New Goals for 2010 Thanks to Technology!

Education is a gift that never leaves us. Therefore, we have to celebrate anytime we learn new things or new ways. Eight weeks ago I was familiar with technology and used promethean boards but I was too focused on the technology tools as a teacher that I did not use it as learning tool but rather an instructing tool. However, after eight weeks, I have learned how to use technology to enhance students learning. For instance, instead of just copying and pasting photos onto slides and explaining what you are teaching, a better way of doing it is by having the students view the photos through a virtual tour and allowing them to come up with the ideas and construct their own meaning of the lesson.

The most valuable lesson I learned in the past eight weeks has become my personal theory which is to give the children the opportunity to create their own meaning out of a lesson instead of instructing them on what they should think. A great way to allow the students to construct meaning through experiences is by emerging them into the cooperative and social learning. As Dr.Orey stated, "students need to interact and create episodes that will last." There are a world of tools in the world of technology that can increase student engagement socially and help them construct meaning into knowledge. Two of my new favorite tools are Voice Threads and Note-Taking with blogs or wikki pages. Voice Threads are wonderful to increase students' stamina by including visuals, audios, and instant feedback with the option of leaving several comments. Note-Taking is an essential tool because it is a process students must perfect to do well in life. The best part of note taking is the ability for students to choose how they want to keep track of their notes; from blogs, wikkis, concept maps, etc. Either way, if they are creating a Voice Thread or analyzing information learned through note taking, the student's engagment is likely because they are in control and socially involved.

In order to get the ball rolling with my students and increase their level of engagment with technology I have set two long term goals. One is to use technology to increase communication and ownership amongst students. I will do this by creating a BLOG with the entire class and make it a routine to assign discussions every weekend for homework. After a couple of weeks, I will have the students pick topics they would like to discuss that connects with the Unit we are working on. At last, I would like the students to use Blogs as a place where they can continue the classroom questions and comments into their personal computer. My second goal is to be more flexible when assigning projects to partnerships. In other words, I need to be more open-minded and trust the students to meet the rubric by any means of technology they would like to use. For example, I would first give the essential question they must try to answer, followed by the rubric, and meet with them in groups to check on their progress.Overall, my mission would be to allow them to use technology to get their meaning across without being instructed to use a certain tool.

Well, although I feel that I have a lot of ideas now, I know the next class will give me some more, so I will see you there! Bye for now !

Social Learning Is The Key To Making Lessons Last Forever

Social learning theories include many forms of instruction from peer collaboration to any form of interaction.Therefore, any instructional lesson that includes students working together is a prime example of social learning. For example, using tools to have students experience cooperative learning such as WebQuest is an excellent way to have students collaborate (socially) to develop a project that is created by them. The best thing about WebQuest is that not only are students totally engaged, but they also know what is expected of them through the teacher's objectives, rubrics, etc. Another great way to create a lesson that will be successful is to take the social aspect of it and add in connectivism theory. This will make the lesson an episode students will never forget because they were engaged and it connected to their lives with meaning.

Social learning with connectivism is sure to gain the students' attention. Another way in which cooperative learning works as a part of the social learning theory is by helping students "cooperate to learn"(Wong & Wong,1998.) For example, assigning students to "roles" again support social learning but also builds cooperative learning skills (reporter, writer,etc) which they will need in the real world.

Overall, social learning and it's connection to connectivism and cooperative learning help students grow as learners while helping them remember what they have learned.

A lesson that I created to incorporate social learning and it's methods is a lesson using Voice Thread to teach students about The Importance of Currency in Latin America. I downloaded pictures from the internet of ; types of currency from the past and present, map of the Latin American Countries, and a graph of the rates of the currency today. After I uploaded them, I added focus questions and voice explanations. Later on I put the students in groups of two and had them log onto the site using a class log in and had them add comments to what they noticed. This was my introduction to Currency in Latin America. Now that they have a background knowledge on the subject, they can do the research with their partners ( take turns as different roles) and add comments to the pictures while learning from one another through social learning!
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