The ITEC Blog

Information Literacy mean to be knowledgeable about a content area. As far as this class is concerned it means to be up to date with all the changes in technology. Since we live in the digital age, a time where everything is becoming more technologically involved every day, we must continue to learn.

Being literate in technology today is vital for the success in any career and is crucial to prepare our students for the future. Think about the teachers you know who have been around for decades now. Do they still use lesson plans from the 90’s or even from 3 years ago? Those lessons are outdated as far as technology and the information that is out there is concerned.

Teaching is a profession. You cannot teach science, math, english, etc. using the same material day after day, year after year. But in order to be able to change lesson plans you have to be current on the content you teach. It is the same way for technology. We use it everyday, so why not know how to use it and be able to teach it to other?

So, this week the task placed in front of us was to find 3 grants that interested us and that we might apply for. I have to admit I got frustrated by this task, not because of what it was but because a lot of the grants that are posted on the Internet are old. The deadline for applying is as much as 4 years old. However, after some research I found a few that caught my eye!

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1) Adopt-A-Classroom (www.adoptaclassroom.com)

This is a cool program. I consider it grant, but not a traditional one. The teacher goes to the above website and posts their needs (critical resources and materials). Then community members can search this website for a classroom they are interested in sponsoring. Once adopted the teacher has full discretion to purchase the items that meet the unique needs of their classroom. The minimum sponsor donation is $500, however, this sponsorship can continue for as long as the sponsor chooses. I like the idea of building a partnership with someone in the community.

The mission statement of Adopt-A-Classroom is to increase opportunity for student success by empowering teachers with community partners and funds to purchase resources for the classroom.

2) American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (www.aiaa.org/education)

This foundation works with K-12 educators in the fields of science, math, and technology to encourage the continuance of aerospace sciences.

The foundation will enhance and support the viability of the future aerospace profession by funding student programs. This program will grant between $200 - 1,000 to classrooms who innovatively encourage the research and growth of aerospace subjects.

3) BellSouth Foundation’s Power to Learn  (www.bellsouth.com/education)

BellSouth will sponsor 4 -5 schools that demonstrate a high level of focus on technology via teachers, leadership, support, and community partnerships. If chosen the school must make a commitment to integration of technology to improve teaching and learning. BellSouth will work collaboratively for 2 to 3 years with the schools to investigate the effectiveness of technology on student learning. To complete this investigation BellSouth will grant each school $100,000 - 250,000 for professional development, support, and implementing innovative class activities.

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This are just a few grants that are out there. Since I am going to be in a science classroom that is what I focused on when searching for grants. However, I found that if you search broader terms it is easier to find grants that apply to you.

I researched the E Z Key software as an assistive technology for the classroom. The E Z Key software is manufactured by Words+, Inc. This technology would cost $1395 for the complete package, which includes speech software.

The E Z Key software does three main things for a student. It offers abbreviation exapansion, duel word prediction, and text to speech output. These oppurtunities serve those with writing and speaking difficulties. The software could be used in a classroom, any subject and it works on any basic computer.

I think that this software could be easily adapted for us in any classroom. It would make it easier for a learning disabled student to write papers, take notes, and participate in class discussions. I think the best way for students to use this software in a classroom would be for the students to have individual laptops with the software loaded onto it. This software would give students with disabilities a way to fully participate in class activities without having to worry about spelling words wrong, pronouncing words incorrectly, or not writing fast enough.

I think that I could incorporate this technology into my UBD plan. Students who needed to use it would be allowed to use it and I might even incorporate a way for other students to try the software out as part as a presentation, just so they understand what it does and how it can help their peers succeed.

There are many different brands of this software and of course they all have pros and cons, but I think the most important thing is not the price or the brand, but how it enhances the learning opportunities for our students.

Technology Professional Development has really impressed me at the middle school I’m working at this year. The staff in general is very technologically oriented and eager to learn more. Almost every professional development day and at least once a month there is a seminar offered dealing with some sort of technology: Smartboards, clickers, COWs, SCORE, etc. And if there is something you want to know about the technology support staff will make time to come work with you one on one. One thing that is very helpful is that there not only is the technology support staff but also many teachers who are “almost” experts with technology, so help is always just around the corner. I think the professional development days that are broken down into different classes are the best way for teachers to actually learn something new. For instance and example, one day the offerings included:  SCORE for beginners, SCORE for intermediates, Clicker training, Smartboard 101, and Writing Effective lesson plans. The classes would be for a couple hours in the morning and then repeated in the afternoon, so that you could catch two classes and improve two of your weak spots. Compared to other schools I have been around and heard about this is the best technology training I have heard of yet and teachers are actually eager to be there!

 The UBD book by Wiske, et al. has been very helpful in refining my essential learning material. The text has gone into great detail breaking down each essential element of a Understanding by Design Unit and then they put it all together with examples to help you sort through it.

Throughout the course the readings have made me think about “what it is really” that I’m trying to get the students to learn and which would be the most productive way to have them understand what they learn. I think one key point is that the students don’t just need to be able to recite the material but also analyze and apply the material to real life.

This textbook has made the whole UBD process A LOT clearer to me and will help me plan many successful future lessons!

Technology is not cheap. It’s expensive to purchase in the first place, it’s expensive to train people on how to use it, and it’s expensive to maintain. So, it’s no surprise that there is a technology gap in the education world. I’m not sure there is anything out there that there isn’t a gap in somewhere. However, it just happens to be that the technology gap is hurting those who are already hurting, the inner city, minority population. Technology is the future and if we are ever going to break the cycle of poverty we need to start somewhere, so why not within each and every school district. The federal and state governments need to step up the funding, but it’s going to take more than just the governments to bridge the gap. We need community members and big money companies like IBM to help with this effort. I see the big companies sending computers over to third world countries and don’t get me wrong, I think that is a great thing, but what about over here on the home-front. We need to give our fellow Americans every possible opportunity there can be to follow their dreams whatever they might be, but we all have to work together to do it!

So, this weeks reading assignment was Chapters 6 & 7 from “Teaching for Understanding with Technology”by Martha Stone Wiske. These two chapters focus on Ongoing Assessment and Reflective, Collaborative Learning groups.

Let’s talk about ongoing assessment first. I believe that in the classroom, no matter the subject, there should be both traditional and ongoing assessments taking place. If you use a balance of both in the classroom you will be able successfully ensure that all students are getting a fair assessment of what they actually learned and improved on. I think that both methods of assessments having pros and cons, but I prefer ongoing assessment as much as is feasibly possible. Ongoing assessment allows for more flexibility in “grading” methods and can reach all learning styles. However, ongoing assessment takes time and lots of practice, you’re not going to walk into your classroom tomorrow and be perfect at it. I think the best concept of ongoing assessment is the portfolio. This allows you to see how one progresses over time. It can be in a binder, on  a website, flash drive, etc. It’s amazing to look back and see what you used to do in school and how far you’ve come.

The second topic is reflective, collaborative learning groups.  Groups consist of 2 or more people, so grouping doesn’t have to be a major challenge in this process, but you do have to have good classroom management. I think that everyone learns better when you work on a topic with at least one other person. Think back to your days as an undergrad., how did you study for tests, by yourself or in a group? When did you perform better? For me it was always when I studied as a group. The group dynamic allows for you to learn different strategies or ways to think about the information presented. The more strategies you are given to remember material, the more likely you are to remember it!

Both of these topics go hand in hand in helping students to acheive their goals, along with the curriculum goals.

This week, we read from “Technology in Its Place”, Chapters 2 & 4. These chapters focus on integrating technology into class lessons. I think that a classroom becomes a productive learning environment when you try to reach as many multiple intelligences and technology is one of the best ways to reach all of these intelligences.

There are some key things that have to be done before one can effectively integrate technology into their classroom plans. They include:

• You must have an absolute understanding of your content area
• the school must provide extensive training on how to use the technology that is available
• the teacher must practice using the technology before having students try it out
• the teacher must ”really” know their students and how they learn
• the teacher must be creative and be willing to collaborate with other teachers  
• the school administration must be supportive of the teachers attempts to integrate technology

I’m sure there are more that could be added to that list but its a start. When I plan to use technology, I first write out my basic lesson plans (traditional) and then look back and see if there is anywhere that I can substitute some sort of technology. I have noticed that the students are also great at coming up with ideas of how to use technology in the classroom. They do not need to be motivated to use technology because for the most part they find it intriguing and fun.

When students complete projects in school they ahev folder in the shared drive where they can store their data and they are also told to have a flash drive. The only way I can think of them sharing their data is through class webpages or the SCORE program, but this is a new program this year and I’m not too familiar with it yet. 

One thing that was challenging for me in the reading was the part where you need to plan before you look at how much money it will cost to complete your plan. I think that is a bad idea unless you make all your plans during the summer that way you have time to get grants to support your lessons.  It seems that for the most part, the budgets for each department, class are set and the administrators won’t budge.

The one thing I really like about using technology in the classroom is that it allows students to DREAM! They can be creative and demonstrate what they really know not just regurgitate the same old info on a regular basis. Technology will give students the opportunity to share their vision. “Vision becomes a living force only when people truly believe they can shape their future” (p. 17).

Can I just say that politics give me a headache!!

So, when the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed, it seemed like a good idea. The ideas of it were to get America up to par with the other developed nations of the world. In order to do this, high standards had to be set in order to get all school systems in the United States on the same page. One of the major goals of the NCLB was to have all students “cross the digital divide” by 8th grade. This basically means that they would have access and a good understanding of how to appropriately use technology to enhance their educational growth. In order for this to happen the Feds had to hand out some money so that all schools could have access to up-to-date technology. Of course everything worked good the first year or so, with the needier schools getting more money than the more “well off” schools. It also encouraged community partnerships to help with the advancement of technology in schools. However, as we all know, there’s only so much money to go around! So, when things get tight, the Feds start cutting budgets and they did. They cut the financial support for technology education in schools.

With the lack of funding, we lose so many opportunities for our own growth, as educators, and also valuable learning opportunities for our students. If we wanted to collaborate with a school on the other coast and we didn’t have access to technology, at least at school, it would take months to coordinate a unit of instruction. Even if a teacher came up with a creative unit, there is a high chance that they will not be able to pull it off effectively without technology. The problem of funding also ties the hands of principals because they cannot do much to get more money, other than to encourage the teachers to apply for grants. At the higher level, school administrators will have to cut spending in other areas to ensure that there is reliable technology in each school. I hope this is not the reason for the schools in my county not having enough textbooks for each student. How can a student learn a foreign language math without a textbook? I have seen a foreign language teacher make upwards of 500 copies a week to ensure that her studnets have all opportunities possible to learn the language. What’s next students having to buy their own textbooks? That will just lead to another divide, instead of digital it will be a textbook divide. 

 What is so hard for the politicians to figure out that technology is VITAL for the U.S. to succeed in the future? President Bush said it himself, “If we ensure that America’s children succeed in life, they will ensure that America succeeds in the world. (CoSN)” We need more voices out there. There has to be more than just educators calling out for more funding and support, we need parents, community activists, etc.!

This weeks reading are from Chapters 3-5, in Teaching for Understanding with Technology. The basic premise of the chapters is teaching using a generative topic, which is a topic that is multidisciplinary, gets the interest of the teacher and students, and is rewarding even after you have finished using it in class.

My UbD, I believe is a generative topic for several reasons. First, it grabs the students attention because they love spending money and they seem to think it “grows on trees”, since advertising is a way of spending money, then it fits into the grabbing the attention requirement. Secondly, advertisements are something that we see everyday, you don’t have to connect it to real life because it is real life. Finally, this unit can be connected to technology, business, English, and math classes. It is an interdisciplinary topic, if you think about it!

I am planning on using Internet explorer, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Player, MS PowerPoint, and MS Word at the minimum for this unit. So, I am including the technology and one thing that I need to add to my UbD is the technology goals or standards that are going to be covered in my unit.

The final idea the chapters touch on is collaboration. I think that collaboration makes learning fun and it gets kids to understand why they need to learn the quadratic formula or the correct way to write a 5 paragraph paper. It can show them that what they are learning really does matter.

There needs to be more collaboration within the local school systems, states, country, and even worldwide, just like there should be more differentiation in the classroom. However, it’s going to take a few teachers who are willing to take a risk and show that collaboration does work. When other teachers see a creative and exciting learning environment where the students are actually learning the material the teachers are going to be more eager to give it a shot. “Teachers who are courageous learners themselves are more likely to foster their students’ courage to learn” (p.78).