A Reflection on EdTech541

I feel that at the end of any long journey it is important to reflect on where you have been, how far you have come and where you are going; this final blog post is my reflection on my EdTech 541 journey. Over the course of the past 14 weeks I have learned many things, some directly related to educational technology, and some related to the lives of my colleagues. In relation to educational technology I have been exposed to a wealth of free resources on the internet through course readings and through the posts of my peers. Some of these tools will be valuable moving forward. However, I think one of the most valuable tools that I learned this semester was not internet related at all but rather the presentation of relative advantage and the Technology Integration Planning (TIP) Model. I think that these two tools will provide me with a different way to present technology integration suggestions that may serve me well in some professional situations. I also learned a great deal from my peers and colleagues in this class. From the discussion that has occurred in this class it appears that most of my colleagues are teachers or students focusing on the K-12 system (not all, but many) whereas I am an Instructional Technologist in Higher Education. I learned a great deal regarding the different concerns impacting educational technology integration at the K-12 level and feel that I now have a better understanding of those challenges.

I feel that many of the things I have learned in this class will enable me to grow in my professional life and help me to better serve the individuals I work with. With several new resources at my disposal, such as new technology tools and the TIP model, I feel that I am well equipped to aid instructors with their teaching and learning challenges.

This course was my last course in the MS program and, while I cannot say that this course has had a large impact on my thoughts regarding teaching, it has reinforced already existing ideas such as:

• Technology must always be integrated with a purpose, never for the sake of technology
• While there are many tools available some of them off affordences and advantages that make them better equipped for certain jobs
• There is often more than one right answer to a teaching and learning challenge and often the best answer is context sensitive taking into consideration the challenge as well as the individual needs of the learners and instructors

I used these ideas along with theories and practices learned in other courses to develop the assignments for this course. Assignment development was perhaps the biggest challenge in this course for me as I do not teach and learning units are not often used in this way at the higher education level. I not only had to develop a sound technology integration model based on the principals presented by Roblyer, I also had to develop all of the content from scratch at a grade level that I am unfamiliar with. This was a large challenge. However, I found that the application of basic instructional design methodologies such as the Dick and Carey Model (2004) to be very helpful in overcoming this challenge. Once the learning activities were partially developed it was very easy to integrate the technologies using Roblyer 's thoughts and supporting theories such as Andrew Churches' Bloom's Digital Taxonomy (http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom's+Digital+Taxonomy)

References:

Dick, W., and Carey, L. (2004). The Systematic Design of Instruction (6th Edition). Allyn & Bacon.

Roblyer, M. D. (2006). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (4th Edition). Prentice Hall.

Addressing Special Needs in an Urban Ecology Thematic Unit

As educators we strive to make our content as accessible as possible for all students. For those students with special needs this may involve using technology to meet the unique challenges of the individual. The unit of Instruction that I have developed for this course is on Urban Ecology. There are technology mediated teaching strategies that can assist us in reaching all students in the class, aiding them in mastering the topics and components of this unit. The following technology mediated suggestions are meant to address each of the five special needs target groups (as defined by Roblyer in In Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching) for a unit in Urban Ecology.

• Students with cognitive disabilities
  Students with cognitive impairments fall into place across a wide spectrum of disability levels; from mild to severe cognitive and emotional disabilities. These student benefit from the ability to review materials and engage with them in multiple ways.
  
  Lecture Capture or Video Podcasting: Recording lectures as video podcasts using a tool such as Camtasia Studio (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp) allows students to repeatedly review the content. This aids students in understanding the necessary conceptual knowledge points in the unit through repeated review. According to Roblyer, "Videos enhance acquisition, maintenance, and transfer of functional behaviors", video podcasts of the procedural knowledge integral to each unit would aid students with mild cognitive disabilities in mastering those skills and therefore succeeding in the unit. An example of a unit requiring procedural knowledge is the unit on mapping the ecosystem where students are expected to preform quadrat counts on their sample site. A video of how to do this would aid students in succeeding.
  
  Multimedia editing tools: Multimedia editing tools from iMovie (http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/) to Glogster (http://www.glogster.com/?) to Animoto (http://animoto.com/) to Prezi (http://prezi.com/) allow students to express themselves in modes other than writing and speech. For students with cognitive challenges, this can be a great way for them to express themselves creatively. Content can be conveyed through alternative means freeing the students from the burden of writing. These tools could be a great alternative to the written ecological brochure project.
  
  
• Students with physical disabilities
  Students with physical disabilities face several challenges in the traditional classroom. These challenges are often challenges of inclusion and access as their physical disability can limit their participation in certain activities without technological intervention. However, the integration of technology in to the classroom can educators to create a inclusive environment.
  
  Mobility devices: While not specifically an educational tool, mobility devices, such as motorized wheelchairs, can aid students in participating fully in outdoor activities. This is important for student inclusion and engagement.
  
  
Text to Speech and Voice Recognition: Fine motor control is often a problem for students with physical disabilities. This makes touch typing particularly difficult. Text to Speech and Speech recognition tools can aid students across the unit by aiding them with reading and writing. Tools such as Nuance's Dragon Naturally Speaking (http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/) can aid students in the classroom and in the filed as they have both desktop and iPod/iPad compatible applications.


• Students with sensory disabilities
  Sensory disabilities are disabilities that effect any of five the primary senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. In education, the sensory disabilities effecting sight and hearing are the ones that receive the most attention as the have the greatest direct impact on a students learning and participation in classroom activities.
  
  iPod Touch/iPad apps: Part of the Urban ecology unit is a section on bird identification called "Celebrate Urban Birds." This unit could be quite challenging for students with sensory disabilities, especially those who have reduced sight. The inclusion of an iPod touch application that not only has visual descriptors of the birds but also auditory information could aid these students in completing identification based on bird song. Applications such as iBird Explorer Pro provide information on bird appearance as well as bird song samples. For students with very limited sight pairing them with a sighted student who can operate the iPod may prove beneficial to both students in the pair as students often feel bolstered by the experience of helping one another.
  
  Assistive listening devices: Assistive listening devices can help students with limited hearing to more fully participate in both classroom activities as well as group work. Assistive listing devices typically consist of a transmitter and receiver. The hearing impaired student wears the receiver and the transmitter is either worn by the single speaker or placed close to a group in the case of group work. This simple technology can aid a hearing impaired student by allowing them to participate more directly in group activities in the unit.
  
  
• Students who are at-risk
  At-risk student are students who are struggling in school. These students often do not fit the definition of disabled in any way, yet due to several factors are failing to thrive in the school environment. It is important to help these students stay focused on the tasks at hand and to engage with the classroom materials as fully as possible.
  
  Student Planners: Student planners and sequencers can aid at risk students in keeping on-task and meeting important deadlines. Each module for the Urban Ecology unit comes with a rough timeline. Instructors could share this timeline with their students and then assist at-risk students in entering the information into an online planner. Planners can range from free generic planners available on the web (Remember the Milk : http://www.rememberthemilk.com/) to paid subscription planners specifically designed for students (Student Planner.com; http://www.onlinestudentplanner.com/). Regardless of whether a free of paid product is used, it is important to mentor at-risk student in the use of their planners and to help them understand the benefit in doing so.
  
  Blogs: Blogging offers a venue for students thoughts and opinions to be shared either privately with the instructor or publicly with the class. Asking students to blog about their learning experiences and the content being investigated allows them to engage with the materials on a personal level. This type of engagement is integral to the success of at risk students as they are often disengaged from classroom materials.
  
  
• Students who are gifted and talented
  Students who are gifted need to be challenged in order to stay engaged with the materials. The following two suggestions would challenge these gifted students to move beyond the basic curriculum.
  
  Virtual Field Trip creation: Part of the Urban Ecology unit was to map our the habitat around the school to identify safe routes to school. This mapping involved looking for obstacles on routes to school and mapping them in order to alert their peers to hazards on the routes. The virtual field trip assignment extension would be for students needing a little extra challenge to create a virtual field trip of one of the routes to school. The virtual field trip could be a Google map with markers and information or a video detailing the route. The assignment would allow students to not only engage with the technology but to also express their creative side by defining the medium for their project. For tips on creating a virtual field trip assignment see: http://eduscapes.com/sessions/virtual/create.html.
  
  Geo-Tagging and Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/): Part of our challenge as urban ecology citizen scientists is to educate our friends and neighbors about the ecosystem around them. Students collected a great deal of data regarding flora and fauna at several data collection sites early on in the unit (http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/caronj/541/ss-database.html). The Google Earth assignment would extend this original data collection assignment by asking students to enter data about each collection site into Google earth. Any images that were taken for the project can also be geo-tagged and uploaded into the Google earth assignment. The resultant Urban Ecology Google Earth map could then be used as part of the interactive Urban Ecology showcase at the end of the unit.

Playing on an Even Field With Technology

Students with special needs come in all types, from the physically, mentally or emotionally challenged to the exceptionally gifted. In Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, Roblyer breaks down students with special needs into five main target groups:

• Students with cognitive disabilities
• Students with physical disabilities
• Students with sensory disabilities
• Students who are at-risk

and

• Students who are gifted and talented

Despite the obvious difference in the challenges the students in each of these target areas have, there is one thing that each of these special needs groups has in common:

Technology can make a difference in their education!

Educational technology is a powerful tool for students in each of the five target groups and their teachers. Appropriately integrated educational technology can help bolster students engagement in the learning process and help them reach achievement goals that might otherwise be unattainable. Hasselbring and Williams Glaser (2000) report that:

Teachers have found that technological innovations can help even the playing field for special needs students and enable these students to succeed in the regular classroom. Technology for students with special needs is defined by federal law as "any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities." This broad definition encompasses a wide variety of both high-end and low-end technologies that have proven to be useful for improving educational options for students with disabilities. (p. 103-104)

While there are some tools on the market that can be used across a broad range of students (see: Technology Helps Turn Around Struggling Students in Florida School for a discussion of how Classworks aided a Florida school system in meeting several challenges), most of the challenges faced by students in the five target groups can best be addressed through targeted technology integration that is designed to meet each student's particular need and help to address their specific challenges. By addressing students challenges, we help to create an environment where they are not hampered by their disability and are free to learn in a less restricted manner (Hasselbring and Williams Glaser, 2000; Roblyer, 2006).

There are many technology tools that can help us as educators to address the needs of specific target groups. Students with disabilities display a broad spectrum of disability levels in the classroom from mild cognitive and emotional impairment to severely disabled cognitively and physically. The tools used to address such disabilities range from the same tools we use with non-impaired students (perhaps just with a modified technique) to customized solutions tailored to an individual student. Here are just a few suggestions on tools that might help to address each disability type:

• Students with cognitive disabilities:
  
  Lecture Capturing for students to review content at their own pace
  Skill and Drill software that aids students in recall and retention
  Text2Speach softwares
• Students with physical disabilities:
  
  Adaptive keyboards and mice
  Mobility tools
• Students with sensory disabilities:
  
  Screen readers
  Brail devices
  Microphones for audio amplification
  
  
• Students who are at-risk and Students who are gifted and talented
  
  While these two categories represent students with very different challenges, the tools used to address these groups can sometimes be very similar as both groups of students need to be engaged in their learning (Roblyer, 2006).
  
  Software that allows the student to engage with materials in an alternative way (e.g. games)
  Software that allows the student to express themselves in alternative ways (e.g. multimedia production software)

If you would like more information on Information and Communication Technologies for specific special needs you may find the information provided by AbilityNet to be very useful: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/edu_factsheets.

References:

Hasselbring, T. and C. Williams Glaser (2000). The Future of Children, Vol. 10, No. 2, Children and Computer Technology (Autumn - Winter, 2000), pp. 102-122. Princeton University Press. Retrieved April 26, 2010 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1602691.

McCrea, Bridget (2009). Technology Helps Turn Around Struggling Students in Florida School: Florida school taps Classworks to integrate benchmarks. T|H|E Journal. Retrieved April 23rd, 2010 from http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/08/06/technology-helps-turn-around-struggling-students.aspx.

Roblyer, M. D. (2006). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (4th Edition). Prentice Hall.

Importance of the Arts in Education

The effects of both the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act and the weakening economy have been many, but one effect that they have in common is an impact on arts education in schools. While the connection between these two factors may seem obtuse at first, there does seem to be a correlation. The No Child Left Behind act has placed an emphasis on high stakes testing in two main disciplines: Science and Math. According to Ruppert (2006), this has caused varying reactions to the Arts in education with "Schools in some states report[ing that] the amount of instructional time devoted to reading, writing, math and science has increased, while for the arts it has declined." This coupled with a decrease in school budget funding due to economic downturn has resulted in bad new for art education in may locations around the country.

While it may be easy to consider the Arts as "extracurricular," there is mounting evidence supporting the integration of the arts in all aspects of the curriculum. Critical Links:

Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development (Deasy, R.J. (Ed.), 2002) brings together 62 articles from various sources assessing the Arts in education at the k-12 level. While several of the articles report that it is difficult to assess the true impact of the Arts on learning other, non-art, subjects they are able to report that the arts have a broader impact on a students educational experience. One study in Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development summarized this impact by saying:

"Case study results showed that students performing well in at least one art form reported a wide range of positive effects from arts education. While the most common effect reported was direct learning of skills in the art form, students also reported that arts classes resulted in enjoyment, relief of tension, learning about social and cultural issues, development of creativity and thinking skills, enriched expressive skills, self confidence, and personal and social development. Thus, students clearly perceived that the arts facilitate their personal and social development."

Since the arts are so important to our students development, how can we foster this in our own classrooms? Here are a few links to get you started:

Aviary Tools: http://aviary.com/tools

Aviary provides a free resource kit for the integration of digital media into your classroom. by offering access to free image and audio editing tools Aviary Tools makes it easier than ever to integrate multimedia arts projects into your classroom!

GIMP: http://www.gimp.org/

GIMP is an open source free image manipulation tool that students can use to edit and construct images. This tool is easy to use and mimics many of the functionalities of more expensive programs like Photoshop.

Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity is a free open source audio recording and editing program which can be used to open up the workd of audio to your students. Like GIMP, this tool is easy to use and mimics many of the functionalities of more expensive programs like Adobe Audition.

If you have a software in mind that you would like for an arts project in the classroom but cant afford it check out: http://alternativeto.net/desktop. AlternativeTo is a great site to look for alternatives to expensive software packages!

References:

Deasy, R.J. (Ed.). (2002). Critical links: Learning in the arts and student social and academic development. Washington, DC: Arts Education Partnership. Retrieved April 19, 2010 from http://www.aep-arts.org/files/publications/CriticalLinks.pdf?PHPSESSID=529d01740edb62bfd7023b868a9b6c74.

Ruppert, Sandra S. (2006). Critical Evidence: How the Arts Benefit Student Achievement. The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. Retrieved April 19, 2010 from http://www.nasaa-arts.org/publications/critical-evidence.pdf.

Maps in Urban Ecology

Part of this weeks assignment was to locate or create an activity that incorporates mapping technologies into the curriculum. For my mapping technology I choose to use ARCview GIS software. The reason I choose this software is that it allow you to import information packages that can be obtained from both government and private data sites in information as diverse as demographics to climate patterns. This data can be very useful when investigating an Urban Environment. For my activity I will be using part of the Mapping the Environment curriculum developed for ARC view by the Missouri Botanical garden: http://www.mobot.org/education/mapping/mapcr.html. In particular, the students will be investigating the "Mapping Ecosystems" and "Mapping Urban Forests" units.

Unit 1: Mapping our ecosystem

In this unit we will be exploring climatic and environmental information that may have an impact on urban birds. We will be using the ARCview GIS mapping software to look at information as it pertains to our particular area on the map. Unit time line:

Week 1 Classroom Resources:

Week one will focus on orienting students to the software.

• Introduction to ARCview GIS software
• Making your first map online - demographics: http://mapapps.esri.com/create-map/index.html
• The data Package files for the remainder of the lesson:

1. Mapping Ecoregions (13.3 MB)
2. Mapping Urban Forests (3.41 MB)

Week 2 Data Collection Resources:

Week two will focus on student review of existing data and collection/entry of their urban tree data. (n.b. urban tree data may already have been collected during the earlier field site reviews.)

• Student review of demographic data. Do demographics have an impact on urban ecology?
• Student review of ecoregions data. Does the ecoregion have an impact on urban ecology?
• Student entry and review of urban tree data. Do trees and tree types have an impact on urban ecology?

Week 3 Data Entry and Analysis Resources:

Week three focuses on student synthesis of information and the creation of a report that can be shared with the class on their conclusions.

• List of Essential Questions (http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/caronj/541/ss-database.html) for the thematic unit to guide student exploration and class discussion.
• Student formation of hypotheses and conclusions.
• Generation of reports.

History is Alive!

Through the use of technology in the classroom, history can be made to come alive in ways not previously thought possible. Technology can be used to promotes learner centered teaching strategies in today's social studies classrooms. These strategies take advantage of the technologies available both in the classroom and on the Internet; they allow students to explore the history and culture around them and they empower students to immerse themselves in historical and cultural research.

Both Robyler and McDowell and Mullin list some excellent integration strategies. Here are my top three:

1. Simulations: Simulations using technologies as advances as Second Life or as simple as the game Oregon Trail can help students to immerse themselves into an environment. This immersion can aid students in gaining perspective and understanding.
2. Electronic research using Primary literature and images: There is a wealth of primary literature and photography readily available on the Internet that students can use to investigate topics. Researching in primary sources allows students to evaluate and synthesize information and use other important Higher Order Thinking skills
3. Online collaboration tools: These tools help to connect not only the students to each other but they can also be used to connect students to external experts. For more ideas see my post on Flattening the Classroom.

A student's exploration of and immersion into historical and cultural topics can help to engage them more deeply in the topics presented than ever before; instead of just reading a text book, students can now experience primary sources and engage in higher order thinking skills by analyzing and synthesizing information from these sources (McDowell and Mullin, 2003; Roblyer, M. D, 2006). I think this is a great Relative Advantage. Relative Advantage is the "stuff" that a particular technology allows you to do that you could not do otherwise. The use of technology in the social studies classroom provides this advantage.

However despite the advantages of the use of technology in the social studies classroom, there is some risk. It is important that students be knowledgeable in what makes a good resource and that they understand how to locate and fine credible materials. There is a need for information literacy skills in our students as there are many Internet sites available that can mislead students (Roblyer, M. D, 2006). However, this is a teachable moment where we can work with student to address digital literacy skills while engaging and making history come alive!

References:

McDowell and Mullin (2003). "Integrating Technology into the Social Studies Curriculum". Knowledge Network K-12 News. retrieved April 11, 2010 from: http://www.kn.pacbell.com/news/CAschools/july2003/socialstudies.htm.

Roblyer, M. D. (2006). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (4th Edition). Prentice Hall.

Simulations in Science and Math

One subclass of resource available for math and science on the web is the simulation. Simulations are an important type of resource because they help to support authentic learning, inquiry, conceptual, and procedural learning in the STEM subjects (Roblyer, 2006). For this exercise I review four science simulations for both their usability as well as their content. The four simulations I choose to review were:

1. Projectile Motion from PhET
2. Pie Chart from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
3. Heart Murmur Simulation from Real Life Education
4. Genome Island from Wesleyan University

Projectile Motion from PhET

The Projectile Motion simulation from PhET university of Colorado Boulder is an introductory level physics simulation appropriate for students in high school or college introductory physics. This simulation allows the user to define starting conditions for an object that will undergo projectile motion. I believe this simulation requires a very basic understanding of physics principals as this understanding makes the interface much more intelligible and user-friendly. After defining the starting conditions the user can then run the simulation to see how far the object flies. changes to the starting conditions were easy to make allowing for quick comparisons between trials.

Pie Chart from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

The pie chart simulation from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives was extremely simple to understand and easy to use. The interface was intuitive and user friendly. Students are presented with a scenario where they need to plan for an event. Items are broken down into categories (entered into column 1) and quantities are then provided for each of these categories (column 2). Not only was it quick and simple to produce an initial pie chart, it was very easy to manipulate the chart enabling the user to make changes and then review the subsequent results. This manipulative seemed appropriate for a student just learning about ratios, fractions, and charting.

The next two simulations I experimented with were in Second life. This immersive environment provided the simulations with a greater degree of depth. However, it also complicated the simulations. Navigating in second life can be difficult for newcomers and therefore is a barrier to adoption for many people. I found these simulations to be much more attention grabbing and the added depth made me feel like I was experiencing a full educational experience. Second Life is not appropriate for younger students as the environment is open and other residents of the environment may interact with you. The materials presented in these simulations were intended for undergraduate science majors.

Heart Murmur Simulation from Real Life Education

The heart murmur simulation provided the user with a hospital which could be explored. Inside the clinic environment there were three patient rooms. The first two rooms contained patients with known miladies while the patients in room three were undiagnosed. The goal of the user was to listen to the heart beats of the patients in rooms one and two and to then diagnose the patient in room three based on the information they had gathered. This simulation was quite lifelike as it incorporated recordings of real hearts. This could be a fantastic learning tool for pre-med or veterinary students looking to learn more about heart rhythms.

Genome Island from Wesleyan University

The Genome Island is a very rich interactive environment designed to allow students to explore many topics in genetics. The topics explored are appropriate for an introductory college level genetics class and range from Mendelian Inheritance to chromosomal arrangements to an in-depth look at the human genome. This island contains a wealth of information. It may actually be overwhelming for someone trying to explore it in only a few minutes due to the sheer volume of information available. Aside from the information presented there are also several tasks scattered throughout the island. The tasks are mini scavenger hunts that instruct you to search for key bits of information. As a biologist, I found this island and the heart murmur clinic to be absolutely fascinating. I spent a great deal of time exploring these two areas; I never felt bored in doing so and feel that I barely scratched the surface.

References:

Roblyer, M. D. (2006). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (4th Edition). Prentice Hall.