Final Reflections

What is one way in which you grew as an educator from this class and how will you continue it?

The biggest thing that I am taking away from this class is the integration of technology into teaching, not just using it as another tool like a pencil or a piece of paper.  I always heard the biggest complaint on using technology is there was not time to learn how to make technology a part of the students experience.  Teachers were given technology 2 days before the beginning of the year, so it just became a piece that was added to the lesson plan instead of the lesson plan developing around the technology.  I believe to truly grow as an educator today, one thing that must be done is the desire and actual embracing of technology.  Because I do not teach my own class yet, I am able to take my knowledge and create lesson plans using this technology to one day implement.  I can truly integrate my technology in some basic way and then specialize it once I know what technology I will actually have. 
To continue I will need to continue to learn about new and different technologies.  I will not know what I will be given until I have a school to teach at, so the more different types of technology that I know, the more beneficial it will be to me in the long run.  If I can learn how to create a technology planned lesson that can be used on multiple styles of devices then I will be more prepared for whatever I face in the future. 

Underage Children and Social Networking

I think the idea behind the underage use of social media by children is a very important subject and one that is becoming more and more central all the time.  As the article mentioned, several stores and manufacturers are using social media like Facebook or twitter to communicate with cliental, excepts there cliental is under the age acceptable to use the media.  There are good reasons behind why the age limits have been set for social media because of the possibility of sexual predators online and the lack of understanding by younger children on what is alright to share with a stranger and what a stranger actually is.  As the research also showed, children 8 years and younger really have no interest in social media.  So from the study we are really focused on 9-12 year olds.  At this age, children should have a fairly decent concept of what a stranger is and what can be shared with someone you don't know.  Children of this age should not be left alone at anytime with the internet or social media, but I don't necessarily think that the answer is to not let them communicate through social media.  Todays social media is becoming the soda shop of the 50s, the telephone of the 70s, and the text message of the 2000s.  As a child gets older and grows out of the imaginary playing world that younger children use when interacting with friends they will turn to the current trend.  As mentioned by the Dean in the Grad luncheon last week, his middle school daughter communicates through Instagram - words are no longer even needed.  While this presents a scary future of what these are pictures of (or the loss of communication skills all together) we must accept that more and more companies will be using social media to connect, and they will be connecting with this age group.
I think the article pointed out good ideas in how to approach this in a safe way, like linking Facebook accounts to a parents account to the settings can be controlled.  Parents being a friend and always keeping up with the content that is shared and reviewed is also an important part.  One of the biggest parts of social media and younger children is active parent involvement, which is easy for some parents and apparently impossible for others.
The same problems with social media exist with the search engines, video games with interactive communities, and playing on the street unattended.  There is danger around every corner, it is just taking the time to learn what the danger is and develop a plan on how to handle the danger.  With children playing outside - a responsible older party should always be keeping an eye to make sure that no suspicious persons comes into the yard and to make sure that children do not stray too far from the yard.  Should the same ideas not apply to internet usage?
We cannot stop the world from using the world wide web or social media.  It is today and it is the future.  And the future is yet to exist or has not become popular.  Tomorrow there will be a new worry that must be addressed, and we will address it the same way we have for centuries now.  The information age has just made the problems more mainstream, which is not bad, but it has made parents more aware of the issues and so hopefully more parents will be proactive about the solutions.

OR Project Teaching

Class assignment: Did you learn about your teaching style in the OR project? -Discuss your teaching strengths and weaknesses from this on the blog.


Since I am doing my OR project on creating an iBook, I have actually created an iBook as a teaching assistant for teaching my project.  To test how well the tutorial was written (so it could potentially be used by students or other teachers outside of a seminar or teaching class) I had my father use the iBook draft to learn how to use iBook Author.  Since he is also a professor he was able to give me feedback in how the tutorial was written and what could be improved.
One of the biggest things I have learned in creating my tutorial and using it to help others is remembering that shorter sentences that are not complex are better.  It is not necessarily the best way to approach instructing someone on a new tool by creating complex sentences with a lot of detail to take in at once.  I have had to go back and re-read my tutorial and look for instances where I put too much information into a single thought where the user would feel overloaded by the information provided.  I have written my tutorial with the understanding that the person using it (on an independent case) knows how to use a computer fairly well and does not need guidance with simple items like how to get to different applications on a computer or how to use the computer in general.  What I did not take into account is problems that someone might run into that is outside of the tutorials pages.  While my father was trying to download iBooks Author we ran into a problem that the Mac he was using did not run Mountain Lion, instead it had Snow Leopard.  iBooks Author cannot be installed on Snow Leopard so we had to work through why the app would not load, trouble shoot the problem, then spend extra time in downloading the new operating system so he could continue with the tutorial.  Even though my father knows a lot about computers and how they operate, he is unfamiliar with how Macs work and it required some extra work to actual get to the point where he could do the tutorial.
As far as my actual teaching style, since I did not instruct him how to use my iBook, since I was testing its independent effectiveness, I will have to wait until I instruct in our class to assess my teaching style.

Professional Development

-I never saw the tweet with the assignment to post a Professional Development point in our blog till today, so I am posting this late to make up for it.-

I selected a point from "Engaging in Professional Growth and Leadership" because it mixed the most with my current job and those things that I am currently doing both in school and my everyday life.  I feel that this is a point that I have a lot of influence in both as a designer and as a teacher.

1. Engage in professional growth and leadership
1. Participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.
2. Currently as an interior designer of schools, I do research on different types of technology that can be used in a classroom and what is popular in the current trends so that I can communicate with clients effectively on what items they might potentially put in their schools.  
3. Technology is only going to become a larger piece of the education puzzle.  Knowing what is out there and how it can be used will put me ahead of the curve and keep me up to date on what is coming, what is current, and what is gone.
4. Continue to research developing trends in technology not only as a designer but as a practitioner that will eventually use these resources in the classroom.  Participate in Continuing Education provided by the architectural community to further my knowledge and understanding of current trends so that I can apply them to my own learning to become a teacher.  MetroCon 2013 (August)
5. Continue to read journals, blogs, attend conferences and weekend classes and other ways of staying current on the education trends in technology to make sure I know what is coming so that I can research and learn about it both before I am in the classroom and when I am a teacher.

Teaching with Tech Project - Part 2

I have done some research on iBooks, making iBooks and what the possibilities are.  This is a really cool program and I can see some great possibilities in the future in a classroom, especially if it is a classroom where there are several iPads available for students to use.  The ability to make a textbook for students to use to supplement units that don't have text, or if I want to do something outside of the giving curriculum.  The interactive features with videos, 3D animation, built in assessments, picture viewer, etc make the creative threshold of the iBook unlimited.  I am really excited to get in and start playing around with a layout and creating.
I think for my teaching portion, I will make a Jing - the step by step video layout is going to be a necessity to truly understand how to do things, but I will need to play around a lot with the program first to truly understand.   I plan on also making an interactive book targeted at a young age group just to have a good portfolio item and truly show the possibilities of a technology rich classroom.
I have a feeling that there will be a steep learning curve with making an attractive and versatile book.  When looking at the possibility of using in the classroom, it will take a lot of additional time to put together a book for students to use, but once it is done it will be something that can be used from year to year and easily updated as curriculum or items change.  I think that if I can create my own type of template that I could use it would speed things up as well.  With a younger target audience there will be alot more space to fill with pictures, graphics, and videos then with text which is harder to create then just drag and dropping large text files.
I am really excited to get in and start working on this assignment and I think it will be a good one for several people in class to look at for potential use in their classrooms!

Technology Teaching Project

I have not really started into the teaching project, but I have officially decided to do the iBook instead of the SmartBoard since there were already several people doing SmartBoard.  I will be doing my practice teaching on my father who is a professor at Rose State College and is also working on an Apple feasibility study for onboard entertainment for private airliners.  He is looking at the possibility of creating an iBook as the instruction manual for the onboard iPads being used.  I will add more when I have gotten into the assignment deeper.

Chapter 5 Reflection

In Chapter 5 of Teaching with Technology, we start to see how classrooms and students change when they use technology more and more.  Technology really encourages a more constructivist or collaborative classroom.  Technology cannot be used effectively in a traditional lecture style of class.  As the teachers started to settle in with the technology and let the students do more and more with it in their assignments, the more and more they saw that their classrooms were changing, and changing for the better.  Students were becoming more active in the lessons and the learning/ teaching of the lessons. Even those students that were not known as the exceptional students were finding a specialty in relation to technology or what could be done with technology.  Teachers started using students to teach the classes where students researched topics then presented them to the class, instead of the teacher just lecturing on the topics.  In this, however, teachers were beginning to see how their traditional ways of assessing students on knowledge was no longer going to work.  Because the students were learning differently and applying what and how they learned in different manners, standard testing would no longer work.  Teachers became worried about how to assess the students knowledge, especially those teachers that were not working on the ACOT program and really did not know how to use computers.  I found it a little humorous that no one in the book outside of the ACOT program really knew how to use technology.  When you look at today's world where everyone knows how to use a word processor, boot up a computer, and type emails it is hard to remember a world without the world wide web and with individuals who did not own a home computer or have one in their classroom or at their disposal.

I love that with the use of technology comes an increase to move classrooms in a collaborative direction.  I think that students who collaborate and constructively put together their learning environment find a better understanding of the knowledge they are gaining.  The application and deeper thinking associated is critical for successful learning.  I also think it is interesting how classrooms were changing not only for the use of technology but in general.  Even assignments where technology was not centrally focused (like a chemistry lab), the teachers were still taking advantage of the different types of teaching and learning that technology had presented.  I have been in classes that have used several of these types of teaching - most common the learn a subject and teach it to the class, become the second expert (next to the teacher) and instruct the class.  While it is definitely more work on the students part (and less on the teacher), it helps students grasp what is being learned in a fully manner as researching helps one better understand.  I definitely got more out of units I put together and taught then one that a teacher handed out an article and lectured on.  This is incredibly encouraging seeing that colleges seem to be the last to convert to this style of teaching since traditional a college class is known as a stuff lecture style approach.  I am excited to see how the increase of technology due to Common Core and Common Core testing continues to change the landscape of our classrooms.