Reflective Blog Module 8

When choosing assessment methods to evaluate students' learning teachers should expand beyond the traditional objective test.  According to Howard Gardner's Theory of Intelligence (1999), students possess eight intelligences.  Objective tests do not and can not measure all of these intelligences such as body awareness/kinestic abilities. So for a teacher to limit their assessment to a mere objective test would be largely insufficient in many ways.  Likewise, objective tests fail to measure creativity.  According to Sternberg's Theory of Intelligence (1985), creativity is the ability to think and solve problems.  Many important people in history from Albert Einstein to Pablo Picasso were creative thinkers but this creativity would not be recognized on a standard objective test.  If students are diverse learners, than assessment should be diverse and give all types of learners time to shine.


A few unique assessment that my students and I enjoy using in class include:

1. Students teach a lesson
When students teach a lesson it allows them to be creative.  They can use a variety of technology to assist them including power point, digital storyboard, or a make a video.  Also, by teaching it they retain the material better and it really shows what they know.  My students recently taught a lesson on an assigned revolution in history.  Some topics included the French Revolution, Latin American Revolution, and American Revolution.  They each included a power point with a time line, key people and their significance, & causes and effects of the revolution.  They also had to include one acitivy to keep thier audience involved which ranged from videos, games, and simulations.  The students commented on how long it took them to make one lesson and how they remembered everything about the revolution so well for the test.  Before the test, they would ask each other last minute questions about the revolutions.  They became a learning community!  What objective test can measure this?

2. Blog
My students enjoy blogging on controverisal politcal topics. We recently blogged about whether or not women should have the same rights as men to fight in combat.  The students enjoyed debating andeven the shy students and the ESOL students were not so shy about joining the conversation.  The conversation became personal and sometimes included additioanl research.  Civic competancy was was developing in the students.  This can not be measured on an objective test, but is essential  for students living in a democracy.

a short video on the benefits of blogging

3. create an exhibit
My students recently created an ancient Greek and Roman art exhibit using their knowlege from our unit on Greece and Rome in teams.  They created their own art work in Greek and Roman style at the Art Cafe field trip.  Then they create plagues that explained more about Greek and Roman culture and then added information about famous Greeks and Romans. It was displayed in the media center.  They took pictures to post on our school website.  Taking on the role of a museam cureator allowed them to develop time managment skills and collaboration skills.  These are needed in the career world and cannot be assessed from a standard objective test.

4. class project
Last year my students completed Project Citizen.  Each student researched a public policy topic they were interested in.  They listened to each other's ideas and then decided to make a public policy to prevent animal abuse in Beaufort County.  They contacted state official about the policy, weighed the benefits and costs, and then presented to the Mayor.  This experience gave them a real-world experience.  They needed to dress up, practicing speaking skills, and put together a visually pleasing power point presentation.  These are all important career, life, and technology skills these students need in 21st learning that would not be present in an objective test.

To summarize, all of these assessmensts go beyond the traditional objective test. These assessments  provide an opportunity for students to use technology and develop 21st century learning skills, build job skills, civic competence, and/or communication skills which are not measured in objective tests.  They can help measure multiple intelligences, creativity, and problem solving.  Truly, educators should use a variety of assessments.

Reflective Blog- Module 6

What does a technology infused classroom look like?

There is not one clear answer to this question.  But here are some ideas. 


Microsoft Builds Technology infused school in W. Philadelphia.
West Philadelphia builds a technology infused school with the help of the Microsoft corporation.  The school emphasizes problem-solving and research.  The classrooms are non-traditional.  Each student has their own lap top so classes are mobile and help in different spots in the building.  Students use electronic cards to sign in for attendance, open their lockers, and view total calories on their lunch when they purchase it.  The culture of the school is modeled after the corporate culture of success where results matter.  Teachers and students have access to whiteboards.  Bill Gates believes are current schools are "obsolete" and this new model meets the needs of 21st century learners.

To learn more about this initiative please view the above video.


Learn Space:  Classroom of the Future
 A program called Learn Space offered their idea of the classroom of the future in a TES Exhibition in Olympia.  Their model emphasized learning stations with technology infused.  There was a station where students could collaborate inside and outside of the classroom using technology.  The investigate station offered an updated lab for experiments that included features like a document reader and technology to create real time graphs of data.  The art stations allowed for hands on artwork or the option of using a white board to electronically generate artwork.  At the create station students could use hand-held devices and computers to be productive.  Overall, the idea is that the classroom of the future will need to allow for diversity, adaptability, flexibility, and comfortability.  To view this classroom watch the following video

Students Fix Their Own Computers in Technology Infused Classrooms
In schools in Massachusetts, students participate in a program called "What's in the Box?".  This program shows students how to build computers and refurbish used computers.  The purpose of this program is to meet the need for workers with hands on technology skills in the future economy.  Similar programs to this in the Northwest part of the country exist.  One example is Students Recycling Used Technology.  For more details visit the following website:
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech012.shtml 

What do Teachers want in their own Technology infused classroom?
A program called New Century Schools House by educator David Warlock allows teachers to build their own technology infused classroom. One example of  of a technology infused classroom created by an educator entitled "Millennium Cave" included holographic images on wall panels.  On the other hand, another example produced by educator focused on bring the outside world to the classroom.  The idea is to have a motor coach that has a docking station equipped with video editing software, video conferencing options, wireless printing, internet, and so on.  Parents, students, and teachers could work from this station to show what was learned during field trips. To read an article about this topic visit:
lhttp://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech051.shtml

So what will my technology infused classroom look like?
 My classroom currently has a Promethean board (an interactive board).  This allows me to have interactive presentations.  For instance, the board comes with an interactive pen that allows us to write, highlight, and draw on presentations. Students love looking at primary documents and highlighting on the board.  The device also comes with individual hand-held  remotes that allow students to answer questions during lecture, take surveys and see polling results, and play games. 
My room also has three lap tops available for students to do research, search the web, or using microsoft word publishing features.  Sometimes I bring a COW (computers on wheel) from the media center and we have a full class set. 
I am currently writing a mini grant for my school district to get funds to pilot the use of kindles and ipads in my classroom.  Currently my school does not have access to these technology tools.  I would like kindles because my students will not use their books because they are simply too heavy and there are too many for them to carry around.  Kindles could help.  Lastly, i pads have so many features that could benefit my students.  I would like them to have i pads so I could directly give them assignments to do through i pads and save paper and reduce the amount of paper material they loose.

Module 4- Reflective Blog

Visual literacy and the internet can be helpful instructional tools that positively impact the learning process of the classroom.  According to Prensky (2001), video game play has now surpassed both newspaper and magazine reading among young males, the average student send 200,00 emails, and the average teenager spend 22,000 hours watching TV.  It is evident that students are learning from visual sources.  The 21st Century Skills of 2003 list visual literacy as one of the key skills for the future.  If educators are going to engage students in learning, educators need to create opportunities to include visual literacy and the internet in the classroom to promote critical thinking, decision making, and communication skills.  The options to include visual literacy and the internet in the classroom are numerous and include but are not limited to videography, web quests, virtual field trips, digital story boards, weblogs, discussion boards, and live news clips.  Using visuals and the internet can help learners develop spatial intelligences and analogical  thinking (Abersek 2008).

One visual thinking strategy that colleagues proposed was using videography.   I have never used videography in may classroom because  I am not an expert on taking videos and downloading them to the computer.  After reading some colleagues ideas I feel that I could try a couple of strategies.  One idea I have it to let out student interview fellow students about mental illness.  After looking at the film we could reflect on what the film reveals about people's perception of mental illness.  It would be interesting to see how accurate people's perceptions of mental illness are, recognize stereotypes people have about mental illness, the language people use to talk about the mentally ill, and the attitude presented.  Then my students could make their own videos to educate people about the mentally ill.

Besides using videography, I would like to try to use virtual field trips in my classrooms.  In the article Virtual Field Trips Open Doors for Multimedia Lesson by Kathleen Manso, a teacher, Scott Mandel gives testimony on how displays of Egyptian mummies and treasures of the British Museum virtual field trip inspired him and his students.  I would like to use virtual field trips to provide my students with visuals on the Palace of Versailles when we discuss the French Revolution.  So far, I have found that Homeworkspot.com  http://www.homeworkspot.com/fieldtrip/versailles.htm offers two websites that provide images of the Chateau to students.

As I went through this module, I realized I would like to expand my role of internet in the classroom. I would like to use the internt more often as a communication tool to connect my students to government officials, students outside of our school, and students abroad.  One idea for using the internet I have it to use Skype for Project Citizen.  The purpose of Project Citizen to to allow students to identify a problem in their community, research the problems, identify possible solutions and then create a public policy. Skype would allow my students a unique opportunity to have interviews with government officials and local, state, and national level.  Currently, my government students are working on researching and developing a public policy on youth obesity.  It is too costly for our students to travel to our state capital to interact with state representatives. It is too costly for our students to get face-to-face interaction with our state representatives.  It would also be helpful if my students could pitch their proposals to other teens to see what their response to the proposals may be. Clearly, the internet provides a diverse array of opportunities for learning.

References:

Abersek, M.K. (2008.  Visual literacy-One of the 21st Century literacies for science teaching and learning.  Problems of Education in the 21t Century, 5, 9-17.


For an awesome video on visual literacy check this out:  Visual Literacy Video