Chapter 6

Technology tools encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths by offering them opportunities to build awareness of the skills and attitudes of accomplished scholars.  Technology such as blogs offer students a space to reflect over time about what they are learning.  ProfilerPRO, which we used in our class, is an online survey tool that allows teachers to identify learning interests, strengths, and weaknesses.  ProfilerPRO can be adapted to meet each persons individual needs.

To get students minds ready for a project, it is important to know the students' prior knowledge.  You could use a Know-Wonder-Learn (KWL) activity to get to know students better, and to discover their prior knowledge of a topic.  The teacher should encourage students to explore and think together when beginning a new topic.

It is important to teach fundamentals before launching a project.  The fundamentals include knowing what prior knowledge is necessary.  It is important for teachers to set the stage for independent inquiry.  The teacher could do this by using the K-W-L activity to tell  what they know, wonder, and learned.  The teacher should also share the assessment rubric with students to guide them to achievement.

To prepare students for using technology in a project, the teacher must plan effective ways to get the students ready for using technology.  The teacher should set up a technology playground for students to learn how to use technology from each other.  It is also important that the teacher taps into the student expertise.  Students can sometimes help each other more than a teacher can help them.  The teacher can then introduce project-management tools and demonstrate process to the students. Use your technology specialist if you need help.

To promote inquiry and deep learning, the teacher needs to guide students to choose questions, plan investigations, and begin to put their plan in action.  When brainstorming ideas, students will be able to combine information through several context areas (social studies, science, math).  Guide students toward skilled questioning by imagining what practitioners or experts might ask.

These topics from chapter six will help us with our project by allowing us to think about what is important, and how to effectively incorporate technology to give the students a positive learning experience.

Collaborative Concept Map

Reflection 6, Chapter 6

1. ProfilerPRO, blogs and SurveyMonkey ae a few tools that can help kids be reflective and evaluate their own strengths. We used the ProfilerPRO at the beginning of class to see what we knew about technology for this class. We wwill also do it at the end to see what we have learned from this class. This will show use where ore strengths are and help us reflect on what we might need to still work on. When we use the blogs (as we are now) others see our work and can comment on what we have said and what we are doing. This gives us feedback that can help us make corrections or give us new ideas of where to go with a project or how to tackle a problem with our project. 2. Using a K W L is a great way to get the students ready for a project. In seeing what they might not know about a subject may help them get interested enough to go above and beyond the research that will be necessary in learning about what they don't know. I whole heartedly agree with "giving the idea time to settle in their imaginations". Talk about the project for at least a few minutes every day and answer any questions they may have but let them figure out what to do or how to do it in their own way. I know I find it more intriguing to hear about a subject or project a little at a time. It makes my interest in it go way up. Teachers could also bring in any elements that might be included in the project for the students to see, feel or smell. Maybe a finished project from another class could bring the interest level up and get students engaged enough to want to learn more and do the project to the best of their ability. 3. We must teach fundamentals first in order to get the srudents ot the place in thelearning that is essential for doing a project. We can't just tell the students to do a project on microbes as a life form (like in the book) and expect all of the students to know what that means. By teaching them what a microbe is we give them the prior knowledge needed in order to do the project as it is intended. We need to build up the information to the project so they are ready to dig in and do the project and learn with the project the things that are in the Wonder prtion of their K W L. 4. "Learning to use technology or an application for a project can be a rich problem-solving experience." By setting up a tchnology playground, the students can explore on their own and teach others. Setting up computer stations with at least one tool they will use in the project for them to get use to that tool and the technology. Students can help others when they need help with this also. Some students tend to thrive when they are asked to help others. They feel useful and important. Using a project management tool such as a journal or a log can help students track their progressand be a source for reflections. Modle the tools yourself. Modeling for the students is the best way to teach them how to do something. If yo are not comfortable with modeling it, ask a specialist to come into the classroom and teach the students about the tool. 5. Guiding student to more skilled questions and deeper research can promote inquiry and deep learning. Instead of doing reports, the students can do research on the best place to live or the best company to buy something from. Ask them to propose a solution to landfills filling up fast instead of doing a report on landfills. Using hypothetical questions make students use the knowledge they have to pose a hypothesis and consider options. What if questions like what if the price of gas was the same as it was in China? Using should questions makes students decide on a moral or practical decision. Using why questions helps the students understand cause and effect. All of these help students dig deeperr in their projects. If the project is one to help make something better like "How can we keep landfills from filling up too soon?", the students may be helping their future by finding ways to keep the landfills low. This helps them, their kids and the rest of the world. 6. These concepts relate to our projects in that we are learning the technology in class first before we use them in our project. We need to get the students interested in the projects and make sure they have some prior knowledge about the project. If they do not, we need to get them to that point with short, easy lessons that will help them and everyone. In our podcast we asked the students to take a survey about our topic, to see what information needed to be taught more or less. If a topic is too easy and the students know everything about it they will be bored and uninterested in doing the project. In my opinion, there has to be at least one element in a project that will have the students asking questions and wondering more about that project.

Chapter 5

Beginning a Technology based project takes a lot of planning on the teachers half, but it is well worth it if you plan right since students’ gain a better understand of the information through inquiry, collaboration, and research.  Some things to consider before starting the project include; resources, supplies, and tools that will be needed to aid students with the project, consider important milestones and deadlines to help students become effective managers of their own time, and team planning to support students as they go about many activities that the project involves.

When doing a project with Technology, it is important for the teacher and the students to have good management.  The book discussed the teacher’s management needs for tools and strategies.  These needs include: tools to be used to communicate with the students about the project, tools to communicate milestones or events to students, tools to notify students when there are changes, a method for getting resources to students, a system for managing work products, structures to support productive learning for students to be engaged in a variety of learning tasks at one time, and assessment tools.

Students on the other hand must form management tools and strategies when it comes to: systems and tools that help manage time and flow of work, systems to help manage materials and control of work, collaboration tools, methods for seeking assistance, ways to get and use feedback on their work, and ways to work iteratively and to see how parts add up to the whole. 

It is important for the teacher to think about different technology applications that can be given to students to help them on a project.  Some of these applications may be web-based applications; which include blogs.  The teacher should focus on finding things on the Web to support projects. This can be done through project wiki which will link a blog to your class to share the project with others.  The teacher can use ClustrMap to show Web visits from people around the world, RSS feeds so students are aware of project updates, links with multimedia, Skype to communicate, and links to a class Flickr site with project pictures. 

This is beneficial to our project and topic because weather is a tricky thing to teach through a long period of time.  For the teacher, it will be important for us to know seasons, and plan the best time for students to communicate with students around the world.  This is important when making sure those seasons will be opposite (summer there, winter here).  It is also important to be able to adjust the lesson when needed; for example, a hurricane is headed towards the Pacific coast.  You change the lesson from that week to teach students how to track the hurricane and study the effects it could have if it reaches land. 

Reflection 5, Chapter 5

1. Items that should be considered before starting a project are: do you intend to use technology? If so you need to make sure you have computers, projectors, cameras, or anything that the project will require the students to use. Will your students need experts to answer their questions. If so, set up a Q and A session at school and invite anyone that you know that would be able to answer the questions. Like you could invite a cook to speak if you are doing a project about cooking or recipes. If the expert can't come to the school, set up a video chat for the students. You could also have the students write or type out their questions and email or even Facebook the person.If you are working as a collaborative team, make sure everyone is involved with their strengths and weaknesses. 2.The teachers management needs are tools for communicating, tools for making events and changes visible to the students, ways to get resources to the students, systems for managing products from the project, productive learning environment, and assessment tools and strategies. With out any of these, a project can fall apart. The teacher must accommodate for anything that may come up in the classroom. The students needs are somewhat the same: tools that help them manage their time and flow of work, systems that help them manage materials and control work drafts, collaboration tools, tools to help them seek assistance, ways to get feedback, ways to use feedback, and ways to see how parts add up to a whole. If we don't teach them to manage their time and work, they might take to long or not enough time on a project. They need to know that doing only parts of the project is not acceptable and they need to use all the time possible. We always need to show them and teach them that collaboration is a great way to do a project and a great way to get to know others. They will need collaboration skills in the real world. Asking for assistance or help is a must. We have to make sure the students know we will help them or they can find help through others in the building or outside the building. Getting feedback on a project is crucial I think because we need to know what parts need tweeking but also what parts have been do very well. 3.Using a wiki is an application you can use in a project. students create pages of content to share by just using a browser, format text, add web links, or build new pages. Students can work on this together from anywhere. The wiki marks exactly who has done what, which is good for the teacher to make sure that all students are participating. I liked this when we did our map and pen-pals a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know we could do that before this class. A blog is a good technology to use in a project. Again I had never done one of these before and am kind-of liking it. It is great to share ideas, chat or just post project information too. 4. The ideas in this chapter I see use using in our project are the blog. Any information we can get from the internet will be used such as web pages that connect to weather. Janice Alff

Chapter 4 Reflection

Project design takes a lot of consideration and planning on behalf of the teacher; and sometimes the project design still does not turn out as planned.  It is important to think about the potential pitfalls you may face with project design, and know what makes a project design good.  First, if a project is busy and long, and only reaches small learning aims, it is best not to waste your time or your students time with the project.  Second, you do not want a project that has students researching and simply presenting information on a slide show.  A good project should focus on reaching significant learning outcomes with the aid of technology if it enhances the project.  Third, don’t just teach from a thematic unit plan since the work is not interdisciplinary or collaborative.  You want a project that is structured differently and combines elements of each subject.  Fourth, don’t make your project overly scripted with tons of steps.  You want steps that will lead to good outcomes and steps that lead to the objectives of the lesson.  Good projects should be loosely designed with multiple learning paths, aid students in constructing meaning, be centered on a driving question, be realistic and cross multiple disciplines, it should involve the community and people outside of schools, it show tap rich data, be structured for students to learn from each other through inquiry, involve 21^st century skills, and have students learn by doing.

                Project ideas may come from anywhere, especially from good books.   Some good places to look include educational books, project plans developed by and for other teachers, news stories, contemporary issues, student’s questions or interests, a classroom irritant put to educational use, or a mash of great ideas and new tools.  It is often found that good projects will lead you to a new project idea.

                The most difficult project you design may be your first project because it is new and you don’t know what to expect.  When designing a project, you should first consider the school calendar, curriculum sequence, student readiness, and student interests.  Then you may begin to make a framework.  Note all learning objectives for core subjects and disciplines.  Decide which 21^st century skills you want to address.  Start planning your project and all the things that must go into it.  At this time you can write a project sketch, which Is a brief account of your project.  Share these sketches with your colleagues to discuss hard questions and ways to make the project better. 

                This chapter helped with the project we are designing in Educational Technology because it made you think about different steps you should take.  It also told me what the pitfalls and aspects of a project design may be.  This made me realize that many of the ideas that I had for our project were not deep enough for students, and it would be “cookie cutter work”.

Reflection 4, Chapter 4

1. Some potential pitfalls of project design are if the project is to long, but short on the learning aspect of the project. The project may be a hit with the students but if they are not learning enough doing the project then what use is it? Technology layered over traditional practice--we need to make sure the project will reach a specific learning outcome. As the book states, "Having students research a topic on the internet and then present it in a electronic slideshow is not a quality project-it is just a dressed up version of a research report." Pg. 61. Trivial thematic units--Make sure to have many different projects for one theme. One project for one theme can be dull. Look at the big picture with your theme and try to connect it to many subjects in your classroom. Overly scripted with many, many steps--This sounds boring. To many steps lead kids to become bored with the project and they will not finish it or poorly finish it. Kids need precise steps but short and few steps. They will learn more because they stay interested and more engaged. 2. The features of a good project include letting the students interests play a role in the projects. If they are interested in the project they are much more likely to stay with it and finish the project with as much enthusiasim as they can. Make sure they want to ask questions about the topic. Asking questions makes the project more interesting, if the questions are something that no one has thought of before. 3. Where do project ideas come from? They can come from anywhere and from anyone. Teachers may have projects from their schooling or from projects they have used in the past in their classrooms. Ideas can also come from other teachers. You can get ideas from the news, contemporary issues, student questions and interest, or even a classroom problem that needs to be solved. The students can research how to solve the problem. Ideas can also come from former projects that you give a new twist to. 4. The steps to design a project are to decide on the skills you want to address, identify the learning dispostitions you want to foster, establish how you will evaluate understanding of the skills, plan the theme or challenge of the project, and how will you get the students excited and interestedin the project. Try to think of every possible advantage and disadvantage for and about the project that might come up with the students during the project. 5. I think the concepts of this chapter that relate to my project are making sure the students are interested in the project. If we were in a classroom teaching doing a project eith the students, I would listen to their interests and hope to come up with one or two that everyone agrees on. I think the weather is an interesting topic for my project and I hope to engage all students in the topic. Having the penpals to work with will help students see that the weather is different in different parts of the world at differernt times. Some students may not realize this if they have never been outside their town or state. I hope to get information and project ideas from other teachers. Other teachers can be they biggest resource for us.

Chapter 2 Response - Late

         Learning communities are beneficial because it allows the students and the teachers to learn and grow together.  Although it has never been popular for teachers to work together, it has been shown that when teachers work together, it allows the teachers to grow more and projects to be more in-depth.  And thanks to the growth of teachers, our students are able to grow collaboratively with their teachers and classmates.
         Learning communities are very beneficial to the teachers and the students.  For teachers, they are able to work together to determine the best practice to achieve a mission, bounce ideas off each other, plan large projects with a clear mission, allows different groups to work together, it commits teachers to always do their best, and allows teachers to be lifelong learners. Benefits for learning communities that function for several years include "decreased teacher isolation, increased commitment to the mission, shared responsibility, more powerful learning, and a higher likelihood of fundamental, systemic change.
       Learning communities affect teachers a lot, because like the book said, it has never been a habit for teachers to work together.  Even during practicums  I have noticed that teachers are reserved and do not like to share ideas or suggestions with co-teachers.  Teachers will have to learn how to work together collaboratively, and how to respect each others work and listen to ideas.  Teachers must have an open mind for learning communities to work.
        Learning communities also have a large affect on students because instead of just receiving an education from one teacher, the students are learning from all teachers since they share their ideas.  The teachers being put in groups and sharing ideas would change the types of lessons and projects students did.  Students will also need to learn how to work with each other to apply their knowledge to real life situations. The students also benefit from learning communities because the teachers are constantly learning and assessing how ideas work, and they are constantly working together to figure out how to best teach students.  Students also have the opportunity to work with classmates to design more in-depth projects and to think deeper through interaction.
      Many of the components that go into learning communities was already discussed earlier in the reflection.  But it is important to address their research-based components and make sure that everyone understands them.  Members of the community must "have a clear sense of the mission, share a vision of the conditions they must create to achieve the mission, work together in collaborative teams to determine best practice to achieve the mission, organize into groups headed by teacher-leaders, focus on student learning, are goal- and result- oriented, collaborate with each other, hold shared values and beliefs, commit themselves to continuous improvement, and see themselves as life-long learners."
      The concepts found in chapter two are very relevant to the project we are working on in teams.  Us, as teachers, are required to work together in planning and sharing ideas that we believe would work best to reach students.  During this, it is important that both "teachers" are respectful of the others ideas, we assess what works and what does not, and we have to find a mission and figure out what will be best to reach that vision.
     

Chapter 3 Resonse

When deciding on the “Big Ideas” for a project, teachers should consider the core concepts and processes.  Identifying the big ideas at the heart of the subjects we teach is the first step of project planning.  To figure out the big ideas, the teacher should read the table of contents for the teaching guide and review curriculum standards for his or her subject.  The teacher also needs to think about how a hands-on project might evolve to take diverse interests into account.  The teacher should also consider real-world contexts and interdisciplinary natures of the project they are planning.  All of these things will help the teacher decide on the big ideas for the projects that he or she is planning.

Well-designed projects will push students to think deeper intellectually that traditional assignments did not do.  It is best for students to use Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives when project planning.  This includes remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.  When planning, you should try to evolve the higher-order thinking skills analyzing, evaluating, and creating.  When analyzing, the students will examine, explain, investigate, characterize, classify, compare, contrast, illustrate, or prioritize.  Using the evaluation skill, students will judge, select, decide, justify, improve, defend, debate, recommend, and assess.  When creating, students will adapt, anticipate, combine, compose, design, imagine, theorize, and/or formulate.

                Many instructional standards of the 21^st century focus more on the behaviors required of accomplished people of the 21^st century.  A model done has shown the highlights of Digital-Age Literacy like scientific, economic, and technological literacies; visual and information literacies,; and Inventive thinking; effective communication; and high productivity.  Students also must be taught how to effectively use real-world tools and how to produce relevant, high-quality products.  By multiple definitions, literacy now boils down to learning to be independent, aware, and productive citizens.  

                There are eight essential learning functions that teachers must keep in mind when they are designing a project.  First, learning inside and outside the classroom, stresses that teachers give students the ability to learn anytime and anyplace.  Tools the teacher could use include MP3 players, mobile phones, and Google Docs.  Second, deep learning, stresses that students go beyond the “filtered” information and help students make sense of information found on the web.  Students could use educational video-on-demand or real-time data sets.  Third, making things visible and discussable, teaches students how to use resources to gain a better understand of something.  Students could use “mind maps”, Visual Thesauruses, or Google Earth to make things more visible for discussion.  Fourth, expressing ourselves and sharing ideas and building communities, will provide students with a connection to the social world.  Students could use Flicker or Facebook to share ideas.  Fifth, Collaboration, allows students to use tools to help learn together.  Students should share, write, and survey together.  Students could use tools such as wiki or Web-based “Office” applications.  Sixth, research, is essential for students to learn.  The 21^st century has demanded students to use research and the web.  Students could use Google Search for questions or the Citation Machine for citing information.  Seventh, Project management, stresses the importance of students managing time, work, sources, feedback, drafts, and products during projects.  Students could use Desire2Learn or simply make a folder of their own.  Eighth, reflection and interaction, allows students to think deeper when reviewing and viewing ideas from different points of view.  Students could use Blogger or Wikispaces for this essential learning function. 

                The points discussed in this chapter of the book are very useful in reference to our project and topic.  Students have a much different demand for learning thanks to the turn of the 21^st century.  Less focus is put on the “busy” work, and students are being asked to think deeper, relate information to real-life situations, and collaborate with classmates and the community.  By knowing the eight essential learning functions, teachers will be able to implement all the important aspects of learning and help students find new references for the future. 

Acrossed the Globe: Kalamazoo, MI to Russia and Brazil.

View Weather Monitoring Acrossed the Globe in a larger map This map shows our third grade students in Kalamazoo, Michigan where their penpals are located. Our students will be communicating with students in Rio de Janiero, Brazil and St. Petersburg, Russia.

Google Document: Penpals

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gyz6zO9nCrK2HkMl42BhptTLc2EP8FS6j_WK9FbmSyA/edit

Reflection 3, Chapter 3

Reflection 3, Chapter 3. 1. Some things to consider in finding "the Big Idea" for are project are to identify the concepts and process you want students to understand and reflect on why they are important. Think about the real-world contexts to see the many disciplines of the project that will help your students in many ways. Think of projects that may help the community. Students may have ideas of their own on what to do for a project for the community. 2. "A well designed project causes students to stretch their intellectual muscles in ways traditional learning activities may not." pg. 47. Using Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives will help with this. The objectives are: Remember (Knowledge), Understand (Comprehension), Apply, Analyze (examine, explain, investigate, ect..), Evaluate (judge, select, decide, justify, ect...), and create (adapt, anticipate, combine, invent, ect..). Doing all of these will help students with their projects as well as with anything else they are doing. In the real-world we do some parts, if not all parts of these in everything we do. 3. Digital Age literacy, Inventive Thinking, Effective Communication, and High Productivity are all important literacies. "Literacy boils down to learning to be independent, aware, and productive citizens." pg. 49. We must teach our students how to use technology, be independent with their thinking, be able to communicate well with others, and be able to produce masterful pieces in whatever they do. 4. The essential learning functions are 1)Ubiquity: Learning inside and outside the classroom, and at all times. Teachers must look for and utilize any and all tools that will help students learn where ever they are and with whom they want to. 2)Deep Learning. "Higher-order thinking is engaged when students have to navigate and sort, organize, analyze, and make graphical representations in order to learn and express learning." pg. 54. We all need this in order to do our best in anything we do. 3)Making things visible and discussable. Making our thoughts and ideas visible is a good step in getting a conversation going. 4)Expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, building community. Using Myspace, Facebook, or Twitter helps students express themselves without having to write a long, boring paper about themselves. Papers are for school, the other avenues are more open and interesting for students. 5)Collaboration--teaching and learning with others. Collaboration is the major part of projects. We must teach our students how to work well with others because in most jobs they will have to work with others in some way. 6)Research. In order to get information right, we must research what we want to know and make sure it is from a trusted site or trusted individual. 7)Project Management:Planning and organization. Students must learn to manage time, work, play, and others. Doing projects with others helps with all of these. 8)Reflection and Iteration. Examining all aspects of and hearing others reacttions to your projects or information makes it possible to see and hear what you might need to or want to change in the work. 5. Collaboration, organize, analyze, evaluate, create, and research all play a part in the topic my partner and I have choosen. We must engage our students to do all of them in order to get the best possible information out of them. Janice Alff