TQ#6

The collaboration service we chose to experiment with and research as a team was Elluminate, and I chose to do a podcast as an individual. We chose Elluminate because two out of three group members never had the chance to use if before, and we figured the third group member could help us if necessary. Elluminate is also one of the most popular collaborating mediums available. I chose podcasting because again, I didn’t have any experience with podcasting, and I think it would be a great tool to be able to use in the classroom. There were successes and frustrations with each; however, I’m glad I got to experience both, as I think each time I use them I will become better versed and better prepared to take on frustrating situations posed by both.
The frustrations I experienced with my podcast were that the first time I tried to have all of the necessary files saved in places I could easily remember and access them, I could not find the correct “lame” file to use after I pressed the “Find Library” button. After about five minutes, as it was late at night, I gave up and figured I better wait until the next day so that I don’t throw my computer through the window. Needless to say, the next day when my brain was rested and clear, I looked again at the webpage that provided the tutorial for setting up one’s computer to adequately accommodate for podcasting. There it was, a link right in front of me to set up my computer so that the correct file of “lame” would be accessible to me. I clicked and downloaded, and I found the “lame” file in my computer file. I followed the directions to unzip the file and save the correct lame file; however, I couldn’t save the file. I went back to the link on the website and worked through the troubleshooting page. In less than one minute, I had the correct file of “lame” saved, and I was on my way to becoming a podcaster. I was also frustrated when after I followed the prompts on the tutorial for the audio setup, I couldn’t locate the screen that was posted on the tutorial. After I plugged in my headphones and configured the audio that way, the sound of my voice on the podcast was clear, and the loud noise when I played my podcast went away.
The successes I experienced in my podcast go hand-in-hand with my frustrations. Although I experienced frustrations, I felt the sensation of success when I went back to the drawing board and was able to record a short podcast of my voice. My next inquiry with podcasting will be how figuring out how to incorporate videos into my podcast.
As mentioned previously, my team chose to use Elluminate for our experiment with collaboration services, and I think it went pretty well for the first time I ever used it. My team members had already been exposed to it and had previously gotten to experience it in other jobs or classes. Again, my frustrations and successes with Elluminate coincide with each other. It was very exciting to see Kristen for the first time and to hear each other; however, when Cindy, our other teammate, joined us, I had trouble transmitting my video through my webcam and could see Cindy and Kristen but could neither transmit nor see myself. We also experienced some difficulty with our sound and a loud beeping noise; however, it seemed to subside after I fixed my audio settings (which Kristen kindly let me know about). A nice part about Elluminate is that even though the sound and the video transmitting didn’t work all of the time, we were still able to communicate via the whiteboard feature and the chat feature. Overall, I enjoyed my initial experiences with podcasting and collaborating via Elluminate.

TQ#6 cont'd.

One of the main necessities for educators is to be able to communicate and collaborate with other educators not only in their own schools or districts, but also with educators in other school districts throughout the state and country. With tools such as Elluminate, the cost of collaborating is essentially eliminated, we’re not tying up phone lines, and we’re not just making conference calls where we can’t see each other. One case study involving ElluminateLive! Involved the Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU), the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and 12 school districts wanting to improve their abilities to share information and improve communication (http://www.elluminate.com/sales/pdfs/PDE_CCIU.pdf). Gail Kennedy, Supervisor of Education Technology at CCIU, was pleased that Elluminate supports the use of both Macs and PCs, PowerPoint Presentations, Whiteboard features, and application sharing, which are all important tools used in the classroom. Overall, this study indicates that the supports provided by Elluminate were helpful, ElluminateLive sessions saved them time and money and provided immediate face-to-face contact, and it sparked ideas for utilizing it in classrooms. ElluminateLive can also be used to reach students who are out of school for extended periods of time due to illnesses or other issues, and it can be used to communicate with other students throughout the country. For higher education students, Elluminate Live could create an endless list of opportunities for students to access classes that are not offered at their colleges.
Podcasting has benefits for both educators and students as well. The school at which I was employed last year used podcasting for its gifted students, where they would create weekly podcasts. Since I was not directly involved, I am not quite sure what they did with their podcasts, but I imagine they used them for communicating with other students in other school districts. So again, podcasting creates opportunities for students and educators to communicate easier with people who live throughout and the country and even the world in an instant. Students absolutely love working with technology, and they love having the opportunities to engage more frequently with different types of technology. It would be great, as in every other area of technology, if teachers were more comfortable using podcasts so that they feel comfortable guiding their students in how to effectively use it for educational purposes. How engaging it would be!

Concept Maps and Constructivism

Concept mapping fits into the theory of constructivism in several different ways, one of which will be discussed for the purposes of this short essay. As the constructivist theory implies, learning by an individual most effectively takes place in a social environment where one gets to interact with others and build his knowledge based on previous experiences and authentic interactions and situations. I believe this to be the most important way that concept mapping fits in with the constructivist theory because it creates rich, meaningful learning environments in which students get to interact, and it provides for higher-order thinking opportunities to occur. Furthermore, concept mapping provides for learners to develop a more in-depth understanding of concepts instead of traditional surface learning that is mostly provided in school districts throughout the United States. The rest of this essay will present supporting ideas for concept mapping supporting the constructivist theory and its implications in schools today.
Let us consider a situation during which a teaching assistant (me) was directed by the head kindergarten teacher to make sure the students were not playing in the puddle during recess. A few five year olds were playing in a small puddle during recess and became intrigued by bubbles forming on the surface of the puddle, particularly the way in which rainbow colors were swirled through the surface of the bubbles. The teaching assistant (me again), unaware that the school apparently had a strict policy on preventing students from playing in shallow puddles, encouraged the tikes to keep exploring and even posed the question, “Why do you think those bubbles have rainbow colors on them?” I figured it was a great, authentic learning experience that these kindergartners had the chance to experience; however, our short recess lesson was soon terminated by the head teacher yelling at us to stay away from the puddles; I guess in fear of water getting on the students’ clothing. (By the way, isn’t water washable?) So, what does this have to do with constructivism and concept mapping?

Concept Maps and Constructivism-Cont'd.

It is quite simple to relate this experience to constructivism in that the students were constructing their own knowledge of the construction of the bubbles by exploring and by being involved in an authentic, not to mention fun, learning experience with other students. Let us take it one step further and explore the idea of concept mapping with this experience.
Let us assume that we can find a book about bubbles on the kindergarten level-probably not hard to find. We read the book and get the students hooked, reminding them of their experience with the outside bubbles. From here, we offer the students, keeping in mind that they are in kindergarten, an example of a concept map (not using the term “concept map”), but more of a representation of one, of a bubble. We model our thinking processes as we construct the concept map. We then pick one of the details in our surface concept map, and we explore it further (of course keeping in line with state standards). We allow for the students to construct a map based on this detail using pre-made manipulatives so that the students can just get down the idea of a concept map. They work in small groups (the social part of constructivism), and they build on their experience of “playing” with the bubbles outside. This is only one example of how concept maps coincide with academic settings.
As can been gleaned from this short essay, I am a proponent of concept maps and the use of them to support constructivism. I consider myself a novice teacher, and maybe those of you who have been in the profession for a long time would try to convince me otherwise. Right now, I am sticking to my support of concept maps and constructivism.

Reaction to Wenglinsky

I come from a sociology/criminal justice background but have obtained a certification in elementary education within the past couple of years. More recently, I decided to expand my teaching knowledge and am exploring a career in special education. In general education, many educators say, “I like to see first that my students have mastered set criteria. Then they can use a calculator.” Can’t students master the concepts using a combination of both manual (hand/real life experiences) and technological devices (calculators/computers)? Obviously I am speaking about the content area of math; however, this type of mind set can also reach out to other content areas. Technology is often used as a motivator, but we educators need to incorporate technology more effectively in the classroom instead of holding it over students’ heads, just out of arms’ reach. Wenglinsky (2005), in Using Technology Wisely: the keys to success in schools, supports the notion that technology needs to be used by students more often and more intensely than it is currently being used. Specifically, Wenglinsky notes three movements for improving schools: “. . . students need to be held to higher academic standards; . . . technology could be a crucial tool in helping students meet these standards; and . . . standards need to be raised for teachers if they were going to be raised for students” (p. 12). Another important issue I found interesting is that although Wenglinsky provides case examples of different schools in different settings using technology, he does not refer to the use of technology by students with special needs.

Cont. of Reaction to Wenglinsky

One of the most interesting parts of Wenglinsky’s book is Chapter 1, where he presents the correlation between standards, teaching, and technology. More specifically, Wenglinsky writes about our nation’s school curricula being a mile long and an inch deep, and he writes about higher performing countries, such as Japan, using a constructivist approach rather than a didactic one used by the majority of teachers in the United States. Unfortunately, I find this to be true. Although I agree with Wenglinsky’s support of the constructivism versus a didactic approach to education, I believe it is a huge undertaking that will be opposed by many teachers who have been in the business for quite some time. He goes on to express that we need to provide more training in the use of technology and that teachers need to provide their students with guidance in using technology, not so much controlling the learning environment; however, teachers who have been teaching for a long time show much resistance to change and are not willing, even for the sake of their students, to change their teaching practices. I observe that some teachers would like to just collect a paycheck and are not concerned with providing the best instruction possible, which in contemporary classrooms involves technology of various sorts. In order to provide teachers with more of an incentive to use technology effectively in the classroom, the pressure of “covering” a curriculum needs to be reduced, and teachers need to feel more rewarded in their efforts to create such a technological learning environment.
Furthermore, Wenglinsky writes that constructivism and the use of technology to support this teaching theory require that students use higher-order thinking skills and that teachers need to empower their students to do so. If teachers do not feel empowered using technology, which is what we see in many school districts around at least the Lehigh Valley area, how can they project empowerment onto their students? Teachers need to be open to professional development and to actually using what they learn in the classroom. Long gone are the days of lecturing and taking notes for an entire class period. While this type of direct teaching has its place, it should not be all that is used in contemporary classrooms. An important question that the use of technology in schools poses is, where do schools get the MONEY? I realize that schools can get donations, grants, and so forth; however, let us consider No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the fact that lower performing schools, typically with less funding and in poorer neighborhoods, do not receive the same perks as do higher performing schools, typically with more funding and in more affluent neighborhoods. Consequently, schools that are more successful in general receive more funding, which in turn typically leads to more access to technology resources than schools that are less successful. This seems a bit backward to me.
Conclusively, if we as a nation are committed to increasing the use of effective technology practices in schools, we need to get committed as a profession to enhancing our comfort levels with technology and to empowering our students to feel comfortable using technology. We also need more support from our state departments in narrowing the scope of our curricula and making it deeper. Finally we need assistance from our federal government in assigning qualified people to design the nation’s educational programming and goals as they relate to the needs of our diversified schools and students.

TQ#3

The three simulations I chose to play were Westward Trail, Sim City Classic, and Quest Atlantis-Atlantis being my favorite. You can view snap shots of my experiences with Westward Trail and Sim City on my blog. Provided here are summaries of my experiences, and some things I learned and think my students will learn while playing.
The game that was the least hassle-free and time-friendly to me was Westward Trail. Although I played Oregon Trail as a child on my friend’s computer for hours a day, I don’t think I had the reasoning skills that I do now to play with more discretion about certain actions to take to help my crew stay alive. While I was playing Westward Trail, I actually used my higher order thinking skills to frequently check my status of materials and settings so that I could make it through the journey for a longer period of time, and I put a lot of thought into the next move I should make, such as resting versus trading supplies with other travelers. I wanted to make the best moves possible so that my crew and I could stay alive and make it through the sometimes treacherous conditions imposed upon us. After about 20 minutes of play time, my whole crew finally bit the dust, despite valiant attempts to hunt for food, trade with other travelers, use my carpentry skills to fix broken wheels and axels, provide rest time for the sick members, and trudge through snow storms and thunder storms. I was genuinely disappointed at the end that we didn’t make it all the way across the trail. I was prematurely excited to see what riches my crew would find at the end of the trail; however, instead of being greeted with riches after a long, depressing journey, we were sadly greeted along the way with grim disease, natural disasters, and eventually death, which all prevented us from reaching the end of the rainbow. I invested a bit more time into playing Sim City Classic because I had never before played it, but I must say that city construction is not my thing. I didn’t get much past the first few steps of setting up coal plants, residential neighborhoods, industrial parks, and commercial areas before fires started raging and my little town was facing its demise. The simulation on which I spent the most time and had the most enjoyment with was Quest Atlantis. Although it took me about 30 minutes (no joke) to find where Nancy Sanchez was located (10S 4E), I enjoyed the navigation, and I felt a great sense of achievement once I found her. Throughout my quest, I learned the background of the Atlantis through viewing the comic book and watching the video, and I impressed myself by exercising constant patience despite struggles such as figuring out after about ten minutes that all I had to do was press the escape key on my keyboard to get my mouse back.

TQ #3 Cont'd

In “The Role of Technology in teaching and the classroom,” Prensky (2008) offers some puzzling situations that help clarify why technology has not been very successful in helping students to achieve more than research has shown they achieved with technology thus far. One of the puzzling situations mentioned is that teachers are reluctant to learn how to effectively use technology. This is not surprising, given the fact that many teachers who currently teach in our schools have been teaching for a significant amount of time (20+ years) using traditional methods of instruction, and they don’t see why they have to change the way they teach. Furthermore, given the fact that much emphasis is placed on covering mandated curriculum set forth by stated educational departments, curriculum that is a mile long and an inch deep, teachers spend much time planning lessons that do not involve technology because they do not have the time learn how to use the technology that could be effective, and they see their students using technology as wasted, valuable instruction time and, in some cases, teachers use technology solely as motivators. I experienced this type of situation myself this past week in that I felt stress having to spend hours of my days “playing” games on the computer when I could have spent those hours planning lessons for the classes I am expected to teach next week. I struggle with this because although I am a big supporter of using technology in the classroom to enhance learning experiences and students’ higher-order problem-solving skills, most of the teachers with whom I work are not exactly on the same page and view using simulations and technology as a waste of valuable instructional time.
If my students had the chance to use technology more effectively and to view technology as learning tools, most of them would be more motivated and engaged in daily lessons. On the contrary, some of the students with whom I work experience frustrations with technology, especially with fine motor skills such as keyboarding, and they do not handle frustrations well; therefore, what is meant to be a valuable learning experience could turn out to be disastrous in terms of quality instructional time being used. For some of the students with whom I work, unwanted behaviors would escalate and time would have to be spent helping them cope with their anger and frustrations toward technology. This being said, I do believe that most of my students enjoy using technology and would benefit from more technological experiences. Jonassen (2008) presents principles constructed by Gee that support the effectiveness of simulations on students’ higher-order thinking skills. Of most importance to the population of students with whom I work are the Active, Critical Learning Principle, the Practice Principle, the Situated Meaning Principle, the Multimodal Principle, and the Discovery Principle. These principles present the importance of active learning, the importance of engaging learning, the importance of contextualized meaning, the importance of learning using different modalities, and the importance of students making discoveries. My students can experience all of these principles by playing the games I played this past week. For instance, they could make discoveries during the play of Quest Atlantis by figuring out as I did that pressing the escape button allows them access to their mouse again, and they could more effectively participate in contextualized experiences by feeling the effects of the actions they decide to take during problem-solving stages of the Westward Trail.

Westward Trail

second round