Workshop Eight Blog

· What teaching strategies used during this course compliment integration of technology?

Our various assignments, like summarizing the chapters using presentation software, creating curriculum and teacher’s webpages are just a few of the many things we did that forced us to utilize technology in our coursework.

· How do you personally define technology integration after completing this course?

Technology integration is utilizing technology in the classroom to enhance teaching, motivate students, and to bring the world to the classroom.

Workshop Seven Blog

· Reflect on the skills used as a result of your learning so far that you are applying to promote an effective method of applying the modern instructional technology and producing instructional media and aids into teaching.

In looking back on this course and the concepts we have discussed, I think the majority of what I’m getting out of this is more awareness. I can’t say I’ve learned new “skills” because before this course I knew my way around computers and technology, but I think now I’m more aware of how technology can and will continue to be useful. I do have more ideas of how to utilize the technology that is available. I do want to utilize online simulations more as I teach math that

· What do you expect are the students’ affective outcomes from using these forms of technology?

Students will be able to visualize how math can be applied to real-life situations. I think that the more exposure to good resources on the internet, the better our students will become in analyzing sources of information.

Workshop Six Blog

• What role could multimedia instructional materials and student multimedia projects play in bringing about this culture?

Multimedia instructional materials are able to showcase cultures all over the world and given an identity to cultures that may not have the same ideals or freedoms that America has. It is because technology brings about democracy, freedom of expression, tolerance, diversity, and complexity of opinion that technology is limited in some countries, including the one I reside. Giving students multimedia projects allows them to put more of their own identity into the project. It gives them the freedom to take ownership of it, instead of them being owned by the bounds of the project.

• How can teachers' use of multimedia support the development of such a culture?

Multimedia can help teachers bring the world to the classroom in such a way to allow students to grasp the similarities and differences that can be found in cultures around the world. From what is values – free speech, human rights versus unshakable trust in the government... The culture of my school isn’t shaped by what projects we do or concepts we study, rather it is shaped by the students and teachers and the interaction that learning brings through whatever medium. The quote about the culture listed above is a very American approach to technology. It’s difficult to quite apply it to my classroom that teaches students from over 15 different countries within the walls and boundaries of China, the world’s largest communist country.

• What are the challenges in your classroom?

The challenges in my classroom? As in with multimedia projects? I have challenges because the technology available in our school isn’t that available. So instead of going through the trouble and extra work to do more with multimedia, I often don’t because the value that the multimedia materials may bring usually isn’t worth the trouble it is to make it happen. There are some cases where this isn’t true, but for most part, it is what it is.

Workshop Five Blog

1. After you have explored the Questioning Toolkit websites, what types of questions do you generally use when you teach students?

I use a variety of questions depending on how the students are interacting with the content; including essential, subsidiary, planning, clarifying, sifting and sorting, and probing questions of the logic, prior knowledge, and trial and error type

2. What kind of questions would lead students to think critically and at higher levels?

Probing, planning, strategic, elaborating, and unanswerable questions would lead students to think at a higher level.

3. What kind of questions would complement the integration of technologies in your classroom?

Hypothetical questions would work well with integrating technology with math problems because of the simulations that can be found to help figure out hypothetical situations. Planning questions would also help with organizing students thoughts before they use technology to solve problems or research more.

Workshop Four Blog

So far in this course, I have learned to look at common technology and social networks as educational tools. I used to just think of software marketed as educational to be useful in the classroom. I would have never thought of blogs, social networking, podcasts, and the like to be able to streamline communication with parents and students. I think of all tools we've discussed, having a central site for our students and their parents to be able to get the information they need about what's going on in class. For my math classes, I think that this would be helpful. Our lead teacher is looking into a way for our secondary team to set up websites next year. Wikis also would seem useful not necessarily for my class, but for student organizations like student council. I think this would help them become more organized, especially over breaks as they plan and discuss. It will also ensure that everyone's voice is heard, especially for some of the students who are more quiet but are on the council. I think that will be a great tool for student development.

Workshop Three Blog

• Reflect on how you could use “Podcasts” to distribute your lessons.

Podcasts would work to record lessons and distribute them for students who are absent, or just need a review of what was went over in class that day. It would need to be in video format so that the explanation of the problems would be visual as well as audio. I could see how this could be beneficial for new students who need to play catch up midyear and for ESOL students who need to have just that extra chance to see the lesson. I'm not quite sure how it would work or how much more helpful it would be in comparison to the amount of work it would be.

• What do you expect are the students’ affective outcomes when the students use this form of technology to learn?

The outcomes of this would be more reinforcement of the lessons taught in class. It would be a huge benefit for our ESOL students who need time to process the English instructions. It would be helpful for students who have missed class. I think the podcasts would give students more confidence while doing their homework to be able to fall back on the video if they have a question.

Workshop Two Blog

• What do you expect are the students’ cognitive outcomes when the students use technology?

I expect the students to be able to think at a higher level on certain concepts as well as be able to apply their knowledge to real life situations. I would think that with the use of technology, students would be able to be able to express their knowledge in more creative ways. For instance, given the project to create a video podcast of a mathematical topic, the students would have to know how to explain the topic instead of just the process of using the topic or concept to solve.

• What do you expect are the students’ affective outcomes when the students use technology?

I expect students to have a greater confidence in their knowledge after using technology. I think that when students have the ability to explore concepts and create their idea of it, they have more ownership of the knowledge than if they had just listened to a teacher explain the concept. While I think that explanations are definitely necessary, I also see the value in allowing students to take the explanations further by looking into it on their own and learning how to explain it.

Workshop One Blog

How do you currently integrate or plan to integrate technology into the existing curriculum?

In teaching high school math, it seems technology integration should happen naturally. I say it "should" because mathematics in the past has always led to new technological breakthroughs. This history of computers is well-versed in mathematics and computer science itself is considered a branch of math. But yet it seems the latest technologies seem to be the most difficult to integrate into a math class. Currently, my students utilize the use of calculators, in particular graphing calculators to assist them in their study of high level of math. I have taught some classes using PowerPoint presentations, but with teaching math, the teacher needs the freedom to improvise when going over problem solving techniques. I have found that with PowerPoint, I also need to be ready to work out problems on the board as well. The biggest time that I integrate technology is when I have the entire school participate in World Math Day. During this event, our students compete online with thousands of other students their age in a mental math competition.

Other ways that I've tried to integrate technology have been in my AP Statistics class. At the end of the chapters that we looked at various types of Statistics and the ways they are displayed and interpreted, the students were to research and find current news articles that utilized the statistics that we had discussed. They had to analyze how they were calculated and interpreted. Also in the course, I am going to start to use a free Statistical Software Package called WinStat. I was hoping to get Minitab but at this point that is not going to happen. I also plan on using the video series "Against All Odds: Inside Statistics", now that I have a VPN I can show these videos at school.

What motivated or will motivate you to include technology in your lessons?

The biggest motivation is necessity. It is necessary for me to utilize the technology that my students will be expected to know how to use at the university level. They will need to know how to prepare presentations, how to research, and if they are studying mathematics, they will need to know how to use mathematical software. The second biggest motivation is that of interest. Even when I had the students use an online matrix multiplier, they found much greater interest in doing those calculations than without the interaction with a computer. My students are used to interacting with a computer and it is comfortable for them to use. They like finding new resources online that can help them and make doing their homework more efficient. Finally, I am motivated by my own motivation to improve my teaching. If this means using more technology then I will take the extra time to prepare and use what will make my lessons all the more better.