QR_Resources_For_Parents

PowerPoint

I created a Power Point presentation to give resources for our parents. I developed QR codes for the most used websites that we use both inside and outside the classroom. Students can also download this presentation to their IPads, and use the QR codes for shortcuts to access those websites. I used the website, http://www.qrstuff.com to create the QR codes on the slides.

NearPod Activities

When you log into NearPod.com, you can sign in with your google account (again, each student have their own accounts). Then click on join, and enter the pins below for each activity. Each student will have this app on their school IPads. It’s also a free app if they need to access these activities at home on their mobile devices. Students can also use this app to create their own activities.

Motion in Ocean activity: DXNBH

Constructive and Destructive Forces on Landforms activity: HDPYW

Journey to Bottom of the Ocean activity:  VMUSL

Google Docs link: 

https://drive.google.com/a/beaufortschools.org/folderview?id=0B3YZgiy7iAbEeXBZVVJGWDVpTFE&usp=sharing

I used google docs to store resources for both students and parents. Each student in my classroom has a google account, so they will have access to these documents. During the school day, students will each have their own IPad. All the apps that are approved by the district will be uploaded before the school year starts, which we have the same apps on our IPad. Students can also access these documents at home on their own devices or laptops. Last year, I had 17 out of 19 students who had their own personal devices. Students can also receive hard copies for homework assignments if I know they don’t have internet access at home. These resources will also be available for the other fifth grade teachers, so we can all edit them as needed.

The resources available through google docs will be used for both classwork and homework. They’re organized by alphabetical order so the students will be able to find it by my instruction. Videos such as “The Battle of Kruger” represent how organisms interact with each other; more specifically, looking at who is the prey and the predator. There are also songs that are uploaded to learn about the layers of the earth and biomes. Many assignments students will be able to upload onto their IPad, and complete through educreations. Then they can send screenshots of their answers to me through edmodo, or upload straight to our class page on Educreations.

Description of My Learners

Week 11 Blog

Part 1

Article 1: Mathematics and mobile learning

The reason I chose this article is because I have a strong passion for teaching math, and I believe mobile learning can enhance student engagement in math. I have always wondered how I can incorporate more inquiry with math because it’s very straight forward. This article stresses how important mobile devices are for more informal learning.

On page 64, White and Martin (2014) categorize mobile use into 4 reasons: capturing and collecting, communicating and collaborating, consuming and critiquing, and constructing and creating. The use of mobile devices in the classroom allows for more informal learning to occur, especially in the math and science world. Students build knowledge from making connections to what they already know. As teachers, we should try to incorporate student knowledge in our learning environments. I have talked about the unlimited amount of resources available using mobile devices. In this study, they used an app for graphing and collaborating, which is something 5th graders could even benefit from (this was done in a middle school setting). Students were using their Ipods to find images, then worked together to complete the math.

I believe a quote from page 64 describes how most teachers feel about education technology: “devices have transformed the ways that people communicate, seek information and work with data of various forms. Yet, in the classroom context, mobiles are often seen as a threat to the serious work of school (White & Martin, 2014).” A big takeaway from this article is that any subject can be enhanced with technology. Finding the appropriate tools to strengthen lessons is the teacher’s role, the students’ role is to embrace the technology to further their own wonders.

Article 2: Social anxiety and technology: Face-to-face communication versus technological communication among teens.

I chose an article on social anxiety because 5th graders start to feel self-conscious about themselves, and worry about what their peers think of them. Some argue that using technology often will lower students’ abilities to talk face-to-face. But I have seen more positives for shy children from my personal experiences. Students who are nervous to speak in front of their peers, for fear they’re wrong or whatever the reason, communicating online allows them an opportunity to have a voice. Especially in collaboration when students aren’t sitting with each other, each student has an equal opportunity for their voice to be heard. They also have time to figure out what to say, instead of being put on the spot.

Technology allows students with social anxiety to engage in some social situations, hopefully that will boost their confidence to speak more face-to-face after developing relationships with people. Skype is also a great tool to use in the classroom. Students are still talking to a live video, however they have the physical space between them, along with a mental space that they aren’t actually in front of them.

Taking away from this article, my female students are more likely to feel more comfortable using a mobile device for communication than males, yet they also report feeling more social anxiety around their peers. I also have to keep in my mind that my socially anxious students will feel more comfortable using texting or IMing to communicate, rather than out loud. Teaching elementary students, I feel I would have to balance both types of communication; preparing my students for the 21st century workforce, while also not squashing their confidence to speak publicly.

Article 3: Exploring young students’ talk in Ipad-supported collaborative learning environments

The identity of a student changes when using Ipads and through their experiences when collaborating. They have the ability to transition from private to public work spaces. Depending on the activity, students will be collaborating with both peers and teachers using different types of “talk”. The three types of talk defined by Mercer (1994) are cumulative, disputational, and exploratory. When they completed this experiment with the 3 different apps, I’m not surprised that the two most common types of talk were consensus and teacher-student. Consensus is part of the cumulative talk, which builds understanding through talking about ideas in a civil manner. Student-teacher talk is important for feedback and clarification.  The three apps used in this study were popplet, puppet pals, and pic collage. I’ve used puppet pals with reading comprehension and popplet for brainstorming, which is similar to this experiment. The results “are very encouraging, and highlight the potential of collaborative learning environments supported by iPads to generate opportunities to raise the quality of student talk (Falloon & Khoo, 2014). When students use mobile devices, their ability to work with others will grow, which is an important skill to have as a 21st century learner.

Part 2

I used the beginning and end of my original teaching philosophy. Hitting the key point about the learning environment, student engagement, and motivation are the important factors in my classroom. I want my students to grow, both as learners and people. I teach 5th grade, which is a critical year in their social and academic development. I want to teach them what it means to be a good person, and how to interact socially with others. Of course I must cover the standards, and I enjoy teaching those subjects too. But I don’t just teach 5th grade, I teach kids how to become successful young adults.

I still feel mobile learning enhances student learning by giving them more options, which in turn gets them motivated to learn and helps them engage in personal inquiries. The biggest takeaway from this class is the endless amount of available resources out there! Time is always critical with teaching, but teachers should spend time learning new resources. Even if we don’t become an expertise, we can still introduce the new resource to our students, and see where their inquiry takes them.

Revised Learning Philosophy

Learning occurs best when teachers put student individual needs before their own. When students feel like they’re a valuable part of the classroom community, and feel safe to speak openly, it creates a healthy learning environment for students to prosper and learn. Mobile devices allow for an unlimited amount of resources that students can use to inquire more about their personal interests and learning, while reinforcing the taught and assessed curriculum. Interacting with technology not only makes learning fun, but also engaging for the students. This helps their motivation to learn, and gives them their own positive reinforcement that they’ve created something to show their learning. 

References

Falloon, G., & Khoo, E. (2014). Exploring young students’ talk in Ipad-supported collaborative learning environments. Computers & Education, 77, 13-28.

Pierce, T. (2009). Social anxiety and technology: Face-to-face communication versus technological communication among teens. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(6), 1367-1372. Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2009.06.003

White, T., & Martin, L. (2014) Mathematics and mobile learning. TechTrends. (Article in press for January 2014).

Week 9, Lesson 8 Blog

The article, Leveraging mobile technology for sustainable seamless learning: A research agenda was the easiest article for me to digest. It really hit home how it discusses learning throughout the day, across different spaces. Seamless learning is when students can go between informal and formal learning periodically, and adjust to their learning environment easily. Technology enables students to learn in any context, inside or outside school. Page 156 ties this up perfectly: “The presumption is that learning happens at fixed times and fixed places. However, with the diffusion of technology, the notions of place, time and space for learning have changed” (Looi, Seow, Zhang, So, Chen, & Wong, 2010). Students are driving the instruction, with teachers making sure they cover the standards, and guiding them into inquiry-based learning  on their interests.

M-learning gives teachers an endless amount of available resources to supplement the content learned in class. Next year, I’m able to Flip my social studies and science curriculum (being a 3rd year teacher, my Principal wants me to try only 2 subjects this year). The article suggests “learning is affected and modified by the tools used for learning, and that reciprocally the learning tools are modified by the ways that they are used for learning” (Kearney, Schuck, Burden, & Aubusson, 2012). I agree that technology has certain tools that make learning relatable to each individual, moreover gives collaborating an easier way to happen and exist. Mobile devices in the classroom have a significant role in letting the student control their learning. While interviewing a colleague, she suggested allowing 20% of the learning be from the student. She calls them “personal inquiry projects.” These individualized projects allow the students to learn more about their interests, getting them motivated to learn, and engaged in the content.

U-learning reminds me of using technology to enhance a lesson. For instance, the teacher teaches a math lesson on multiplying 2 digits by 2 digits. Then students practice using a computer software game. When we had to classify our apps to get them on student devices, this was one of the classifications: allowing student reinforcement for content. Our Principal wanted a variety of useful apps; resources that would also be useful for collaboration, analyzing, and researching. Ubiquitous learning is different M-learning because it can be applied to the whole class, where m-learning enables a teacher to differentiate instruction. The article by Park classifies mobile apps into four categories: 1) high transactional distance socialized m-learning, 2) high transactional distance individualized m-learning, 3) low transactional distance socialized m-learning, and 4) low transactional distance individualized m-learning (Park, 2011). Teachers can use technology for the whole class, or make it individualized. High and low transactional distance refers to how much communication is occurring, between both teacher and peers.

I chose to read another article on multitasking because I feel students, to a certain degree, truly can multitask while working. The article concluded that students will take a longer time to read a passage while sending messages to friends. However, their comprehension of the passage wasn’t affected. By the time students get to me in 5th grade, they have a good sense of the kind of work environment they work in best. My students know that they work better in a quiet room, while others ask me if they can listen to music while working. I allow my students to listen to music while working, as long as it’s through headphones, so they don’t disturb others. The article focused on messaging one another, which yes can be distracting. I must admit that I used to check facebook and emails while listening to lectures during school. However, if messaging is used for educational purposes (for example, asking a friend for help or clarity), then I would allow them to use their devices to communicate. When students start using snapchat or another social media online, then they’re abusing the technology and wasting time.

In conclusion, there are a variety of ways to classify the type of learning that occurs with the 21st century learners. Students should be guiding the instruction, and essentially should be working harder than the teacher. There should be collaboration occurring amongst both peers and teachers. There are endless amount of tools available due to technology, and the teacher should be facilitating which apps work best with certain content.

References

Bowman, L. L., Levine, L. E., Waite, B. M., & Gendron, M. (2010). Can students really multitask? An experimental study of instant messaging while reading. Computers & Education, 54(4), 927-931. Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.09.024

Kearney, M., Schuck, S., Burden, K., & Aubusson, P. (2012). Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective. Research In Learning Technology, 20:1, 1-17. doi:10.3402/rlt.v20i0/14406.

Looi, C.-K., Seow, P., Zhang, B., So, H.-J., Chen, W., & Wong, L.-H. (2010). Leveraging mobile technology for sustainable seamless learning: A research agenda. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(2), 154-169. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00912.x

Park, Y. (2011). A pedagogical framework for mobile learning: Categorizing educational applications of mobile technologies into four types. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(2).

I had to interview a teacher who uses technology for my other class. Just sharing…

Week 8, Lesson 7 Blog

Working in an inquiry-based school, I can see both the challenges and benefits of using mobile technology. A smart phone can be used to “bridge” learning settings. Students are exploring the different aspects of science that are being taught in class, working on hands-on experiments, and making connections to what they learn. Bridging these learning environments isn’t always easy though. For example, we study WWII. Students could visit virtual museums all over the world, for example the Anne Frank house, because our students can’t go to Amsterdam to get almost the same experience.

Technology enables students to inquire more outside their confined classroom walls. This particular article by Jones, Scanlon, and Clough gives insight that mobile technology has an endless amount of opportunities for students to learn. If a teacher can think of a lesson, it can be completed. We aren’t confined to our 4 desktop computers anymore, not even our smart boards if we’re lucky enough to have those. The districts that have 1:1 student devices are even more lucky because the power to learn is endless.

The informal learning case study allowed students choice on choosing questions, variable, and measurements. They had to complete work without their teacher, yet they were learning how to be self-sufficient. The article points out that a disadvantage would be the limited choice in topic. However, I feel this is an appropriate challenge because the teacher still has to make sure students are learning the appropriate standards, giving guidelines for elementary students is necessary.

The food case study was successful because students were able to continue their inquiry after school at home. Page 30 said, “Stocklmayer, Leonie, and Gilbert (2010, p.26) suggest that factors that encourage informal Science learning include: providing for free choice; being internally driven and challenging and being interesting, entertaining, and enjoyable. They relate these factors to engagement, motivation and appealing to the learner (Jones et al. 2013).” The geocaching case study was a success because mobile devices are portable. The participants took their learning a step further, past what the researchers laid out for them, making it a true inquiry-based experience. This is also an example of how technology was set in place, yet it didn’t go as planned. However, the cache seekers and planters both discovered new things about their environment. On page 31, “We need to account for unanticipated or incidental learning in informal contexts and how that can be supported. Most of the Geocachers did not have a learning goal yet they felt they had learned and in placing caches they were definitely seeking to create learning opportunities for others. Support comes from a well designed community space.” Using technology has a way of working out, just sometimes not as the teacher originally planned. This helps informal learning be successful because students are taking more charge in their learning by passion and questions.

In my Tech Newsletters (see attachments on previous post to my blog site), our tech leaders said, “When we refer to technology integration we are referring to student creation or active student use.” Teachers who feel weaker about using tech integration are encouraged to at least try four tech projects a year. There are endless amounts of applications and websites that teachers can use. Newsletters can give teachers suggestions for project ideas. The April newsletter suggests using QR codes to create a Treasure Hunt. For those who are advanced, you could use QR codes to organize your classroom library, and have students check out books through google docs. Students can use interactive storyboards to learn about social studies, or use paper piecing to create a movie. Like I said before, if a teacher can dream it, there is a technology component that can make it come alive.

On page 163, Mr. Junco quoted, “Today, engagement is conceptualized as the time and effort students invest in educational activities that are empirically linked to desired college outcomes (Kuh, 2009).” Student engagement is higher when using social media, like Facebook, because students are already motivated to use these sites. Young adults use social media for a variety of reasons, one being social communities. Students can collaborate on a website they already feel comfortable with instead of being introduced to something new, and they can interact with experts from any field. There is also the global market component which students can learn from, gain knowledge on almost any company in the world through their marketing site, and make connections with people.

Even though the article by Reynol Junco focused on college students, I’ve always been curious how Facebook could be used in the classroom, and if there are positive outcomes. Studies found positive correlations between Facebook and student engagement. Students also say they feel connected to people through social media. Even in my personal experience, I still feel connected to friends all over the country because of social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. The one survey showed that students check facebook roughly 5 times a day (Junco, 2012), and I would say that’s accurate from what I see from my own students (who are ten), and from personal experiences watching friends and family. However, I’m not surprised that there is a “negative relationship between frequency of engaging in Facebook chat and time spent preparing for class(Junco, 2012).” If Facebook is so widely popular and easily accessible, then a student of any age will be tempted to check social media while getting ready for class or even while sitting in class. However, I think if teachers allowed the use of Facebook for school purposes, student engagement in activities on the website would be high due to familiarity and accessibility.

References

Hew, K. F. (2011). Students’ and teachers’ use of Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(2), 662-676. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.11.020

Jones, A. C., Scanlon, E., & Clough, G. (2013). Mobile learning: two case studies of supporting inquiry learning in informal and semiformal settings. Computers & Education. 61: 21–32. Doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2012.08.008.

Junco, R. (2012). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student engagement. Computers & Education, 58(1), 162-171. Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.004