Reflection 3

When I began this class, I really thought I was at least fairly in tuned with educational technology. I emailed, could used Power Point and Excel, had seen a smart board, and used Board Maker. I really did not know the scope of what was out there and not being used. Learning about blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, video resources, and school 2.0 has really changed the way I think about instruction and differentiation. I think as the school 2.0 model outlined, the possibilities for integrating technology into all aspects of our schools and community are limitless and need to be utilized in order to prepare our students for the 21st century world and job market.

Even though I am not in a teaching position, all that we have learned has made me look at new ways that I could accomplish my job as a school psychologist. I have always tried to utilize technology to make my job easier. I have use my Outlook calendar, and create tables and charts in Word and Excel to organize myself. But I know realize that I can go much beyond that to use technology as a way to collobrate with collegues in my building and beyond. As I have said in previous posts, a large part of job is working with my school's Instructional Support Team. We are currently working to build a library of academic and behavioral interventions. I had started to collect these all in a binder and had hoped to maybe eventually put them on the W drive. But now I am thinking about starting a wiki to make them even easier to access and maybe even getting others outside of the building to contribute to it. That is just one example of how I hope to use what I have learned to make my work both easier and more effective.

School 2.0

Wow, School 2.0 is very overwhelming. That is really what stuck me most initially. Looking at the map and website and just deciding where to start was very overwhelming. I would imagine a school district might feel the same way when they first decide to undertake adopting this type of renovation. Not only is there so much technology out there that could be integrated into our schools, but the implications for management, staff, administration was a lot to take in. I feel the cost in terms of both materials and staff training for such an undertaking would be enormous and is probably one of the greatest barriers for schools. On a more positive note, I was struck by the level of connectedness that School 2.0 affords. Not only for students and teacher, but for the community as a whole. 

There are many aspects of the School 2.o map that I would like to see kept. I think at the most basic level is that communication piece. One of the media displays discussed communication through multiple means, which I think is critical. As school staff we are becoming much better about using technology to communicate. However, not all of our students' families are so tech savvy. I think that using multiple means of communication is a good way not to alienate families that don't use email or that don't even have computers. In the same way that we can communicate through multiple modes, we can teach through multiple modalities as well. In my position we talk a lot about students learning styles and how to utilize their strengths. Using technology is a great way to do that. I can provide students with both visual and auditory information separately or at the same time. It may also allow for easier differentiation which as the model said would allow students to learn at their own pace. Again, as a school psychologist one of the parts that I was most drawn to was the capabilities of such a model to collect data and encourage data based decision making. This would be much easier with all the data available at the push of a button. If I look at the big picture, overall I think the most important aspect of a School 2.0 model is that is provides students with 21st century skills. We've heard a lot about that over the course of the last few lessons and this model really speaks to that. To make our students competitive in the 21st century job market we need to provide them with 21st century skills. Reading a text book and word processing an essay are not those skills. Learning multiple foreign languages and how to communicate with people on the other side of the world are.

I can't say that there is anything specific that I would like to see changed in the School 2.0 model, but I do have a few concerns. I do worry about loosing personal connections with too much technology. It is a great way to communicate and learn but there is also some special about getting a pat on the back or a high five when you've done a good job, that you can't get through a smart board or hand held device. I think that so much of what our students grow up to become is a product of the people that have taught and inspired them though a personal connection. I would hate to see that lost.  

Thoughts on Dr. Zhao's Podcasts

I have always known that American education is not the absolute leader around the world, but I have thought we were pretty close. After listening to Dr. Zhao's podcasts, I now feel like like we have a lot of catching up to do. I think that Dr. Zhao's is correct that at the federal, state, and local levels our educational regulations are being driven by traditional goals of teaching students to read, write, and do math. Before listening to this podcast, I would have said we are definitely on the right track. After listening to it, I'm not so sure. By following the traditional path are we really preparing our students for the global world of the future? Dr. Zhao made a number of suggestions for moving in a new more productive direction that I found particularly interesting. 

The first was the concept of one to on computing, or having one computer for every student. While that in itself would be a huge step, it was his point about not just using these computers to change students' attitudes about learning but also changing the product of learning. Giving each student a computer is not enough. We then have to break down the walls around traditional uses of technology in schools to allow students to maximize the potential of such a powerful tool. Dr. Zhao said that students' use of technology is bound by what the adults that are teaching them know about it. I think that could not be more true. As he said, school districts spend millions of dollars on technology and internet connections, only to block student access to many great online resources. Currently because of regulatory constraints and lack of teacher knowledge we are severely limiting the potential of the technology we have invested in. As Dr. Zhao said, we are turning computers in to pencils (very expensive pencils). We need to expand our own knowledge of technology so that our students can do more with their computers than retype stories they have hand written and create Power Point presentations. 

Which brings me to other part of this Podcast that struck me, the potential and future of online learning. Do I think that all teacher should have to go back to school and learn about all the benefits and potential of technology? Well maybe I used to think that was the only way to move into the future. But now I realize that's not necessary.  Dr. Zhao discussed the use of educational outsourcing and insourcing. Why spend tons of money and time to retrain teachers, when there are already people out there that know more about educational technology than most of us could ever learn. By utilizing online learning experiences, our students could take advantage or expertise and knowledge of teachers around the world. Just like I am learning about educational technology through this online course, so could our students. Online learning seems like the key to bringing our education system to a competitive level, while staying in the constraints of time and budgets. As Dr. Zhao said, we need to prepare our students to be members of a global society. As a result of technology they will not only be competing with their classmates for jobs, but with other students around the world. And the only way to push them to the front of the pack is to use that technology to its full potential.

Collaborative Project

Even though it was rather long, I found Kevin Honeycutt's podcast very interesting and amusing. If you didn't get enough information about the collaborative projects he described during the podcast, you should check out his website for more information, www.kevinhoneycutt.org.  Because I'm not a teacher, I had some difficulty with coming up with an idea for a collaborative project. Luckily for me, my husband is a fifth grade teacher with a Masters in Educational Technology, so I collaborated with him on this assignment. 

His fifth grade students are learning about different environmental habitats or land biomes. We thought a way to make this learning experience more genuine and utilize 21st century skills would be to create a collaborative news report about the effects of global warming on different habitats. Students in his class, living in the temperate deciduous forest, could collaborate with students in the desert habitat of Nevada and with students living in the rain forests of Brazil. (Keep in mind this is a hypothetical project. We don't actually know people in all these places).  Each class working as a team, being experts in their land biome, would do research and create a news cast comparing current weather patterns, annual temperatures, precipitation levels, wild life, and pressing issues currently compared to 50 years ago.  Students in each class can collaborate on the format of the news cast through video or teleconferencing. Once the separate news casts are complete, the classes can work together to create a wiki that contains each video, and pages with the facts and other information.