EDTECH Definition Graphic

As I reflect on the past semester, I am filled with new information and knowledge about educational technology. Before starting this course and the M.E.T program through Boise State, I thought I had a solid foundation of how technology should be used within the classroom setting. After starting this program, my eyes were opened to a much bigger world of educational technology. While having the presence of technology in my classroom has grown in the past two years, I have learned about utilizing it wisely and presenting it in a way that will help my students in becoming independent learners.

I have changed my perspective of not just having technology but using it in a way that will improve student learning and help my students grow into the technological world we now live in. Creating this graphic and reflecting on all that I have learned helped me make the connection of why technology is important to teach in my classroom. My students will grow up into a world that is even more technologically advance then it is right now. The technological skills I am teaching them will be a necessity for them in the real world. We all depend on technology in our daily lives and it has become a tool for keeping our lives organized while being a source of entertainment as well.

I have learned through the definition of educational technology that the ultimate goal is to create lessons and assignments where students are being the creators. Going through the process to get to that ultimate goal is a key aspect of integrating technology into the classroom.

I chose to create my graphic with a tool I had never used before. Piktochart is a user friendly website that has some free templates to help you get started. It was easy to navigate through and provided many graphics, fonts, and other options to create a unique graphic.

View my graphic here

 

School Evaluation Summary

Completing the Technology Maturity Benchmarks Rubric was an eye-opening assignment as I evaluated my elementary school and its technology use. Initially, as I started studying the rubric, I predicted my school would fall into the “Islands” category for many of the sections. As I started filling out the rubric, I was surprised to find my self marking my school in many of the “Emergent” categories. After completing the entire rubric, I gave my school an overall rating of “Emergent”.

The school has really grown in just the last couple of years to involve more technology within the building. Administrators and teachers, along with the district have been supportive in supplying the school with the necessary technology and devices needed. Teachers within the building have written grants to receive much of the technology currently in the building with the support of a strong PTA. Training for staff members is available through both the school and district level. Many teachers are opening up to the idea of using technology within their daily lesson plans and utilizing it to enhance students learning.

I am really looking forward to what the school will accomplish in the near future and how technology will continue to be integrated in a positive way in the classroom. The school will need to continue to write grants and take advantage of opportunities that come along in order to continue receiving the necessary technology. Continuing to provide trainings and support will be a necessity as the school grows with technology.

School Evaluation Summary

School Evaluation Survey

Tech Trends

The NMC Horizon Report 2015, K-12 Edition discusses the technology trends that will greatly change the way we teach in the next 1-5 years. For my assignment this week, I first focused on the new idea of BYOD (bring your own device). This idea is coming to classrooms very quickly and is expected to make a great impact within the next year. As I was learning more about BYOD, I decided to go more in-depth with the concept of students teaching students. This could be incorporated with the BYOD concept if the technologies needed aren’t available at school.

I started to research the idea of students creating their own instructional videos to help others in their classroom, school, or even around the world. Students struggling with a math problem can watch another student’s video to aid in their understanding of the specific concept. This can also be a motivator for students to have the full understanding of a concept so they can create their own video. Students take more pride in their work when they know they are creating something authentic that could potentially help others who are struggling.

My lesson plan can be adapted to any math standard and adjusted to use at any grade level.  Students pick a math problem that have learned how to solve and they create an instruction video with an iPad app. Students follow the steps in order to create a successful video to share with others.

This week, we also studied the SAMR Model. I had heard of the model before but had never studied it in detail. This research really helped me to reflect on my teaching with technology and which levels I have reached with my students. I have reached each of the different stages at different times in my teaching career. My goal after learning more about the SAMR Model is to reach the redefinition stage whenever possible with my students. This stage provides the most authentic learning and allows for the creation of new tasks. With my lesson plan, it does reach the redefinition stage because the students are creating their own learning and using it to teach others. Students are reflecting and have a solid understanding of a concept so they are able to create a video.

For the assignment, I created a website that includes videos and examples, along with a lesson plan that teachers can use and adapt to their own students.

Here is the link to my website where you can also find the lesson plan.

Digital Divide/Digital Inequality

VoiceThread Link

Google Slides Link

As I started this digital divide assignment, it was all very new to me. It was my first time using both VoiceThread and Google Slides. After using both, I came to the conclusion that they are great programs to create a presentation using technology. I really enjoyed the video about creating powerpoints and how you can easily overload your audience with too much information on each slide. After this assignment, I feel I am better equipped to create and present useful information in a way that my audience will retain the main points.

When it comes to digital divide and digital inequality, I was aware of the term, but I only knew the information on the surface. After completing some of the reading and this assignment I discovered there was so much more to it than I thought. The fact that there are so many different factors that go into the digital divide was eye- opening. The socioeconomic aspects of technology and internet access throughout the world affects the whole picture. Seeing the graphs and data of the world’s use of the internet and the statistics of who has access is strongly connected to all teachers and learners in the classroom. We are asking our students to do more assignments and homework at home that require internet access, yet not everyone has the access they need to be successful. We also have a huge gap in the amount of technology we have versus the amount of people who are educated in using it in a meaningful way.

I plan to use this new knowledge to communicate better with parents and my community about internet access. I will make sure that my students and their parents have alternative options if internet access isn’t available at home. I wonder if there is a way to work with my school to aid these students without access to help them be successful. If I had more time for this project, I would create a plan with the other teachers at my school to figure out how many students need aid in accessing the internet outside of school. In my mind, I just figured that most all students have some sort of access at home. I would gather data to see what kind of access is available to each of my students and how I could accommodate their needs.

Code of Professional Ethics in Educational Technology

Ethics Research Paper Link

As I started conducting research for the code of ethics and trying to apply it to a real-life scenario, I was exposed to many eye opening scenarios and information. As an educational technologist, I have been more focused on the devices coming into my classroom and how to best use them to benefit student learning. I have learned about a completely different aspect of using technology in an ethical and responsible way. One of the most important pieces of information I learned about student privacy is that it is constantly changing.

There are certain guidelines and rules to follow to ensure student privacy is being protected. As an educator, I need to keep up with current information and policies that go along with the programs and applications I use in my classroom. Parents need to be aware and approve of these programs their children are accessing on a daily basis. The students may even be gaining access at home and parents need to consent to that happening. I gained insight on many ethical dilemma’s as I read through all the different scenarios and how they could be handled. It seems as if policies are put in place where they are needed, some of the ethical scenarios discussed could have a different outcome or not happen at all.

The code of ethics will become even more important as our world of technology continues to grow at a rapid pace. If we didn’t have these guidelines in place, technology may not be something invited into the classroom as a learning tool. The code of ethics will continue to be revised as needed and I think that is exactly what needs to happen in each classroom as well. As things change, approval and adaptations will need to happen in order for technology to be a successful part of education.

 

Educational Technology Research

Research Assignment Link

As I began this research project, it took a lot of thought as to what I wanted my topic to be. After doing some initial research, I finally decided on my topic of programming and coding. I had to play around with my search items through the library database to find the relevant information I was looking for. I had never used Zotero before, but found it very useful in storing all of the articles I wanted to take a second look at. Once I had decided on my five articles, I found it useful to create a folder within Zotero to store my chosen five. I really liked the aspect of my articles being in one place and very easy to find each time I wanted to go back to each webpage.

Once I spent some time reading my articles, I was able to really immerse myself in the research of my topic and how it could be relevant to my current students and career. I had done some other research projects throughout my college studies, but this was the first one that I could really make a connection with since I was interested in the topic and could relate it to my life. I was very unfamiliar with APA formatting, as I have used other types of formatting in the past. Zotero was a nice tool to be able to help with the APA formatting and getting my articles correctly cited on my research paper. I gained some great insight on the importance of programming and coding being a part of our daily curriculum.

RSS in Education

As I first began learning more about RSS (Really Simple Syndication), it was a bit overwhelming. The amount of information was a challenge to sort through. As I started to get more comfortable with RSS and navigate my way through setting up my Digg Reader account, I found it to be quite useful and a big time saver. By using RSS and my Digg Reader, I can subscribe to all the current blogs I want to follow and easily decipher through the feed and have quick access to news I want to read. You can watch my embedded video below, or click here to see how I set up my Digg Reader. I found that some of the blogs I already visit on a regular basis were much easier to access through my Digg Reader. This way, all the information I wanted to read was in one convenient place and I no longer have to visit each blog I want to look at individually. Before learning about RSS, I always subscribed to every site that sends an email to update me about what’s new. After subscribing to so many, the emails start pouring in on a hourly basis. This is impossible to keep up with every day and creates thousands of unread emails. With RSS, it eliminates the problem. I can view my Digg Reader feed and easily see what I want to read now, later, or not at all.

After spending some time setting up my Digg Reader and subscribing to some new blogs, the real challenged began. How would I integrate RSS into my second grade classroom? I struggled with this concept thinking it would be much easier to achieve in a higher grade level. Then I got to thinking about how many devices I have available to my classroom and ran into a blog that was easy to integrate into my primary classroom. I developed a lesson plan to meet the second grade standards on how animals are suited to live in different habitats and how they adapt to their surroundings. The lesson plan includes a link to a question/answer sheet the students can use while completing the activity. It is set up so that my students can access the RSS feed and blog through our class Symbaloo account on any device. Next, they can easily access the short videos to watch and fill out their activity sheet to prepare for our small group and class discussions on how living things change their environment and defining the word adaptation.