A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of teaching and learning

Overall I found this article very hard to follow. All of the numbers started to run together as I read. What I was able to gather was that the research seems to support my viewpoint that technology for technologies sake is not an effective way to teach. When technology is used to support or enhance an already good lesson, students learn more.

Principles of Teaching/Learning

Section #5 of Teaching Principles, "Effective teaching involves recognizing and overcoming our expert blind spots", was the part that I related to the most. I often find that I cover material too quickly. I tend to assume that my students have more background knowledge and abilities than they do. This was one reason why I chose to teach high school instead of lower grades - I felt that I wouldn't need to do as much step-by-step instruction and hand holding. This is something that I continue to struggle with today. I am always worried that step-by-step instruction will bore the students and I will lose the ability to capture their interest. It is often hard to find that middle ground that provides ample direction without being too elementary; how do you adequately explain without boring them to death. What do you do with the students who grasp the concepts more quickly and want to move on?

Wiki vs. Angel

It has been a while since I have posted. Beyond being swamped, who said that summers were relaxing, I haven't felt like I really had anything new to add. Everything that I would have discussed, we had already talked about in class. However, as I was doing the homework for this week, I again had the thought that I preferred the wiki to Angel. As we have posted our discussions, it was nice to be able to scroll through the other responses. On the Angel site you need to click on each individual response to read them. Not that this is a lot of work, however, I often didn't look at all of the responses. I feel that I have gotten a lot more out of this class because I have had easier access to the thoughts of my classmates.

Google Sites, Web Sites and Wiki's Oh My!

I think it is really important to have a web presence in this day and age. Not only does it allow others to readily access information, it also creates a place to showcase projects, provide resources, allow for questions and answers, etc. I have 2 webpages associated with the school district and my own wiki (I chose to use a wiki instead of a web site generator like Weebly because at the time I was able to do more of what I wanted with wikisapces. I used my wiki as my e-portfolio for my library practicum and when I was interviewing for jobs. Currently our district is really making a push for all teachers to at least have their district webpage up and running.

I think this is true of students as well. I truly believe that students should be publishing their work in some manner for a wider audience. This allows them to become more responsible digital citizens.

I also thoroughly enjoy Ken Robinson. I have seen a number of talks by him and he is always inspiring. His message always points to the importance of allowing students to work to their strengths. Open ended project based learning does just that. It allows students to showcase their knowledge of subject matter in their own way.

The ever changing world of technology integration

As I was looking at the intime videos and information, I was reminded once again how fast technology changes. These assignments were on the cutting edge when they were created 10 years ago, and many of them now appear very outdated. However, I was also struck by how easy it would be to adapt one of these assignements to current technology. I had this same realization a few years ago when I returned to school to complete my library certification. We had been asked to take an old lesson and revamp it. I looked through my material from MANY years ago (when there was barely any internet to speak of!!!) and found that I didn't need to start over completely. I could easily make my decent lessons good, and my really great lessons even better, simply by adding new technology twists. For example, instead of having my students make a poster for something, I could have them create an advertising campaign using a wide variety of on-line tools. A good lesson does not need to be trashed simply because the technology that it uses is outdated.

The unit that I was particularly interested in was the Solar System Colonization Project for middle school. This caught my eye because one of our teachers has moved grade levels for next year and is being asked to teach Earth Science (an area that she has little background in) and I have been on the look out for resources that could be of use to her. The more I looked at this unit, the more I realized that we could do a lot of neat things with it without having to reinvent the entire thing. When I showed it to her, she was thrilled and now thinks that I am even more amazing!!! You can't beat it.

Spreadsheets in the classroom!

I don't like spreadsheets. I admit it. I find them intimidating. I use them when I have to for budgeting and finances, but I don't like them. (I know that I said that before!) I do like how they make some of my work easier, but I've never really learned how to use them. I know how to plug numbers in to pre-formatted cells like I do for my budget, but I don't really know all that spreadsheets can do. I have learned how to format and create functions, but I don't use them enough to remember from one time to the next, so I find that every time I use a spreadsheet, I have to learn all over again. This is frustrating. This being said, I was pleasantly surprised by this weeks assignments. It never would have occurred to me to use a spreadsheet for a recipe, but it was slick. The lesson that I found was interesting too. Although the basic use for the spreadsheet was fairly predictable, I liked the thinking that was incorporated into the process. The students were really being asked to evaluate and analyze the information that they had inputted. Then they had to speculate about how the numbers would change if they changed certain statistics, etc. and how they would be able to use this information.

I'm not sure that I will ever come to love spreadsheets, but maybe if I continue to work at it, I can learn to peacefully coexist and accept that spreadsheets might have more to offer than I had once believed.

On-line life

As an LMS I was aware of most of the searching techniques that we discussed in class and the google game, but I hadn't looked at many other search engines. I'm as bad as the kids, I just resort to google because it's familiar. I did find a number of different search engines that were specific for education, and would be great to use with my students. The one I really liked is www.infotopia.info. I have already suggested it to a few teachers, they all loved it, and I put a link to it on my library home page. I need to spend some more time working with this. We have specialized databases that we encourage students to use, this would just be another good step to take.

I was also familiar with google docs as an on-line word processing tool. I like the idea of collaborating on a document and having it available wherever you are. There is nothing more frustrating than getting home and realizing that I saved an important project to my server folder instead of my computer documents and therefore I can't access it from home. However, people have a habit of using what is convenient and familiar which, in this case, is usually Microsoft Word. Again, I am also guilty. As on-line programs become more sophisticated I think people will use them more and more. The one drawback for using these programs with kids is that our students don't have a school e-mail account provided to them so that they often can't create an account. Our new technology coordinator seems to be in favor of this in the future, so maybe there is hope.