Reflection

The biggest thing I learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology is to make sure that you have a solid plan for implementation. Before you try a new strategy or tool, it is important that you have seriously considered the methods, learning, and outcomes that will come from using the technology. Without doing that, there is bound to be issues that will limit your intended goals of learning.

Integrating web-based technologies really helped me to evaluate the proper use of technology. I thought a lot about the theme of "change with a difference" when using technology. Even though some technology might be exciting and fun for the students, it is important to make sure that the technology use is effective in the learning process. Regardless of how interesting the technology might be, it is important that we keep our focus on the educational improvements they can bring to the classroom.

I would say that I met my own personal goals for learning about technology integration. I have begun implementing web 2.0 technologies in my classroom for next year. Before this course, I would have probably not formulated a plan like the TechQuest to actually bring them into my teaching. So with that, I believe I met what I set out to do for learning about integrating technology.

The next goal that I have is to begin to implement podcasts into my teaching. I am hoping that I can reach that goal by getting a wireless microphone so that I can record classroom lessons so that I can stream them in a daily podcast. For me, this will not only continue my goals of using technology, but also give my students a chance to review lessons or stay tuned in at any time, regardless of if they are in the classroom physically or not.

Project Evaluation

In evaluating my project's success, I think the biggest thing would be to see the test scores. I have the students average scores from last year in solving quadratics by factoring, so by comparing those, I believe it would be a good indicator of whether or not using the blog and wiki were successful. Another way to compare these scores would be to look at next year's quiz scores from earlier in the chapter. The earlier quiz will have solving quadratics by factoring and previously, the retention from quiz to test was very low. By comparing this quiz to the test questions in this topic would also show if the project was successful or not.

Looking back at this project now, I think the biggest change I would do would have to surround the blog. Instead of creating a classroom blog, I think I would have the students create their own personal blogs. From here, I would require them to post at least once a week about something they learned or questioned in class. Then, they would also have to respond to at least two other classmates postings. That way, when time came for us to go over solving quadratics by factoring, every student would have an opportunity to express at least one thought. From here, every student would also provide some feedback to other students so that they could get even more conversation going about the topic. The only other thing I might change would maybe pick a different blog site, as so I do not have to invite every member by e-mail. Aside from that, right now I would keep the wiki the same and have the contributions to that be the same as they stand now.

The biggest lesson that others might benefit from knowing is primarily about the set up and privacy of the blog and wiki. In order for these to be successful, it is important that the privacy settings are really put in place. Personally, I have them set so that anyone can view the blog or wiki, but only people who are members of them can post or edit. The set up to create the blog and wiki are fairly quick, but creating them effectively takes some time. The blog will take some time inviting all the students' email addresses and be even more difficult if students do not have computer access or email access at home. Paying close attention to putting up specific directions on what you expect out of the wiki, as well as locking certain pages from editing is really crucial. It is even more crucial to make sure that postings and edits are moderated and not posted without being reviewed first, as to prevent any issues. Other than that, as long as you stay on top of things by maintaining dialogue and postings with the students in the blog and continue to post work for them on the wiki on a regular basis, it should work very well.

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.