LMS Presentaion to Staff

Here is a presentation that I created to share with my fellow colleagues about Learning Management systems.

Reflection on Reaching and Engaging All Learners through Technology

The use of technology is all around us every day. Technology is something that I use daily and that most students use daily. Technology is not something that my students or I use daily in the classroom. The universal design for learning and differential instruction is a useful tool in the classroom that can be integrated with technology. Technology allows the teacher to create an option for students to help them learn and understand concepts being taught. The immediate impact that these two ideas are going to have on my instruction practice is to be flexible with the students and to think about how many options that I have for each lesson.

What I mean by being flexible is, create an opportunity for students to have an alternative method to work on the information that we are learning which would be done with technology. In the past I have been stuck instructing one way and working hard to get the students to understand that one method no matter what. This course and others that I have taken have helped me grow as a teacher and start to incorporate other methods of instruction with the students. Not all students are the same and they do not all learn the same way, so using the same method with all students does not allow me to reach all students or allow the students to reach their potential.

To be flexible with the students I need to have options. Throughout this course I have learned about technology tools that I can use with the students. Now as I am creating a lesson plan I will make sure that I have created a lesson plan that will allow all students to grow, the lesson can be easily adapted to fit all students learning style. The lesson plan will have option for the students, this way if they have a better understanding using technology, that option is available to them.

Technology can allow the teacher to do many things in the classroom. Technology is a tool that will allow a student to grow and also allow a teacher to grow. The hardest step is overcoming the traditional ways of instruction and thinking and be open to new ideas and thinking. This is how the course has helped me and how it will impact my instruction practice.

Rick Orr

Reflections on GAME Planning (Final Post)

I am sure throughout the many classes that I have taken that the professor has lectured about making a plan to achieve a goal. This concept is everywhere in life. This was my first encounter with GAME planning. I have to say that the explanations and material made more sense and applicable to me then my previous experiences. I can see where the students can use GAME planning in school and out of school.
I feel that in my first attempt to use this method it was successful. The goals I made for myself allow for some kind of success and confidence. I also know that because this was new to me that no matter what happened with my goals I was growing as a professional. The actions that I took to help achieve these goals were basic and something that I can build on in the future. It allowed me to have a starting point when trying to achieve a goal. I have yet to attempt anything new in my class to date but when I do I will have confidence in monitoring and evaluating the success or failure of the changes that I will make. I know how a base of knowledge that will allow me to adapt the work being done so that the students and myself are learning.
The most important thing that I learned was to be patient. Any assignment that is created can have its challenging moments. To create an assignment with different methods not traditionally used in your classroom takes time, it is not something that is created in the three minutes between classes. The most important part of my new found patients is to reevaluate when it is needed. The more frustrated that I become with the actions that I am taking, or the students who are working on the assignment that was created, can lead to more problems. I need to step away and evaluate what is being done and how I can change the GAME plan before I just give up.
The immediate impact that was made from what I have learned from this course is that integration of technology can be done in any class. The integration does not have to be a whole sale change. The change can be as simple as having the students respond on a blog or creating a video to answer a question. This can lead into projects in the class that involve using more than one type or technology.
In the beginning it was more how can I integrate technology in the class, and not feeling very confident in the ability to adapt lesson. Now it is how much should I use for this assignment and which method will allow the students the best understanding of the material.

Using GAME Plan with Students

Now that I have been introduced to the GAME plan process and have been working on my own throughout the past weeks, I now have a better understanding of the process that I can share with my students. The knowledge I have gained will allow me to continue to work on my own GAME plan and help my students create their own. Throughout the process of creating my own GAME plan there has been a mix of emotions. My experience with my own plan will allow me to help the students as they will face the same situations and feeling that I have.

With this being said, as I introduce the students to NETS-S and the process of the GAME plan I will take it slow at the beginning making sure that the students are confident in the process. We will evaluate the different technology standards and pick the ones we will work on carefully. Once the decision and goals are made we will discuss the different actions that we will take to obtain their goals. The students and I will then create ways to monitor and self evaluate how they are doing and done to reach their goals.

Since this is all new to my students the process is something that I will work with them as we get started. As the students start to achieve their goals I will start to take more of a backseat role and be more of a monitor. I will assess how the students are doing to achieve their goals and have an evaluation that we will go over together so the students will know what they have to work on to be more successful.

What are your thought on the process I am choosing to take in introducing the students to NETS-S and the GAME plan process? This is something new to them, just like it was to me, and I have found if I make them dive right in and not take some time to separate the topic into smaller parts the student become frustrated and I do not get their best effort.

Revising the GAME Plan

The biggest thing that I have learned through this is something that I already knew but was reminded of it as I sit and ponder how I am going to make these changes and what am I going to do. The thing that I remembered is that most people learn to crawl before they walk. I am still satisfied with my Game Plan but instead of thinking I need to make mass changes right know; instead make small changes that will compile into a large change.

At this time I am not going to set new learning goals for myself. I am going to continue to work on the ones that I started with. Once I feel satisfied that I have archived these goals I will revamp my Game Plan and work on achieving a new goal. I know that I am not ready to extend my goals or make changes because I am not personal satisfied with my effort, outcome, and confidence of my present goals.

As I stated before I am going to take a more settle approach this time. I am going to look to make minor changes so that I can work toward major changes. Some of the minor changes are to find ways to integrate one tool and then built off the use of that tool to integrate another.

I know that in previous week that others and I felt overwhelmed with what to do. I think that this new approach will be better. What are your thoughts on this new approach to the Game Plan?

Rick Orr

Evaluating My GAME Plan Progress

My actions so far to meet my goals have not been very effective. On paper my actions to achieve my goals seem that they were direct and easy to carry out. I continue to find that I need time to achieve my goals.

What I have learned so far is that if I plan to effectively carry out my GAME plan I need to put in the work to achieve my goals. Just like my students, I am learning new things and have felt overwhelmed. This feeling will allow me to relate to the students when they are feeling overwhelmed with the work that they are doing and we can discuss how we can overcome this feeling and accomplish our goals.

There are still many things that I need to learn before I can fully feel comfortable integrating the technology into lessons and creating projects for the students. A couple of these things include, when is the right time to allow the students to use technology and is there ever to much technology that will take the students away from being to make calculations without technology? As a teacher to other teacher question that I would ask is how have these teachers found the time to create great lessons that involve technology?

My adjustment to my plan will be to simple keep plugging away and trying to achieve my goals with the new realization that it will not happen overnight. This is something that I cannot give up on but to keep working on till I meet my goals no matter how long it takes and hope that it will come together soon then later.

Rick Orr

Monitoring my GAME Plan

The progress I have made is little, but I am working on it. One piece of information that I did manage to find was that my school has a program already that will allow me to create a blog, post homework on a calendar, and link any information that would help my students. Once I have the site constructed to the way I would like, it will be liked to my name on the school website. First thing that I need to work on is navigating around the page. I have made some changes to the generic page that everyone has but I am still working on it. I have also started to write down how much I am using a computer in my different classes and how much the students are using the computer.

The biggest thing that I have learned so far and something that I will need to modify is that it takes time to be able to set up and establish new lessons that include technology. I find myself deciding to go with more conventional methods because they are already made, even though I am trying to make changes. I need to approach this process as I do other things in my life, I need to set time aside to research, develop, and work on new approaches for my class like I do for my extracurricular activities.

The biggest question I have is, do I want to start implementing these new ideas now or wait and take in as much as I can and then start working on the integration? I am leaning on still looking for new ideas, trying small things in my class but waiting till I have a better understanding to put it all together. Many of the things that I have learned have been over the last year as I am taking class, so it has dawned on me that I have confidence in knowing the material that I am teaching but lack in creative methods to portray information to the students.

Carrying Out the Game Plan

To carry out my game plan there is some actions that need to be taken to achieve my goals. One of the resources that I will need is the Internet. Through the Internet I will be able to research and read how others are using technology in their classroom. This will also supply me with a way to communicate with these teachers so that I can get details to how they use the technology. The Internet will also supply lesson plans that have already been created and can be manipulated to the needs of the students and the use of technology. Another resource will be workshops on technology use in the classroom. I can take the information that is learned at these workshops and create lessons that will integrate technology into them. Are there any resources that others have found that will be helpful to me?

Additional information that I will need will include websites that are already created to help teachers with the use of technology in their classroom, instructions and lessons on how to use technology that I do not know how to use, and reactions from other teacher who have already try the methods that I choose.

The only step that I have taken to achieve my goals and take action is to take my master courses. Many of the ideas that I have need to be written out as lesson plans and attempted before they are assigned to the students. The use of technology in the classroom is a new adventure to me over the last year. There are many good things that I have learned but have not implemented them yet, I need to set time aside to create lessons that use technology and not rely on what I have dine in the past. I know that we are working on confidence but are others struggling to implement technology right away as we are learning new strategies?

Rick Orr

My GAME Plan for Using Technology in the Classroom and Beyond

After examining the National Education Standards for Teachers, these are located at http://www.iste.org/, there were two indicators that caught my eye and seemed to be good starting points to help me incorporate technology more often in my teaching. The first goal would to incorporate digit tools into my teaching to enhance the learning experience of the students. The second was to communicate information to the students in others ways instead of just telling them.
The action that I would take to accomplish the first goal is to use some of the methods that were discussed in class and apply them to my teaching. Another way I could take action for my first goal is to research into teachers who are using different digital tools in their classroom and communicate with them about what they are doing and how they are doing it. This will also help me with my second goal. Once I have the input from different teachers or from articles, apply what I have learned to my own classes. The actions that I would take to accomplish my second goal are to first set up a blog for each of my classes and communicate to the students and to the parents the link to my blog. The blog would be updated daily with assignments and the lectures from that day’s class.
To monitor my goals, I would create a list of questions to be filled out weekly on the amount of technology that I used in class that week and how I used the technology in class. To monitor my blog, as I make the daily updates, I can check and see how many people are looking at the site and communicate with them.
The evaluation process for the first goal can be achieved by the assessments that are given to the students after they have finished a lesson. To evaluate my communication, as I am communicating to the people that have looked at the site I can ask them for suggest and their feeling on the blog and how it is set up.
Are there any suggestions on how this GAME plan can be modified to be more productive for both the students and the teacher?
Are there any more ideas or methods that I can use to help myself obtain my goals and then set new ones?

Rick Orr

Reflection

As my current course comes to a conclusion, my personal theory of learning has not changed. From this course I have learned new strategies to accomplish my goals for the students. I still believe that students should do the problems over and over again but now I can integrate technology into the lesson to change the pace of the class and allow the students to be creative as they solve problems.


There are a couple adjustments that I can make right away in my class; the first adjustment is to use the technology that I have available as a learning tool and not an instructional tool. I need to allow the student to use the technology and not always me showing them on the technology. With the smart board that I have in my classroom the students can come to the front and work on the board. The second adjustment is to allow for more group work to be done. I feel this will allow the students to work together to create finished product. By allowing students to work in groups, I can assign a multipart assignment that the students can use Microsoft Works products as ways of solving the problem and presenting an answer to the class.

As a long term goal I would like to have at least one project a month for the students to allow them to use technology as a way to solve a problem and then to give a presentation to the class. To allow for this to work I need to start to integrating technology into my current lessons. I need to evaluate the students and how they respond to the changes. I also need to see if the project presents a challenge to the students or if it is easy. Once I have seen how it works make adjustments and continue to add more to the class. Another goal that I have to create a blog for the student to be able to ask math questions to classmates and teachers. I would also post the lessons on the blog. This way if a student is absent then the student can get the missed lesson and the assignment. To accomplish this I have to start by creating a blog and then allow the students to use the blog.

Technology is a wonderful thing when we can understand the ways that it can be used. This course has given me insight on how I can change the way that I use technology in my classroom so that it benefits the students. This course has also allowed me to think of new ways to present concepts and how the students can study their newly learned information.

Question from Students

Here is a voicetread that I created about two questions that my students always ask me.

http://voicethread.com/share/1191491/

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

This week’s instructional strategy was cooperative learning. I feel this relates to social learning theory because the students are working together to create solutions to different problems. In the past I would allow students to work in small groups in class to complete assignments. I found that many of the students would rely on one of the members and was just copying the solutions down. The other problem was that students would spend more time talking about unrelated topics because they were relying on just one person. I moved away from group work and made the students work on the assignment by themselves.

After this week’s resources and resources from past weeks my view has again changed. In the past the assignments that were created did not allow for good group work. I now feel that by manipulating the assignment and making more structured it will allow the students to be learning and still have fun will staying focused on the task at hand. I now feel that cooperative learning can be a beneficial tool in the classroom and outside of the classroom.

By integrating technology in the group work more students can be involved in the work that is being done. It will allow for multiple parts that can be worked on in class or out of class. Once each part is finished they can come together as a group to explain what they have completed so that the whole group has an understanding of the information. This way they are working together and talking about the information they are learning.

Constructionism in Practice

This week’s instructional strategy was generating and testing hypothesis. I believe that this goes along with construtionism because you are building to your conclusion by testing you hypothesis. By testing their hypothesis the students can build upon the information that they have gathered to support their conclusion.

There were six tasks that were given to help students generate and test their hypothesis. The first one was system analysis; examine a situation if one of the variables was changed. The second was problem solve; look at different methods to solve a problem. The third was historical investigation; create a solution for occurrences were there was no clear cut solution. The fourth invention; study a problem then create a solution for the problem. The fifth was experimental inquiry; observe a situation and create a hypothesis and experiment to test the hypothesis. The last was decision making; take a problem and change the variables to create the best situation. All of the tasks have the students building on an idea or problem and with each step having to build more on the findings.

I really liked the spreadsheet project that was described in the reading. The project had visual representation of the investment and could be manipulated into different graphs so the students could see the growth of the money. I also liked the fact that project could be related to real world situations that the students could possible deal with as they get older.

I also liked the multiplayer game created to help the students understand the political and economic conditions that lead to war. Many students already enjoy playing games on systems like Xbox and Playstation. It allows the students to study using technology that they are already comfortable with.

As a student continues their education they are always going to be growing. The hope of the teacher is to challenge the students enough to keep them interested and to build on past knowledge to help the student to continue to grow.

Rick Orr

Cognitivism in Practice

In this week’s reading of instruction strategies, I read about cues, questions and advanced organization and summarizing and note taking. Both of these instructional strategies can be utilized in the cognitive learning theory.

Cues, questions, and advanced organization can allow the students to focus on the important information that is being presented. As questions that have clues are asked to the student, the student can reflect on information that they have stored and create a network to the new information. This will help the student’s link information together. In math many times if I ask a student a question that they have mastered and connect that information to what is being learned, the students have a better understanding because they are remembering what they did in the past and creating a new connection.

Summarizing and note taking allow the teacher to control what the students are hearing and seeing. I try to limit the notes for the student to the information that is most important. If I have my students take notes for a whole period many of them will stop taking notes and nothing will be accomplished. If I can control the amount of information that the student is learning and the next day link new information to the old information, the student will have a better understanding of the information. Many times I try to find ways to relate information that is being learned to something that the student enjoys. They remember more this way then if I tell them just to work on the work.

I feel that students do better when they can see the link from one topic to another. Math allows me the freedom to do this with many different topics. I can always be building on what was learned previously by the students.

Rick Orr

Behaviorism in Practice

Behaviorist Learning Theory incorporates two operant conditions. One of the conditions is reinforcement, the other is punishment. I feel that the both aspect was present in both of the instruction strategies from this week’s reading. Punishment was not talked about but a student’s failure to attempt an assignment needs to be followed with some sort of repercussion for their actions.


The first was topic included reinforcement in the title, reinforcing effort. The recommendation was to teach students the importance of effort and have the student track their effort and achievement. By having the students monitor how they feel their effort is the teacher can supply the student with positive reinforce from their actions. The students can then see the importance of effort. It allows the student’s to control the outcome of their learning. It is frustrating to hear a student say they cannot do the work because they just cannot. They mentally feel they are inferior. If the student does but in effort and tries to achieve they will find that they can do the work, the student cannot compare themselves to anyone else because the amount of effort for each student is different.

The other topic was homework and practice. I feel that by doing homework the students can receive positive feedback for correct work. Another point that liked was when the math teacher and football coach worked together on a project. I feel that when the students can associate what they are learning with things that they like to do, the better the student is going to behave because they can see a real world application of what they are learning.

Anytime a teacher can incorporate learning with technology or other activities that the student enjoy the more positive the students will be about learning.

Rick Orr