New Tech Standards and Requirements

Technology has infiltrated nearly every aspect of life, and educators need to structure appropriate instruction so that students are prepared for the quickly-changing technoscape. Introducing students to new technologies can pique their interest in exploration and learning in ways traditional methods may not.

National Educational Technology Standards and Oregon Educational Technology Standards aim to set the bar for which educators must strive to provide students with the technological tools and skills they will need to better navigate this age. In addition, the new Oregon diploma includes technology as one of its required essential skills. It requires that graduating students have the ability to use technology "to participate in a broader community through networking, collaboration and learning. ... Recognize and practice legal and responsible behavior in the use and access of information and technology. ... Use technology as a tool to access, research, manage, integrate and communicate ideas and information." These standards are meant to propel school districts toward engaging students in various technologies and softwares they likely will need to know for employment, and exposing students to the amazing possibilities and opportunities that await them when they internalize such knowledge.

Of the educational technology standards, the three that are most significant to me are Communication and Collaboration; Research and Information Fluency; and Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making:

Communication and Collaboration: In today's world, technology more often isolates people from human interaction, so modeling for students that this doesn't need to be the case can help teach them to work collaboratively, which in turn can help improve peer relationships. Using Web 2.0 applications, such as the Google Suite, Yodio or VoiceThread, for group projects and presentations is an example. Technology also opens communication avenues to other audiences (parents, experts, students in other cultures/countries) through a variety of formats such as blogs and Skype.

Research and Information Fluency: There is so much information floating around the Internet these days, it can be difficult for an untrained eye (and sometimes even well-trained eye) to sift through it all and sort the fact from fiction and reliable sources from unreliable ones. Learning skills to gather, evaluate, verify and use information is essential, and citing sources from online is just as important as researching and citing when using written sources. Research projects can these days be conducted nearly entirely online. A classroom forum can be created for students to access information and share resources, and even or create a class wiki. Using tools such as Screenr also can allow students to become the instructors for a "how-to" that they research. And playing games that require research can be played, such as weekly or unit Web quests.

Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making: This ties in closely with the research standard in my opinion, again relying on the critical eye to assess the validity of information or a source. Students can better manage group projects remotely more effectively with Web 2.0 apps such as Google Suite. Students also can use these programs to collect and record data, create tables and graphs to clearly display and visually analyze trends, and critically think about the meaning of the data results. 

Challenges facing educators in achieving these goals include keeping up with the rapid pace in which technology changes and the price to get such technologies into schools, particularly in economically disadvantaged districts such as those in which teaching is done inside modular/mobile buildings and textbooks are 15 years old. Keeping up with technology means I continue learning as as teacher, and not being afraid to ask coworkers or students about things with which I am not familiar. And though I may not be able to provide all my students with access to all technology, I can personally reach into my pocket or seek grants that will help to bring at least some gadgets into the classroom to provide a bit of exposure, or plan field trips to locations at which students will experience various technologies and their applications.

Analyzing student data in a spreadsheet

I'm not sure how I managed to avoid spreadsheets for so many years, but alas the time has come for me to learn how to use them. This exercise is an example of how to use spreadsheets to collect student data such as test scores, then average scores and follow trends. It took longer than I'd hoped, but I guess that's what happens to novices. I included the data chart of 12 fictional students, then extrapolated two charts to illustrate the data. I chose the line graph in order to show the trend of improvement from test 6 to test 10 among classmates, but thought the bar graph better showed the achievements of individual students.

Looking at the graphs, it appears that the general trend of the students who had scored below the class average was one of improvement. One student, Katherine, did much better on test 7 than the other tests, so I wonder if the material was what made a difference, or perhaps the delivery of the exam, or maybe she was just having a good day compared with other test days. Another student, Queen, did worse on test 10, whereas the rest of the class improved from test 9 to test 10. Also, Queen and Walter still are performing quite a bit lower than the rest of the low-scoring kids. This indicates that these two students may need a little more one-on-one assistance. By noting differences such as these, I can consider what subject matter in which each student needs additional assistance, or maybe consider if that individual test was given in a way that spoke to that student or didn't, and modify my lessons or types of tests accordingly.

This definitely was an exercise in patience to get the display just right in the blog, but I learned a bit about tinkering with html coding, and getting it to look as nice as it should made it worth it.

Multimedia Project

So I tooled around with VoiceThread today, and decided to share my first travel experience in Oregon after I moved here. It was to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn, and it was one of my most memorable trips while living here.

VoiceThread is a great tool in which a person can upload pictures or videos, then overlay voice or text on the visual media. Create a slideshow or videostream of any subject you wish. This is a great tool for use in an educational setting: Create step-by-step instructions for class assignments or provide it to student who miss class, document class conversations, create tutoring aids, allow students to be creative with reports by adding pictures and reading the text, and boost student confidence in speaking and publishing, just to name a few ideas. It really is a flexible and useful tool.

My Favorite Web2.0 tools

Web2.0 is the idea that instead of information being stored on individual computers, information is stored on outside sites in which people can openly view and interact with it. It is meant to make information sharing more direct and accessible, and eases group collaboration on documents and other work. Social networking sites, blogs and video-sharing sites -- e.g. Facebook.com, Blogger.com and YouTube.com -- are examples of the use of Web2.0.

One such tool is TinyURL, a site that allows users to take a very long and convoluted web address (URL) and shrink it into a very small one. For example, this link to a National Geographic ocean photo gallery (http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/photos/oceans-galleries-main/) can be entered at tinyurl.com and TinyURL will generate a smaller link (http://tinyurl.com/5szpjvh). TinyURL also allows you to make a custom tag for the end as well, making it easier to remember.

TinyURL offers several examples and ways to maximize use of the site: http://tinyurl.com/#example. One group of people who might be interested in learning to use it are Twitter users. Because of the character restrictions of Twitter, TinyURL allows links to stories and websites that would otherwise be too long to share. Here's another site that discusses ways to use TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/c932jl.
As an educator, including websites on printed material for my students or parents takes up less space and makes it much simpler for them to type in and find the information to which I am directing them.

Google Docs Group Project

The purpose of this project is to familiarize us and our classmates with the applications of Google Forms, a spreadsheet-like program that can be used to gather survey data, track student data such as class disruptions for administrators or parent/teacher conferences, and more. The program automatically creates a spreadsheet with the survey and allows for graphic representation as well. I contributed by providing one of the questions to our group's survey, "Tell us about YOUR Salem" as well as provided some general ideas about using in the classroom. My learning curve on this program will be rather steep; I am generally unfamiliar with spreadsheet-type programs but I am interested in learning more about this with practice.

Here's a link to the published survey: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?pli=1&ndplr=1&formkey=dFVVNW1YcDBnNGdiOVVCRU5sSkpxWVE6MQ#gid=0

Here's a link to the results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/gform?key=0AmRRM7jn194XdFVVNW1YcDBnNGdiOVVCRU5sSkpxWVE&gridId=0#chart

Group reflections: https://docs.google.com/a/willamette.edu/document/d/1_2pjXX9bLp76uAbU6wKalg1FdHTS3e7YH190qEzhwCk/edit?hl=en_US#

Survey in Google Sheets form: https://docs.google.com/a/willamette.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmRRM7jn194XdFVVNW1YcDBnNGdiOVVCRU5sSkpxWVE&pli=1#gid=0

OTEN Conference

I attended the Oregon Technology in Education Network (OTEN) conference in early October hosted by Willamette University. It was a good conference for me to attend; I have been a bit of a Luddite regarding technology during the past decade and a bit of a skeptic of the ways technology can be useful in the classroom. But I was surprised to hear some of the statistics cited by the introductory speaker, Joe Morelock with Canby School District. Morelock showed data that indicates that the use of technology such as iPads in classrooms strongly has contributed to an increase in test scores and reduced the achievement gap among students.

The first workshop I attended focused on using technology games to facilitate learning. One example was an iPad game called "Where's Mommy" that can be modified by teachers to focus on a specific subject or topic. The program places pictures in a grid, and each picture can be assigned an audio file that prompts matching the audio clue with the picture. I never thought about modifying available applications for use in the classroom, and this was a more engaging way for students to learn and retain knowledge than rote memorization.

The second workshop I attended provided various ways to teach moon phases and astronomy to students in Oregon, which is valuable considering that the vast majority of Oregon's school year is under cloud cover. The program the instructor introduced is called Stellarium, and I LOVE IT. It's free to download and allows students to track the motion and phases of the moon interactively. It allows users to change time and direction faced to see what background stars fill the sky, and this can be adjusted to show background stars night and during the day, and show the planets and moon. As an amateur astronomer, I was super excited to learn about this software and share it with my students.

Blogging apps in classes

Students who are more interested in electronic learning and exercises or have more interest in computers might be motivated to read or write more. Blogs can be used in place of paper journals. Blogs can be forums in which classmates collaborate by sharing homework assignments and post handouts. A blog also can be used for a peer-study group, both intergrade and intragrade. Blogs can be a resource on which students write about things they do/like and a teacher can learn more about his/her students that way. And blogs can be used as student portfolios on which students post reflections and pictures of projects, for example, that other teachers and parents can review.