Author Archives: armst118

Feb 20 2019
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332wednesday12

Want to Integrate Technology to Address Differentiation? LOOK NO FURTHER!

My multimedia reflection revolves around eCampus’ Technologist module, which addresses the idea of differentiation and successfully using technology to address students’ specific needs. The first section of the module has to do with digital literacy, and it encourages readers to come up with their own definition after reading. Through this, the definition of digital literacy I concluded with was ” making an effort to remain up to date on the most beneficial technological resources for meaningfully interacting with specific types of students”. I came up with this definition because I feel as if it encompasses everything the module advocates, especially with regard to design-thinking. The module is heavily influenced by this idea of design-thinking, a term that more or less refers to the process of individuals who will benefit from the end product partaking in its creation. In the classroom, this can be a powerful tool as students attempt to solve complex problems that may exist in their specific scenario. Design-thinking is broken down into five sections: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Connect. Essentially, these five steps highlight the importance of putting yourselves in students shoes, identifying problems that may exist, creating potential solutions to these issues, testing these methods within the classroom while searching for constructive feedback, and ensuring that the technological tool you choose to utilize connects to curriculum expectations. After considering all these steps as a whole, I could not really determine which one I felt was most important because they all complement each other in the journey toward the final goal of successfully using technology to address differentiation. Despite this, I think connecting to curriculum could hold some more weight in terms of actually applying these methods into the classroom. As the article states, if what you’re doing is not relevant to curriculum, you might want to rethink your strategy/tool. This is something that some teachers might forget when using technology in the classroom. A tool may seem really cool to incorporate, but ensuring actual learning with respect to your subject area occurs is paramount.

Something that really stood out to me was the SECTIONS model, which is a step-by-step process to follow when choosing a technological tool. Before anything, students are prioritized first, and this is something that resonated with me deeply. I appreciate how the model and the module as a whole value students’ wants and needs before anything else because I feel as if this is something that some teachers lack when designing their lesson plans. If more teachers navigated through this module and attempted to incorporate the elements that are presented, learning would be a much more enjoyable and rewarding experience from K-12 and beyond.

 

As with my first multimedia reflection, I chose to go with a Twitter essay in my response to the information presented. Although we are encouraged to branch out and try different technological tools (as I did in the second one), I feel as if I can best present my ideas within the Twitter essay format. There are so many ways you can get across the main points of the module: writing about it, implementing polls, adding GIFs, and scattering pictures throughout the essay. I did enjoy using Coggle in my last reflection to try something new, but I did find it a bit limiting in terms of condensing a wide variety of ideas into small headings and subheadings/sentences. The way the module is set up is almost perfect for a Twitter essay since it more or less follows a suggested process to follow, which is rather easy to convey into tweets. This may be our last multimedia reflection of the year (sadly), but I definitely encourage all teachers to obtain at least some literacy with respect to Twitter as it can be a useful tool to incorporate into the classroom, especially in relation to class discussions. Without further ado, here is my Twitter essay. Enjoy!

 

Oct 30 2018
6 Comments
332wednesday12 Image

Get with the Times and Embrace Participatory Learning Possibilities!

Hello there,

Today I chose to do my multimedia reflection on the Jacobsen article/Jenkins video, which discussed the idea of incorporating participatory digital methods into the classroom. I personally found these sources quite useful because although we have discussed how to incorporate technology into classrooms, I sometimes failed to see the benefit of it or the extent to which it can be useful. Therefore, they were extremely helpful in providing me with some context on just how effective incorporating technology in the classroom can be. One thing that really stood out was that nearly everything that was claimed within it was backed up by facts, with the majority of them dealing with the idea of integrating these student based/technological methods into the classroom. Overall, it seems as if allowing students to fully utilize the technology they are given, collaborate with themselves and their teachers, and become heavily involved in projects online while interacting with learners/resources on the web can be extremely beneficial. There is a constant juxtaposition participant focused learning to that of the traditional recall and regurgitate method often employed within schools, which I believe was an important contrast to make in order to truly understand how kids effectively learn. Collaboration was heavily stressed throughout the article, which I believe is important to make the most out of the learning opportunities that present themselves within a classroom. Without this aspect of constantly learning and bouncing ideas off each other, things would definitely stagnate quickly within the realm of education. These resources are definitely something that all teachers should read/watch to get a better grasp of how to get more out of their students through technology and provide themselves with a variety of resources that can assist them in the process, including Galileo Network and Second Life. It is definitely something that I will personally attempt to explore more throughout my career to give my students the best learning experience possible.

I chose to do a mindmap because it is something I’ve never really done outside of some sketches in various classrooms throughout my learning career. I enjoyed using this platform (Coggle) for the most part, but I found that it was extremely difficult to get all the information that I wanted into the mindmap. There was a lot of stuff covered within the article, so fitting it within a series of branches was a bit challenging, but I found the process rewarding in the end. However, I do feel that branching the various topics covered within the article made it easier to collect my thoughts than if I had to simply summarize everything that the author talked about. I also added some visual aids to get across some main points that I wanted to stick with whoever happens to see it. Overall, I would recommend the platform for anyone looking to escape their comfort zone and try something new, especially considering the fact that it is not as time consuming as some of the other platforms. Without further ado, here is my mindmap! Enjoy, and feel free to give me any feedback to get those marks in.

 

Oct 01 2018
4 Comments
332wednesday12

Embracing the Learning Process: A THREAD!

I chose the podcast with Collier and Friend because I found it extremely interesting after reading a brief synopsis on the contents. Collier’s points throughout the podcast made me reflect on not-yetness within my own learning experience and I noticed that in the past I have sometimes gotten caught up in the idea of education being a step-by-step process with only one answer. This may be due to a mix of teaching styles utilized by teachers and my own attitudes within the realm of various classes throughout my career as a student, but it is something that I needed to be exposed to earlier in my life. I definitely agree that the current education system forces students to focus solely on the end result, which causes them to become frustrated when they don’t get something right away. It is definitely important to help students understand that it is perfectly okay to make mistakes, especially when it is with something they are not completely familiar with at the time. If this idea can become ingrained into students’ minds by promoting the ideas of not-yetness and risk-taking, the learning process can become much more beneficial for future students. This podcast is something that I could have used much earlier in my schooling experience, but I am glad to have access to its contents now so adjustments can be made throughout the rest of my life.

I chose to do a Twitter thread because I feel it gives a nice mix of explanation through text and visual aids through GIFS. Sometimes it is harder to transmit ideas (especially more emotional ones) through text, so I felt as if this would be a good choice for my first blog post. One drawback of using Twitter as a platform for the assignment is that there is a character limit per tweet, which is obviously made easier by being able to make a thread of ideas, but sometimes there are certain ideas that I wanted to convey all within one tweet and was forced to make it into multiple ones. This was not a big problem; however, and I thoroughly enjoyed creating this Twitter thread as it was something I would recommend to anyone looking to try something different in their next assignment. Without further ado, enjoy my Twitter thread by clicking on the link below!