Module 5: New Technologies

Oh wow! Does this pertain to me!! Pretty recently I was so disappointed with my fellow colleagues!! As I have mentioned, my school structures the day to include a 54 minute lunch for students. As a subsequent consequence, we have teachers have meetings during the lunch period once a week or once every other week in sessions call lunch'n'learns. I thought I would offer my knowledge of technology integration based on my experience in a lunch'n'learn session. I have my Masters degree in this area, obviously perusing at the moment a specialist in this area, and currently teach online classes. Since technology integration is one of our school goals, I approached my principal about leading a session on integrating technology in the classroom. I spent SOOOO much time putting together an awesome presentation about Jing, Prezi, Xtranomral, Voki, and so many other cool tools that can enhance student learning. The technology specialist at my school was super excited about it and sent emails out every week since the beginning of school about it. When the day finally came I was so nervous! I have never spoken in front of the entire staff before and was intimidated. Well, silly me because 3 people showed during 4th lunch, 5 people during 5th lunch, and 7 during 6th lunch. Now don't be fooled; I teach at a school with about 180 other teachers. Even my course team members or people from my department failed to show! I was upset, frustrated, and highly disappointed. I did the nice thing and emailed the presentation I made to everyone at the end of the day and still only received about 5 emails of thanks including one from my principal. I guess a positive side is that my technology specialist has had people reach out to him to use some of the tools they saw in the emailed presentation.

My presentation not only included information about each technology tool but also suggestions on how teachers and students can use them in the classroom. I made an effort to include how each subject could use each tool by providing samples of lessons and student products. In order to help build confidence level, I also included links to tutorials for each. To me, this demonstrates Keller's idea of relevance in his ARCS model. One of things that could improve teacher openness and adoption of my ideas would be his concept of confidence. I think most teachers have the desire to incorporate technology in their lessons, get excited about an idea, and then return to their classroom and feel totally lost. One of the things I appreciated from my session was the people who did come were part of the same course team. They were making an effort as a group for support to help one another feel confident incorporating technology in their classroom. In the link provided, the iste created a manual entitled "Preparing Teachers to Use Technology." One of the necessary factors mentioned in the manual is to provide constant training as well as feedback in the integration process. This corresponds to Keller's concept of confidence.

Module Four: Connectivism

I actually learned about these tools from my professional development network using the tool Elluminate. During a PLS I had for Georgia Virtual School (GAVS) I learned about a variety of tools that I could use to enhance my students learning experience. But I benefited because these tools have helped me share and collaborate with my fellow colleagues about best practices. I can now share awesome ideas with my colleagues in a quick and easy way and one that allows us the consistently stay updated with new techniques and information. That is the beauty of many of these tools; the products are not set in stone and allow for growth and change, just like my learning experience. For example, I find Jing to be highly beneficial because it allows me to hear and see what my colleagues are doing (i.e. we have a HUGE push for improving literacy this year and have a "Literacy Bureau" to share best practices). Now instead of having to trek across campus (and mine is huge) to speak with a colleague, I can view a labeled screen shot or watch a quick video created of their desktop.

The digital tools that help me the most are the asynchronous ones (like all of the ones illustrated on my mindmap). I have such a busy and hectic schedule, that sitting down to collaborate with others via Skype or Elluminate can be very difficult. The tools that grant me 24-7 access are the best. But that is the beauty of technology, especially at 3 in the morning =)

I learn new knowledge when I have questions through investigation. This requires research of credible and reliable sources. That includes fellow educators. I am not above asking for help, guidance, or new ideas for a lesson. This may mean searching for lessons on collaborative educator sites, like TeacherTube, or asking a fellow colleague. Specifically, like for content I am learning in this course, organizational tools help, like bubbl.us that I used to create my mindmap.

Module Three: Collaborative Constructivism

Coming from a psychology teacher, I would say yes! If we examine the evolutionary perspective of psychology, humans are born with certain predispositions that are dependent on the environment...simple interaction of nature and nurture. For survival reasons, humans would benefit from a group mentality. Weird fact, but when researching whether or not humans can detect pheromones and what kinds, they have found that women secrete a fatty acid during their menstrual cycle that actually gets all women in one collectivity on the same cycle (from my students psych text--Myers). This behavior would not be possible if evolution supported independence from the group. Wouldn't it make sense to theorize that those who did obviously did not have their genes passed to further generations? This generation today, with the heavy infiltration of technology, is provided that environmental aspect to trigger our genetic dispositions. We enjoy connecting with others even if it is virtually. Doesn't that also explain the process of online dating? So yes, I think Rheingold was correct in his proposition but I believe it is dependent on environmental circumstances.

How can technology facilitate collaboration among learners based on constructivist principles? To me this is easy...each learner is unique and has developed his or her own schemata based on experience. Collaboration will either validate the process of assimilation or it will lead to accommodation through interaction with others. Resources such as Skype that allow social conferencing, blogs and even Wikis are examples of technology resources that allow for collaboration across states and even across the world. From my perspective as a psychology teacher and as I have mentioned, I do find validity in Piaget's stages of cognitive development. I attribute the varying abilities to simple brain maturation which leads to higher cognitive tasks. But I also believe and see validation in Vygotsky's idea of the zone of proximal development. At various ages of cognitive development interaction with one's environment is important (i.e. a rat study I teach my students about in psychology which supports the idea that enriched environments lead to more synaptic connections) so collaboration with other humans fits that mold. I thought that this publication was particularly interesting as I face this dilemma as an online educator. I have even had to defend to some of my colleagues the validity of my degree from on online university! Just to point out, my online students collaborate a ton through discussion forums, pages, emails, Elluminate sessions, blogs, and so forth...they score better than the national average on the AP exam; I am happy with that!

Module Two Response

Response made in reference to the dialogue between Kerr, Downes, and Kapp.

Wow! I feel completely enlightened! As demonstrated, I think conversations about learning theories can go and will go round and round. to me, it varies based on the generation of students. Not to say that each generation of students learn the same exact way, but I have seen commonalities. Unfortunately, I think students have been molded to demonstrate their learning in a different way than they acquire their knowledge. I do see students desiring more of an understanding of content (that might be bias as I teach AP) but the way they are tested aligns with the behaviorist perspective. I don't think Downes was correct in saying that behaviorism has been abandoned. I think it is very much rooted in the system and as an educator, we have to prepare our students for being successful on standardized exams. This translates to a classroom exam that is structured similar to a standardized one or in fact has to be the same for each student taking that class in the school (speaking from experience). As a direct consequence, the implementation of cognitive theory type activities are weeded out of the classroom due to lack of time. This is a horrible thing!! No one learns in just one way; therefore forms of evaluation or explanation of student learning doesn't make sense to focus on one ___ism as Kerr points out. A major overhaul does need to take place. I am not saying at all that behaviorists techniques are bad as I think they can be very sufficient. The inherent problem is not taking a universal approach to assessment that matches the ___isms of education as to enforce what should be happening in the classroom. I personally find schema theory of learning valid (this mainly comes from my psych background). This method of learning requires the processes of assimilation and accommodation that are required for learning. A brief introduction to this theory can be found here. In addition, in reference to my assignment for this week I mentioned the need to train teachers based on the schema approach to improve student literacy. I found this research pretty interesting. We are having a HUGE push for literacy at our school. The main problem I witness is the fact that students have trouble interpreting questions. Simple memories of schematic organizations could help improve this weakness.

Module One Response

1. What are your beliefs about how people learn best? What is the purpose of learning theory in educational technology?
   
   I definitely believe that each person learns in his/her individual way. Though we may share learning commonalities with others, I believe our personal acquisition of knowledge is unique. You have students like myself who like direct instruction; I would rather read and quiz rather than do a filler assignment that teachers would make you do in, for example, high school. My husband on the other hand learns best through hands on application. He was an average student in college because lectures bored him, not due to lack of intelligence. According to Driscoll, a learning theory "comprises a set of constructs linking observed changes in performance with what is thought to bring about those changes" (Discroll, 2005, p. 9) Applying this to educational technology is vital; one of the three components is examining the means. In this case the means refer to the processes that lead to the results. So this is exactly where the application of technology's role in learning occurs and needs to be inspected.
   
   
2. What are the critical elements of a learning theory? Did Driscoll and Siemens miss any key questions or criteria? Provide a thoughtful critique of their discussion of learning theory.
   
   As mentioned in the Siemens article, Behaviourism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism comprise of the core of learning theories. With the addition of Connectivism, I think this concept is complete. I teach a subject (Psychology) where students have to be able to see in gray which I have found can be extremely challenging for them. The idea of being able to witness the application of psychology in the everyday world through unique but realistic applications of the content meets this need for me. I believe in regards to all learning theories, a course needs elements from each. For example, I need assignments to demand an element of the Behaviourist view from my students; they have to be prepared to complete a 100 question multiple choice exam in 70 minutes. That is a technique that needs reinforcement. That is why elements of cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism are necessary. They are needed in the face to face environment as well.
   
   
   
3. Critique Siemens’s “metaphors of educators.” Which of these metaphors best describes the role you believe an instructor should take in a digital classroom or workplace? Is there a better metaphor to reflect your view of the role of instructors?
   
   The concept of the educator as the master artist neglects the time crunch all educators are on to finish instruction before the end of the semester while trying to meet standards to prepare students for standardized/national exams. In a college setting, I believe students would have more freedom to roam topics of interest. A high school teacher can use elements of a blog as well but it must be more focused and direct. The second metaphor, that to a network administrator, takes away the role of a teacher to that of a helper. I do not agree with this as it diminishes the knowledge about content teachers have to offer.
   
   My expectation of the role an instructor should take in a digital classroom is a combination of the concierge and curator. I believe an online instructor should make available to students resources in existence that could enhance their learning experience. This is why I find value in creating a course setting that allows for differentiation of product so that are exposed to a variety of tools. However the role of the curator struck me because this is a role where the expertise resides with the teacher so the true master of the content is the instructor and not the internet. I am actually in the midst of developing an online AP Psychology course and this is one of the issues I have had to address when planning out the course.
   

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Siemens, G. (2008, January 27). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators and designers. Paper presented to ITFORUM. Retrieved September 5, 2010, from http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper105/Siemens.pdf