Webquest

http://skyemaguire05.wix.com/land-forms

September 11th 2001

Observing Technology in a classroom

Observing Technology in a classroom

The technology I observed was in a Photoshop class and it was late in the school year that I observed. The students already knew what was expected of them and just started working in the beginning of the class period. It was set up so there were a few deadlines, but for the most part the students worked at their own pace and the deadlines were more guidelines so they don’t get too far behind. They all had a book, and they were expected to follow the directions step by step and edit different types of photos. This is how the students gained the initial understanding of Photoshop. Their final was to create a game board using all of the concepts. This was a very independent classroom setting, there was a paraeducator walking around to keep the students on task, and help them read the text when they were struggling. In my opinion I didn’t think this was the best way to teach Photoshop, at least not how I would learn anything. But in the teacher’s defense, I don’t know how the beginning of the year was run, so I don’t know if it was always as I observed.

 I would have liked to see her use a smart board or something where she can demonstrate the lesson, and the students can play around with the new skills that they learned that day, or something more along those lines.  Then she could be there for questions if the students had any.

Another technology that I observed students using was their cell phones. I know in most classroom cell phones are frowned upon; but I have seen cell phone used wisely in the classroom. If cell phones are just used for researching and educational purposes. They can be a great resource. As long as they are not spending all of their time chatting with friends then I don’t see the harm. Maybe you could make a social media page for the class. This way when the students are on your page they wouldn’t really be off task. They wouldn’t feel they need to check Facebook as much. And they could have an educational use for social media.

I think the biggest downfall of technology in schools is under education. There are so many useful tools we can use, but what I observed is students teaching themselves for the most part. The teachers that taught technology let the book do the work instead of teaching each skill. That needs to change, in my opinion.

Lesson Plan on Goldie Locks: Who, What, Where, When, and Why

“Big Idea” this lesson plan supports:
 Understanding the words: Who, what, where when, and why

Title
Goldie Locks, who what where when why

GSE’s/GLE’s/Framework

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.1Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. 
• 2.Communication and collaboration 
• b. Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats

Objective(s)

• Students will have IPADS to read Goldilocks by Janice Russell
• Students will already know how to get to the story on the IPAD
• Students will listen to the story, and answer questions posed by the teacher.
• Students can pretend to be newspaper reporters in pursuit of a hot news story as they gather the facts (ie. who, what, where, when, why and how).
• Once the facts are reviewed, the students can help the bears by posing a problem statement: How might Papa, Mama and Baby Bear keep Goldilocks away from their home?
• Students will generate ideas (solutions) to the bears problem. By answering the question on their IPADS, the answers will be displayed on the smart board.
• Once students have generated ideas help them move further into the creative problem-solving process by having them plan ways for the Three Bears to enact the students best solution.
• When students have determined the best solution, they can devise an action plan. For example, the students can create illustrations of how their solutions would stop Goldilocks and other intruders.

Materials 
An Electronic copy of Goldilocks by Janice Russell
IPADS
Easel Paper
Crayons or Markers Smart Board

Anticipatory Set
Begin by asking the students what they would do if they found a stranger had been in their house. Listen to the feedback and tell them to listen closely to the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. While reading the story, stop and ask what will happen next and why.

Procedures

• Invite the students to help the bears solve their problem.
• First, ask them is there a problem?
• (Yes, the bears’ home has been trespassed and damage has been done to their belongings)
• Teacher will pose a problem statement: How might Papa, Mama and Baby Bear keep Goldilocks away from their home?
• Teacher will direct Students to generate ideas (solutions) to the bears problem. By answering the question on their IPADS, the answers will be displayed on the smart board.
• (Once students have generated ideas) Help them move further into the creative problem-solving process by having them plan ways for the Three Bears to enact the student’s best solution.
• (When students have determined the best solution, they can devise an action plan. For example, the students can create illustrations of how their solutions would stop Goldilocks and other intruders.) 

Note for extension of this lesson plan: After the students have finished helping the Three Bears with their problem, they can move on by helping other fairy tale characters with their problems. How might Little Red Riding Hood solve the problem of the pesky wolf without having to seek the help of the woodcutter? How might Jack improve his financial lot without having to steal from or slay the giant?

Closure
Review with the students the three elements of problem solving: 1) identifying the problem; 2) producing ideas; and 3) evaluating and implementing solutions. Relate these elements back to Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Assessment
This should be done throughout the lesson by assessing student participation during the discussion of the fairy tale. The number of ideas (solutions) students contributed to help solve the bear’s problem. (Every student has a different color when they put their ideas on the smart board, so you know how much each student participated.) Once students learn creative-problem solving, they can use it to confront problems outside of the classroom.

Frontline technology video questions

A Digital Nation- 90 minutes

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Growing up online- 56 minutes

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/view/

These responses are thoughts based on the two videos above:

1.      Your thoughts on multitasking.  Do you agree?  Can you multitask?  Do you disagree?

I think that we like to think that we are better at multi-tasking then we are. I have always prided myself on being good at multi-tasking, yet I find myself asking clarification questions in conversation if I pause to text. I also used to think having Facebook up during class was okay because it didn’t distract me, but I have learned that it does.

       I think that our society is almost forced to multi-task, so we have adapted to it. My mom used to check her text messages like she checked her e-mails, occasionally, and when she found the time. I remember getting mad at her because I shot her a quick question and she took ‘too long’ to respond. We constantly have text messages, e-mails, instant messages, Facebook posts, tweets. All of these Medias come in throughout the day. If you wait for too long to check these notifications, they build up. Students and just people have learned that if they keep updated throughout the day, they skip drudging through 100 e-mails at the end of the day. Also, if they are always connected then they can talk to their friends all the time as well.

2.     Is there an addiction happening in society today with technology or is it just a new way of living? Should we be concerned?

Yes, there is an addiction! This can be good and bad. I think that we will adapt to mold technology into what we want it for. 

       I have had friends “lost” to online gaming. I knew this kid that would sit in his dorm room all day and night and play W.O.W. He would miss class, he would miss meals, and he lived off of Doritos and mountain dew. He had scheduled raids at least 4 times a week, like the video. And he was emaciated. He looks very malnourished. He hadn’t had a girlfriend before, but while I knew him, he had a brief relationship on W.O.W. He was very awkward, and didn’t know what to do in social situations.  It is definitely an addiction. It is an ‘escape’ from reality, just as books used to be an escape from reality. I think that we need to balance the real world and the virtual world, but I don’t think the need to ‘escape’ is new; it just has a new medium.

3.      Do video games serve a purpose in education or are they a waste of time?

Please bring games into the classroom! That school sounded awesome! A school where kids learn what they need to know, it a medium that they want to use sounds like a win, win. In classes I see kids on their phones playing games, some educational! If this is what we are using then kids won’t sign and grown at the thought of class. They will want to be there.

4.     Do you believe that digital tools such as Google tools can save schools that are struggling?

Yes! Google plays a good part in my school that I’m a para at. All of the students have a Gmail account,they can save any work to their Google drive, and they can collaboratively work on the same document on different computers. Google is a huge contributor to education and if used properly can be a great tool in a school.

5.     Do parents of today have any idea what their kids are doing online?  Whose job is it to teach them safety and digital responsibility? Parents/Teachers/Community/Government?

       No, parents don’t know what their kids are doing online. Sure, they know their kids are on Facebook, etc. but they don’t really know all that their kids are doing. It is everyone’s job to educate kids on internet safety. That means, parents, friends, teachers, community, government, everyone! We should never try and just pass the torch to someone else on online education. There could be predators, viruses, cyber bullies, and scams that are hard to detect.

6.      Are kids and adults today ruining their digital footprints by sharing too much information online without realizing that it may be detrimental to their future? Should they care?

Depends, people do need to be careful of what they write online, because everything they say or do online is stored forever as data in servers somewhere. This doesn’t mean everyone, or even a lot of people are over sharing.

7.      “Stranger Danger” and predator fears are often overblown by the media on shows such as Dateline's “To Catch a Predator.”  What are the real dangers of technology in this day and age?  

       The real danger in this online age is under-education. Children should be taught to “cross the street” on the internet, just as you would teach a child how to cross a street the real world, you can teach them how to safely access the internet.

Share your overall reactions and thoughts about each documentary.  Please relate it to your views as a teacher/parent/coach/etc. What did you learn, find interesting, find disturbing, relate to, did not relate to, etc. that you would like to share with others?

I really like the gaming school. This was an interesting concept. I would love to teach at a school like that. I feel students would adapt to it well. I think the military virtualized experience is really fascinating, yet also terrifying. I think that most kids can tell what is real, and what is fake, but the virtual experience is desensitizing kids to the same feel of war. They won’t fear death as much in real life, because in a game they can always re-spawn.

       That teenager from the video that was addicted to gaming, the one that was sent to internet rehab. I think he was acting like a typical teenager. The ‘symptoms’  the mom was describing, was that of a teenager. Yes, he needed to stop gaming as much, but his attitude was hormones.

       I like the IBM second life meetings. I like how in the video they said; using a virtual meeting is a way of adding the human connection back to phone calls, and conference calls.

       In the Growing up online video, about the boy being cyber bullied and committing suicide is heartbreaking. It talked about the girl that was anorexic; she went on websites that worshiped the goddess Ana. I didn’t even know that this was a real thing. It makes me so sad. Then the video went on to talk about the dangers of the internet and the parents that had trouble adjusting to it. The one parent doesn’t get along with her son right now because of the way her son acted online, then the way she reacted to it. This video was kind of depressing overall.

My Digital Foot Print

http://easel.ly/infographic/2it9so

Ted Talk: A school in the cloud

Lit Review

I watched a ted talk on the future of schools. Sugata Mitra started a study using hole in the wall computers. He left these computers in a wall, in poor areas

1920 × 1080 - youtube.com

that did not have computers. These kids had no idea how to use computers. He left them for 9 months and when he came back they were browsing the internet and understood the computer. He then left a speech to text technology system, he had them practice their English accents. They needed to say the sentence until the speech to text device had scribed for them properly.

His results favored self-directed learning, this is what are schools should move towards. He said “Learning is a product of self-organization. If you allow the brain to self-organize, Learning emerges. It’s not about making learning happen, it’s about letting it happen”. The teacher should simply ask the questions, and encourage them, then stand back while they get the answer. I like his idea of a “school in the clouds” as Sugata Mitra calls it. Students are capable of learning so much, technology is a key to learning anything they want to know and more.

This TED talk is about the future of schools, and the future of technology. Although this is similar to virtual schools and online classes, I think this is a little different. I like the idea of self-directed learning. The students will learn what they want to know and what they need to know in life. Some of the questions he posed were:

To a 9 year old: say, if a meteorite was headed towards the earth, how would you find out if it will hit or not? If they say, how would you know? You say, its one magical word, a tangent of an angle. Then you leave them alone.

As teachers, with the internet around, we have an amazing resource. It makes learning interesting. Also, when you research something because you want to know, it tends to stick in your brain longer. I learned we should have prompting questions for the students to do their own research. My go to line is “I’m not sure, google it”. They end up with the right answer, and they came up with it themselves. But, I like if more in depth prompt for self-directed research.

Bibliography:

Build a School in the Cloud (Sugata Mitra:)

https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud#t-1130209