Essential Conditions for Technology Integration

I have to start re-quoting Hellen Keller: "It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision."
Yes indeed, that is terrible. Today's education system needs the integration of technology but it have to be incorporated with a coherent vision. The vision must support the entire educational community. The 10 elements that the ISTE found as essential conditions for the incorporation of technology are well balance.
There is one downfall to this whole guideline, and that is the necessity of trained teachers to incorporate efficiently these essential conditions. The entire scholar community administration including teachers and parents need to have share vision so they co exist in a supportive environment for the sake of the students. Teachers need to have plenty access to technology which should include technical assistance. There are few other elements that teachers must have to have an efficient environment to incorporate technology learning skills.
When reading the articles: After the Bell, Beyond the Walls and It's Magic: an Educator Vision of the future, I realize the diversity of visions that us teachers might have.
For the current education system, I believe that Eric Langhorst has done a wonderful execution of incorporating today's technology in his classroom. I do believe that learning is not a 45 minute time slot, is a continuous process and students must be motivate to carry on with it beyond the walls of their school buildings. I recognize the effectiveness of StudyCast can provide to special learners. This is one awesome idea, that should be practice in our educational system. There is a need to target special need students in our schools, and sometimes it sounds difficult to do so, but this article is a vivid example that with the correct incorporation of today's gadgets students can achieve good performance with great results. I have to admit that asking for the support of expert can sometimes be a little difficult, because as experts they have tight schedules. Incorporating blogs and podcast in order to allow access to experts is a wonderful idea that should be also practice in all American school.
On the other hand, the article It's magic..., I find just a little unrealistic. Although it takes place on the year 2025, who knows what we will have then, I found that the incorporation of new technology to motivate students to science project proposals was a hit. Being a scientist myself, it is my concern on how science education is being portrait in today's educational system. It seems to me that making teachers to follow just state standards is not enough to cover a lot of topic options in this field. The standard to some extent are Ok, but they don't motivate students interest in science. Technology is a great tool that can be use to enhance science education. As for example the creation modern models, having students create their own theory and allowing them explain through out 3D animations, is one of the ways of increasing their self esteem and their engagement in science studies.

The ISTE is doing a good job on providing guidelines for the incorporation of new technology in our education system. However, what does the future have for us? We don't know yet, is a work in progress and hopefully the end result will be an outstanding one.

Truly,
Wida

R-Directed Thinking and 21th Century Learning Environments for Students

Hi All!

Another week has pass and we are almost done. But before a reflection on what do we need to change in our thought process or learning styles to begin to adapt to R-Directed Thinking for the purpose of creating 21th Century learning environments for students?

Well let me define first what the R-Directed Thinking facets are:
1) Design: create something that is beautiful, whimsical or emotionally engaging
2) Story: the essence of persuasion, communication, and self-understanding
3) Symphony: seeing the big picture crossing boundaries and being able to combine disparate pieces into arresting new whole
4) Empathy: what will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to force relationships, and to care for others.
5) Play: benefits of laughter, lightheartedness, games and humor
6) Meaning: finding purpose, transcendence and spiritual fulfillment

Now that the 6 facets are define above, I have to admit that without knowing, I was practicing the R-Direct Thinking myself. I also have to admit that it would be a great to introduce and maintain these thinking facets on our students. These will allow students to develop as better human being. Teaching them these 6 facets, we are teaching them to be design what ever they want with passion, engaging their creativity. Students will also learn the importance of self understanding, and how this will benefit them in transferring their knowledge to others.
Most of all, I am all for teaching my students on finding the purpose of life and all the things they do. School stuff, church stuff, sports, what ever they do, they need to find purpose and spiritual fulfillment, because then everything else will come with it. They will gain laughter and humor, satisfaction on caring for others. You name it, they will have it, if they practice at least some of these R-Directed thinking facets, we can probably have a better society in our future.

Truly,
Wida

How can digital stories fit into Math and Science?

Hi All!
This week the blog assignment was to answer to one of the students that posted their What's In the News? I have decide to answer Priya's questions.
When I first was introduced to the idea of digital stories in science I had some questions myself. But with some time and reasoning I found that indeed it can be a very nice tool for teachers. For instance, I am a chemistry teacher, and depending on the grade that I will be teaching I can definitely use a digital story to introduce the periodic table. In another education course I was introduce to the idea of using comics books to introduce the periodic table. I am attaching the link of were you can see some of these comics books (http://www.uky.edu/Projects/Chemcomics/), by using the same idea but with another technology, digital stories can be great tool to get students interest in chemistry. For example, I will use the open source Blender to assign my student to create their own animated digital story of one particular element. While they are doing a great project that includes new technology, they are also learning about the element they chose to work with. Same can be applied to math, with a little of imagination, if we ask them to create a baseball or soccer digital story, here they have to incorporate the Pythagoras theorem for the baseball story and for the soccer story they have to incorporate geometry. It is possible to incorporate digital stories into math and science, it just a matter of being a little creative. There are a lot of ideas on the Internet, you can start with one as the base but then make it your own by designing it for your assignment.

Hope this was helpful!
Truly,
Wida

Reflection, reflection, reflection...

Hi all!

Well I guess this is the time to be sincere. In my case this class has being very interesting in the sense that I have felt mix emotions. I recognize myself to be a visual learner, and when I first knew that we would have a mix of online and in class lessons, I was very upset and nervous. It is my first term taking online classes and it has being quite an experience. Some days I am like, yeah! finally I see how I can use technology in a positive way, and then some days I am like, Ok, what ever!

Let me mention some of the good things. I have learn about different tools that are useful for teachers, like the Web 2.0 tools. I loved the Gliffy web page, since I know I could be using that very often. Knowing about the new technology of Smart Board. That is amazing, I can definitely see myself using one of those.
The down side of the course, is that some times I will like to ask question, but I know I won't get an immediate answer, and that frustrate me. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the task assigned "in class". I do think though that this could be because I get upset pretty easy if I don't understand what I am doing. Once I figure out what I have to do and how to do it, I am ok.

Overall the course is good and is helpful for teachers. It introduce a different perspective on how to do good use of these technologies.

Truly,

Wida

Web 2.0 tools

Hi all!

This week blog is about our perception of the usefulness of the Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.
I have to say that these tools are great to use, since are useful to engage student into learning. Based on Mark Prensky article, today's' students are craving for interactivity, so he you have it! These tools provide that spark that our students need to become more enthusiastic in learning or even going to school. Our goal as teachers is to teach and make sure that our pupils understand or at least get the message that we our imparting to them. I understand the challenge that today's teacher have to do so, but is not impossible. The tools our out there, we just have to know where to get them from and most importantly, how to made good use of them.

Know that we know that there are so many types of learners, there are Web 2.0 tools that helps use reach probably each one of those students. For instance, Gliffy, provides the concept maps tool, where we can use it to reach our visual learners. Wikispaces provide use the tool of creating our own web space and put up every single topic possible, and helping our students to have that technology interactivity that they so much crave for. These are just some examples of these tools.

These tools are useful for the classroom, but they are also helpful for the home. Home schooling or tutoring are some of the reasons of also making good use of this sites. These are useful not only for teachers, but parents as well.

So let's not be shy and lets work to obtain the best outcome possible out of our students. They are the future!
Until next week...

Truly,

Wida

Making a Real world Connection & Defining and Planning a MM Learning Project

Hello All!
This week blog is about chapter 3 and 4 of our text book, and let me start saying Michael Simkins and collaborators suggest great ideas to create those real life connection that we need for the planning of a multimedia learning project.

Chapter 3:
It is so true that in order to motivate our students to participate in a multimedia learning project they must have a connection with the real world. The text book provides ten examples but that doesn't mean that those are the only one. The connection that as a teacher we choose to use depend on so many variables. Among those variables are, your curriculum, the audience, the purpose of the project and so on. We just have to keep in mind when designing the project the real life connections has to be meaningful to the students, therefore they can succeed in their performance. The type of connections that the author presents are good examples, because in some way or another it incorporates all types of learners. For example when using real connection that deals with relating to clients or interacting with assessors, those type of projects are very beneficial for those students that are social learners, those projects that focus on adult work and life skills are good for students that are visual, logical or for instance tactical learners.

Chapter 4:
Planning and designing a multimedia learning project can sometimes be a challenge. First is important that we make an inventory of the different tools that we will have to make such project available to our students. Although sometimes there is a situations that there are more students than computers, one idea that I will provide is don't panic there are many ways of getting a project done. If for instance there is a school in the need of computer for their students, perhaps they can go to the nearest public library and get them to collaborate with the project. Another idea could be talking to the local universities, they usually are interested in working in collaboration with school, specially when these have fraternities and sororities and they provide community services.
Another point I will like to discuss is the importance of selecting a good topic, one that will be useful for the learning experience. What I mean by this is that there is no point on selecting a topic that can be taught in the classroom, and the project is being use to substitute the teacher, my opinion, I don't believe in this.
When planning on we have to make sure that we keep in mind the following questions: How will I involve students in decision making? What forms of collaboration will I include? What resources will I need? These are some of the questions that will help defined the project. The objectives of the project should be reflected in the answers to these questions.

Conclusion: Designing a multimedia project base is not rocket science. Yes!, it's challenging but everything can be achieved with a little of creativity and perseverance.

Truly,

Wida

Earth in the Universe

Looking for something that I will like to teach, I found this awesome explanation and simulation of why auroras occurs. Why am I choosing this topic? Well this is going to sound very child like, but few weeks ago I watch the movie Happy Feet, that by the way I loved it! There was one part that caught my attention, yes!, the beautiful aurora. If you have not seen this movie, watch it is great, specially if you have kids. Anyway back to the topic. :) For more information about auroras go to the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)

I find that auroras is a good topic to teach because it not only introduce astronomy but chemistry and physics. Therefore, students can understand that all science have to coexist in order to have a balanced planet. Some of the challenges that I see are those of creating misconceptions. Although students will be taught with a model and a simulation, they often tend to get on their mind what they find more easily to "understand". One other challenge will be to reach those students that need to have hands-on experiment to learn. This class is design more for logical and visual learners, but what about those that are skill learners?
The opportunities that this can provide are those of exposing students to chemistry, for example, the explanation of the aurora mechanism and how the collision of electrons has big influence on the colors observed on the auroras. Sometimes, when teachers talk about collision among electrons, or particles, it can be so difficult to grasp because it is an abstract picture that one has to imagine. At least the simulated part of the lesson, can ease the transition of the abstract to the visual. In this case it will be targeting those students that are visual learners.
Below is the link of to which you can go and get the whole lesson plan for the topic.
http://www.eduplace.com/science/hmsc/6/d/simulation/simcontent_6d.shtml

Truly,

Wida