Panoramio City Discussion

Please answer one of the following questions:

Reg.- What impressed you most about the cities you toured today in class?


Honor's- What types of information can you infer about the particular city that you toured today?

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.

Constructivist/Constructionist Learning

This week's exercises on constructivist/constructionist learning theories seem to relate to the learners that learn best by doing. I notice a major focus being on activities that put the student in charge of their learning. Many of my students perform best when they are doing or creating something.

I enjoyed reading about problem-based learning. As a Social Studies teacher, I spend time working with actual world issues. I always enjoy giving kids activities that require them to work together to solve a world problem. Recently, we discussed the loss of animal life in Thailand due to population growth. I had my students come up with a plan to help save animals and meet the growing population needs for survival. My students like assignments where they think they are helping. In the future, my students could use a number of spreadsheets with charting and graphing capabilities to display their research. My students could use a wiki or Google Docs to help collaborate on their plans away from school. Google Earth and Panoramio seem to be good tools for students to get visuals to help them explain their solutions. There are so many tools that help students enhance there knowledge gained from particular assignments.

Project based activities are also great. My students just finished presentations on a Civil War topic. Along with virtual tours from last week, they have been researching and creating presentations for class. My students had a choice on their topic and a choice on how to present them to their classmates. Many students used powerpoints. I had a few create videos and display them on Youtube. I would think using other tools like Google Docs to create surveys would be good for projects and presentations. Making my students in charge of their learning as well as their peers put a higher value on the assignment. My students really did a nice job because others were counting on them. The creating piece really helps store the information for later recall.

Strategies and Cognitive Learning Theory

The instructional strategies described in the resources I explored this week correlate with the principles of the cognitive learning theory. The cognitive learning theory is all about how people receive, store, and remember information (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). Several of this week's strategies would really help with this process. Below are a few of the strategies discussed in this week's learning that I can think of that correlate with the principles of the cognitive learning theory.

Cues, Questions, and Advanced Organizers:

Cues, questions, and advanced organizers really help students begin the information storing process. After viewing this week's material, I noticed several of the ideas mentioned have to do with opening the door to learning (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). Using essential questions on inspiration helps kids begin the storage process (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). Students use the essential questions kind of like a warm-up. This question helps kids get their minds in the right place for learning. Cues work to help students activate prior knowledge (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). The advanced organizers discussed in this chapter help students get visuals of text information (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). Webs created by inspiration would allow students to make connections to other meaningful concepts (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007).

Summarizing and Multimedia:


The chapter on summarizing and multimedia really discusses tools that can be used to help students turn short term ideas into long term knowledge. While reading this section, I really got the impression that using tools like Discovery Education and Google Video would give students images to go a long with the key concepts (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). These visuals would then help students make a more concrete connection.

Concept Mapping Tools:


I really enjoyed using the concept mapping tools this week. I used bubbl.us. I think it is amazing how kids can actually make mental and physical connections using computer tools. I know using the concept of the web is an old idea, but using this concept with a computer tool will really help improve excitement for a particular topic. If the students are allowed to be a part of the creation of an idea, that idea will stick (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). The memory of creating these maps through technology tools will help students store the information better.



References


Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program five. Cognitive Learning Theory [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.

Behaviorism in Practice

This week, in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, I explored two instructional strategies that embed technology: “Reinforcing Effort” and “Homework and Practice.” See below to review my thoughts on the strategies discussed in this week’s lesson. I will also attempt to relate the behaviorist learning theory to these strategies.

“Reinforcing Effort”

I found this section to reinforce some of the life lessons discussed in my classroom throughout the year. I spend large amounts of time explaining to kids what they put into their education is what they will get out of their education. I liked how the beginning of this section talks about how one’s effort is controlled entirely by them (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007).

At the beginning of this school year, I developed a score sheet that kept track of my student’s work habits. The data was all recorded by the students. Each week, I used their scores to give them a work habits grade in the grade book. I had trouble continuing this strategy because of the amount of paper being used to compile the data. I found many of the kids to be dishonest, when tracking their behaviors. I decided to go to a spreadsheet that I could use to keep track. After review this section, I realize the importance of students actually gathering the data. The effort rubric and the excel spreadsheets seem to be good tools to have students use to keep track of their effort (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). These methods are also quicker and paperless. I like the idea of making them accountable for recording their effort. I also found the section discussing the importance of comparing data to be valuable. I can see how kids would want to improve if they saw their data compared with their peers.

I believe this section is related to the behaviorist theory. Punishment and reinforcement are two parts to the behaviorist theory (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). I can see how students comparing their data from week to week would fit into these parts. After students review their weekly scores, they can reflect on their actions each week. If they displayed positive effort, it would show in their data. If they displayed negative effort, it would show in their data. Students could then use this reflection to help mold their future efforts.

“Homework and Practice”

This section helped remind me that I could be doing a better job of commenting on assignments. It also showed me some technology tools I can use for future assignments. I currently use Google docs, excel, discovery education, and a couple more mentioned in this section. I learned about the features word has to offer. I also liked the idea of using power points to create games (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). I get tired of the same old PowerPoint presentation. This seems to be a way for kids to learn and have fun at the same time.

The first part of this section relates to the behaviorist theory. I see how commenting on homework assignments helps reinforce positive behaviors and ideas from students (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). If I want my students to continue their good practices, I need to tell them which ones I enjoy. I also see how exposing students to materials numerous times reinforces content knowledge (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). This relates to the behaviorist theories.

This Week’s Technology

This week’s lesson has given me some examples of new technology I can use to improve my current methods of tracking effort and creating up to date assessment experiences. These technologies help kids create products quicker while still learning the concepts. Students using spreadsheets to track their effort can lead to several visuals of how behaviors can improve or deteriorate because of their actions. They can use this data to make improvements. I also see how the examples of homework assignments using technology can improve a student’s knowledge on a topic. The technology helps them work faster and more creatively while still reinforcing concepts to make them more concrete.

References

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

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