PLANNING THE TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Discussion on the Planning section of the textbook includes chapters 4-8.

I (Rich) believe that chapter 4 is a repeat of many things you have incorporated in your professional career to this point. The focus on the learners, objectives and learning environment are certainly important considerations that best practice points toward. I would venture to say that the best teachers are conscious about these concerns all the time.

A couple of links dealing with accessibility (assistive technology):

• http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorial016.shtml a "techtorial" including some informative links regarding built-in options in computer operating systems.
• Microsoft video case studies talking about assistive technologies in their own professional life.
• Apple's Accessibility in Education website dealing with learner accessibility.

Chapter 4

I (Dennis) often wonder if my instruction is gender-neutral. I am aware of the problem, and I know that's half the battle, but I wonder if there is a way to be more certain. Being in full-cycle evaluation already, I don't know if I necessarily want to bring it up to the administration. I really like the idea of a technology literacy survey and believe I'll incorporate into my lesson planning. That being said, I also am constrained by limited access to technology. For instance the mobile lab is not to be signed out for more than two days in a row and I don't believe that's enough time to teach PowerPoint and have students develop a project using it.

Kevin Perkins Every year I taught at least one double-block math class. Those classes are designed for students who struggle with math and meet every day for a full 90-minute block. One of the struggles of teaching that type of class is the total lack of motivation of students. They generally don't care for the subject, find it difficult and are upset that they're essentially giving up an elective class to take an extra block of math. I thought of this situation when reading the section about motivation. Most of those students don't have either intrinsic (hate the subject) or extrinsic (don't care how well they do) motivation at all. I actually made it a point to integrate technology more with those classes than my advanced ones. Students were never motivated by doing more math, but would try a bit harder if we were in the computer lab for an activity, playing a Jeopardy review game w/ PowerPoint or learning some new tricks on the graphing calculator.

I (Andrea) agree with Dennis. I think good instructors always think about diversity in the classroom and meeting the instructional needs of all of the students. The Indiana University Bloomington provides teaching tips that address gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and may other categories. [link]

This chapter is an important one for me (Denise) especially the section on special needs. I have a son with a learning disability and I was very disappointed that the book glossed over it and associated it more with ADHD. I also have had the LD collaborative classes for many years, and it is a real challange to help these students because many have great class participation skills and contribute some very deep ideas, but to put those ideas in writting is a real struggle for them. Technology is a help, especially word processing, but spell check is not helpful if you have no idea how the words are spelled in the first place.

One struggle I (Denise) had when I first started teaching was dealing with gender equality. I am the mother of sons, and so I tended to let the boys dominate class discussion. I have since learned ways to make sure girls speak up more.

Chapter 5

I (Dennis) believe the ARCS model has a lot of value, but I also believe (to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln) you can't motivate all the people all of the time. A think as teachers we unconsciously use those activities all the time, but I need to make them much more a conscious part of my planning.

Kevin Perkins One struggle I found in the math classroom was having enough time to focus on the relevance aspect of instruction. I felt like it was all I could do to cover the basics well and include time for review before the SOL test in early May. Like many other teachers, I put off the application activities until late in the year. Technology does provide an avenue to inject some real-world math applications along the way, but there is very little time for long-term projects in certain SOL tested classes.

I (Andrea) found the following website [link], which supports planning for the technology enhanced learning experience. The website has useful links for technology integrated lesson plans. The website also includes links to online tutorials which would be useful to both instructors and students.

One area I (Denise) struggle with in motivation is the idea about gaining students' attention at the start of class. With period attendance on the computer in our school, I have to have things for the students to do while I log on the computer and take attendance. These activities are not very motivating and they can't invlove the use of the computer because it is tied up. One of the steps in the plan that was discussed is the "Outline" which lets teachers focus on students. I put an "outline" of the day's activities on a dry erase board for just this purpose. It also helps when the students come in and ask, "What are we doing today?" I can just point to the board.

Chapter 6

I (Dennis) liked to see both the advantages and limitations table and the checklist. With so much focus still on cooperative learning it's nice to see that some of the older methods have some value, but also nice to be reminded of their limitations.

Kevin Perkins I think blogging adds a new twist to cooperative learning. I often found that the traditional cooperative learning scheme involving students with assigned roles was hard to manage. There were always students who didn't want to participate and were happy to let everyone else do all the work for them. Using blogs for discussions and/or peer review of writing allows students to get feedback from even more of their peers. Also, if a student refuses or forgets to post a blog comment, they're only hurting themselves and not making more work for other students. Here's a blog I helped an AP US Government teacher get started recently: http://wahoowilli.edublogs.org

I (Andrea) attended a faculty forum at JMU that was focused on student engagement in online learning. The topics discussed in the forum seemed to relate to Chapter 6 Instructional Methods: Identifying Ways to Involve Learners. Technology can be used in both face-to-face and online classes to support the key instructional methods that were introduced in chapter 6 (i.e. presentation, demonstration, simulation, tutorials, etc.). It is interesting to compare the methods that are used to encourage student interaction in face-to-face and online classes. During the forum JMU faculty members discussed how they were able to engage students in learning in an online course. Some of the methods that faculty members discussed and incorporated into their online learning environment were presentation, demonstration, discussion, cooperative learning, discovery, problem solving and tutorials.

The technologies that the faculty members used to deliver their instruction and meet their instructional goals were:

• Blackboard discussion board- asynchronous tool
• Centra (an online collaboration tool.) Some of the tasks that Centra allows instructors to do with their students online are present material on slides, communicate with students with text, voice over IP, and an interactive whiteboard, place students in breakout rooms to work in groups, and demonstrate tasks or software by sharing their desktop
• Tegrity- a tool used to prepare asynchronous online lectures
• Captivate- software that creates online demonstrations and simulations

Chapter 7

I (Dennis) being the hands-on learner and none too creative thinker again found the table and checklist for instructional medium to be a much welcomed sight. I am currently in the process of changing all my overhead tranparencies to PowerPoint presentations because I believe it better holds student interest. Any thoughts?

I (Denise) did some research on the effectiveness of PowerPoint, and it is helpful but all the extras (transitions and special effects) can have a negative impact as they distract from the topic. The parts that are helpful are entering statements and facts one at a time and using images. Letting students create their own PowerPoints is also good, and I like that I can print out copies of slides for absent students and LD students.

Kevin Perkins I think going to PowerPoints is a good move, Dennis. Doing so enables you to add images and even short video clips when you are presenting notes. I do wonder if kids can get "PowerPoint-ed out" at some point though. I found that by spring, many of my students were getting tired of some of the math software and online activities we had been regularly doing. I couldn't believe that students would complain when the alternative was likely more notes or practice. It's hard to keep the digital natives from becoming restless! The discussion about active vs. passive viewing of video is very relevant and is a principle taught at NTTI. Most kids are used to passively interacting with video, often having the TV on while doing other things. Pausing video to question, review and anticipate what's coming next is helpful to keep students engaged.

I (Andrea) was curious about the Media Selection Checklist on page 137. I may have just misunderstood but it looked like the gray boxes indicated the media did not enhance student learning. For example number 24- Present problem-solving situations that lead to group discussions. The textbook indicated that the only media that presented problem solving situations that lead to group disucssion were real objects and models and multimedia and other computer software. I can that video or visuals could also present problem solving situations. To me the checklist seemed limiting.

Chapter 8

(Dennis) The table of education websites will be a tremendous asset that will certainly ease the often confronted pain of a web search for ideas that encounters 10 million or so hits. I agree that to palnning time and the pocketbook to create new instructional materials. I am glad that teachers are generally a very sharing species. Many folks of other professions are much more proprietary with their creations.

Rich Clemens Another resource that was not mentioned in the book is Marco Polo. I know that many teachers find this a valuable resource for internet content for the classroom. Anyone have an experience with this?

Kevin Perkins The software evaluation process is often not well thought out resulting in software that is not utilized to the fullest extent. It either becomes obsolete quickly or does not hold students’ attention. Another software consideration is licensing. How many people actually take time to read the software End User License Agreement (EULA)? Most people skip the legalese and simply click I Agree and move on with the installation. Educational software licensing is very tricky in that it can occur per computer, user, grade level, building or district.

I (Andrea) wonder how may instructors and students pay attention to and abide by Copyright and Fair Use regulations. The regulations are constantly changing due to technology and it is often difficult to keep up.