Takeaways
1. To be flexible in the classroom, especially when working with other colleagues and technology
2. Be aware of your misconceptions and be willing to change to mold to the new view
3. Working with technology is a great assessment tool and way of keeping track of student learning
4. Technology is a great way to engage students in learning (even when the content may not be very exciting)
Suggestions
1. Collaborate with teachers in classrooms before sending students into the field-make sure everyone is on the same page.
2. More structure to the class-more content being learned (Maybe some more group projects and presentations)
3. Suggestion for other teachers-always try out technology before trying it out on others
4. Keep track of our learning and progress more closely. I think the Thursday Roundups were a great idea but I think they would have been even greater if we were required to look at them, maybe post a comment or two.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
My Personal Learning Environment Reflection
How has your understanding of personal learning environments evolved?
Looking back at the first week, I truly had no idea what my Personal Learning Environment would look like. I also had no idea what it really was. I think that my understanding has evolved into more of a learning experience that is still very active even in this last week. I am still learning, my understanding is still evolving. I have learned more about what to expect in my own learning environment and learned it is simply that: a learning environment. I have learned that we make our Personal Learning Environment our own. We learn in different ways and we show that with these PLEs. I think that I have learned that we can use this however we want to in the ways of learning. I think that I have learned that it is important to guide learning in this environment such as Wendy’s push for me to collaborate with people outside of our class. I think that these parts of the assignment are very important and should not be overlooked. I have seen the importance of collaborating with others and now see how I can do the same for my own students. I have also learned that it is important to find other tools that you are not familiar with and incorporate them into the PLE. When I first started I chose a topic that interested me (dog training) and I see now the importance of relevant and authentic topics for my own students.
What next steps could be taken to implement personal learning environments in the classroom?
I think that the first step to implement PLEs into the classroom would be the issue of safety. I think that as a teacher we are responsible for educating our students in the safety concerns of the internet. The next step would be to choose a topic. I chose something that is important to me and therefore I worked really hard on this project. I see the importance of loving your topic or at least having an interest in it. I think that this is also very important for students. I see just how much I truly learned about different technology and collaborating by doing something I love. The next step would be to guide their learning, and I think that this would be kind of difficult but it was done well in our class. Each week we had a guided discussion on different aspects and then each week I would go out and find relevant sources for my PLE. I think that the next step would be assessment and that is what I will talk about in the next question.
In what ways can we evaluate PLEs?
I believe that this is the most difficult part of the whole assignment. I mean we have to show growth and so I think that the best way to do this is a pass/fail kind of thing because I think that every student’s work will be very different. So we have to judge whether they truly put in an effort to learn about their topic. I think that we should evaluate their work according to the guidelines that we put forth throughout the project and see how they met each of these things. I think that the way they organize things is also important and so we can look at their organization and see how they progressed. I think that a blog is also a great way to see their progress because you can require or suggest that they do some kind of reflection once and a while and that is a great way to see progress.
Looking back at the first week, I truly had no idea what my Personal Learning Environment would look like. I also had no idea what it really was. I think that my understanding has evolved into more of a learning experience that is still very active even in this last week. I am still learning, my understanding is still evolving. I have learned more about what to expect in my own learning environment and learned it is simply that: a learning environment. I have learned that we make our Personal Learning Environment our own. We learn in different ways and we show that with these PLEs. I think that I have learned that we can use this however we want to in the ways of learning. I think that I have learned that it is important to guide learning in this environment such as Wendy’s push for me to collaborate with people outside of our class. I think that these parts of the assignment are very important and should not be overlooked. I have seen the importance of collaborating with others and now see how I can do the same for my own students. I have also learned that it is important to find other tools that you are not familiar with and incorporate them into the PLE. When I first started I chose a topic that interested me (dog training) and I see now the importance of relevant and authentic topics for my own students.
What next steps could be taken to implement personal learning environments in the classroom?
I think that the first step to implement PLEs into the classroom would be the issue of safety. I think that as a teacher we are responsible for educating our students in the safety concerns of the internet. The next step would be to choose a topic. I chose something that is important to me and therefore I worked really hard on this project. I see the importance of loving your topic or at least having an interest in it. I think that this is also very important for students. I see just how much I truly learned about different technology and collaborating by doing something I love. The next step would be to guide their learning, and I think that this would be kind of difficult but it was done well in our class. Each week we had a guided discussion on different aspects and then each week I would go out and find relevant sources for my PLE. I think that the next step would be assessment and that is what I will talk about in the next question.
In what ways can we evaluate PLEs?
I believe that this is the most difficult part of the whole assignment. I mean we have to show growth and so I think that the best way to do this is a pass/fail kind of thing because I think that every student’s work will be very different. So we have to judge whether they truly put in an effort to learn about their topic. I think that we should evaluate their work according to the guidelines that we put forth throughout the project and see how they met each of these things. I think that the way they organize things is also important and so we can look at their organization and see how they progressed. I think that a blog is also a great way to see their progress because you can require or suggest that they do some kind of reflection once and a while and that is a great way to see progress.
Myths, Challenges and the Future
Some of the myths that I have believed before entering an actual classroom is that since we are in a “technology” time period the students will be “experts.” I believe that this is a misconception that many people fall into. I believe that part of these misconceptions come from our previous experience. I have been told many times that when I enter the classroom many of my students will know more about technology than I do. I am in a second grade classroom this semester and we are working on a different technology class. My group an I had many different plans for these students for the semester, such as blogging, podcasts, public service announcements etc. When we first started in the classroom we hit our first road block, which was that students were not experts in technology and we had to start from the very beginning. I just think that we believe students are much more advanced than they might actually be in the real classroom.
A challenge that I have experienced in this same classroom is the time it takes to execute a project using technology. We are using blogs in the same second grade classroom that I spoke of previously and there is a lot more that goes into the process than we saved time for. The students are having a lot of issues typing and spelling on the blog, they had to make their blog, decorate it and find creative titles for their posts. It took a lot longer than we anticipated which made it harder for us to teach our lesson. We also found that it was time consuming because of all the distractions online. I think this could be taken care of in our own classroom more effectively because the students would respect us more as their teachers. Another challenge in the classroom are the websites that are blocked. When we first started this project in the second grade classroom we had about three different blogging websites that we believed would work in the classroom. We did not have an opportunity to try out any of these websites first before going into the classroom so when we tried them for the first time none of them worked. I thought we would be fine because they are educational websites such as “Edublogs,” “Edmodo” and “KidBlog.” I think this is both a myth and a challenge that we will continue facing in the classroom because we will always hit these roadblocks and have to go to plan B or plan C or plan D and so on.
The future is always fun to look into especially for my own classroom. I am frightened to think about it but super excited at the same time. In the future, I will know not to go into a classroom unprepared, I will try out websites beforehand and make sure they are not blocked. I have also learned that in the future I will not just assume my students are technology experts, I will know that we can all learn more together. As part of this class I have also learned how time consuming these projects can be, so I have learned to be patient. I see how long it has taken me to develop my Personal learning Environment and how it may take a student longer to construct an authentic assignment.
Looking at the horizon report was interesting, before this class I did not even know it existed. It is very interesting to look at the technology that will be part of my future classroom. I really enjoyed listening to all the explanations and discussion in the live session because it is always better for me to hear and see examples. I think that it is also intimidating to see some of the technology tools that will be part of our classroom because it is a lot of new information to learn. Augmented reality has to be the most intimidating but a really awesome tool. I think that this is very interesting and to me seems to be something from the future. I really look forward to the technological advances that I will see during my teaching career and how it may impact my own teaching.
A challenge that I have experienced in this same classroom is the time it takes to execute a project using technology. We are using blogs in the same second grade classroom that I spoke of previously and there is a lot more that goes into the process than we saved time for. The students are having a lot of issues typing and spelling on the blog, they had to make their blog, decorate it and find creative titles for their posts. It took a lot longer than we anticipated which made it harder for us to teach our lesson. We also found that it was time consuming because of all the distractions online. I think this could be taken care of in our own classroom more effectively because the students would respect us more as their teachers. Another challenge in the classroom are the websites that are blocked. When we first started this project in the second grade classroom we had about three different blogging websites that we believed would work in the classroom. We did not have an opportunity to try out any of these websites first before going into the classroom so when we tried them for the first time none of them worked. I thought we would be fine because they are educational websites such as “Edublogs,” “Edmodo” and “KidBlog.” I think this is both a myth and a challenge that we will continue facing in the classroom because we will always hit these roadblocks and have to go to plan B or plan C or plan D and so on.
The future is always fun to look into especially for my own classroom. I am frightened to think about it but super excited at the same time. In the future, I will know not to go into a classroom unprepared, I will try out websites beforehand and make sure they are not blocked. I have also learned that in the future I will not just assume my students are technology experts, I will know that we can all learn more together. As part of this class I have also learned how time consuming these projects can be, so I have learned to be patient. I see how long it has taken me to develop my Personal learning Environment and how it may take a student longer to construct an authentic assignment.
Looking at the horizon report was interesting, before this class I did not even know it existed. It is very interesting to look at the technology that will be part of my future classroom. I really enjoyed listening to all the explanations and discussion in the live session because it is always better for me to hear and see examples. I think that it is also intimidating to see some of the technology tools that will be part of our classroom because it is a lot of new information to learn. Augmented reality has to be the most intimidating but a really awesome tool. I think that this is very interesting and to me seems to be something from the future. I really look forward to the technological advances that I will see during my teaching career and how it may impact my own teaching.
Collaborating Safely (Students)
For the purposes of this project I went out and tried to connect with others in my field of study. I looked for different forums and found a few that interested me. I think that this is somewhat different than what I will do in my own classroom because I am an adult and if I come across something that is not safe I know to get out of that website or forum but it is different when you have a classroom full of students. One obstacle that I may face are the school wide restrictions on different websites so I think that this will partly keep them safe but also keep them out of useful information that they might need for their project. I think that I will make sure to educate my students on the importance of safety on the internet and how to spot something suspicious. I created the lesson plan on teaching Kindergarteners the safety concerns and how to avoid those safety issues but I do not think that will prepare them for everything. I think that I will have an easier time finding educational forums that will be on topic and safe for students to use. I think in my own classroom I will make sure to screen the websites and forums before students are allowed to visit and participate. I will also educate the parents of my students in the safety concerns of the internet so they are aware of them as well.
Another concern that I may face in my own classroom is the fear of collaboration. I think that this was my main concern when I was starting out. It really took courage to reach out and talk on the forums. I think that it was interesting and so useful, once I faced my fear, but I think it might be even harder for some of my students. I have always been afraid to put myself out on the internet, on my blogs, wikis etc. So I will work even harder to help my students through this fear by showing them my own work on the internet and talking to them about facing my own fears. I think that it is important to show students my weaknesses so that they can see how I overcome and how they can as well.
Another concern that I may face in my own classroom is the fear of collaboration. I think that this was my main concern when I was starting out. It really took courage to reach out and talk on the forums. I think that it was interesting and so useful, once I faced my fear, but I think it might be even harder for some of my students. I have always been afraid to put myself out on the internet, on my blogs, wikis etc. So I will work even harder to help my students through this fear by showing them my own work on the internet and talking to them about facing my own fears. I think that it is important to show students my weaknesses so that they can see how I overcome and how they can as well.
Connecting to others
I posted this on my training blog a few weeks ago but I realized that I should post this on here as well because it connects to the rest of the reflections:
I have to say that this class has made me more bold. I am not usually one to try to connect with others. I am more of a passive learner and observer. I am now working on this fear of connection and working towards better understanding in my training techniques. After this week's session in class I was motivated to connect to many more people so I started with online forums.
I found a good one (it seems) and I am starting to participate and connect. The forum is called Dog training and Health Forum. I am just getting started and I will let you know what I think about this and what I can learn from others about training my silly dog. I hope that I can also give some advice from my experiences as well.
I have also started participating in message boards on Animals Planet's "It's Me or the Dog." I am very excited about this because I believe that a lot of these people have similar training ideals as I do. I like the idea of positive training techniques that Victoria Stillwell uses in her training techniques.
I am also using my Twitter account to connect to the outside world. I have started following several different training experts and people in my training world.
I have to say that this class has made me more bold. I am not usually one to try to connect with others. I am more of a passive learner and observer. I am now working on this fear of connection and working towards better understanding in my training techniques. After this week's session in class I was motivated to connect to many more people so I started with online forums.
I found a good one (it seems) and I am starting to participate and connect. The forum is called Dog training and Health Forum. I am just getting started and I will let you know what I think about this and what I can learn from others about training my silly dog. I hope that I can also give some advice from my experiences as well.
I have also started participating in message boards on Animals Planet's "It's Me or the Dog." I am very excited about this because I believe that a lot of these people have similar training ideals as I do. I like the idea of positive training techniques that Victoria Stillwell uses in her training techniques.
I am also using my Twitter account to connect to the outside world. I have started following several different training experts and people in my training world.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
What My Personal Learning Environment Means to Me!
So the assignment this week was to work on a concept map that pulled together the idea of a Personal Learning Environment. At the beginning of this project I had NO IDEA how a personal learning environment actually worked. Now I have learned more about the idea and my own PLE is taking shape. So speaking of shapes here is my concept map of a personal learning environment means to me.
Personal Learning Environment Concept Map
Personal Learning Environment Concept Map
Symbaloo
This is a great website that I learned about a year ago in my first technology class. I did not really delve into the possibilities that this tool could have in my classroom or in my own internet surfing. I chose this resource to organize my PLE because it is colorful and fun. i think that it could easily be incorporated into an elementary classroom. I started my own account a couple of weeks ago to start organizing and now I am hooked. I like how easy it is to use and work with. I have added a lot more content to this for myself besides the couple of things I have for my PLE. I am still getting used to it but I think it is working really well for my purposes. Here is a link to my Symbaloo webpage. Have fun exploring my links!
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