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Blog Post 5

For this week's blog, your assignment was to select at least two of the video cases that focused on engaging students through technology integration. As you watched, what did you notice about student engagement and motivation? What was the role of the teacher? What new insights did you gain about technology integration? Please provide connections to specific examples (including quotes, as relevant) from the videos.

Case #1:

In this case, I thought that the students seemed very interested and motivated to complete the games that they were playing. The classroom had many different types of technology that could be used and certain things like the iPods were seen as special compared to the laptop. This in turn made the kids want to achieve that 80% on three games so they could move up to play on the iPods. I really liked how this teacher gave his students more than one option on websites. You had to complete one website in order to move onto the next, but I like how he didn’t just stick with one all the way through because some programs don't teach in ways that some students need and vice versa. The programs that the teacher has allows the students to work at a group pace and to work at the students individual pace. Something I gained from this about technology integration is that having students use technology even just to play games is such a good tool in the classroom. Having technology doesn’t mean it has to be used to write papers and research things, but it can be used to have fun and play games and still be educational!

Case #2

In this case, my first reaction to the kid explaining and showing his games was “Wow! This kid is really smart!”. I seriously kept thinking that the whole way through because here is this kid who is probably 10-11 years old and he is making these incredible games which takes a lot of thinking to create the storyline, plot, mechanics, etc. meanwhile I couldn’t even code a single little game on Scratch when I was in W200. The kid was absolutely engaged and motivated in creating his games especially from the comments from people how played and told him that something could be fixed here and here or this game was great. From this case, I gained that not all programs and websites that deal with coding and gaming have to be boring and not fun. The program he used seemed super interesting and fun and if students in my future class wanted to create games on there I would I love that! Gaming shouldn’t just be seen as something that is a pastime and requires no brains, but something takes a lot of skill, thinking, and creativity.

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Powerpoint Renovation Justification

For this powerpoint renovation, I completely took everything off of the slides and started new based on our course syllabus for W310. The original powerpoint was very messy with random pictures everywhere, different colored texts, and weird backgrounds. It was very hard to see what was written on each slide and the information was not coherent and smooth. I took everything off the slides and started by making each background a nice light aesthetic pink. I also chose two different fonts, one for headings and another for paragraphs. This keeps everything nice and coherent so the reader understands where to read. After that I filled in the pages with the information on the syllabus and adjusted the wording and length for clarity. I also added pictures to each slide, but made sure to they were black and white, had a transparent background, and were clipart images so that they flowed smoothly throughout the presentation and did not look tacky. All of the changes I made to the powerpoint help it to look more professional and clean. The reader can clearly read and understand the material on the slides and it is visually pleasing to look at as well.

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Blog Post #4

In the readings assigned this week, Dirksen offers suggestions on how to design to promote student skill development and also implications of the design of physical and virtual spaces (environment) on learning. As 1:1 laptop or tablet adoptions are becoming increasingly popular in school districts across the country, I would like for you to imagine your future classroom in a 1:1 classroom. Using concepts from Dirksen chapters 7 and 9 and reflecting on your own experience, what will your general approach be to integrating these tools into your pedagogy in a way that promotes student learning?

Having technology in the classroom can be useful in many ways, but it can also be a distraction. Some schools allow students to bring in their own devices like laptops and phones, but some schools provided these to students to use in class during instruction. When I was in elementary school we did not have iPads or laptops or phones. We had a couple big computers in the back of the classroom that we never used. We would have specific days when we would go to the computer lab to learn how to type and that was it. I think that it is a great tool to have technology in the classroom in a 1:1 setting. I think that technology is helping our students to learn more than they would have without it. I feel as though technology allows students to work at their own pace and allows them to explore their own interests. In my future classroom, I hope that there will be 1:1 technology whether it be iPads or laptops. I would like to integrate technology into my classroom to help students through their lessons and activities. By having technology in my classroom, it will allow me to see which students are excelling, on track, or those who need more help. By looking at these, I can then set things to their pace and have them complete lesson again in different ways to help them understand better. Dirksen talked about in chapter 7 how students need to have breaks in their learning. You can’t expect a student to keep learning new information and not give them a chance to use it and digest it. With technology, you can set the pace for the students and have them use the new information they learned in applicable ways. When they understand and can apply what they have learned, then they are given a little more new information and can use it in conjunction with the information they learned previously to solve problems. 

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Blog Post #3

Imagine and describe your future classroom, rich with resources and technology (including things we can't even imagine yet!). Long prompt short, how will you capture and maintain your learners' attention? Reflect on your own experience both in and outside of the classroom. When does it seem easy to pay attention? When can it be a challenge? As you think about the role of attention in creating effective learning experiences, draw connections to ideas discussed in Dirksen, Chapter 5.

I love imagining my future classroom and going on Pinterest to look up cute classroom designs! I have a Pinterest board dedicated just to my future classroom and all the ideas I love and want to implement when I become a teacher. As a student who has been through many years of school and has taught at schools, I can definitely say that my own classroom will be one that is organized and in tip-top shape. I have been in many classes where things are thrown all over the classroom, cupboards are stuffed with random things, and every spot you can stick something on is filled to the brim. This type of class makes me so uncomfortable and makes me just feel messy and unclean even though I know I'm not. Based on this, I know my class will be clean and organized and will have matching decorations that capture my student's attention, but also make them feel comfortable and safe. Chapter 5 was all about the rider and the elephant. How will you capture the elephant's attention to use it towards learning and not spacing out, how to make the elephant interested in learning, etc. I plan on teaching very young kids and so their elephants are running wild all the time. It is important to capture their attention with something that interests them and is something they like. Not all students are going to like a lesson on fish, but the ones who do will be very intrinsically motivated making their elephant pay attention. Dirksen talks about kind of tricking the elephant into being interested in something for the sake of learning. I think this type of thing works well on younger kids, like telling them that learning about space will help them to know when aliens attack or something like that. To wrap it all up, I think that having a classroom that is clean and organized and is decorated well, helps people to feel comfortable and safe which then, in turn, allows for their elephants to not runoff. This isn't scientifically proven, but for me, I know that I concentrate better when things are neat and clean. Outside of the classroom looks, I think capturing the student's elephants with interesting and fun things is how you make a lesson memorable and it keeps everyone's attention focused on the right thing. 

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Blog Post #2

What helps you to remember things? What can you do in your classroom to help your students to remember things? Why is it important to think about our cognitive abilities relative to memory when you plan and design learning experiences? What implications do computer-based technologies have on our memories and learning? Are they helpful? Are they in any way a detriment to our memories? Be sure to draw connections to ideas discussed in Dirksen, Chapter 4.

I always thought of my mind as a photographic type of memory. When I need to remember something I look at the placement of where that thing (i.e. where a word is written on my notes, where a thing is located in a building, etc.) and then I find that picture in my mind and I have the answer. This doesn’t always work though because my mind isn’t a camera. This has been the way of my mind though since I can remember and that is how I remembered things for school. I would picture a worksheet with the example and answer or notes with the definition and then I would correlate those things to simpler things and just remember. My mind works this way so I am not sure how I could help students to remember things. I do remember trying to help my friends in class remember definitions by connecting the definition to something that we use every day or something that is common sense. I would like to try this technique out with students, but would not want to confuse them too much. I think it is important to think about our own thinking when planning lessons and designing learning experiences because people tend to remember things when they are interesting, fun, engaging, or relate to a part of that person's life. In school, I always remembered things when I was taught in a fun and interesting way. When you use these types of teaching in lessons, students are more perceptive and in tune to remember what they learned and will associate it with that fun lesson, the funny experience that happened, or cool demonstration they watched. I think that computer-based technology can allow us to memorize and remember things faster and more easily, but in the long run, using technology doesn’t seem like the best way to get students' brains pumping and ready to remember something. Computer usage is almost a daily thing for every person and our brains are so wired to just aimlessly scroll through sites that trying to use this type of technology for remembering things doesn’t seem like the best idea to me. 

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Blog Post #1

Who are your learners? Tell me about who you plan to teach and what you anticipate they will be like. What should you consider about your learners as you plan and design learning opportunities/tools? In other words, what are some general implications of your students on your approach to teaching? What new insights did you gain from reading Chapter 2? Be sure to draw connections to ideas discussed in Dirksen, Chapter 2.

When I finish my schooling, I would really like to teach younger kids, whether that be in a daycare setting or kindergarten/ first grade. I think that students who are this young will definitely have a lot of challenges like not being able to sit still, not be able to concentrate, and so much more, but I also feel as though they will be fun, silly, and crazy. Based on this, I need to consider a lot of things when it comes to teaching these students. Making sure students have plenty of breaks during and in between lessons so they will stay focused and less jittery is a big tool I will use when I become a teacher. Young students have shorter attention spans so it is important to give them breaks from learning and for them to do something they are interested in. The age I plan to teach are still kids and they need time in their day to be kids; they need to play and interact with our kids. I plan to allow my students to have time to be kids, but also teach them important things at the same time. I want to incorporate these two things together in some way, but I am not sure yet because I don’t have a classroom with students yet. After reading Chapter 2, I took time to reflect on what was said and I really thought it was helpful to learn about how some students are motivated differently through intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. A lot of the examples made me think back to times when I was in a class that I had to take and others that I took because I wanted to. In high school, I didn't want to be in pre-calc, but I had to take it and I was very extrinsically motivated in it. During my senior year, I was able to take a college teaching class that allowed me to see what it was like to be a teacher and I was motivated intrinsically because I wanted to get the most out of the course and improve myself because I wanted to be a teacher.