EDCI5825 Final Post

Having gone through 6 weeks of this class, its would be hard not to have a changed view on instructional technology. While all of the technology portrayed in the class would be useful in a high tech, well funded school, for the average school some of the technology, including the Smartboard and video projects could easily be above the resources or skills of the students and school. In an ideal world all classrooms would be full of technology, but in the present times, schools are more likely to face reduced technology. Instructional technology is useful in classrooms, but I don't think that emphasis should be taken away from "traditional" low tech instructional practices.

Going through this class as well as growing up in the "tech" age have made me very comfortable with technology, and this comfort will only grown through continued use of the technology. I think that while technology is important to classrooms, it will never be able to replace a living, breathing, teacher with experiences, content knowledge and educational training.

EDCI5825 Week 6

    Google Reader is a useful tool for watching a list of blogs, though it does have some drawbacks. While it is  nice to be able to see the  newest posts, I would find it more useful if when you selected a blog it would display all the posts from the author. Besides that Google Reader would be a useful tool for a classroom where internet access for students is guaranteed and students would use blogs.
     I found that Megan and Dave used their blogs for more than answering assignments which was interesting and would be something that I would strive to do if I used a blog in a classroom in the future.

Week 5 Technology

Two websites that would be helpful in a future classroom would be Google Docs and Virtual Field trips. Google Docs would allow students to collaborate on projects as well as allow students to get more immediate feedback from me due to the quick sharing time of the program. This would also reduce the amount of paper that students have to deal with in a given day. The Virtual Field trips would work to allow me to show students places important to the class without having to worry about travel, permission slips and possibly loosing a student. This would also allow students to experience places that a high school class could never go to. This includes the Holocaust Museum and a tour of an Ancient Roman Villa (The Teachers Guide). These trips would be exceedingly hard for a a high school class to view in person. Instead of having to go only on visuals from a text book or randomized pictures on a website, virtual field trips would allow for a comprehensive "trip".

The Teacher Guide. (n.d.). Virtual Field Trips. The Teacher's Guide Virtual Field Trips . 6/292011. http://www.theteachersguide.com/virtualtours.html#Museums.

Week 5 T2P

Mind vs Brain

    Spending today working on the neural portion of educational psychology was interesting and informative but honestly a little more than I really needed. I was never big into psychology in my undergraduate work, and while this class was important to me in the context of the program and teaching, psychology would never top my list of educational interests. I have a hard time dealing with my own mind so thinking about other peoples minds is simply overload for me. 

    Learning theories are most certainly important to any pedological practice for any teacher and are an important of pre-service teacher training. These theories play an important part in a teacher developing their individual theory on the role of the teacher, student, content and context. While some people find themselves drawn to one theory and use that exclusively, I have found it impossible to pick one theory I come across will, I believe, culminate in the best learning theory for my individual strengths and weaknesses. 

A Good Teacher

"A Good Teacher..."

is hard to find and even harder to define. Good can be defined in many ways...

adjective

1. morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious: a good man.

2.satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree: a good teacher; good health.

3. of high quality; excellent.

noun

42. profit or advantage; worth; benefit: What good will that do?We shall work for the common good.

43. excellence or merit; kindness: to do good.

44. moral righteousness; virtue

Synonyms

1.  pure, moral, conscientious, meritorious, worthy, exemplary, upright. 2.  commendable, admirable. 5.  obedient, heedful. 6.  kindly, benevolent, humane, gracious, obliging. 23.  full, adequate. 24.  profitable, useful, serviceable, beneficial. 25.  efficient, proficient, capable, able, ready, suited, suitable, dexterous, expert, adroit, apt.

(Dictionary.com)

This list of definitions even uses teacher as an example for a definition, an unsatisfactory one of “satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree”. This definition of good is not appropriate for teachers because a satisfactory teacher makes no lasting impression on their students or their school. A good teacher knows their students, excels in their knowledge of their content area, masters of their profession and is a moral and ethical compass for their students. A good teacher should be: moral, worthy, exemplary, upright, admirable kindly, full, beneficial, efficient, capable, able, ready and expert.

If a teacher or pre-service teacher wants to be the most effective educator possible then they need to be familiar with the multitude of educational and learning theories because it helps them to understand the individual needs and strengths of their students and work towards enhancing those strengths through different applications of various learning theories. Effective teachers come in many packages, and each possesses a common ideal, that they should do anything possible to reach and effectively teach their students. 

For a good teacher it is vital to strive with their full potential to encourage, support and guide their students to realize their individual potential to become effective, successful, lifelong learners. Effective teachers realize that intrinsic motivation through autonomy, mastery and purpose is the key to fostering students that can become distinct, intellectually advanced, moral agents within their unique social and cultural position. 

EDCI 5825 Blog post 6/22

Please provide specific examples of technology/tools that you would recommend for a student with... (1) a hearing impairment, (2) low-vision, (3) a broken right arm, and (4) autism (non-communicative).

1. A student with a hearing impairment would benefit from a course Wiki as well as other visual technologies like Diigo. The use of a course Wiki would allow the student to communicate visually with classmates as well as access class resources including notes, readings and other material. The use of Diigo or other social bookmarking site would allow the student to find and use information other students or the teacher may have found without having to struggle to hear or read lips.

2. A student with low or diminished vision could benefit from an E-reader to allow for text to be read to the student. This application is found on most E-readers, as well as the ability to increase the size of the text displayed on the screen (Wikibooks, 2011c). This technology eliminates the issues vision-impaired students have with getting assigned texts in audio-book versions. This technology is also valuable for students with learning disabilities that impair their ability to read, including dyslexia etc. While these E-readers allow students to “read” assigned texts, they have an unfortunate issue with accessibility, in that the current E-readers do not have the ability to articulate the menus of the readers (Wikibooks, 2011c), requiring vision impaired students to rely on someone else to navigate the reader before they can listen to the book. These readers accommodate headphones so their use would not be disruptive to class. (Wikibooks, 2011c)

    These same individuals could also benefit from the DAISY technology that allows an individual to turn any text, including word documents, into an audio file (Wikibooks, 2009). This would be extremely important for vision-impaired students to access notes and presentation that other students would have easy access to. This technology would allow a teacher to convert class notes, tests, or other materials into a resource a visually impaired student could use with ease.

3. For any student with a disability, temporary or permanent that would affect their ability to write, speech recognition software would be the most effective tool. This technology allows a computer to take spoken words and transcribe them as text on a computer (Wikibooks, 2011a). This can be relatively inexpensive software to allow a student to continue their studies with minimal need for assistance. There are different software’s available to work with different operating systems, allowing the teacher to provide assistance to students.

4. Technology that would help a non-commutative autistic student could include speech recognition software as well as a variety of Alternative and Augmentative Communication systems, ranging from a laminated sheet with Velcro to hold pictures in place to an electronic device with an Alternative and Augmentative Communication program installed (Wikibooks 2011b). This technology allows the student to communicate through images instead of spoken or written words. This is often successful with autistic people and has become readily available in many handheld electronic devices.

Wikibooks. (2009). Assistive Technology in Education/DAISY. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/DAISY.

Wikibooks. (2011a). Assistive Technology in Education/Speech Recognition Software. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/Speech_Recognition_Software.

Wikibooks. (2011b). Assistive Technology in Education/Autistic. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/Autistic.

Wikibooks. (2011c), Assistive Technology in Education/eBook. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/eBook

Week 4 T2P

Week 4 T2P 1: Revisited T2P  
     If students are presented with a complicated, trying task then it is important to provide an opportunity for collaboration and discussion in small groups because often it is other views and other ideas that may be foreign to individuals that provides the most interesting answers. With a plan of the day calling for various groupings of students, this approach allows people to practice transmitting information as well as mixing the views of different content areas together. Its always a shock to hear how people, without the same skills and background in History that I have, explain theories to me from their own views with connections that I would not have made. That kind of collaboration is always different, but in-keeping with an Gardner's theory of teaching, working with different learning styles. This type of planning also incorporates an central idea of Vygotsky's about the importance of dialogue in learning. Allowing students the opportunity to collaborate gives them the ability to dialogue with other individuals with differing ideas and experiences, as well as building confidence in their own abilities in a small group, rather than the intimidating collection of the whole class.


If, Then, Because, Evidence, Context, Moral/Ethical, Instructional event




Week 4 T2P 2: Case Study
If a teacher desires for their students to posses the Big Three criteria from the Self-Determination Theory, Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness, then the teacher must be willing and able to foster these ideals as allow the students to pursue them on their own. Fostering these three ideals of the SDT allows students to have more control and involvement in their learning than standard practices in Education. Its impossible to "teach" autonomy, if you could then the word would have a different meaning entirely. Vicki Davis's pedagogical practices that help to foster and improve the Big Three in her classroom include allowing students the opportunity to experiment with learning styles and find the best style(s) for them (Autonomy) and having students instruct their peers on different topics of the class (Competence). By fostering and pushing students to gain the three concepts at the basis of the SDT, teachers can increase their students intrinsic motivation and help develop content mastery more throughly.

If, Then, Because, Evidence, Context, Moral/Ethical, Instructional event


T2P 3

If a teacher or pre-service teacher wants to be the most effective educator possible then they need to be familiar with the multitude of educational and learning theories because it helps them to understand the individual needs and strengths of their students and working towards enhancing those strengths through different applications of various learning theories. Effective teachers come in many packages, and each possesses a common ideal, that they should do anything possible to reach and effectively teach their students. 

Excel: Theorists