My Own Agency

What a cool tool!  After watching the Google Maps tutorial, I couldn’t wait to start making a lesson that incorporated this technology.  Since my previous position was in 8^th grade English, I made a creative writing lesson.  

The students would be the owners of their own travel agency.  They would be presented with the challenge of introducing and educating foreign visitors to a city/town of their choosing.  They would imagine that a group of individuals would be traveling to this place, and it is up to them to make their visit memorable. 

The students would need to create a brochure for their chosen city/town that would highlight some of its key features.  This brochure would coincide with their online map that shows the locations of these features.  They could include landmarks, popular eateries, educational factoids, and important locations such as police/fire stations.

The final part of their task would be to create a travel package.  In it, they would include lodging, travel costs, and an estimated budget needed to enjoy the locations featured on their brochure and map. 

Here is an example of a map that might be included in their final product...

View Mt. Clemens in a larger map

Podcasting

I chose to subscribe to this podcast because he seems to share many of my views on education. In addition, he understands the importance of educational media and often discusses their roles in the classroom. I saw this as a way to gain another perspective on the information that we are learning from this course.

Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley A. Fryer

“CCSS, TLE, Virtual School, and Education Reform Update”

This podcast follows Wesley A. Fryer and highlights his opinions and ideas surrounding current events in education. He is an educator and a coach and works with students as well as teachers to help them utilize technology in school. This week’s podcast included his feelings on the way that student performance is being directly linked to teacher performance to determine their effectiveness. The way teachers are being evaluated is changing in his area (OK), just like how things are changing here in Michigan.

Another topic of discussion during this podcast was his opinion on open licensing when it comes to educational resources. He made several great points of how it would be extremely beneficial to take advantage of open licensing to make text, curriculum and teaching resources available to anyone looking to utilize it.

Learning Unit Costs & Learning Theories

I’d like to start off by saying wow; that was a lot of information in a short chapter. Having said that, I decided on a fun activity for my “class” that would teach them about unit costs using instructional activities that adhere to three theories from the reading. This unit of instruction will be called “Puppy Chow Showdown”.

Overview:

I would divide the class into small groups of 4 or 5 students, and give them a budget of $20. They will also be given a list of ingredients and packaging materials needed to make Puppy Chow. Their goal is to make, package and market their Puppy Chow for sale in the cafeteria (proceeds to charity of course). The group whose business model profits the most money will be the winner.

Educational Outcome:

Among several other larger lessons, the goal of learning how to calculate unit costs will be reached. This will be accomplished by challenging each student to make their money stretch as far as possible. A list of ingredients composed of different prices, quantities and brands will challenge the students to calculate which combination will yield them the most Puppy Chow in the end.

How this lesson adheres to the theories:

Behavioral Learning Theory – One major aspect of this theory was the use of positive and negative reinforcement to modify behaviors. As this lesson progresses, students will have to make purchasing decisions. With each decision there is the possibility of saving money, thereby allowing the student an immediate reward. In addition to this form of reinforcement, there is also the competition aspect. The group that made the wisest purchasing decisions and developed the most cost efficient business model would be rewarded. For the other groups, their learning would take place upon the reveal of the winning group’s business model. As the chapter said, feedback that their answer was wrong would “reduce the incidence of incorrect responding” for future situations.


Cognitive Information Processing Theory – This theory places a large emphasis on the use of graphic diagrams and visual representations in addition to utilizing prior knowledge. This lesson utilizes tangible items and also provides them with many different examples for them to practice the new skill of calculating unit costs (which the text also described as important). Also, the tangible items will allow the students to make meaningful connections between their prior knowledge (simple mathematics) and the new skill.


Constructivism – This lesson’s main goal of “create a business model that will yield you the largest profit” is a high level, complex learning goal as described in the text. Also, this task relates to all four of the bulleted points listed on page 41; the lesson is authentic to the discipline in which they are learning, it provides an opportunity for collaboration and multiple perspectives, the learners set their own goals and regulate their own learning, and the end result encourages learners to reflect on what and how they are learning.



Bonus Material; Here’s a recipe for Puppy Chow. This stuff is amazing!!!
 

Mario

Leap Mario (Classic game) | Play more games Just use the arrows...

Wheaton Party House

View Larger Map My old college friends and I were just telling old stories about "The Wheaton Party House". I thought I'd look it up and make it my post. Good times!!!

Awareness Test

Our Trip to Arch Rock

New Car, Same Driver

When I first read the scenario about the classroom and teacher that were given the laptops, I started to daydream; imagining how much of a blessing that would be.  I imagined all of the different ways it could impact my class, improve performance, create buy in/responsibility, and create a sense of equality among my students.  My bubble was immediately busted when the scenario told me to assume that it had no effect on the instructional practices.  It really is a shame, because I have seen this sort of thing play out in real life.  Great new technology is made available, and its novelty quickly wears off and it is eventually phased out. 

In a classroom where the introduction of new media has little effect on instructional practices, one must ask “why?”  Several factors that I could identify right away are; 1. Teachers can be resistant to change, 2. Some teachers might have difficulty operating the computers, 3. The teachers might not have been given guidance on how to incorporate the technology into their curriculum, and 4. The resources being utilized in combination with the media might have poor instructional quality/value.  It is really easy to imagine each one of these factors playing out in a real classroom.  Everyone can imagine the teacher that is set in their ways, has a solid curriculum that took years to develop and feels that new media would just tamper with a system that isn’t broken (in their eyes).

Although, if one was to attempt to change this teachers attitude and make the incorporation of a new media an effective one, how would they do it?  How would the factors listed above be mitigated?  I have a few suggestions.  First of all, I would hold weekly staff meetings where each teacher would bring their assigned laptop.  Every week, we would cover a new resource/website/tool that would be useful if incorporated into their curriculum.  We would discuss how these could be used and hold tutorials for those who struggle with getting started.  Each staff meeting would also include time for teachers to “poke” around on their computer in the company of others.  This would be a great way to encounter common usage questions that can be quickly answered, rather than running into them alone. 

The second strategy I would use to change the impact of these computers on the instructional practices would be to evaluate the process the teachers are using.  In what way does the teacher present the material?  How is their message being delivered?  If their process doesn’t leave room for the incorporation of a new technology, then it wouldn’t make sense to use it.  In order for the technology to have a positive impact on the practices, you must first decide what in their process needs to be changed.  You cannot assume that you can improve performance by the utilization of computers alone.  As Berlo said, “…it is the process that is central and the media, though important, are secondary.”  Assuming that giving every student a computer will increase performance is like assuming that giving them a nicer pen will improve their spelling.

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Social Bookmarking and Defining our Field

After this week’s lesson and activities, I find myself asking the same question as before, “Where have I been?”  I used to think I was pretty in touch with available technology when it came to teaching, but as it turns out there is an entire world of cool new things that I have never heard of; and the list keeps getting longer.

This week, I found out that there is a tool available that would not only make MY life easier, but would help out my students a great deal.  Social bookmarking solves issues that I didn’t even know I was having.  For starters, I was a fan of the old school way of saving websites.  I had my favorites organized into folders based on what I used them for.  I thought this was the best way to do it, but I was wrong.  Social bookmarking is beneficial because it doesn’t only allow me to access my favorites from anywhere, but it organizes them using tags.  As a teacher this is a huge help.  Now I can do research at home and be able to access sites that I’ve discovered from school.  With tagging, these sites can be categorized by topic, subject, etc.  Also, with the social aspect I can link up with other teachers and find out what they have discovered.  We could share sites relating to the political aspects of education, new teaching strategies, upcoming seminars, and a million other topics.   

Not only does this help make my life easier, but it can help out my students.  One giant problem that social bookmarking has solved is conducting effective research.  During research sessions, my students would immediately jump onto Google, type in their topic and start selecting sites from the top of the list to read.  Social bookmarking is so much better, because now students can find RELEVANT sites quickly.  These sites have been deemed useful by real people, not computers.  Other users help decide which sites relate to their topic the best.  Also, during their research they might find themselves branching off into new areas of their topic that they didn’t even know existed.  This is the definition of a “teachable moment”.  For each class, I might start a list of sites and each student could share what they have found during their research.  As soon as the research starts, the database starts to grow, making more and more relevant sites rise to the top of the garbage that is available online.

Switching gears a little bit, the first chapter of the textbook really helped me to understand what it is that this field is all about.  Some of the points made spoke directly to me as an educator and really defined what I pictured this field to be.  This chapter made references to exactly what I plan to do in my classroom using the information I gain from this course.  They mentioned that technology is there to “facilitate learning” and we as teachers play a role in “improving performance” using technological resources.  This is exactly what I had in mind when I heard the definition Instructional Design and Technology. 

One thing that I learned about the field that I was not aware of was how previous definitions of the field placed a large emphasis on the “process” of problem solving and learning.  I was under the impression that it had always relied a great deal on the utilization of media/hardware/software.  The history and evolution of the field was something that I never considered.  Another thing that I learned was that I, like many others, have been confusing instructional media for instructional technology.    

I feel as though the changing definition of our field is a perfect representation of what our field actually is.  The technology used is constantly changing and evolving.  The way we interact with the technology is changing.  What we ask of technology is changing.  What a perfect struggle there is now in labeling it.  It seems only fitting that there is no correct answer and the label continues to change.  Regardless of the label that we place on it, the goal remains to “bring about more effective learning”.  The way students access and use information is changing  and we as teachers need to do everything we can to keep up.

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