Week 20

Technology in Education

                                       Technology? No technology? somewhere in between? 

In my experience, technology beyond the photo slides, type writers and movies, started when I was in my last year of High school. Everything was written by hand, we had type writers only in typing class (which I never took) and the information came from teachers and books. The one exception was my last two years in high school, I was at a school that had a dome to show stars on and Apple II's to learn how to program in basic ( I did take this class). 

My first experience with technology and education was in nursery school where the teacher had a movie in French used for teaching us a second language. Movies were used a lot throughout my school years. Once I went as a visitor to a Caribbean island elementary school, and they showed us a movie. I was aware that the people had very little and yet there we were separated girls on one side and boys on the other all watching a movie. In contrast I went to my friends birthday party where we all hung out crossed legged on the floor, cookies and cakes on the table, and the parents showed us a movie. Sometimes it just gave me headaches and made me tired and sometimes it was very exciting, such as when I watched a physics movie showing a bridge oscillating itself to pieces because of the wind frequency being just right to vibrate the bridge into a perfect wave. 

I am completely supportive of technology in the classroom. Sometimes I think why? a classroom with paper and pencils, some colors maybe a couple of magazines, that are about the topic at hand, and a few good books is all we need. From there the teacher and the students can create whatever they want. Yet, I have that in my classroom space, and many times I reach out to technology. Today my slide projector is on my computer (or phone for that matter) my film projector too and my record player that became a CD player is now also a downloaded digital piece I can play with a click. Therefore I consider my computer or my phone my tool box. What I do with the tool box completely changes depending on who I am teaching. 

I remember one day (Jr high age) going to sleep and thinking what would happen if all the people who know how to build roads suddenly were gone, how would we, who were left behind, know how to do it (I am not sure why road and not something else)? I knew it was probably written down somewhere,  but my Jr high library the size of a small kitchen, did not seem to have that information in it, and that bothered me. So when the world wide web came into existence on my computer, that I used for writing and creating art with, suddenly was a gold mine of information, and that is why I believe it is more than very important to bring it into the classroom. 

Students of all ages learn to use computers and other devices that can almost do the same thing, not only to watch the latest TV show for free or chat on facebook (which isn't bad when you have friends too far to visit on a regular basis), but also to learn how to learn from the virtual world and apply it or not into the real world. My job is to teach others, and hope that I can also teach how to teach others what they know and continue sharing information. Then people can take or leave what they need. Yes some will get trapped in the media frenzy and others will claim war on the same media frenzy, but at the end somewhere in the middle is the best place for technology. 

My tool box favorites:

• university pages in general,

• My favorite math practice page:  www.ixl.com

• TED talks are cool.  This is a long TV version on education.

• The famous Tacoma bridge 

 

• A page with a factoring calculator: http://www.algebrahelp.com/calculators/expression/factoring/calc.do;jsessionid=150F95DADE88DA742CDF87518FA6CF19?expression=2x^4+-+16x^2+%2B+32

• Since I lose my corn every year this was a great slide show to read about corn. Will I succeed next year? more research must be done.

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/files/03%20Corn%20Growth%20and%20Development.pdf

• Finally-  How to build a road: https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,1607,7-151-9615-129011--,00.html

Week 19

Summary

          I have an eclectic stile of teaching. At any moment I can be dictating information a student has to know, or showing them where to find something online, or giving them a hands on activity to help them understand what they are doing. Sometimes I just interview the student to understand what they want out of their learning, before I start answering their questions. Many times I literally say "what would you like to learn?" and then find a way to help the student learn it. The difficulty is translating this stile to online learning and that is why I am in this class.

TL;DR(unless you have time)

                                                         How I developed an Eclectic stile

• If I look straight at Pedagogy:  My stile is somewhere between constructivism and connectivism. My teaching stile mostly developed before I ever took any teaching classes and I would say it is eclectic in nature. 

• My first experience with teaching was working at the children's museum in Los Angeles as a museum Volunteer running stations. My next experience was four years later working part time in a nursery parent preschool as a non parent assistant teacher. Three years later, I began teaching as a substitute teacher in My children's school district and simultaneously as an art docent. After learning about my  school district and being told my son was gifted as tested by the school, but had to be placed in the bottom reading group because he could not spell (Dyslexia). I pulled my kids out of school. I decided to home school eventually getting my Masters in education and starting my practice as an educational therapist.

•  Children's Museum and other child centered spaces:    I started as a volunteer at the Children's Museum in Los Angeles and for my senior year in high school I developed a photographic portfolio of children experimenting with the different stations set up with hands on equipment. At the time every station had an assistant who would tell the children what they were playing with and what it was used for. The great aspect of the Children museum was the hands on activities. Each station had a theme and many were based on careers such as medicine or technology. Other stations were based on learning about other people or places such as the blind room where one puts on a bandana covering their eyes and then they would touch the walls trying to feel what the different texture were like. For me it was a great experience and something I looked forward to going to every week. I found myself not only working with the kids but observing how the parents and teachers interacted with the kids. Many times a parent would not allow the child to actually do any of the work, they would do it for them. On the other hand the teachers would either let the kids run wild or expect papers to be filled out about each station, taking away from the experience. The best groups to work with were the kids who found something interesting and were allowed to stay and play. These kids seemed completely absorbed by what they were doing and became  interested in the activity to its fullest it was almost as if you could see them growing as they played, discussed and tried out the station.    

•  Using independent study program is really school at home:  I started with an independent study program that basically wanted me to run my classes like a school at home. Since that was counter productive and frustrating, I left them and went on to opening a private school affidavit and accepting three other kids to my three kid school house.

•  Eclectic schooling: One of the children homeschooled at home through an ISP and so this six year old felt that my house was play time and from there I developed my personal eclectic method. My kids only worked on what they were interested in and read what they wanted to read, played video games and built forts in the back yard. My job was to facilitate learning by developing curriculum that fit what they were interested in while still covering the three Rs. If someone asks me today how did you do it? I really don't know, it was really moment to moment, telling stories, listening to tapes in the car, group reading books old and new such as Harry potter and then all the books J.K Rowling stated were favorite childhood books (yes her plots are sometimes similar to her favorite books). At one point I decided I needed "Classical training" after all I was taking on other peoples kids and what if I was missing something? My masters program turned out to be a behavior based program and unfortunately most of my classes were about controlling the classroom and not much about teaching methods. After I went on to Educational therapy were it was more about methods for different types of kids. For example we learned about hands on teaching, Slingerland for reading and testing for learning disabilities etc...  

•  My practice is as eclectic as my home school. I teach kids how to study, how to look things up, how to keep up with online classes and organize themselves. Other kids I show them how to attack homework assignments, organize themselves and answer questions. ome students I teach them a subject like a tutor would but always with the goal of teaching them how to figure it out or look things up to reach there goals. My goal at all time is to make the student become independent of me. Not great for building a practice, but good for the kids. I truly believe that with time one can teach a kid to love learning by building interest in subjects and any type of kid can find something that will help them want to learn. It can be very academic or not academic at all. It allows them to say, ya I need to finish this to reach my goal. Now if I can translate this to my online courses for adults, I would be very satisfied.

• Some pages I like:
• Unschooling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling
• Eclectic educator by another blogger: http://eclectic-educator.blogspot.com/

• Experiment developed by a software developer in India:    http://www.academia.edu/1027631/Beyond_student-centered_and_teacher-centered_pedagogy_Teaching_and_learning_as_guided_participation

• Mexico a school on the boarder of the United States found through the internet a different way to teach:   http://www.wired.com/business/2013/10/free-thinkers/all/

Week 18

This is the course system I am suppose to set up in for a post masters class. Announcements speak for themselves. Calendar too and I just found out how to load to it. Messages are equivalent to e-amil and Forums are back and forth chat where I post a question to answer. I see Forum like a class discussion and it does not pan out to feel as a class discussion. For next quarter I will have a video chat or a group chat. Chat room is like IM ing and only one or two students ever show up. polls? Roster just a list of students. Syllabus the usual Lessons go with the book. Resources is where it gets interesting but the students usually do not look at them because they are sources that take time to view and read. Assignments although clear are not set up to open to other pages so that I can require videos or articles. Tests and Quizzes are easy to set up and grade.

What is missing? The classroom, the environment, the feeling that a person is there to learn. My goal this year is to use the schools interface, but then add on Google plus (The university requests us to use it) this can help us promote the feeling of community. I also like the idea of the blog. The way we are doing this in our class, I feel as though I can see other students stile,  what are their opinions and what they got out of the reading. My idea is a community needs to be formed in the classroom and this is what invites people to participate and return to the class. It is frustrating to be a person who is trying to learn about education and never see, hear or interact with anyone. It all seems counter productive.

In my high school classes I am on the other side of the coin. I work with homeschoolers who now use online classes to fulfill high school requirements. Just four years ago my kids who were home schooled did not take a single class online. They either attended community group to learn with friend  or attended college classes or community center classes. The rest of the time they played and used computers to play a variety of games (some inadvertently taught history and others were purposefully educational).

The homeschool kids today are in classes that look, act and talk like a classroom class. Same curriculum, same homework, same everything except the lecture seems to be missing and the other kids are missing too (they don't chat online because they never met in the real world). My job as an ed-therapist is to help the kids learn how to teach themselves. What we used to get from a lecture and our friends, is not in an online class. These homeschoolers usually work individually and they are suppose to sign in once a week to talk to their teacher about the weeks unit. I have found that what is missing is interaction with other kids and adults to learn from each other. Structure is missing too. For example a math project is assigned but no explanation is given on how to go about deriving the equations, finding data and keeping the task simple enough for a tenth grader to understand and put together. Sometimes a video is shown to the students and then a packet needs to be filled out, but half the questions were not in the video. What is interesting is that a text book is not assigned to these specific classes so the kids do not have a reference book.

I would like to see more interaction between the teacher and the students, more reference material and a viewable grading system. What I hope to do when I am working with these students is to fill in the background knowledge that seems to be missing in their classes.

Week 17

Growing up digital wired for distraction is an interesting article. The journalist focuses on how the new generation is trapped between two worlds. I have several students who do the same. They stay up late, using technology, social media and watching you tube. Some students such as the one in the article cannot keep up with demanding classes and their virtual world. In the case of my students who have found their passion online their interests are sparked by the technology and they find themselves focusing on their interests and barely have time to deal with basic requirements. Should the school fit the new way people learn what they want to learn or should the kids be limited so they pay attention to grades and predesignated classes?

The article focuses on the typical view that a kid who goes to school must do well in all their classes and then work on outside topics of interest such as music, film, sports and socializing. In my opinion a kid such as the one in the article has already found their passion and has started pursuing it through tools available on the computer. From my experience it is OK to let this type of student go more into depth and study their passion, while learning the rest of the curriculum relative to their passion. If they are film buffs then use film to teach and learn with.  If they are good at programming then allow them to develop software and create new programs, apps and other software based creations. This does not mean the three R's must be abandoned but a balance can be met for the future actress, director, artist, business entrepreneur or programmer etc...

My Survey: I am intending on giving to my students the first week of class.
The idea is to design the course around the student.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QP8LJXW

Week 16

For week 16 I took a while to decide what to do. In fact we are now in week 17 and I am posting week 16. I think I am beginning to look like my student from my Educational therapy practice where they are chasing their assignments like a run away train. I teach them to think ahead and prepare before it all falls apart, so this week I will post two assignments so that I can get to the station on time :)

My first video, I was developing on Prezi. I really like the way it zooms in and out and a logical pattern can be developed for it. I did the voice over for Claudias video and then built mine but did not get past the class introduction. I have still not decided how I am going to go about introducing topics for my Educational psychology class.

I then decided to record how to use the UCSC course web sight with an overview of my goals for the course. I have a diverse population in my class that also takes the course for several reasons. Students include Educational therapists, teachers and parents.  At least two students per quarter don't know how to use the web page and at least one student per quarter feels that my course is to routine. So I am still thinking of adding assignments that can replace the quizzes as an alternative option. Also in the video the tech group posted my questions in the wrong order so I will be using the screencast o matic again :) I think I am addicted to it now.

This is the intro video: