The End

Through out this class I have learned many different examples for how I can integrate technology into my classroom.  I also have acquired the knowledge to create my own examples on how to integrate the technology. I am no longer afraid that I will not know how to integrate this knowledge into a classroom.  While I am not a professional integrator, I will have many resources at my fingertips to help me out.

All Shall be Equal

Technology in classrooms can lead to games in the classroom.  These games are beneficial because they teach the skills that help the children later in life.  Also it gives the student the ability to concentrate on multiple items of the game at once.  This ability will help the student multitask in later careers.  Also problem solving software inspire the children to learn the content by giving them incentive to learn.  This incentive is to win the activity and gain the satisfaction that they won.  The problem solving software may allow them to look at pictures from different angles so they can learn to manipulate the items that they are using.  The educational software at is being used in today's classrooms are also yielding similar results.  According to Morrison and Lowther (2010) they are using animations with tutorials to engage the students.  Some drill and practice software uses bright images to catch the students attention.  A benefit from drill and practice software is that when used repetitively it can lead to memorization, helping the student to retain information.  The problem is is that some teachers only use the software once or twice; this will not be helpful to the student. Keys to choosing the correct software is highlighted in Figure 11.1 in our book.  First you should make sure that the content the program is using is correct.  Otherwise your students are learning the wrong information.  Next you should test the program to see how easy it is to use.  If it's difficult to use the students might get so caught up in the program that they never learn the content.  Research based instructional activities are necessary to see if the program gives incentive to the learning and has done specific research to make the program interesting and engaging for the students.  Next you should make sure that the program follows the objectives you want to comply with.  If the program is for algebra but you are teaching a geometry class, then maybe it would be best to find another program to use in your classroom.  Finally you should make sure that the program gives students an assessment that they can clearly understand and link to their stage of learning.  As usual you need to make sure the program fits within the objectives.  You will need to make sure that the computer functions follow along with the lesson.  The software should give information on the content that is to be practiced within the program.  Also it should provide feedback to the student.  The feedback could be a review if the student cannot figure out the answer or a prize at the end for doing well in the software practice, such as a new level.  Also the feedback should be able to tell you whether the answer is right or wrong.  There may not be a results presentation since the student is just practicing information and not really trying to answer a question.  You should examine what to do during the computer use before deciding what is needed to be done before computer use and after computer use.

There is much preparation that is needed before a computer lesson can begin.  The teacher will have to prepare any information that is to be given during the lesson.  Handouts will have to be made, and proper examples on how to use the technology should be made before the first lesson using this sort of technology.  If your students will be saving their projects you should make a folder for them to easily save.  Also it would help the time problem if everything was open and ready for them to use on the computer and information was easily accessibly through documents or bookmarks.  It is best to evaluate your lesson plan to best decide where the computer comes in.  For instance, you should not start off with no information and go directly to the computers without preparation.  Sometimes the best place for the computer will come in the middle so that you can properly prepare the students for computer use in the beginning and then assess the computer use at the end of the lesson.  It is possible for students to have equal access to technology with only three computers in the classroom.  These lessons should be group lessons so that the students will gather around the computers together instead of individual lessons that will lead to some students getting more computer time than others.  After you separate the students into groups, you can have them rotate to and from the computers for a set amount of time.  Some students will gather the information needed to work on the computer and then will rotate to the computer to do the work.  These students should be supplied with the information or another part of the lesson to compensate for the what the students on the computer are using.

Making Writing Easier... NOT!

Word Processing is a program where students can write essays, book reviews, create newspapers, and publish fliers.  While some people think that all they have to do is hit the spell check key, it is still as involved as writing as ever been.  Word processing does not make writing easier and anyone who has ever turned in a paper and received a rough copy back that looked like it had been in a gun fight knows this.  There are many tools that help improve papers and make it easier to manipulate the text, but it is not making the thought process easier.  The student should still have to write an outline to gather and organize their thoughts and then put "pen to paper" or type up their essay.  Word processing allows you to underline, bold, italicize and even highlight the text and this looks nicer than handwriting an essay with chicken scratch.  This process is even being used in elementary schools, leaving high school teachers anxious to find more demanding activities for their students.  One example is writing an essay.  This may sound simple to a high school student but one way for a teacher to make it more complex would be to have the student create a graphic organizer as an outline for their essay first.  A high school student may be challenged by having to do extensive research from various sources, that they need to cite, for the essay.  These are various steps that can be included in order to add some extra "jumps" for advanced students.  Another activity for middle school or high school students would be to create a brochure for a country.  If it is a Spanish 2 class, it would be beneficial to have the students locate information and pictures to use word processing to craft a brochure to turn in.  A word document helps the students to be creative.  Individual students can use the highlighting tool or the font size tool to place emphasis to parts of their brochure, or add titles to their papers.  The needs of a student are addressed through the spell check tool that can help them learn reviewing techniques as well as explain to them what is wrong with a sentence grammatically.  While Word does not always catch all grammar errors, the students have a chance to look over their work.  Also the student can nurse his/her creativity through special fonts or colors within their text.

Another program that can help students organize their information is a spreadsheet, which deals with subject labels and numbers within those subjects.  Students could use spreadsheet programs to collect information about the weather such as how cold it was in the month of December and then using those numbers to calculate an average for each week.  Also the students could count the number of blue/red/orange/yellow M&Ms in a back and then use a spreadsheet to calculate the percentage of each color from the bag.  This can all be done with the use of formulas.  A visual aid for this data collected and relationships shown could be a pie graph for the percentages of M&Ms in a bag and a bar graph could be used to show the averages per week for the temperature for the month of December.  I think it would be possible to create an interactive model if you give the students a spreadsheet with formulas already in place and all they have to do is input the numbers and then interpret the data.  For the example of M&Ms you could have a spread sheet that has the colors and the formula to calculate the percentages, then the students could go through and count the M&Ms and input that number into the spreadsheet and even add a graph.  Then the students could interpret that there were more blue M&Ms than red ones or vice versa.

Both of these programs would be great for the manipulating of text and numbers.  I'm not quite sure how I, as a Spanish teacher would have the students use them, but I'm bound to find that resource if not in this class then throughout my teaching career from other sources.

Becoming an Effective Teacher

Throughout this class we have read about spreadsheets, word documents and databases.  All of these things are subjects I had been practicing for years.  What I didn't realize was all the things I could do with these programs that would collaborate with my teaching to make an effective learning experience for the students that I hope to have one day in a classroom.  Spreadsheets don't make my job easier, but they make it efficient and easier to pull up the grades for students, instead of playing follow the line to see which assignments the student is missing.  Word Documents don't make the writing process easier but it does help to manipulate the material a little faster. While I'm still trying to figure out Microsoft Access, I know I can use it to keep my student's records straight and easy to find.

I have found so many resources on the Internet for teachers.  Some of my favorites include Lesson Plans for Teachers and Ediscio Flashcards.  Everyday I take part in this class I discover more and more resources that help a teacher accentuate their class with technology and knowledge.  I now have so many ideas in my head for lesson plans and how to integrate technology that I hope it all stays up there.   Delicious is going to help me keep all of my websites straight and the tutorials that we have received from Blackboard will forever help me to get a grasp on programs that I've never used before.

During the rest of this class I hope to gain even more resources and more knowledge on how to be an effective teacher and I am well on my way.

Multimedia and Graphic Organizers

There are a number of ways that students can use multimedia for projects.  In my classroom, I plan to use Microsoft PowerPoint to accompany a student’s presentation.  In order to do so I will need to evaluate the lesson plan for the day and make sure that PowerPoint is the correct multimedia tool to use.  Also we can use digital recording devices to add into a multimedia presentation so that they can record themselves and put it right into the presentation.  For example, I plan to teach Spanish and this is a very verbal subject.  If the student is presenting a verb they may record themselves using the word in a sentence or how to pronounce the verb in conjugated form and then transfer this audio file into a PowerPoint presentation that they will show the class.  As said before, Microsoft PowerPoint is good for multimedia presentations.  Also, the program that we use for our EDTC 5010 class, Voicethread is also a good program for this purpose.  Other programs mentioned in our text include Windows Movie maker, or the Apple alternative, iMovie, as well as Adobe Flash that can be used to have animated features in a presentation (Morrison, Lowther, 2010.)  It is important to place limits on how students use multimedia for the main reason that you want to make sure that an entire presentation is not pictures or movies.  If you wish to have information in written form then it is important to make sure that students do not overflow the presentation with multimedia.  You also want to have classroom rules that demonstrate what to do with your multimedia so that the students do not get off task recording their voice making funny noises.

From the chapter in our book, Integrating Technology into the Classroom, a good way to assess how well your students understand the material that is being covered is to have them create a graphic organizer such as a flowchart, matrix or a spider organizer.  All of these can be used to relate certain topics to details that are being taught in the classroom.  For a History Teacher, one could have the students create a timeline in order to show that they know when events took place.  Also, the teacher could have the students create a spider organizer to relate one event in history to a series of repercussions.  This series of activities to understand how well a student catches on to a topic can also catch them if they don’t understand a concept.  If the student cannot create a coherent graphic organizer nor has difficulty creating the organizer then they may not understand what is going on in the class.   Using the history example, if a student cannot place the appropriate details to the main topic of the spider organizer it is a sign of failure to fully understand.  In spirit of using a graphic organizer, the students can also use one to brainstorm ideas for papers or projects.  Writing a paper can be difficult for some students as they don’t know where to start or where to go with their ideas.  A graphic organizer can be used to pick main ideas and then develop them into details.  For example a student can use a series model to develop a chain of events in their paper from the main ideas that they brainstorm.

Using multimedia in a presentation can be fun but must first be well thought out which comes from brainstorming.  Graphic organizers can assess how a student understands the material in the classroom as well as help them organize their thoughts.

Games Can Be Helpful Too!

It is important to learn about all technology devices even when they change so much because it is good to know all of your options for your lesson plans.  Previous Chapters in the textbook, Because Teaching Matters, planning includes figuring out what technology best works for the lesson and the classroom in which it is being taught (2010.)  Some teachers prefer to have both desktop and mobile components but both have their advantages and disadvantages. Desktop computers are big enough so that one screen can easily be shared by a large group of students.  The problem, however, is that it is heavy and not easy to move.  This is where mobile components, or laptops, come into play.  The laptop can easily be carried to any place in the classroom because of its small size. The mobility requires a way to keep the laptop charged so that student must always sit by an electrical outlet or the card, limiting mobility.  There is a higher risk for breaking the laptops though because students can carry them anywhere.  A disadvantage to the laptops is that it limits how many students can be in the group because the screen is not big enough for a large group to view.  

Most of the devices that are used in the classroom are small enough that they can be carried anywhere.  The classroom can be taken on the go using digital media players/recorders that can plug into any laptop or computer making transferring and sharing the media files easier.  Digital cameras can become expensive with the more options you add to them.  Usually there are cameras that have video and picture capabilities in one device, making them cheaper.  Also, digital cameras have more memory in them than regular film cameras, which are slowly becoming extinct.  The benefits of these devices greatly outweigh the price/quantity issue when you take into account how much more open the classroom can become with their use.

In order to know which device to use, it is important to take into account the software that is being used with the devices.  The computers/laptops also have software and it is important to evaluate your lesson plan and figure out which software would best assist the student in their learning.  If the lesson includes a writing assignment then it would probably be a good idea to use a word processing program.  This program can assist them in line spacing and help them catch their grammar errors.  Picking the software heavily depends on the lesson and the classroom/students.

Learning how to use spreadsheet software or database software may seem useless or less important for a fourth grade students but I believe it would actually benefit the student more to learn the ins and outs.  The younger students may not need to know the details for the program, but learning the basics can lead them to have greater success in later greats.  For instance, if you teach the student in fourth grade how to enter numbers and formulas into the spreadsheet then when they are in seventh grade and the teacher asks them to create a graph, they already know the basics and skip right to learning the more complicated functions of the spreadsheet program.

These software tools can even help the students to be more prepared for state testing.  The No Child Left behind is a testing system to determine the level of students.  Software that can improve student testing is a drill and practice software.  Much like a state test, the drill and practice software gives them one question at a time, increasing the level of difficulty until the student reaches the end of the practice.  The process tools software gives them one question at a time but helps the student, step by step, on how to solve the program which will help them when it’s time to take a state test and they need to work through the problems on their own.

All of this technology helps the students to improve their learning which will then improve their skills in later grades and in later testing.

Advantages of Technology in Schools

There are some concerns in our public schools with the implementation of technology on a regular basis in our classrooms.  I am a big supporter of technology in our schools because with the foundation of classroom learning and teachers that are trained for this new technology, our students could take learning to a whole new level.  For some teachers, they are not sure how to go about the addition of technology in their classrooms.  Some may view the computers as a place to research for a project.  Computers are not only for research purposes anymore.  There are many programs today that can include building a blog for instance, writing a story, or even creating presentations.  According to Morrison and Lowther (2010) even those drill and practice sheets that teachers like to use are on a computer and can be good for the students to learn the ways of a computer.  A lot of examples of technology in classrooms may point to doing research on the computer because the World Wide Web is a place where information is abundant.  

To me, group work is most beneficial for students because they learn to take on leadership roles.  One computer for each child may lead to seclusion of information.  If there are four students for every one computer, this information is going through four different minds and can be interpreted different ways for the task at hand.  This all may seem very time consuming, and it will be at first.  But once the foundation is laid down for a lesson plan, it will get easier.

The integrated lesson plan or NTeQ is used to combine computer functions with class objectives (Morrison and Lowther, 2010).  The objectives should be decided first and then you should use them to decide which functions of the computer would be beneficial to your students.  This plan is important so that you the teacher know where you want to lead the class and how you are going to center the lesson on the computer.  Then you can help the students to be clear on what is expected in the lesson and what the goals to be reached are.  There are many aspects of your class that you must look at to decide how to arrange the plan.  For one, how long each day can your students sit in front of a computer and not get restless (Morrison and Lowther, 2010). Using technology to execute a lesson plan should never be the only aspect to the lesson plan.  You should first decide what is expected from the lesson, to make sure the objectives are clear and what to do after the lesson to establish that goals that have been reached.  A computer cannot replace every lesson.  It depends on what style of learning works best and how well it can be related to the lesson.  Sometimes,  Using graph paper and a pencil may be the best way to learn depending on a students learning style.

Navigating around the web can be difficult for first time users.  Teachers can teach their students ways to use the web efficiently so time is not wasted on search results that have nothing to do with the lesson.  The Boolean search is one way that students can search efficiently.  If there is not time for the students to produce their own search results, the teacher can provide them with a list of sites that they themselves have found.  This is one way to make sure that the students are staying on task instead of getting lost in all the information.  This is usually not a problem because schools have developed networks that block certain websites and sometimes have academic programs that avoid opening a web site at all.  Another way to use the computer and web efficiently is to use Google docs.  As a teacher, this is a place where you can manage your student’s projects and your own paperwork.  If a student has lost an assignment, they can log on to the class website and be transferred to Google docs to print the assignment.  That means no more lost time handing out extra assignments.

Teachers can also use e-mail to communicate with the parents about problems in the classroom or events that are coming up.  For parents and busy family members, there are video cameras that teachers can connect directly to the Internet so that these members do not miss out on an important presentation or play of the student (Morrison and Lowther, 2010.)

As you can see, there are many advantages and disadvantages to having technology in the classroom.  In order to succeed in using this technology, certain training and outlines must be created so that the children may further excel in their education and teachers may contribute to their profession by working out the kinks in integrated lesson plans.

References: Many of the concepts are from the below source.  Examples and opinions are my own.

Morrison, G. R., & Lowther, D. L. (2010). Integrating computer technology into the classroom. Boston: Pearson.