ECOMP 6106: What is Understanding?

Assignment: Do a search on your own to find other articles on “Understanding” and write your own definition what “Understanding” is and how do you know you or a student has achieved understanding. 

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Article:

Perkins, D., & Blythe, T. (1994). Putting understanding up front. Educational Leadership, 51(4), 4-7. Retrieved from http://emp.byui.edu/HUNSAKERS/TuF Understanding up Front.pdf 

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Understanding is the ability to take knowledge and/or skills that has been learned and knowing when and where to apply them to when confronted with a situation/problem.  It is not simple regurgitation of facts or recounting of information discussed previously. Instead, it is the ability to know when to employ them given different situations with different and sometimes unique variables. For me, that means constantly reminding students that the knowledge and skills they learn from me in computer literacy classes are flexible and can be applied to events and challenges in other classes. For example, say I should students how to take a Keynote and show them how you can export the file into different formats including images. Then, when they are working with podcasting and adding images to make an enhanced podcast, I want them to be able to remember what they learned from their Keynote study and realize they can use it to create their own custom images to go into their podcast project. 

Take a moment to reflect the following quotes. Which one do you agree with most and why?

1. “Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.” By Aristotle 
2. “If you truly want to understand something, try to change it.” By Kurt Lewin

The first quote is an important point to keep in mind because, as was brought up in our class discussion, there are educators out there who know their subject backwards and forwards but they do not know how to teach it to others. If you understand the subject matter then you can better respond to “left-field” questions, perhaps even the bizarre ones, that might catch you off guard. Understanding will also allow you to be ready to accept new information, evaluate it, and accept how it might change the circumstances of the topic. In this way, we “advance” our understanding of the topic to include the new information. (Perkins & Blythe, 1994)

The second quote I think lends itself to the idea of turning students into teachers in order to building understanding. In order to change something you have to know how it works and how it interacts with the surrounding environment. Similarly, in order for a student to take something they’ve learned and turn around to teach it to another successfully, they have know how it works and how it affects the people and things around it. They know how they were affected by the knowledge, and now they see how another person responds to the information and whether or not the response is similar or different. This experience can give a student a change of perspective on the topic and further their understanding.
 

ECOMP 6106: 21st Century Skills

Assignment: Are you a 21st Century Teacher? Respond to following questions.


In what ways do you consider yourself a 21st century teacher?
I consider myself a 21st century teacher in my openness to new and different ways to teach and learn material. I am aware of the traditional tools and skills used to teach content but also keep a look out for new tools and see how they can be integrated with traditions. I believe that a synthesis of traditional and 21st century tools can create a rich and beneficial learning experience for both student and teacher.

Are you collaborative? If so, provide some description of how you collaborate and with whom.
As the technology coordinator for my building, it is central to my job to be a collaborative teacher AND learner. I ask questions of teachers about what they are teaching and how, so that I can present them with new resources that they could integrate into their lessons in order to enhance the student experience. A key part of this process is finding teachers who are willing to collaborate and take risks. It is these teachers for whom I will “go to bat for” freely and give 110%. After all, are we not asking students to be risk takers as they learn about new things and try different ways to express their knowledge and comprehension?
As a life-long learner, I freely admit to my students that I don’t everything and get excited when a student teaches me something new.  I love it when I can place a student into the role of teacher because I think teaching someone something is a great way to cement comprehension, plus it can provide a huge boost to a students’ self-esteem and self worth.

How do you use technology in your classroom and in your professional teaching practice?
In my classroom, which is a computer lab, technology is driving force as the goals of my course is to provide students with the skills to use computers effectively and safely with creativity.

How do you use technology to assess students?
I am constantly experimenting with different technology tools to assess my students. I’ve used rubrics, online quizzes, and oral presentations. I’d like to look into having students create digital ePortfolios. I’ve also helped other teachers implement technology-based assessments using social networking vehicles, such as WallWisher in language arts and an Edmodo classroom in social studies.

Do you use technology to communicate with parents and the community? What technologies do you use and how do you use them?
Technology for the purpose of communicating with parents and the community is become a critical issue in my school. All teachers are accessible via email from the school website, and administrators are pushing more and more for each teacher to have (and maintain) a website. We communicate grades and assessments via a digital grade book, PowerSchool, and provide a portal for both students and parents to use to view this information at any time. This year my school is using a Twitter feed and a Google Calendar widget to communicate important news and events to the community. And next on my To-Do list is to setup an Apple TV to a display in the main lobby of the school building so that we can stream images of field trips and events while also providing visual documentation of all of the wonderful projects and products students are creating in their classes.

ECOMP 5004: Technology-Rich Lesson Plan

Learning Goals/Outcomes

Students will learn how to transform a writing piece into a digital publication to be viewed on a portable iOS device (a.k.a. iPad). Students will learn how to use a template to format their writing piece so that the finished eBook will contain chapter names, topic headings, and a table of contents. Students will introduce media in the form of audio and/or video into the eBook by way of an “about-the-author” section.

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Lesson Plan

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ePub Booklet Exemplars

More PowerPoint presentations from Nick Shuman

ECOMP 5004: Write To Learn Paper

Access product via Google Docs.

This American Life - Episode #449: Middle School

 I just finished listening to an episode of This American Life from NPR on the topic of "Middle School." The topic was requested by who else, a middle school student who listens to the podcast. The entire podcast is available online as well as the individual segments. I just thought it was interesting to here from actual middle school students about what they thought of middle school. It made me wonder what our students would say if they had been interviewed, and that we are not alone in the triumphs and challenges that we face everyday.

ECOMP 5004: Website Evaluation

The Awesome Highlighter

Facebook

Twitter

Site Description: 

The Awesome Highlighter, referred to sometimes as AH, was started by three guys from Florida. According to their Facebook page, the company was founded in February on 2008. There are no names provided for the founders or who maintains the site, only an online form to request support.

Classroom Use:

This web tool gives students the ability to use a digital highlighter on any webpage of the Internet. Students can highlight text as well as pictures. AH provides a toolbar at the top of the page for students to add a virtual sticky note to the page, access their “Help” menu, and best of all: change their highlight color. 

Once a webpage has been highlighted, students then click the “Done” button on the toolbar. They are taken back to AH and are shown an overview of the information they have highlighted. Students may then choose to email the notes, copy them to the clipboard, or share their notes via variety of social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook. Students may also copy the unique URL provided at the top of the page for later access. There is also an option beneath the summary for the student to return to the page to add additional notes and/or edit the notes they have already highlighted.

AH can also be used by teachers who would like to point students to important and/or specific information on a webpage. Teachers could use the sticky notes tool to instruct students on what they need to do with the information on the webpage. Here is an example of AH in action: http://awurl.com/3zTmJLYRh

State Standards Connections:

Maine Leaning Results (MLR)

English Language Arts

A. PROCESS OF READING
MIDDLE GRADES 5-8

7. Summarize whole texts by selecting and summarizing important and representative passages.

H. RESEARCH-RELATED WRITING AND SPEAKING

MIDDLE GRADES 5-8

7. Use search engines and other Internet resources to collect information for research topics.

Recommendation:

With the presence of technology in schools and the classroom today, using the Internet as a research resource has become a common occurrence. In fact, when given the choice many students will turn to the Internet before accessing more traditional resources. In my school, the current standard operating procedure is for students to print out the Internet resources they find. This translates into a lot of printing and a lot of wasted printing supplies, since webpages often do not print neatly onto an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper. Awesome Highlighter gives students the ability to pick out the important pieces of information on a webpage and refer to those notes for use later when they write their reports. If students are working collaboratively on a research project, AH allows team members to easily share their web notes with one another.

I think this is a great tool for teachers who want to move closer to working completely within the digital environment. Awesome Highlighter makes it easy for both student and teacher to takes notes on webpages and then save those notes for later reference or for sharing with others. The add/edit tool, in tandem with the different highlighter color tool, could also be a vehicle for collaborative activities. While the site does have a login so that you can save your highlights on their system, use of AH is free and does not require registration to use. 

However, as with any web-based tool there are a few glitches in AH that users should be aware of. For example, the “+ add a note” tool often takes several seconds to respond (I was having to wait upward of 5-8 seconds for the note to actually appear). In addition, when using the add/edit tool to return to the webpage your previous highlights are not displayed on the page save only the last item you had highlighted. This could create confusion for students and discourage them from using this service. There is an available AH add-on for the Firefox browser they may improve the performance of this web tool. The service also offers a feedback section to leave comments on their service, so I forwarded this concern to them in the hopes they will make this tool more robust and reliable.

ECOMP 5004: Monster Blog Project

DIRECTIONS:

Imagine that you are a writer of children’s books. You are word-processing a manuscript of a story about a child who overcomes fear of an outrageous monster that has taken up residence in the child's bedroom closet. You have reached the part of the story where the child dares to open the closet door, thus coming face to face with the monster.

1. Describe the monster in words, as seen through the child’s eyes for the first time. 
2. Post the description to your blog and exchange links with your partner.
3. Now, draw your partner's monster based solely on their written description.
4. Publish your illustration to your partner's blog.
5. Now, draw your own monster and publish the illustration to your blog so that you can compare/contrast the two versions.

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My Blog Monster

My partner, Colleen's, Blog Monster