Bringing It All Together

What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?
The biggest thing that I believe I learned about using effective teaching strategies, is that you have to take into account your audience. Regardless of what teaching strategies I might try to use when integrating the technology, I have to think about what my students' knowledge of the technology is. Whether I am trying to bring a new web-based activity or a PowerPoint lesson into the classroom, it doesn't help my teaching at all without making sure that all my students can actually operate and use the technology effectively.

How did integrating web-based technologies help you think about and evaluate uses of technology?
After creating a WebQuest, a blog, a wiki, and a self-sufficient PowerPoint lesson, it really gave me an idea of how powerful integrating web-based technologies can be. It gives students a chance to work in a medium that they are for the most part very comfortable with, plus gets them learning at the same time. It makes me realize that if we want to better educate our students, we need to bring more of this technology into our classrooms to better present the information, as well as get the students to become more involved in their own education.

How have you met your personal goals for learning about technology integration?
I would say that I have met the short term personal goals that I wanted to achieve for technology integration in this course. One goal I had established in CEP 810 was to get a better knowledge and working with PowerPoint, which I believe I have accomplished by integrating the StAIR project into my students final exam review. Another large goal that I had was to create a better, easier to work with web page, which I also believe was accomplished by a few assignments in this course. By creating a web page, as well as using that knowledge to create a WebQuest, I think I reached the goals about how I could integrate these ideas into my classroom.

Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for teaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?
After completing this course, I really want to bring blogs and wikis into my teaching. I am hoping to have my students work off a classroom blog where they can comment and post their thoughts and questions on the material that we go over in class. Similarly, I am looking to bring the knowledge of using a wiki into my classroom, as well. I am hoping to create a class wiki where the students can edit the wiki and create a chapter review for each chapter as we go through them. From there, we will end up creating a full semester worth of material that they could ultimately use as an additional resource to study for final exams. I am also hoping to learn about more technologies that would also continue to get students more involved and excited about learning.

Student Online Experiences

After looking through all the different types of technologies that could count as a student's online learning experience, I think I would gravitate towards using the wikis the most. I know it is one that we have already worked with in this class, but I have already started to think about some ways I would like to use them in my courses next year.

The biggest advantage to using a wiki would be to get the content out to the students in a better way. My vision doesn't limit this to one specific type of content area in my field of math, but uses the entire realm of mathematics. I see myself creating wikis for my courses, with each new page being devoted to one of the concepts of material we are learning. I would then open it up so that students could post questions, helpful hints, solved problems, and all types of things to almost create a chapter synopsis/review for everyone to view. Doing this every chapter will allow the students to not only get a better idea of the concepts, but essentially make a review for midterms and finals, as well.

There are 3 main pedagogical strategies that I can see being used with this. First, I would have to do some deductive teaching by showing the students how to access and properly edit the wiki. From there though, I think it would mostly be a lot of minimalism and constructivism. I would essentially let the students do the creating of their ideas and sharing answers with one another, staying very hands off (except for monitoring the safety portion). Students would then be digging into their own topics and ideas from their fellow classmates, looking to create some sort of knowledge that they might bring back into the classroom or even another forum.

For me, I think the hardest tool to incorporate would probably be the educational gaming. I think that many high school students would have trouble focusing in a "gamer" environment. Not only that, but I have not seen very many educational games that translate well to high school mathematics. The ones that do use math are typically for lower levels or are not very engaging to the average high school student. The games that are more exciting are often a stretch on their mathematical content.

Exploring Google Docs

I evaluated the Google Documents application and really enjoyed it. I think it is a great tool for people to collaborate and share their ideas without having to e-mail it back and forth.

• The thing I like the most about this application is the ability to edit a word document in real time with a large group of people. I also liked how as the owner, you can limit different users to only being able to contribute certain things. As the owner, you can make sure they can edit or only view the document. The thing that I found frustrating was a minor point, but works very specifically to my content area. When trying to insert mathematical symbols or equations, it is a little more complicated and does not have as many options as the equation editor in Microsoft Word. Other than that, I found it to be a very useful application.
• Students would need to be familiar with a word processor in order to use this application. They would also need to have the ability to work with the Internet and the knowledge of how to work together with other students in a way that is conducive to learning.
• You can share the products of this application in a number of ways. You can invite other members to help contribute to the document. There is also an option to share the link of the page which allows others to see (or you can give them the option to edit). Finally, you can also e-mail the document to someone as an attachment.
• In using my own particular subject matter, which is math, I could see my students using this as a tool to answer their questions. They could create a document which would allow them to verbalize their mathematical thinking and get their questions about how to solve certain problems. Other students could then edit the document and they could make something that helps to address common misconceptions that many students might be having.
• As a teacher, there are some things you can do to help students collaborate using this application. First, you could start them off by being a model of how to use and share documents. Once the students are comfortable and able to edit these documents, the teacher can also provide information and feedback into their documents. A teacher could also do something similar to this course, in have students post to the document every so often to get an idea of how they can work with their fellow classmates.
• There are a few management issues that a teacher would have to take into account to use this application. They would have to make sure that the students either have an e-mail address or if nothing else, at least Internet access to use this application. They would also have to make sure they set it up in such a way that if they want the students to edit and share, that they have these options when invited. If the teacher only wants students to view certain documents, they must also have that set up.

Computer-Based Instructional Objects

There are a few additional things that need to be taken into consideration when having students work independently on some computer-based instructional objects (CBIOs). The main thing is you have to taken into consideration the students' comfort level with the technology you are using. Many students are pretty tech-savvy, but how many really know how to navigate through a PowerPoint presentation when their options are limited in navigation? Many students can fly through web pages with ease, but how many really know how to USEFULLY search the internet for information. I think these are big things to take into consideration because we can never assume (because we all know what assuming does...) that our students know how to use the technology just because they are a 21st century learner. If you are using the internet, it is also a good idea to make sure that none of the links you provided students can be browsed through to get to any inappropriate material.

As for some WebQuests, I found this one involving math in video/board games, as well as thh entertainment industry that I thought would really grab students attention. Not to mention, it answers the age old question, "When are we ever going to need this?" I think it really makes the students realize how important their math skills really are in the world. That and it also gives them a chance to put their knowledge to work by playing a few math games at the end.
The URL is http://questgarden.com/102/36/1/100426171111/index.htm.

Another WebQuest I liked was this particular one because it has a good idea behind getting students prepared for the ACT. With more and more of teaching being data driven and a lot of that data is based off ACT scores, I think this WebQuest does a lot to help students prepare without overloading them on a single topic. It allows students to focus on a single idea, then has the rest of the students "teach" each other the topics which they did not research.

The URL is http://questgarden.com/97/49/6/100314134133/index.htm.

Differences between traditional web pages and blogs

Traditional web pages and blogs vary in a lot of ways, but there is one main thing that separates the two. Traditional web pages are a place where you go to GET information or ideas. You access these pages in hopes of reading about something you want to know about. There are web pages that allow you to comment and voice your opinion on the situation, but that's not the intent of the site. With blogs, these are places where you go to SHARE information or ideas. You as the content master are the one putting the information out into the world. An idea that you would like to share or even something you just wanted to let the world know is put out into a forum where anyone can follow to interact with. You become the moderator, allowing what you do or do not want to come into this community of idea sharing with your fellow bloggers. Instead of the web page dictating who can or cannot contribute, or even what can or cannot be said, you are in control of this power. Essentially, information is no longer dictated to you by Internet postings, but you dictate information to the Internet.