitions laid out in the chapter on defining and naming the field line up with my views coming in.  There was really nothing that stuck out to me that made me think “That’s exactly my view!” or “That’s not at all what I’m thinking.”  Most of my feelings were more along the lines of “Yeah, that’s a good representation of (at least part of) my definition of instructional design and technology,” though I am going to have to force myself to get used to IDT title instead of IT.  I was quite pleased with the progress that has been made in the definition, moving from simply the processes and systematic approaches of the field and more toward involving the philosophies of using technology and the importance of the design of the uses of the tools as opposed to an emphasis on only the tools themselves.

            Additionally, I believe that even the most recent definition is nowhere near being the final definition.  Looking at the older definitions, the words used and the focus of the definitions was appropriate for the times and the resources available.  So too is the most recent definition.  As time goes by, and as technology and the needs of schools change, the definitions will continue to be reworked and shaped to better fit the situations at hand.