Sunday, February 8 Worked on completing my Project 2 webpage, and creating a place to post it. Tried multiple free sites, but all of them had problems. Are any of the paid site better? Completed my IRB Application- Just have to get attachments from school.
Monday, February 9
Completed my webpage for exploring how I use Discussion Boards for communication, both with my new teachers and with my students. Tried to post again on another site, but FTP size limits are killing my posts, as well as limits on what can be posted. Ahhhhh!!!!
Tuesday, February 10
Reposted my project proposals on my district's E-chalk site. Can't post my webpages there, but as least I have a consistent place to put my links.
Wednesday, February 11
Listened to Dr. Newberry's podcast, took notes and posted them on Google docs. Created and posted my blog response to Session 5. Gathered attachments for IRB, and responded to 3 other blogs.
The 2002 study by Ravitz, Mergendoller and Rush, What's School Got To Do With It? explored the effectiveness and best practices of the use of technology in classrooms, and often found a negative correlation between student use of technology and achievement- I have always had reservations about this study, but it did point out one thing fairly clearly- What we perceive to be best practice, and what can actually be called best practice via data and analysis of outcomes are often two different things. In my classroom, I often wonder if what I believe is best practice with the integration of technology, and what is actually working, are connected in some meaningful way. An example.
I use Activotes in my classroom, a handheld device with buttons that interacts with the computerized white board in the front of my classroom. I use it for assessment of student understanding, and I use it for engagement. The assessment piece is actually useful, because I can see quite quickly whether students understand the concept I am teaching. But the engagement part, the main reason given for their purchase and use, I wonder about. Is the efficacy of the little devices for engagement really worth the cost of the devise? Since they break, and have to be replaced at $100.00 a pop, wouldn't I have been better off purchasing a stripped down, student laptop for each student's desk, which also would have allowed them to interact with the lesson, but also would have allowed the students more interactivity and engagement?
I would say the most effective use of technology in my class right now, based on actual data, is the use of interactive, modeled writing. The writing scores of my class always outpace my team mates scores, and I attribute the difference to my use of a word processor projected on my interactive whiteboard, which allows me to create a piece of writing with my students. As I create, and model, this writing, students come up and add their own sentences, grammar and word changes, and style to the shared document. I highlight different sections of the writing with different font colors, which makes seeing specific writing targets easier for the students. In addition, the students can download the shared writing as a model for their own written project from Google Docs, and can tweek and change the classroom writing at a later date in lab, or at home. I began this use of technology years ago when I took a modeled writing training, and began applying the concepts found in the workshop to the use of a shared classroom word-processing document.
I have demonstrated the use of this simple technology, and others have taken it on. Others just cant see how it is more useful than modeled writing shared on a large piece of chart paper, so although they have adopted some of the modeled writing techniques, they still do not integrate it in their use of classroom technology.
Another Best Practice, shown by data, that is useful, well, indispensable now, is the use of e-mail with parents. Dr. Newberry mentioned his use of e-mail as a best practice, and I immediately thought of how I use it so successfully in my class. I e-mail updates and announcements weekly as part of a e-mail list of parents and students, and this broadcast of e-mails causes quick clarifications and conversations with individual parents and students. My classroom always has the highest, or at least one of the highest, level of parent participation in school and classroom events, and I have the best completion rate of projects and homework in my grade. I attribute this to my consistent use of e-mail. In addition, it gives me a paper trail for parent contact, and a way of including, through cc and bcc, my team and administration in the discussion of student behavior. Why don't more teachers use this proven method of parent and student engagement? It can't be because they don't know how, because every teacher on my staff used e-mail at work as part of their workday. Is it because they don't contact their parents? No, many of the teachers I work with sit and make phone calls to parents at their homes, during their lunch, or after school. I am mystified why teachers have such a hard time adopting this use of technology.
Dr. Newberry said that Best Practice is in the eye of the beholder; I could not agree more. The years of watching effective use of specific use of wonderful technology slide into oblivion convinced me of the truth of this adage years ago. Developing common technology standards and technology use expectations for grades would, perhaps, be one one way of accelerating the use of best practice in the classrooms...but what technology, which applications, for what instructional purpose, would we mandate? How would mandating best practice be evaluated for efficacy, and how would individual teachers be evaluated for their use of mandated best practice technology integration? Does mandating best practice cause that very best practice to suffer simply from its forced adoption? These are some of the questions I am left with after my review and reflection, questions I will have to sit with and ponder.
I've checked with my students and many do not have e-mails but since a lot more parents are checking on their childrens grades online I intend to start making comments on the note section of the student pages. I know there are a lot of students who will jump right on any technology we start using.
ReplyDeleteEmails are the best. You could say whatever you need to say and keep a record of it. Best of all, compare to phone calls, you do not need to worry about making up excuses just to get off the phone.
ReplyDeleteI like the way that you not only integrate word processing into your classroom, but also internet programs like google docs. I also like your point about spending so much money on little devices that only do so much, instead of spending almost the same amount of money to buy something more useful, like a laptop. I hear about this and it upsets me because why settle for something that's interesting because you have not seen a lot of it, like a response system, over buying the basic laptop which you would be able to do the same thing and more.
ReplyDeleteFor a language arts or history class I think the scaled down laptops would be better. Our math teachers really like the responders they have, which I think are the same as the Activotes you mentioned, but they review frequently and they are great for a quick check to monitor everyone on a new concept and to see what needs to be retaught. However, in history, I want my students to go beyond picking the correct fact from a list. I want them to be able to express concepts and ideas that they have learned from several sources and put them into an opinion that they can support with facts.
ReplyDelete