Final Blog Post

How This Class has Helped Develop My Technology Skills as a Professional Teacher

Over the years I have taken many technology classes. I am happy if I can walk away from a class, seminar, or conference with having learned just one thing. I am thrilled that I am walking away from this class learning several things that I can apply now. My Chrome RSS feed is set up on my desktop and loaded with several blogs I discovered during this class. This is already paying off at keeping me ahead of the curve when it comes to technology in the classroom. My feed is also loaded with blogs from the Photography industry. I have also discovered a way to use voice feedback instead of text via podcasting. This class succeeded in pushing me out of my comfort zone and gave me real tools I could use immediately in my classroom.

I also have a stronger background knowledge in the research and literature that goes with the technology revolution happening in our schools. I feel much more prepared to make arguments and defend my position when advocating for technology for my classroom and my students. I know that how you present yourself goes a long way when asking for funding!

How Have I Deepened My Knowledge of the Teaching and Learning Process

More than anything this class has confirmed what I have already knew. That failure is part of the learning process and that innovation comes from overcoming the obstacles that caused the failure. Students need to be given open ended assignments where they will need to experiment with different methods to find a solution that might not be immediately obvious. This is how I have always run my art classes. The article by Neal on questioning really confirms this idea she says :

Asking secondary students insightful questions has many benefits for professional teaching practice.  Whether the response is intended to be written, spoken, dramatized, or conveyed in some other manner, it will provide feedback on how successful the lesson was in stimulating their thought processes.  The students will reflect on their learning through higher-level thinking processes such as analysis, synthesis, comparison, or summation.  Finally, students are more likely to remember what they have learned when they explore the implications of their learning. (Neal, M.  2015)

I will look for ways to give students choice and open ended questions not only as a way to encourage innovation and creativity but, also as a way to increase intrinsic motivation (LaSalle, D., 2015). The most profound example is what my department calls the "teapot effect". I used to give an assignment called the "Whimsical Teapot" where students had to design and construct a functional teapot (out of clay) that demonstrated whimsical qualities. The students HATED this assignment even though it was a very wide open assignment that they could differentiate to meet their skill level. As soon as I added a choice to the assignment the student's attitude completely changed. I added a second choice called "Synergy" to the final assignment. This was also a wide open, student driven assignment. I thought all the students would choose this. However, as soon as the choice was given 99% of the students chose the teapot and were happy to do so! Just by giving the students a choice of the final project it gave them a stronger feeling of ownership and increased their motivation. Another teacher in my office put the "tea pot" effect to the test in her class room with a fill in the blank test. She gave the students the choice of answering #1-10, 11-20, or 21-30. The students were thrilled with this choice and no one complained about the test. Simply giving the students a choice increased their motivation,

In What Ways Have I Changed from Being Teacher Centered to Student Centered

I have pushed myself to let students explore options that I myself did not foresee as an option for an assignment. When my students ask me “Can I do X” for an assignment I stop and ask myself “would that meet the main objective for this lesson”. If it does, than I say yes. Previously I would have wanted their projects to stay in line with my own experiences. This leads to true creativity and innovation (Cramer, S., 2007).

In what ways can I continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology with the aim of increasing student achievement?

I am very excited about google classroom and have signed up for another graduate class that specifically addresses all the tools that google offers. I am pushing myself to use new technology everyday to develop a fluency with things like google docs, forms, and sheets. I am starting to “flip” my classroom by video taping my demonstrations and loading them into the google classroom. I have created a day by day plan of what Photography will look like next semester and I am adding hyperlinks to each day to relevant articles and videos for the students to use so the plan is more meaningful for them. I am currently making a google forms evaluation of my class to gain student feedback to make next semester even more relevant for them.

In addition to my role as teacher I am also the Director of Art Education for DeKalb District #428 . In that role I am working to develop relevant assessments for the new PERA law. These assessments will utilize google forms.

2 Long Term Goals

My first goal to to flip my classrooms. I do not want to give up in class instruction all together, rather I want to make all my instruction available to students both in and outside of the classroom. With the roll out of the one to one technology throughout the district I want to have class time more for individual help.

Second, I would like to help all the teachers in the district access pod casts, google classroom, and flipped classrooms. It is my job as Director of Art Education to make sure that the Art teachers in the district have the training they need in both Art instruction and in technology.

Walden University defines positive social change as “a deliberate process of creating and applying ideas, strategies, and actions to promote the worth, dignity, and development of individuals, communities, institutions, cultures, and societies. Positive social change results in the improvement of human and social conditions” (2011-2012).I plan to apply the new skills I have learned in this class in my roll as Director. I will use my knowledge to broaden the experience of the Art teachers in my district. It is my plan to extend these new skills to not only my own students but all the students in the district through these Art teachers.

How have I changed my thinking?

Since the beginning of the class I have not changed my thinking very much.After all, I knew "texts books were dead" long before the publishers did. (Smith,F., 204) I have spend the last 21 years exploring technology, applying it, and teaching it. This is not my first class on technology or my last. I have always had very open ended, student centered, technology rich classroom (Cramer, S 2007). 

Mostly what I learned is that there is a digital divide among my own students. As we roll out the one on one initiative in my building I hope to see this divide disappear. I do hope that our district and building can support the enormous demand that the initiative will put on our infrastructure. I will continue to give my students very wide open assignments and I hope to use a flipped classroom in the future to further open up options to my students. I did learn how to do a hanging indent in google docs! This just proves that we must jump in with both feet and immerse ourselves in technology if we are to truly unlock it's potential. We must continue to give student assignments that stretch their experience and let them know that it is ok to fail it is just not ok to give up!

References  

Cramer, S. (2007). Update your classroom with learning objects and twenty-first century skills. Clearing House, 80(3), 126–132.

LaSalle, D. (2015). Intrinsic Motivation and the Five-Paragraph Essay: Lessons Learned on Practitioner Research, the Role of Academic Research in the Classroom, and Assessing Changes in Student Motivation. Penn GSE Perspectives On Urban Education, 12 (1), 31-45.

Neal, M. (2015)  Engaging Students Through Effective Questioning. Retrieved from http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/engaging-students-through-effective-questions

Smith, F. (2014, October 6) EDUCAUSE 2014: Publisher Says ‘Textbooks Are Dead,’ and Adaptive Learning Is Rising from the Ashes, Retrieved from http://www.edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2014/10/educause-2014-publisher-says-textbooks-are-dead-and-adaptive-learning-rising-ashes

Turnipseed, Stephen (2015). 5 Things You Need to Know About 21st Century Learning. Retrieved from http://edtechtimes.com/2015/11/03/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-21st-century-learning

Walden University Handbook (2011-2012) Vision, Mission, and Goals. Retrived fromhttp://catalog.waldenu.edu/content.php?catoid=61&navoid=9236

My reaction to the website of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Review and Reaction of the website "The Partnership for 21st Century Skills" 

My reaction

I had no idea what to expect when I clicked on the link for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. I had not heard of the organization or the website.My first reaction was "this must be a commercial site". It was slick, professionally designed, and well linked. I could not find any signs that this was in anyway linked to the state or the federal government or even K-12 public schools. In fact, the design it's self told me that this site was not run by anyone in public education.

My thoughts were confirmed when I clicked on the "Member Organization" link. What I found was a list of what appears to be large financial contributors to the "Partnership for 21st Century Skills". My first impression of the sight being "slick" and commercial was confirmed. The graphic design and layout of this sight is very professional. My thought was "wow! who paid for this web design." Not even considering the content, I knew there had to be major financial backing behind this web page. The fact that Apple Inc. is listed first did not surprise me.

Information on the site that surprised me and helped me develop a new understanding of the issues surrounding 21st-century skills

The partnership seems to focus on what they call the 4Cs: Communication, Creativity, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking. I whole heartedly agree with these ideals. However, I could not shake the feeling of commercialism throughout the site. The blog posts specifically related to special education caught my eye. I was distracted by the fact that there seem to be a bias toward the apple platform. For example in the blog post "What's so Special about 21st Century Learning"  The article refers to the teachers macbook being loaded with learning tools. I found this to be too platform specific.

This site was not as helpful as the "report" by the same group. The overall understanding from this site and from reading the "report" is not that we need to teach a specific application such as Word or Excel but, that technology as a whole needs to be introduced as a tool. The task is for educator to expose students to technology and build their technological schema.

Information or opinions on the site that I disagree with along with an explanation of why I disagree

I disagree with the philosophy of "focusing on the Core subjects". One of the four main concepts is creativity. I find it ironic that Art is not a valued class. Today when I revisited this site I clicked on the article "5 things you need to know about 21st Century Learning". This article summarizes my point. "There is no end of the unit test on creativity". The article goes on to say :

"98% of children test as creative geniuses at age 5, but that number decreases to only 2% of adults by age 25. Yet, creativity is the engine that drives our world and economy today, not end of course test-taking ability. In fact, these type of multiple-choice, one-right-answer tests undermine the most important reality: There are multiple right answers to most problems. We need to make sure our learners don’t lose that creative spark as they go through school. Otherwise, we risk losing our creative geniuses as well as their innovative ideas and solutions to the biggest problems our world faces."

What class has ALWAYS valued multiple right answers? ART! What class has always valued creativity? ART! What class has always valued innovative ideas and varied solutions? ART! What class does the Partnership for 21st Century Skills want schools to cut? ART! Ironic, right?! 

The implications for my students and for me as a contemporary educator

I guess the implication is that I will not have a job. The idea that we need to focus on the "Core" subjects is asinine. What we really have to do is look at classes that have always valued creativity and multiple right answers. We need to introduce our students to different tools that involve technology. We need to build their schema in the area of technology as it relates to all subject areas. We need to teach them that obstacles are not the end of the road but ,simply a problem to be solved. So often if student my students encounter something that they do not expect they shut down and blame the teacher. We need to move our students past the idea that the teacher is responsible for everything. We need to give the the idea that they can solve problems and that they may even have a better idea than the teacher! As Turnipseed states "The answers are not always found in the back of the book". 

Note: Stephen Turnipseed wrote the article that I agree with most. I found it very interesting that he was once President of LEGO Education. 

Refrences

Bates, R., & Phelan, K. (2002). Characteristics of a globally competitive workforce. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 4(2), 121. 

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A report and mile guide for 21st century skills. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved fromhttp://www.p21.org/storage/documents/P21_Report.pdf

Partnership for 21st Century Learning. (2015). Our Vision and Mission. Washington DC: Author.  Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-mission 

Turnipseed, Stephen (2015). 5 Things You Need to Know About 21st Century Learning. Retrieved from http://edtechtimes.com/2015/11/03/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-21st-century-learning/

How I Might Use a Blog in My AP Ceramics Classroom

This year my classroom technology resources are focused around my google classroom. The google classroom has a been an answer to many of the problems that I faced with trying to develop a working blog or website for my classroom. Going "paperless" and having students post work online for peer and teacher review was one of my goals. Having a cloud based storage so students would never lose their work was another motivation (Richardson, 2010). Blogs, I found were NOT the answer to these issues. However, I do see an application where student blogs
would be helpful.

Figure 1. Mountain Man, DeKalb, IL. by Bret Thomas, 2013 . Published with permission

In AP 3D (This is a college level class taught in a high school.)  students must develop a portfolio to submit for college credit at the end of the year. The class sizes are extremely small because few students are willing to take on the arduous course work. Therefore, class critiques are extremely limited. My students could post their own work in progress to their own blogs for critique by other AP students outside of our classroom. I have found that feedback for peers to be even more influential on students than feedback from their teachers.

AP classes require students to partially direct their own learning. Students are asked to think critically about their work, analyze the work of other, and apply new skill in creative and innovative ways. Mountain Man (see Figure 1) is an example of a student responding to a prompt and then inccoperating creativity and analytical thinking. According to Richardson blogs can "promote critical and analytical thinking. In addition, blogs can "combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction (Eide Neurolearning Blog, 2005). These are the same skills and experiences I would want to focus on with a critique blog.

A template or posting guide would be beneficial for student posts. Much like the AAA format we use for classroom critique. AAA stands for Applause (positive comments), Ask (ask the why, what, how questions), and Assist (Assist the student in making improvements). I would develop a posting template using these same guidelines to provide structure for student feedback.

An pivotal factor would be the input from other schools. I would need to find a like minded teacher who was willing to set up a classroom blog system similar to mine. "Most AP teacher's I (Chad Gregory) have encountered are motivated to try new ideas and are looking for innovative ways to help students" (Gregory, 2015). However, the nature of AP classes lend themselves to critique, collaboration, and innovation; so I do not believe it would be too difficult to find a like minded teacher.

Another application of the student AP blog would be summer homework input and collaboration. One of the biggest struggles for an AP art student is the lack of direction in the summer homework. Having a place where the students could regularly post their work in progress and other students and myself could give suggestions or make comments would alleviate much of the anxiety my students feel over their summer homework as well as provide more accountability.

As the district rolls out the one on one initiative the largest stumbling block (student access a device) will be eliminated. Student privacy would have to be addressed, as well as basic internet safety.  A basic tutorial of blog set up would be helpful. I have found that although web tutorials and youtube videos are ubiquitous the best way to overcome student anxiety about a new tool is to walk them through it in person.

In previous experience I have found that blogs do not meet the needs of a paperless classroom, cloud storage, or a "online file cabinet" well (Richardson,2005). There are too many logistical issues that prevent large scale blogging from being a time and effort effective tool. Overall, blogging could be an answer to the problem of little or no class critique caused by small class sizes for advanced classes. Although there are some safety issues to be addressed, a little planning would open up this resource for my students.

References

Eide Neurolearning Blog. (2005, March 2). Brain of the blogger. Retrieved September   from                        http://eidennurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/brain-of-blogger.htm

Gregory, C. (2015, November 2). AP Teachers [Personal interview].
Richardson, W. (2010). Weblogs:Pedagogy and Practice. In Blogs,Wikis, Podcasts, and Other                    Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (3rd ed., p. 171). Thousand Oaks,CA: Corwin.
Thomas, B. (Sculptor). (2013). Mountain Man. [Image of sculpture]. Retrieved from Digital Archives           of Tricia  Schumacher.

Welcome to my Walden University Blog

Hi all!
Welcome to my Walden University Blog. I am looking forward to learning, listening, and creating.

Thanks!
Tricia