Backward design and Technology Rich Focus

Developing a unit for teaching is no easy task as one has to carefully plan out what will be most important to teach the students. We plan backwards starting with the assessment so we can teach to that and be able to focus on the most important points from the core standards. But, to effectively teach, we have to enrich our lessons, within that unit, with appropriate technology that will help students gain a deeper understanding of the concepts.
When we plan the unit at the same time that we choose the technology for it, we are ensuring that the tech implementations are the best ones for teaching that particular content. When we do not plan the unit/lessons while also thinking of the tech to utilize we are most likely preparing for chaos to occur within our classrooms and for lack of learning. 
Therefore, I will ensure that as I plan my unit, I will also keep in mind to find the best technological applications that will serve my students best when learning all about the unit at hand. Learning happens best when these two go hand in hand.

Curriculum 21 Take aways

After my classmates presented the information in chapters 5-12 of the Curriculum 21 book, I have come to cherish even more what technology can do for all of us as teachers and students. There are no boundaries that are not able to be overcome with technology. Every presentation emphasized, however, that technology must be used appropriately for it to render its amazing results. We the teachers, need to help our students understand that there is more to technology than simple media usage. That being stated, I still wonder what would be age appropriate activities to engage students in discovering how to use the technological devices and applications the right way. I think that once this is figured out, teaching the students to remember to use it appropriately would go smoother. 

It has finally become clear to me that with technology students can become globally aware as we are becoming more globalized every second of our lives. However, our students seem to think that all that exists is their city and sometimes their state. They have not realized that different cultures surround us and that they all play a part in who we are as Americans. That being said, I want to expose my students to other cultures through more technology integration in my classroom. I am going to format my curriculum so that students can learn about other cultures and how those affect them daily. I am in the process of exploring the best apps to help my students meet the goal of globalizing right from our own classroom. 

I believe that technology integration is what will keep our nation afloat as everyone will be more globalized and better connected to each other. 

Understanding by Design

Many times, as teachers, we focus on creating our scope and sequences based on what we want to teach the students with little regards to the final outcome of all the lessons. After listening to Grant Wiggins in Understanding by Design, I understood why it is so important to plan with the end result in mind. In other words, we should always ask ourselves: "what is it that I want my students to be able to do once I have taught this unit?" Once we have responded this question, then we are able to start planning our lessons-to target the final outcome. 

For example, when I want to teach my students about geography I first ask what I want the end result to be which in this case is for them to analyze how geography affects settlement. They will be able to demonstrate this by creating a brochure that can attract tourists to this area. They need to explain how Utah's geography will be beneficial or detrimental to those who move. But for my students to have sufficient knowledge to be able to create a brochure, I will need to teach them what geography is, what landforms are, the kinds of land regions we have among other vital information about our state. 

Being able to plan the performance assessment I just described before I teach the unit, helps me to choose technological applications and devices appropriately. Instead of having to think on the spot how to enrich the lessons with technology, I can think ahead and check the different websites and applications I would implement to ensure that they work and that the students will be able to learn most effectively from. 

Furthermore, "unwrapping" standards and objectives for our content area impacts decisions about assessment. Choosing the assessment and technology first is extremely helpful in planning a curriculum. There are so many standards and objectives that are not as vital as others for students to know. We need to examine each one and decide what is most important for the students to know. We also need to look at the verbs used in each. In Utah Studies, all six standards use the verb "understand." This word is rather vague as it is not something the students can demonstrate a skill with. Therefore, we as educators, need to use Bloom's Taxonomy Level list and implement the appropriate verbs so that students may be able to do what they learn. At the same time, they will develop higher order thinking skills which are vital to survival in their lives as they will almost always have to critically think to solve everyday problems. 

Students know they are capable of learning and expanding their knowledge through more than just memorization and regurgitation. This is why we need to challenge them as they learn; to do so we must analyze our course's standards, choose the appropriate verbs to teach with, create an assessment with the end in mind and then create a scope and sequence. 

Teacher Leaders

Recently, there have been more teacher leaders who visit teachers at their schools. Their role is to help teachers in whatever they can- whether it be curriculum planning, course mapping, or classroom management. They are there to give teachers viable options that may work better than what the teacher is trying to attempt to do in their classroom. These teachers that go around helping others are known as "teacher leaders" because at some point in their careers they have taken the initiative to try something new with their students with regards to teaching and learning. Their methods, though new, may have produced great results to the point that people in the district become aware of what these teachers are doing. 

Last week, in class, we had a guest speaker, Andrew Clark, share his experiences with us as far as technology and teaching were concerned. He had graduated from USU with a teaching degree and was able to start teaching 4th grade at a school in small, rural town in UT. The school had no technological devices. Mr. Clark sought out to find ways of obtaining devices by applying for grants. By the end of the school year, his students had iPods that were used to create podcasts. Also, he found a movable computer lab. He put these technological devices to use in his classroom. For example, he had his class dissecting owl pellets through these devices. His class was extremely engaged and motivated to learn. Parents, grandparents, and faculty noticed the change that Mr. Clark brought about to that small school in rural Utah. Eventually, the school district tore down that facility and built one that would be able to support technological devices. I like to think that this change began because Mr. Clark, a teacher-leader, had tried something that no one else in his school had tried before- implementing technology into his students' learning activities. 

With regard to educational technology, teacher-leadership is essential. This is due mainly because there are many teachers who are hesitant to use technology because they are set in the traditional ways of teaching. They may think technology will not work or that it is a waste of time for their students. They may not know how to use it or the best ways to apply it in their content area. But, if they were to see a teacher-leader implementing various forms of technology into different lessons, the traditional teachers may start to feel more inclined to learn about the new methods. The teacher leaders would demonstrate how to properly use the technology in the classroom setting and would provide support for the teachers who are learning. For example, Mr. Clark mentioned that he would go to different PLCs in his school and would sometimes just show other teachers how to power on/off devices. Other times he would show them ways apps could be implemented into a particular lesson or content area. If it were not for teacher leaders like Mr. Clark, traditional teachers would not be as willing to use technology in their classrooms. How can someone know whether or not something is beneficial if they have never used it before?

Because so many people find that technology in general is detrimental, especially to the younger generations, there is a misconception that it will not work in the classroom either. But, with the help of teacher-leaders in our schools and districts, like Mr. Clark, these misconceptions will be replaced with more teachers enriching their curriculum with more educational technology.

Technology in Curriculum and Instruction: Benefits and Barriers

In this era where technology is a vital aspect of an American student's life, it is vital to utilize it as a means to enhance and facilitate learning. Teachers who have been working in the education field since before the Digital Age commenced, may feel certain reservations as to the effectiveness of technology usage for teaching and learning. However, if properly used, technology can be a very valuable asset in students' education.

When teachers plan their curriculum and instruction, they should always do so with their students in mind (Jacobs, 2010). We need to find the possible ways to meet our students' needs while also finding the best approaches to introduce and teach our students concepts that they should know about (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). When we prepare our units we should always do so keeping in mind what the end goal is (Jacobs, 2010). As we do this, we can incorporate higher order thinking skills into the activities the students will complete so that they can become more agile and be able to critically think in real world situations.

Creating a curriculum can be tedious as we are trying to differentiate and accommodate all of our students to help them attain optimal learning experiences. While many teachers focus on traditional ways of teaching- with pen and paper and strategies that involve no technology, others are integrating technology into their daily lessons. When technology is used appropriately, it can help students accomplish amazing tasks and develop their critical thinking skills which one of the ultimate goals of obtaining an education. It can be used across all content areas. Some of the the the positive effects of technology are noticed in language acquisition, test scores, motivation and self-esteem development (O'Hara & Pritchard, 2006).

Even though many teachers are including more technology into their classrooms, there are others who are set in their beliefs that it is actually detrimental to students. One of the reasons why some teachers may continue to have a negative view on technology is that they have not received the proper professional development training to understand how it can impact their students' learning (Kim, Kim, Lee, Spector, & Demeester, 2013). Even when attending these training sessions, some teachers cannot relate the technology to their classrooms as they are not given concrete examples of how to use it to enhance their content. They need to be given the time to experiment with it to understand the impact it will have on their students' education (An & Reigeluth, 2011).In other words, teachers need to be able to be able to see a connection between the technology, the pedagogy and the content they are teaching. Still, a major obstacle that prevents teachers from using technology more often and more effectively is lack of time and resources (An & Reigeluth, 2011). These impediments, however, can be overturned if only teachers changed their negative beliefs about technology, their behaviors toward using it in the classroom would be more positive. If they were willing to give technology a try in their own content area, they would see the benefits that it will bring to their students and they would even go as far as writing grants to ask for technology in their classroom.

I know how important technology is in the classroom as I use it daily and have seen how much my students have learned. They are able to research topics that support the projects they create. About a month ago, they were able to research the news to find factors that are negatively impacting our economy. Once they had found this, they proceeded to create a product that would boost our economy. They designed their products and presentations using various technological apps on their iPads and Chromebooks. My students and I are fortunate to be part of a school that is so supportive of technology in the classroom.

References

An, Y., & Reigeluth, C. (2011). Creating Technology-Enhanced, Learner-Centered Classrooms. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 54-62.

Jacobs, H. (2010). Curriculum 21 essential education for a changing world. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Kim, C., Kim, M., Lee, C., Spector, J., & Demeester, K. (2013). Teacher beliefs and technology integration. Teaching and Teacher Education, 76-85.

O'hara, S., & Pritchard, R. (2006). What is the impact of technology on learning. 1-4. Retrieved January 13, 2016, from http://www.education.com/reference/article/what­impact­technology­learning/

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (Expanded 2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Story Time with Toontastic

Cognition, Education and Technology

This summer, I learned quite a bit about technology in the classroom and how it can help our students. In order for me to truly understand how technology can help, our professor had to present us with articles that were for and against the tech. Articles such as that written by Matthew Wisnioski,  How digital technology is destroying your mind., allude to Susan Greenfield's book, in which she, 

"asserts that the digital revolution exploits our biological propensity for mindlessness. She cites laboratory studies finding that social networking and video gaming trigger dopamine in the same manner as junk food and Ecstasy...Because cyberspace lacks causal sequence, is devoid of immediate consequences and gives instant access to information without guidance, our attention spans shrink, deeper thinking declines and interpersonal bonds wither." 

Though there are quite many people who think just like Greenfield and uphold that technology will make people less intelligent, there are others who completely disagree. For example, in his article, How Digital Technology Has Changed the Brain, Taspcott notes that "scientists are beginning to document the traces that the Internet leaves on sensitive young brains. People who play a lot of action video games, for instance, process visual information more quickly than people who don't, according to a seminal 2003 article in Nature." 

Our class debate further strengthened my belief that technology is good for all of us if and when used appropriately. As educators, it is our job to ensure that we are properly teaching our students how they are supposed to use technology to get the most out of it. Also, technology can increase our higher order thinking skills because with it we are able to create new ideas from information we have synthesized. There are many websites and applications that have been created so that individuals can continue to develop their cognitive abilities, depending on their age. I have noticed this after having my child go on an interactive website where she learned how to write out her ABCs and read some basic words. 

As far as our culture is concerned, technology is embedded in it. A Huffington Post article expressed that "social networks -- and the gadgets they run on -- aren’t a distraction from real life, but a crucial extension of it.” We cannot run away technology. It will continue to follow us indefinitely from now on. Those who find that it is detrimental to our society, will not see it that way as long as they learn that it can actually be good for us. We just need to learn to use it the right way for the right reasons.

Most importantly, technology, especially in the classroom, can increase students' motivation. The Self Determination Theory says that students develop motivation when they are able to use technology which caters to the students' autonomy, relatedness and competence. I believe that if I continue to implement technology in my class, I will see my students' intrinsic motivation continue to develop.As a result, students' learning will increase and this will show that technology is actually good for our society because we are going to be using it appropriately.

I am glad I chose this track for my M.Ed because now I can truly make a difference in my students and their learning. I can't wait for the next Ed Tech class!