Week 5: Current Issues & New Directions

1. Section VIII addresses new directions and emerging technologies for IDT. Select three of the following and reflect on how you might apply them in your current or future position in the IDT field:

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Distributed or e-learning environments

Since e-learning has become a broad concept that includes all learning using technology, then I have a lot of room to work.  In my Pre-AP geometry classes, I am going to use Edmodo to create an online environment where students will blog about geometry.  The concept of writing about any subject is a higher learning skill that pays great dividends.  It’s almost like teaching a subject when you write about it.  Next year our school will have Wi-Fi for all classrooms.  Students will be able to use their phones with a different assortment of apps to make learning more interesting.  One app can be using their phone for clickers to answer multiple choice problems.  Other apps actually allow you to write sentences to respond to questioning.  How much do you think students would like to use their cell phones in class?  They worship the cell phone as it is.  

Rich media

I have been creating powerpoints with rich visual media for some time now.  I have learned much about how students can use visual representations to help them learn.  My parents were deaf so I grew up with communication being visual  instead of auditory.  American Sign Language is a conceptual language where you paint a picture more than you use a string of words.  Think of a rectangle about the size of 2ft by 3ft in front of you.  To construct an image for communication everything needs to be placed in the correct location like a canvas for painting.  This circumstance that I was born in has helped me greatly in my teaching.  I try to be very visual with gestures, movement, and models.  I am always bringing something to class to show how some geometric concept works, or looks like.  I have been able to create powerpoints for tough lessons that have eased the burden on new teachers.  I have found that nice bright color and color coding techniques brings commands more attention.  I use movement, and video, and auditory bells and whistles to keep attention.  I have found that when showing how to work problems, there needs to be very few words or clutter to distract students.  Complex problems using geometric visuals are made easy by using objects that move and change color when it is necessary to discuss a property or concept.  I have also found it beneficial to use comparisons of problem types side by side so students can see the similarities and differences.  If a teacher is just working off of an ELMO document writer.  It takes time and effort to recreate or color code documents that are available in my powerpoints in just a click of the mouse.  I know that powerpoints, lend to too much lecture.  However, if they are used sparingly for complex lesson development, then students can problem-solve, and do activities either before or after a powerpoint.  I love to create hyperlinks to helpful websites.  For example, an animation showing how a three-dimensional shape will break down into a two-dimensional net.  With your mouse, you can move the net or shape around to help students to see how it all works.  Math can be a bit dry so interesting oddities, humor, inspirational concepts, and teenager experiences can be built into a powerpoint or any lesson to make it more interesting. 

Digital games or Simulations

Next year I will be reserving laptops for using a program called Study Island.  I can set up questions based on objectives for students to work.  If they master the objective, they can play an online game.   Students love this program.  They can also use this program at home to earn extra credit in my classroom.  If I was involved in instructional design, I would love to create games that helped students to use geometric concepts in authentic situations to build things, like buildings, or design intricate machinery for certain purposes from different fields like engineering, science, or computer science.  I would like the program to be large enough where teams from my classroom would work with teams from the other Mesquite ISD schools to collaborate to build something, or at the very least, work on geometric proofs.  This would be very much like the virtual teaming you see in business today. 

What learning goals or objectives could the technologies you selected help learners foster?

Using Edmodo to create blogs for my geometry class will help them to synthesize geometric topics and concepts.  Writing about a subject is akin to teaching the subject and has a multitude of higher-level thinking skills attached to it.  As for students using phones in the classroom, the interest created will help students to be more engaged in the learning process.  Engaged learners are always a goal for any teacher.  Study Island is a program where students answer questions about an objective and if they master the objective, they can play different online games.  Once again, student engagement is at a premium when using Study Island.  Learning can also happen from a student’s home computer as well.  Visuals have been proven to help learning.  Powerpoints using rich media concepts of color, video, audio, and movement will helps students to learn.  Blooms taxonomy type comparisons in visual form also allow students to improve higher order thinking skills by discerning the similarities and differences in a visual subject like geometry.  

Could the technology facilitate attainment of that learning goal better than traditional instruction? Why or why not?

I think that each example that I talked about above would help better than traditional instruction.  Visuals have been proven to improve student learning.  So my multifaceted powerpoints have helped instruction.  I’ve been teaching for fifteen years and I can see the difference between chalkboard lessons from the past and the ones that I am doing now and I can see the ease of learners to learn with visuals.  Also, I have always known writing to improve a student’s understanding of geometric concepts.  I can obviously imagine how writing blogs can help the student even more since I am writing a blog right now.  I know that blogging has helped me to synthesize the knowledge of this book in a much greater capacity than if I had just read the book and answered some questions.  I have also described how interest helps learners to be engaged.  Study Island helps work problems using technology and an interesting reward system.  Students want to play those games so they work hard on the problems.

2. Section IX focuses on issues related to instructional design, rather than new technologies: professional ethics, diversity and accessibility, the nature of design, and providing instructional guidance. For each of the technologies you selected above, discuss what ethical issues using the technology might present.

Blogging on Edmodo is something that is already done within the district.  Many 

securities are already built into the software.  I would need to make sure that 
permission slips from parents are signed for each student.  Another issue is 
making sure all students have access to a computer.  Pre-AP kids almost all 
have some kind of access.  We also have school computers in the library and 
my computer in my room could be used after school as well.  Study Island is a 
program that has been provided by the district so many of the ethical questions 
have been answered already. Using Wi-Fi in the room with students cell 
phones is also district mandated.  However, the question once again is access 
by all students.  Not everyone has a cell phone, even though most do. 

Does the technology enhance accessibility and accommodate diverse learning needs?

Enriched powerpoints using rich media enhance visual and auditory learners.  Powerpoint accessibility is a given since it’s for all students.  Blogging, or writing is a higher-order skill that benefits all types of leaners.  Accessibility may be a question to be answered about blogging.  I’m not sure if all students have access to computers in my Pre-AP class.  Study Island enhances engagement but I’m not sure if it helps with diverse learners.  The questions are not only drill-and-practice but problem-solving type questions as well so the level is higher order but helping diverse learners, I am not sure.  Accessibility is not a question for Study Island since we bring in laptops for all students to use.

How and/or can you design instruction using that technology?

Most of the instruction has been created for each technology I have discussed.  Higher order blogging questions will need to be created that bring out thoughtful answers.  Rubrics would need to be created to give fair evaluation.  Cell phone apps to be used in the district are already being created.  I will have the ability to make the apps cater to my classroom.  Study Island is already created.

How much guidance would instruction with that technology require?  What kinds of guidance would be necessary?

Once you lead students through the logging in process on laptops it is pretty simple to access the Study Island website and get started.  Instruction for Study Island is something that I would have to prepare within the website by choosing questions from the objectives that mirror our curriculum.  Powerpoints are not in the hands of students so instruction is obviously not required.  I have not seen all the apps that will be used for cell phones next year so there will be a learning process concerning instruction for use.  Students are magnificent on their phones so I am sure they will know more about it than me before it is all over with.  They will help each other to set up and work the apps, I am sure.  How to bring fruitful instruction with the cell phone apps will be a work in progress.