Just spotted this one today on Teacher Tube! I was glad to see so many more videos out there than even earlier this spring on technology integration and information literacy. I hope we can nudge things in the right direction…and I’m having trouble embedding at the moment so here is the URL:

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=8416a242f40fb7d7f338

Check it out!

Our ITEC 521 class had to create a video about information literacy. I finally got this embedded in the blog… ARGH! We worked very hard in our class to piece this together and make it manageable. Hope you like it!

Choose a prompt and respond within your comment. Be sure to reference your topic within the response!

1) Write a brief introduction to yourself.  Please consider suggested privacy guidelines when responding. Include (honestly) why you are attending this session.

2) Brainstorm ideas for using a blog as a teacher.

3) Write a list of things for teachers to do on a snow day.

Due to popular demand, here is a photo of my puppy girl Clara. She’s only ten months old. How long can I stay mad at a face like that?

My sweetheart puppy is an absolute doll…a doll that eats things! I thought we were finished when she chewed the corner off of one of my texts for class. I was so wrong! I accidentally left my Roblyer text ‘Integrating Education Technology into Teaching’ on my couch after scanning a bit during my after work, after dog walk rest on the couch. We went to dinner and when we returned, Stephen scared me with, “What in the world is that?” And what he was referring to, you see in the picture. She destroyed Chapters 1-2, the cover and binding, Chapters 12-?? and the index, glossary, resource list, etc…It’s a big mess. All I could say was “oh…that book was expensive!”I really was devastated. But it’s not like my house was destroyed or anything that couldn’t be replaced. I just now understand that she has a genuine taste for ITEC course books. Yum Yum!

In ITEC 521 I have learned a few things so far. We’ve only been in class for two weeks now, so I’m sure there is much more to come! We started off class by delving into inquiry and what inquiry based learning is all about. I had the opportunity to learn about an online writing tool that allowed for sharing and posting or publishing of writing and what that might mean for our students. The second class dealt more with the nature of research and reflection. We discussed information literacy and the state of objectivity in research studies and literature reviews. I enjoyed discussing the bias in research as it is a relevant topic to my other class, ITEC 510. We then spent some time exploring Second Life. I had heard of Second Life but never started exploring Second Life. I am still a little overwhelmed with the possibilities and design of Second Life, but it was very interesting to explore an alternative reality shared by thousands of people. I’m not sure that I could use it in my job as I have enough trouble getting people to use computers for effective research, but I could see some teachers using it with their students, especially for virtual classrooms. This coming week I will need to think further about my web-based unit and the idea of information literacy.

Are we there yet? No, because there is no THERE in this discussion. To imply that we have a destination is to imply that there will be finality in the field of instructional technology. Technology is a constantly evolving creature. Its place in the classroom remains undefined and indefinite despite the pervasive nature of computers and technology in our lives and workplaces. What is there? Surely ‘there’ is beyond ‘here’ but even ‘here’ is undefined and difficult to analyze because classrooms are so different in their usage of computers depending on the instructor, the available resources, the funding, the instructional design, the students, and the community. Is
Virginia closer to ‘there’ because we include a requirement for instructional support and instructional technology integrators as part of our Standards of Quality? The presence of computers does not guarantee effective integration into the curriculum, nor does the presence of support personnel. Do we get bonus points for being closer to ‘there’? There is just unachievable in this field because technology will never stop truly evolving. The film strip revolutionized classrooms, but was not available in every school and perhaps the ‘there’ of yesteryear was providing every classroom with one. Thank goodness we’re not ‘there’ anymore. Our ‘there’ is constantly changing.So what about Willis? He states that he missed at least three major uses of computers in education including the use of computers for information gathering and sharing, communication, and distance education. He did not forsee the use of computers for email and information exchange. Willis also predicted that computers would play a central role in the curriculum of students. He does not believe that computers are as central to curriculum as he thought they would be twenty years ago. Willis does believe that he accurately predicted the dawn of software innovations that would ease the productivity of computer usage. He critiqued the sophistication of software as a sacrifice of ease of use implying that even Microsoft Word “is not really easy to learn and use” (12). I understand the critique of the sophistication of a software program, but question whether it is wrong to have features to grow into. I have used many word processing programs throughout my life and have managed to make them all work for my needs. I love learning new tools within the programs such as Word as I have a need for the tool. I wouldn’t consider the sophistication as a sacrifice of ease. Willis also predicted that schools would play a smaller role in the lives of its citizens. I have to agree with Willis that we are living in a society of lifelong learners. The learning that relates to technology has reared its head in our living rooms with our DVRs and HD Systems with USB imports, flat screens, wireless encrypted networks, cell phones, ATMs, online banking, etc… I know that our schools are important in the lives of our students, but there is a great deal of learning happening outside of the classroom because of ease of access to information and tools.I wish I could accurately predict the trends of instructional technology in the next ten to twenty-five years. I would invest some money. The trends of our society leak into our classrooms. If we know where society is headed with its technology, then we know where our schools will be headed, with a delay, of course! I see laptops coming into our schools, as well as wireless networks. New schools are being built with wireless capability. Differentiation and flexible learning strategies including distance learning and online learning will pave the way for portable networking. Computer solutions will become much more portable and affordable. Microsoft and Apple will continue on as giants, but there will be a new operating system that completely defies the logic of Windows. There will be a new Windows that is not Windows…it will be completely different and yet somehow completely logical and we won’t know why we didn’t think of it when it comes out. We won’t be locked onto our workstations, even as teachers. We will have a more portable solution. Unfortunately many of us that are still teaching in ten to twenty-five years will be financing that solution independently as schools continue to remain behind the times and under funded. I believe that students will have many more educational opportunities from home or satellite stations in their neighborhoods or communities. Teachers will still exist, but their students may not be sitting in their classrooms as they teach. Ten to twenty-five years is a broad range! When I consider ten years ago, so much has changed, and yet so little has changed. Our computers were in labs, were used from day to day for word processing, and were not convenient to instruction. The Internet was just a flicker of a thought, more of a novelty ten years ago. That is hard to believe! But there were not computers in any of my college classrooms and a projector was only used for movies in the special classrooms. Twenty years ago I was in a classroom with one computer for special math programs and Logo computer programming. It wasn’t so different from how I see many teachers using the computer now!This is turning in to a very long response…but I enjoyed reading Willis’s analysis of the objective research versus the ideology of educational technology. A discussion of the validity and objectivity of research further enhanced my thoughts about the topic in a separate class that I’m taking this semester. I would hope that all students of education and teachers and administrators could look at research for what it is. As I’ve gotten older and gone through many graduate classes, I’ve come to appreciate, respect, and therefore critique the academics that drive our field. They are not that different from me, maybe older, better paid, more experienced and published. They might have time to research and more dedication to the field than me. But they are influenced, they come with a perspective and ideas and their own education. I agree with Willis that ideology will drive education. I don’t think that the so-called objective research should be discredited for its work. I instead think that it should be read for what it is and not made to be the defining work of education. I enjoyed his analysis of the topic.

Willis, J. (2003). Instructional Technologies in Schools: Are We There Yet? InD.Lamont Johnson & Cleborne D. Maddux (Eds), Technology in Education:A Twenty-Year Retrospective (pp. 11-33). New York: NY: The
HaworthPress, Inc.

This post was due the week of October 9th. The two topics covered in the readings include curriculum planning and sharing technology sucesses. Curriculum planning involves two parts of a larger plan, the strategic plan and the operational plan. The strategic plan sets the overall tone of the plan, the operation plan provides the specific goals that will lead to the success of the plan (LeBaron, 2001).  There are six stages of curriculum planning. The first step is to create a shared vision for curriculum. The team must develop and share a vision for the curriculum. The second step is to assess curricular needs by evaluation the difference between what should be and what already exists (LeBaron, 2001).  The third step is to describe desired goals, activities and outputs that the curriculum will produce-evidence to prove its acheivement. The fourth step is to define key curriculum inputs, the process or what it would take to acheive those curricular goals. The fifth step is to assign personal responsibility to those members of the school community that must  make it happen. The teachers, administratorrs, and experts or specialists are all needed as part of the plan to make it successful. The final stage is to evaluate and assess the results.  My school is probably still in the first and second stage of developing a curricular plan for technology integration. We are still defining a team of players to make those decisions and determining the needs of our school based on incoming data.

The second article, Technology and Learning: Getting the Story Out, argues that in order for a school system to garner public support for its programs, it must first provide persuasive evidence that decision makers can translate and comprehend. Educators need to play on the success of others and use that evidence to guide their planning and influence others to support programming needs with technology. I had trouble understanding how the entire article fit together. It seemed like she was first arguing for authentic learning, inquiry practice rather than memorization. She provided an example of a study in which students investigated the theme of racism through a shared online resource. The students were able to view each others’ work and share their research and questions through this resource. The end result was students who could further their work through a collaborative effort. I agreed with the process and found her results interesting, but I had trouble following her discourse. I think that we do have to provide tangible, persuasive evidence of technology positively influencing student instruction. I think that more work needs to be done by the teachers at the class level. Sometimes I feel like a researcher can prove anything they want to prove when it comes to educational theory. It just seems subjective. Getting the story out is going to be more work than citing the 21st century worker.  The average policy maker is not going to justify funding for change without good, persuasive evidence.

Resources:
Jarvela, S. (2001). Technology and Learning: Getting the Story Out. In J.F. LeBaron
& C.Collier (Eds.), Technology in its Place: Successful Technology Infusion in Schools. (pp. 43-57). San Francisco: CA: Jossey-Bass.

LeBaron, J.F. (2001). Curriculum Planning for Technology-Rich Instruction. In J.F. LeBaron & C.Collier (Eds.), Technology in its Place: Successful Technology Infusion in Schools (pp. 17-29). San Francisco: CA: Jossey-Bass.  

Our school uses data as part of the school improvement plan to improve acheivement. The administration uses the data for purchasing decisions–to decide where student funding will be allocated. The school uses its AYP data for staffing and after school programming decisions. Students are transferred between remediation courses to supplement their everyday instruction as a result of their performance on standardized assessment. The leadership committee reviews student data to develop school improvement goals and re-evaluate existing goals. We have an instructional coordinator who regularly reviews school and student data while planning with specific departments. Department heads use benchmark data to help other teachers plan for SOL practice with their students. Data is everywhere, but I have to wonder how effectively that data is being used for planning. Students are currently misplaced in remediation courses because we don’t have enough room to put everybody who needs math remediation in a math remediation course. Instead, they are put into reading remediation despite the fact that many of the students in that course don’t need the remediation. The SOL data came out after the scheduling was done by the guidance department and there seems to be a great reluctance to shift schedules after one quarter of the school year despite the fact that the students who are misplaced know that they are misplaced and are increasingly frustrated by their situation. Benchmark data is really only looked at in order to compile it to a collective spreadsheet to submit to central office. Departments are only this year taking the data as a department and developing strategies for teaching frequently missed SOL objectives.

We are a school in transition. Hopefully we will continue in a forward direction and the evidence will be obvious to students, teachers and administrators. Doing the same thing, using the same remediation strategies, is obviously not working well for our school. It’s time to look forward and stop making excuses, i.e. it was the test, the mislabeling of students, the tough critics of VGLA portfolios, the lack of new technology… It’s time to plan with who we have, what we have, and what we can do–and succeed as best we can.

Our school does not work with outside organizations to integrate technology into teaching and learning. Our county has an ongoing business partnership with a company that supplies our laptops and desktop computers and they handle many technical work orders and the salvaging of aged machines. This partnership allows us special pricing on laptops and desktops for classroom use and helps schools to supplement current computers with new machines. TMS does not have any specific partnerships with corporations to promote learning. We have business partnerships with local businesses. These partners provide support through donations, discounts and public support for school events and rewards for students.  One partnership through the county is with the military, not a business per se. But the partnership is all about promoting engineering, science, and math education in our middle school classrooms and further promoting recruitment of future workers into the Navy. The partnership has provided funding for laptops, robotics kits, training, and other supplemental materials as part of an authentic, ongoing activity.

We could develop partnerships with businesses that integrate technolgoy into teaching and learning through the pursuit of grants and further work into our distance learning program. Grants automatically match the receiver with a business to provide goods and services to enhance a program in the classroom. Teachers could further pursue partnerships once that first contact is made, with experts in the field and interested parties to help continue and further develop the initial grant winning program. Our distance learning program puts us in contact with educators throughout the country. A group called Global Leap provides some distance learning activities and sessions for pay, but is also key in helping distance learning programs to get started in making matches with classrooms around the world and finding curriculum that is worthy of long distance collaboration.

We should pursue partnerships to promote higher order thinking and cross-curricular work through the programs of outside partners. Students automatically associate outside businesses with authentic learning. Learning becomes real, rather than textbook or chalkboard based.

Our school’s technology plan does not identify a need for corporate partnerships. We do not have a seperate technology plan. We have some technology embedded into our school improvement plan, but again, it does not identify a need for corporate partnerships. It should be a seperate plan and that seperate plan should promote community connections to benefit student instruction. The students perceive community projects as authentic and therefore more relevant to their lives. Partnerships could alleviate some of the stress of being creative and developing authentic activities and provide some support specifically in planning and supporting new programs.

Overall, our school is in the beginning stages of developing a philosophy for technology integration. Our administration could not effectively define integration if asked. That is part of why I am there. There is eagerness to learn and grow and many changes are needed to effectively benefit student instruction.