Final Reflection

After reviewing my "Personal Theory of Learning," I realized that I could make a few changes to my current theory. This course has made me see the importance of all the learning theories. Each theory plays it's role in understanding how kids learn. I will continue to try to make my classroom lessons involve all the learning theories. I plan to incorporate more lessons using technology correctly. This course has helped me understand that just throwing technology into a lesson is not effective. Using technology to enhance the learning experience is effective. I want to teach my students about the new tools I learned in this class, so they can use them to learn about new information in the future. I would like to incorporate the instructional strategies learned from this class into my classroom. Using a variety of strategies will help the students learn new material in a number of ways. This will help keep up the interest level in the lesson.

I have began to use VoiceThread in my classroom. I really enjoyed how simple it was to use. I believe my students will have fun creating products using this tool. About a month ago, I used bubbl.us in my class. The kids really liked it. They had so much fun creating their own personal bubble. It really helped them organize their thoughts. One student asked me if he could use it on the state test. I had to tell him no. All of these tools allow students to create examples of their learning quickly and easily. These tools give the students a chance to learn and have fun, while creating evidence of their learning.

I have two long term goal changes I would like to make to my instructional practice. The first one is to allow more opportunities for my kids to create using the technology. I hope to become a little more hands off in my class. I wish to be a facilitator rather than the primary source of information. My other goal is to continue learning about new technology tools to incorporate into my classroom. The tools I have learned about help make learning fun. I hope to use these tools to keep my students interested in learning.

My VoiceThread

Here is the link to my VoiceThread activity. I definitely have room to improve, but I really enjoyed working on this activity.

http://www.voicethread.com/share/890000/

Cooperative learning compared to the Social Learning Theories

Cooperative learning relates very closely to the social learning theories discussed in this week's lesson. Cooperative learning is when students work together to complete a task (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). The social learning theories also suggest that learning occurs when students are working on a product while collaborating with others (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). I explored a few examples of social networking such as face book and twitter. These sites offer both examples of creating a product and collaborating with others. The only problem is ,in most cases, both of these actions are not happening at the same time. I could be missing the actual collaboration all together. I guess I can see adding suggestions to someones social problem online as a problem based activity.

Some of the collaboration tools on the other hand do allow a product to be made while collaboration is occurring. Google Docs, creating multimedia, web quests with partners, and shared calendars allow students to gather information together and create a product. At the end of each application, students are asked to create a product while working with each other. I continue to find the amount of tools on the web to help teachers in the classroom to be amazing. I look forward to learning more.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program eight. Social Learning Theories [Motion
picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with
classroominstruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.