Technology Jedi

A few years ago I was observed, using the old PDAS system, and my observer told me that I should have randomly picked on people. I tried to argue that I don't agree with that. At the time I had GT students and some very timid girls in the class. However, I still stand behind my view for the following reason. When I was a child I hated school, it caused me anxiety. The anxiety stemmed from not wanting attention on me. I knew the answers, they were right, but I didn't want to speak up. In fact, this feeling stuck with me until just the last several years as a teacher. I was afraid and terrified when called on. People don't understand this, but its true. Having grown up this way I understood the students in my class who didn't want to speak and I respected that. They showed me via their assignments and when I would talk to them in small groups, that they understood the objectives well. They just didn't want to speak aloud.  Flash forward and I'm preparing some ...

Game creation for the classroom has been a goal of mine for many years. I've been to many flash creation classes trying to create such games, but I never had enough time to really get in and play with flash to learn it. Recently, my class was assigned a task to create a game with questions about social media.  I'm all about free stuff nowadays and I've used many Jeopardy games in my classroom, so I did some searching and found this. Wow, this was so easy!!!  Social Media Arcade Game I love asteroids, as its one of my all-time favorite games. I wish you could have seen my cat jump when I yelled seeing that my questions had been easily turned into an asteroid game! So go to  Another game I created was using Quizlet, which I've discussed before in my blog here. https://quizlet.com/_40imb7

AR-Augmented Reality Assignment Just recently I created my first AR for my course. Wow! I can't tell you how excited I was about this. I wish I'd known about this last year, as I could have really used it in science and social studies. As of now I'm thinking of my daughter and her learning to read.  I just can't express in words how absolutely fascinated I am by this possibility. I found a TED talks on AR. I encourage you to watch it and wonder if it gets you excited about all the possibilities as it does me.  TED Talks AR Another helpful link on AR is found on Youtube here.

Cognitive Learning Theory.  This is the last of the pedagogical theories I’ve read about. When I first read the word, I was confused as I thought it was constructivism, which I had just covered in class. The article by, Kaya Yilmaz, says “cognitivism is a relatively recent learning theory and its features are not well known or are confused with constructivism by teachers” (p.204). This was certainly me, and for good reason, as constructivism is a theory created off of the cognitive theory.  Behaviorism Theory  Yilmaz clears up the differences beautifully stating that “The behaviorist approach was basically preoccupied with objectively observable and measurable teacher and student behaviors through a stimulus-response framework. Even though behaviorism did explain how behaviors got changed, it failed to account for how conceptual change occurred” (p.204). For more on this refer to my Behaviorist Theory blog here .  Constructivism Theory  “Learners do ...

Final chapters of Socially Networked Classroom           I found several interesting points in “Socially Networked Classroom”, that I’d like to share here. At the beginning of chapter 5, Kist talks about using Facebook in the classroom. I’ve often wondered if that was possible because I like how groups are setup. I have a photography group, poetry group, and game group that I setup myself for use with family and friends. Kist said, “I found only one teacher who used Facebook as part of a school assignment” (p.97). This teacher works with college students, so even that instance was in higher education. How was Facebook used?            Apparently, the teacher, Brett, setup a private page that he, his students and other professors could see and post to. “As each group began to blog and produce podcasts about their issue some local university professors played a crucial role” (p.98). Brett created a separate ‘alter ego’ where ...

Last spring I attended an brilliant technology conference at Region 4. I was introduced to several different tools that could be used in my classroom. One of those such tools was symbaloo. I've created a brief tutorial to get you started with symbaloo...enjoy! Brief tutorial on Symbaloo

Constructivism  I've spoken about the Behavioral Theory, so now I'd like to look at the Constructivist point of view.  " As far as instruction is concerned, the instructor should try and encourage students to discover principles by themselves. The instructor and student should engage in an active dialog (i.e., Socratic learning). The task of the instructor is to translate information to be learned into a format appropriate to the learner's current state of understanding. Curriculum should be organized in a spiral manner so that the student continually builds upon what they have already learned." (Jerome Bruner) This is how we are encouraged to teach and its the way I think students learn best. The educator is to facilitate learning, while letting students explore and build onto what they already know. Memory: When one is learning something new, that information should be tied to already existing knowledge. In class the educator tries to connect informati...

This week my studies continue with the reading from William Kist's book 'The Socially Networked Classroom'. Chapter 3 has many points I found interesting.  "Some districts end up becoming locked down with unsupervised surfing strickly prohibited."(pg 47) Though this is one way to make sure students don't find themselves in areas they shouldn't be, it also creates difficulties for the educator in using technology in the classroom. Years ago my campus had us so locked down, we couldn't even get onto Youtube. Now, I'm not saying Youtube is pristine with information, but it has some really good videos and songs to engage students. How, for example, am I supposed to convey the power of lightning without showing the raw power via video? My campus finally cleared youtube for teachers computers and I was able to show instructional videos, snippets of videos to support the lesson, or music videos to engage students in the lesson, such as the Lab Safety Ra...

This week I read the first two chapters from "The Socially Networked Classroom" by William Kist. The book is an easy read and is quite enjoyable, I found that Kist explains everything as related to the classroom and has several activities set up that he used in his classroom.  Education is finding itself in a new environment with technology in the classrooms. Technology is changing the way we teach, communicate, and evaluate in education. Kist says, "One could make the argument that never before have we been more connected." He defines social networking as, "communication that takes place online using some kind of platform." As educators, we are always trying to prepare students for the future. It's difficult to keep up with the newest technologies and that's when we turn to our IT specialists to help keep us in the loop. Kist states, "In some cases, a disinclination to use new media in the classroom may simply stem from uncertainty and li...

Last year I was trying to break away from Powerpoint and try something different. I came across a few interesting sites. One was Quizlets, which I blogged before this one.  Powtoons has an option of being free or pay. It creates some pretty cool slideshows, which I used to review or introduce information to students.  Here are some of my Powtoons. Powtoon: Energy Types Racecar Project in Powtoons Metamorphic Rock Presentation in Powtoons

There are a great variety of social media tools. I’ve use Edmodo, ClassDojo, Quizlet, and Powtoons just recently. Before an exam I would create a quizlet to review vocabulary. Here is one of the quizlets I created https://quizlet.com/_32q9nx . You’ll see a menu of options when you pull up the link. Learn is a new option - this option is like a multiple-choice quiz Flashcards- is like a slideshow that goes through the terms and vocabulary Write - lets you take a quiz where one writes-in the answers. There is no word bank Spell - this has me type the question with correct spelling. Spelling is my Nemesis, I hated this option. 😜 Test - Goes over information. It’s interesting as it created questions from my vocabulary words and should have had some clarification for some of the questions. Match - this is my favorite option and we used this in class a number of times. Gravity - this is fun, but it would be wise to test your input into the game to make sure it’s not too ...

A recent assignment had me looking into an article on technology and the behaviorist theory by Pavlov. I found that since Pavlov first coined the behavior theory, several others have built upon that with relation to technology including Herbert Simon (1983) and James Gibson.  One part of the article discusses security in data gathering systems. As a child is working through a program to help them practice and learn, at that same time the system is collecting data on the child. How long did it take for the child to answer, where are they having problems or excelling. Where this data comes in handy for teachers trying to meet the students needs, that data is part of a huge database. Can we define a child only by tests or progress in programs...no. A program or test can't see a child's creativity at solving problems. In addition, who has the right to have the information on that child?  The New York Times had an article on this security. It states that we need perhaps a group...

For our discussion 6 in class we are talking about Backchannels. I had no idea what this was. Our professor shared several great links and I feel they are important enough to share them with you here, in addition my own personal experience with backchannel. Seven Things You Should Know about Backchannel Communication Teaching like it's 2999 Here is my personal experience: A few years ago when our district hired a new super, he brought a passion for technology with him. Our very first convocation we used backchannel communication. We were given a URL to sign in and were able to comment as the day progressed, it was fantastic!!!! Many of the administrators were wearing jersey type shirts with their name and Stafford on it. I asked if we could get one…I saw my message flash across the screen and soon many other employees joined in saying they were interested as well. Before the end of the week, knowing our interest in the jerseys, admin setup an account to get all of us one. A...

B.F. Skinner developed this as a theory of how we learn. The overall belief is that learning is through the "acquisition of new behavior." The classic example I remember from my education studies was of dogs salivating to a particular stimuli, such as a sound, or sight of the food bowl.  The article, referenced below, says, "learning comes from the observation of cultures". This is interesting because here we are at a crossroads in education. No longer is it student, teacher, textbook. Instead we are in a transition into the unknown as technology plays a major role in learning. An example of this occurred last year in my sixth grade GT(Gifted and Talented) science classes. I covered the objective and a few of my GT students went home and googled more information on the subject. The next day I gave them the floor to share with their classmates the extra information they had learned on the subject. Technology has made learning richer in my mind. However, based on th...

An ongoing concern of mine is online security, especially since we are moving towards Web 3.0. I found there is a company, Trust in Ads.org, who is trying to watch out for this.  They have an article 'Fighting Bot Fraud and other online related schemes' that is quite interesting. It states, " major platforms have long devoted significant resources to fighting sophisticated bad actors and fraudulent schemes – bot fraud being one of many issues we deal with every single day. While it is estimated by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) that bot fraud totaled $7 billion last year, in the context of a global online advertising marketplace that surpassed $170 billion in 2015, it's about 4 percent." https://trustinads.org/fighting-bot-fraud-and-other-online-ad-related-schemes/

In looking online for some information about cultural change because of technology, I found an article, by Dr. Inuk Chung, that lists four aspects to consider.   [Application and combination of IT to human] Firstly, application and combination of IT to human may lead to major cultural impacts. Simply put, we may experience unprecedented human-cyberspace interactions: e.g., the substitution of mental and physical functions of humans by IT, such as robotics; emergence of "neo-nomadism" by ubiquitous mobile devices; digitalization of human body with the wearable computers;   [Collectivism and individualism] Secondly, the development of IT may lead to weakening collectivism and feeding individualism, which in turn, increases the benefits of individuals, customized tastes and preferences and the role of pro-sumers;  [Focus on individual creativity] Thirdly, the development of IT may encourage creative thinking in education, rather than current system of simple ...

Google Groups Today's post is about a few virtual communities that I found that would be useful in watching and contributing to. I've copied any description from their group so that you can see their purpose and see any websites that they have.  1. Cyber Salon here is the description they provide.  Cyber Salon is modeled after the various (infamous) intellectual salons throughout history. Basically we are a bunch of educators, dedicated to teaching with technology, who like to hang out every so often to share ideas about what we are currently working on. We try to meet once a month somewhere that serves food, drinks, and wi-fi. If you are interested in receiving emails about what we are doing, when, and where...join this Google Group! Visit the CyberSalonAZ Blog: http://cybersalonaz.com 2. Educoder here is the description they provide: Educoder is an information hub for developers of educational technology, with an eye to research.  3. Apps User Groups here i...

Be gentle! I am beginning to write my Philosophy of Educational Technology. This is going to be a process that is long going, because even after I finish writing it now, things will change and it will be an ever changing statement. My thoughts are probably jumbled, scattered, and poorly written, but it is just a 'rough draft'. I used   Teaching Philosophy Layout as a skeleton idea of my essay. ROUGH DRAFT Title: Technology Foundation in Education        Thesis- I believe each child is unique and special, they each bring strengths into the classroom which build the classroom environment into an environment conducive for learning. A learner-centered classroom is the best environment for students to learn, as each child learns differently. Through experiences in the classroom students learn how to problem solve and it forms a strong foundation to the students climb to success. As an educator, my task is to create engaging lessons, guide...

Teaching Philosophy Many years ago I worked with my campus to come up with a campus philosophy. This was a good activity and though it was a bit of work, it really brought our focus in and was very helpful.  I've been wanting to create my own for years, but as life would have it, one thing after the other has prevented me, until now. As part of my technology classes we are actually going to create our own! I know this will be a long process, but with the help of my peers and professor I know I'm going to have a great philosophy written up. Here are some links I'm looking at as I begin to gather my thoughts on this subject: Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology Teaching Philosophy Statements

Well, I've done it! I made my first Podcast. First thoughts, my gosh I sound sleepy! Lol! It's just tiredness, moving is exhausting.  Anyways, some thoughts. Yeah, have a script written out...really helpful. I've never done well reading from a script, but it helped to keep me from wondering, which I can do from time to time, especially when tired.  My professor provided the following links that I found helpful: Kirk's 8 rules of an Effective Podcast Best Podcasts for Educators and Teachers in 2012 Podcast with iTunes   *Note: I hate iTunes... Some links that I found helpful were: How to make a Podcast: A step by step guide, by Buzzsprout Podbean *note this is where I setup my Podcast.  Considerations in a Flipped Classroom in a Title 1 School: Download this episode (right click and save)

Before my course in Social Media, I had only a limited amount of experience with blogs. I'd kept up with a friend's Total Eclipse Blog and how to prepare for it and I have a cousin who blogs, and I've kept up with her posts.  My mind was reeling on what a wiki was and the differences between them. After reading my course textbook "Social Media in the Classroom" I had a much better grasp at the differences between the two.  I would like to mention, a number of articles involving wiki's and blog's covered the ESL classroom. As a certified ESL teacher, I instantly realized that these teaching tools are extremely useful in the ESL or ELL curriculum.  , Wiki vs. Blog Descriptor Wiki Blog Has three different models yes yes WYSIWYG- what you see is what you get yes, like word dashboard to edit Editable by collective individual only Restore option yes ...

Assignment 1 Name: Christie Burton                                              Course: 6312 Digital Learning Environments.   Search Term: Computer based instruction Total number of results from the UHV library: 8,333 Total number of results from Google Scholar: 905,000 Total number of results from ERIC: 98,834 Methods used to narrow the search: I added in parenthesis with the term public schools to narrow down into my particular field of interest Method used to find more related articles: Changing terms or looking for news articles List other resources that you could use for your search: Being a teacher I lean towards lessons/activites,  I’ve gotten many great lesson ideas from Pintere...

Begin transmission... This is first post to my journey in becoming an Instructional Technologist. My mission is "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before" Wait, that's Star Trek and Captain James T. Kirk said those words. Ah, close enough As a public school teacher of 17 years, I've worked closely with the technology department at my campus. I've decided to obtain my Masters in Instructional Technology and become part of that team. I hope you enjoy following my journey as I learn more about technology and how to enrich learning in a digital environment.  End transmission...