ETEC 562: Article 3 Review

McGrew, C.  (2012).  Engineering at the Elementary Level.   Technology & Engineering Teacher.   71(6), 19-22. 4p.

Summary

This article introduces readers to Mrs. McGrew a fourth grade teacher in Florida who wanted to know what could be done to improve STEM instruction at her school.  McGrew didn’t stop at wondering she took action and became part of a national team to develop a curriculum for elementary schools.  She helped open a STEM lab at her school.  The main challenge was figuring out when to incorporate STEM lessons into the week that is strictly dictated by how many minutes must be dedicated to reading, writing, math, science and social studies.  They had to get creative with lesson plans by incorporating many of these subjects into the STEM lessons.  The article gives an example of how reading the book The Cat in the Hat kicks off an introduction to STEM.  The article endorses the idea that for American students to become successful in the future workforce they must be exposed to STEM at an early age.

Personal Reaction

STEM is one of those terms I have heard a lot over the past few years.  I hear it thrown around a lot and about how important it is for young children to have experience with it.  The first time I ever heard about STEM was when I was a Girl Scout troop leader and there were many STEM workshops for the girls to attend.  Even though I’ve heard about STEM for many years all I know about it is that it stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.  While I know these subjects are extremely important for our students to learn I also know that they are subjects our students receive the least exposure to.  I chose this article because I wanted to see how an educator planned to incorporate STEM at the elementary level.  As I’ve already mentioned I hear about STEM but never see it in action, especially with young students.  While I thought the article was great about showing how STEM can be incorporated into the elementary school environment I wanted to know more specifics.  How often do the students visit the STEM lab and receive lessons?  Is there a different curriculum written for each grade level that builds a foundation for the next year?  The only example given in the article is that the year is started by reading The Cat in the Hat to introduce the idea of students building their own clean up machine. Do all grades do this or just one grade level?  STEM will help our students develop those higher order thinking skills that are expected for state testing so I’m glad to know educators are trying to introduce it to elementary students.

Technology Integration Unit Project

Click here to view my presentation.

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION UNIT PROJECT

“Kinder Careers”

Brief description/summary of technology or technologies you incorporated:

·         http://www.virtualcareerday.com/-contains interviews with people who work in 19 different career fields. These videos will also give students ideas on the questions they can ask the professionals that come to class as a guest speaker or those they will interview via Skype.

·         Skype-software application that allows people to have a conversation online with a webcam so participants can see each other.  Students will be allowed to interview professionals about their careers.

·         PicCollage-an iPad app that allows users to create collages using pictures, stickers, text and frames.

Brief summary of learning theories and instructional design model(s) you used:

·         Constructivism-the learning theory that states learners gain understanding through interaction with their experiences and ideas.  By creating a class circle map about jobs, students develop their schema for the unit.  Students will learn about jobs through hands-on, real life experiences with guest speakers and working with a small group. 

·         Project Based Learning-the instructional model that allows students to explore real life problems and challenges. By posing the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  students are challenged to learn about many different jobs.  Students learn about real life experiences through guest speakers and researching jobs with their small groups. 

Instructional objectives for unit:

TEKS K.7.A-The student understands the value of jobs. The student is expected to: (A) identify jobs in the home, school, and community.

Intended audience:

Kindergarten students

Length of time required to present unit:

10 days

LESSON PLAN

Subject:  Social Studies                                                                 Grade:  Kindergarten

Lesson Topic:  Economics                                                                Duration:  10 days

Standard: TEKS K.7.A

Objectives:  The student will understand the value of jobs. The student is expected to identify jobs in the home, school, and community.

Guided Question:  What do you want to be when you grow up?

Introduction:  During this unit of study students will explore various careers.  We will have visitors from different career fields talk to the class about their jobs and bring tools they use every day.  In addition to guest speakers students will learn more about careers by looking online, visiting the library and interviewing adults about their jobs.  At the end of the unit of study students will make a presentation about what job they want to have when they grow up and why.  As part of their presentation students will come to school dressed as the job they chose.

Materials:  guest speaks from various career fields, computers, projector, iPad, Skype software application, library books on various careers, http://www.virtualcareerday.com, PicCollage app

Anticipatory Set:  Create a class circle map for the word “Job.”  Students can tell what they think the purpose of having a job is for.  They can also give examples of job titles.

Activity Outline: 

·         Day 1:  Firefighter guest speaker

·         Day 2:  Pediatrician guest speaker

·         Day 3:  Florist guest speaker

·         Day 4:  Chemist guest speaker

·         Day 5-7:  Small groups research other careers using books, the website http://www.virtualcareerday.com and conduct interviews via Skype with professionals in careers not represented with the guest speakers. Small groups will prepare a 5 minute presentation for the class about the career they researched.  To assist in outlining their presentation and as a visual tool, groups will create a photograph collage using the iPad app “Pic Collage.”  Pictures to include in the collage are the person they interviewed or a person who possesses that job, tools the person uses in their work, and the environment the person works in.

·         Day 8:  Small groups present their findings about the career they researched.

·         Day 9:  Small groups present their findings about the career they researched.

·         Day 10:  Kindergarten Career Day-Students will dress up for their career and give a presentation about what job they chose and why.

Assessment:  Small group presentations and Career Day presentations

ETEC 562: Article 2 Review

Hutchinson, A.  (2012).  Literacy teachers’ perceptions of professional

development that increases integration of technology into literacy instruction.  Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 21:1, 37-56, DOI: 10.1080/1475939X.2012.659894

Summary

The focus of this article was on a survey of literacy teachers and their opinion on the use of technology in the literacy classroom.  A majority of the teachers surveyed felt that professional development for technology integration does not prepare them for using technology in their classrooms.  The result of the lack of professional development for appropriate implementation of technology is a barrier to technology integration.  The key complaints from teachers about professional development made available to them were support, time, access and knowledge.  In regards to support teachers indicated a need for ongoing coaching and individualized help. The complaint about time was the need for more time to learn, practice and experiment with the technology.  The main complaint concerning access was not having access to equipment to learn hands-on during and following the training, and access to additional resources.  Finally, teachers need more knowledge concerning the technology; namely how to use the technology in their specific classroom/grade-level and ideas specific to content areas.  A greater part of those surveyed expressed a desire to implement technology but a large part felt they were insufficiently prepared to do so. 

Personal Reaction

I chose this article because it struck a chord with me in that my colleagues and I are currently going through this dilemma.  In May each teacher on our campus will be receiving an iPad for use in our classrooms.  While I believe this is a wonderful opportunity for my students I know that the 45 minute training the teachers will be receiving during our conference period will not be enough to give us ideas on how to integrate them into our lessons or classroom activities.  The four complaints the teachers in the survey gave are exactly what the teachers in my grade level expressed concern about. Districts are creating goals of all classrooms integrating technology but they are not preparing their teachers on how to do it.  They are throwing the technology at us but not training us on how to use it. 

ETEC 562: Article 1 Review

Sundeen, T. H. & Sundeen, D. M. (2013). Instructional Technology for Rural Schools: Access and Acquisition. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 32 (2), 8-14.

Review

This article was written to explain how rural school districts can obtain resources to implement educational technology.  The authors’ belief in the importance of educational technology is identified in the following statement, “Preparing students with 21^st century learning can be facilitated, in part, through the integration of instructional technology into classrooms.”  The authors of this article explain the main struggle many rural school districts face in obtaining educational technology is funding. Rural districts just do not have the large student populations that urban districts have.  While the costs to educate students are theoretically the same, larger districts are able to reduce the fixed cost through higher enrollments.  The need for educational technology is even higher is rural school districts because historically rural districts have high populations of special student groups (English Language Learners, students living in poverty, and students receiving special education services). Educational technology can help close the language and ability gaps of these students and those students in urban districts.  The article goes on to list technologies that are available and emerging. What they are and how schools can use these technologies in the classroom.  This article is very useful for rural districts because in addition to describing the technologies available, it lists the costs associated with acquiring them. The authors also explain that educational technology can be procured through grants and names particular grants, their funding amounts, criteria needed to qualify and deadlines. 

Personal Reaction

The reason I chose this article to review is because I grew up in a rural school district in the 1980’s.  My school district did not have the money that larger districts had.  Today my former school district has embraced educational technology and I believe they exceed many larger, suburban school districts use of it.  The district has been given many grants to implement educational technology mainly because it is a rural school district.  

Tech Play 4

This is my last Tech Play for my ETEC course.  My assignment this week was to explore an app that can be used in my classroom.  I teach kindergarten so I explored different apps that could be used in my classroom which includes students with abilities that range from beginning alphabet identification to readers. There are many applications available that provide math manipulatives so I decided to explore an ELA app to use on a tablet.  The app I found was iLEAP Word Builder. It was free from iTunes.  The iLEAP app would be great to use as a center during Literacy Stations.  It is divided into 4 categories (Learn, Explore, Apply and Practice).  The categories are perfect for differentiated learning.  Students who have beginning alphabetic knowledge could work with the "Learn" level which works with letter sounds.  Students ready to build words can use the other levels.  The app focuses on the following word families: -at, -et, -it, -ot, -ut.  I believe this app would fit into what is already being taught in the classroom. It would not be a new concept for the students, just a different way to independently practice an objective. 

While I think finding ways to use technology in the classroom is a fun and motivating way for students to learn I believe there are a few factors that need to be considered.  The school I teach at does not have any student or teacher tablets available.  My classroom just received a student computer last month.  I bring my personal children's tablet to school for my students to use.  The only apps that are on the tablet are free apps I have found. I think it is wonderful when districts are able to provide schools with tablets for student use.  I do wonder how apps are purchased for the tablets though when most purchases must be done through district approved vendors.  Since technology is being used more in schools I wonder if districts are approving vendors such as Amazon and iTunes.  I think it is unfair for teachers to be expected to purchase these apps with their own money.  Since I only have one student computer in my room if I want to work on something as a whole class then I must sign up for a time to visit the computer lab, which is full for most of the school day.  Educational technology is wonderful but we still have  a long way to go before it is readily available to all students. 

Tech Play 3

This week's assignment has been to explore creativity tools.  To begin my search I just Googled the term "educational creative tools." I found an amazing website Top 9 Free Web Tools to Develop Students Creativity.  This website categorized the web tools by classroom use. The name of the website isn't really correct, while there are 9 categories (Blogs/Wikis, Comic Strips, Mind Mapping, Infographics, Video/Audio, Storytelling, Games, & Creative Writing) each category lists countless technology tools a teacher can use in his/her classroom.  While checking out the tools I picked the ones I believe would benefit my kindergarten students. Here are my favorites.

Animoto - This free tool allows users to create short videos using pictures/slides. I believe my class could use Animoto as a way to reflect or even assess their learning.  An example would be at the end of our unit on shapes to assign each group or individual a shape, give them a camera to capture different shapes inside or outside the school and have them create a shape video.
Storybird - Another free tool that allows users to publish digital books. I love this idea because it allows students to share their creations with families.  We could create class books and students could create their own.
Voki - A free tool that allows users to create talking avatars. The avatars can be imbedded in websites or blogs. I also love the idea of students creating a talking avatar.  I could use their creation on our classroom blog. Ideas for its use could be reflecting on a field trip, a lesson or school experience. 

I really enjoyed exploring creativity tools. I knew there were a lot of tools out there but I've never really sat down and thought about how I can incorporate them into my classroom. I think my students would love being able to use them and they would make learning a whole lot more fun.

Tech Play 2

This week my assignment has been to explore options to create an ePortfolio. As with blogging, ePortfolios are a new concept to me.  Even after reading a variety of articles about them I am still unsure what goes into an ePortfolio or what I will be putting into my own. The tool options I explored were Blogger, Wikispaces, and Weebly.  Since I have been using Blogger for a few months I felt most comfortable with this option but do not believe a blog will work for creating an ePortfolio because the posts are archived by month/year and not by individual post titles.  I was not too impressed with Wikispaces (to use for my own ePortfolio) as the page is very basic and has more of a social media vibe to it.  The tool I believe will work best will be Weebly. It was fun exploring these different tools. I just wish I had more time to devote to developing them.

If I were to pick one of these tools to use in my CLASSROOM it would probably be Wikispaces because as I have already stated it works more as a social media. There are options to change your Wiki between use as a wiki, basic website or a classroom feature. The classroom feature includes a news feed and formative assessment feature.

Here are the links to the ePortfolios I created. At this time there really is nothing on them as I was just exploring the creation of them. 

Wikispaces
Weebly
Blogger