Qualities

This image reflects my passion and curiosity as a teacher that is learning and integrating technology into the classroom.


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Education Tech Needs

My latest task in CEP 812 was to survey my fellow staff members to determine the wants/needs within my district towards technology. You are welcome to see my survey at the following link. Or you are welcome to take the survey and add to my data.

My school is very low income and does not have a lot of technology. We have two computer labs in our middle school. I am not sure in our other schools. However, this seems to be a large problem in our school. In fact, it is a deterrent to try and create lessons that would need technology. Through my own personal feelings and opinions I had felt that most of the teachers do not have much experience with technology. (In fact, one time, a teacher came to my room upset because her computer did not turn on. She had only turned on her monitor.) Our staff is small, but I did get 22 responses. Of the 22 responses here are the percentages for each grade level:

As you can see, I received a proportional amount between the different schools in my district. One of the first questions I asked was how comfortable the teachers feel with technology. Here are my results. 1 is the lowest representing not at all, 3 representing average, and 5 represents excellent

You can see the majority ranges towards the level of 5. However, I do not believe that the majority of the teachers really understand what it truly means to understand using technology daily. When asked what technologies they use in their classroom including the categories laptops/ipads, smartboard, document cameras, social networking, classroom websites, google apps, stand alone resources, universally designed lessons and classroom management systems only one averaged above a 3. This category was classroom websites. So only classroom websites were used on a sometimes rank.

Overall, the staff that was surveyed would enjoy to have PD in the area of technology. Here is a visual representation of if they would choose to have PD in technology:

I only had one staff member that chose no in this question. A clear minority. In a free response question it asked what types of pd or technologies would the teachers like to learn about. Within this response the majority of teachers asked to learn about various technologies. It was not about ideas learned about in the CEP program such as creating websites, using social networking, StAIR, UDL lessons or various tips and tricks. It was straight forward such as "smartboards" or "ipads" and the integration of being able to use these more often to create smoother transitions and more effective lessons.

Overall, through the survey and my own personal reflections and observations it is clear to me that my staff is lacking in knowledge when it comes to technology. The staff is still very focused on the basics and could benefit from having lessons in the how to's from using various technologies. However, I truly believe the staff would benefit more from learning how to use technologies to show collaboration and creativity in projects. If this was used, the how to's would come along for the students. (This is definitely how I learned various programs such as Google App's in this program.)

My infodiet

 
This week in CEP 812 I was asked to evaluate and expand my infodiet. Many of us use the internet as a tool to find information that we have interests in and rarely expand from there. The internet not just a tool to find quick facts, but a tool for evaluative, critical thinking. As a teacher (particularly a technology teacher), I really should be modeling the many powers of the internet. Right now my infodiet is very limited. I get on facebook, pinterest, check the weather, my e-mails, the news and that's about it. Aside from what I am asked to do for classes I rarely expand what I use the internet for. In fact, sometimes when I am bored I might check the same 6 sites over and over. There is an endless amount of information on the internet that should be able to keep my brain entertained, but yet I don't get out of that comfortable zone. My students probably go on more sites than I do!

So to begin my search I thought of topics that generally gain the most interest from myself. They included formative assessment, my school district being restructured, and common core. (Do I continue to transition? Do I not? Does our state government not realize that good teaching takes time to plan!??!) When searching I found some very interesting articles.

The first item that I found to expand my infodiet is Csv Tchrs of America ‏@ConservTeachers. This user posts several articles that definitely includes points of view that I do not share. For example, there is an article posted about Jeb Bush explaining his views on the common core and how it gave the power of common core away from the public to a privately funded company by Bill Gates. He also continues to talk about how through the common core eventually will be to teach by reading a script. This is just one of many articles that bash the idea of common core and the smarter balanced assessment. 

As my search continued I found another site that does not support the common core. The site is called Hoosiers Against the Common Core. This website has several articles from different standpoints about the common core. Some ideas that I had read were that the pilot test in New York was too hard for the students and could have unintended consequences, teachers are "bound" to silence when talking about the common core though contractual agreements, and that the common core embraces a "trade-school mentality."

The last website I am going to speak to is a website posted by @freedomworks that was stated testimonials about why the common core fails by teachers and parents. When I reached the website, I found the title "Common Core Fails." This gave very quick blurbs about merit based pay, not being internationally competitive, special interest groups writing the tests, etc. All seemed very short with little or no references. However, to a parent or someone not educated within the educational field this could be very concerning. It gave links for people to find groups fighting against the common core. 

Overall, I found expanding my infodiet for opposing very frustrating. When reading some of these articles I was astonished. However, at the same time it did open my eyes to some opposing arguments that exist. I do only have a one sided view of the common core, based on what my administrator has taught me or conferences that I have been sent to. 

References

Hoosiers against common core. (2013). Retrieved June 09, 2013 from http://hoosiersagainstcommoncore.com/

Freedom Works. (2013). Common core fails. Retrieved June 09, 2013 from http://commoncore.fwsites.org/category/the-facts/ 

Howard County Public Schools. (2012, Sept 03). Technology education. Retrieved June 09, 2013 from http://lrhs.hcpss.org/Departments/technology 

Spunkypundit. (2013, May 30). Jeb bush in mi peddling common core. Red State. Retrieved June 09, 2013 from http://www.redstate.com/spunkypundit/2013/05/30/jeb-bush-in-mi-peddling-common-core/

Working Memory Disorders and Technologies to Support

            In the school system that I currently teach in our special education population is completely mainstreamed into the general education setting. Thus requiring myself to teach math to students with disabilities that I never really had any training in.

 For my latest tech education assignment I was required to choose a disability that effects my students learning and find a technology that would assist those students. Automatically the first problem that came to my mind is when the students can not remember steps in multiple step problems and/or follow directions that include several tasks. I run into this problem a lot in math class and really struggle with helping those students. I often feel at a loss, because aside from repeating myself a thousand times, what could I do for a student like this?

My first task at hand was to find out what sort of disability would really cause a student to struggle with this. When reading up on various disabilities many of them included aspects of what could cause a student to get off task, not remember steps, and even have a low self-esteem. However, a common factor in all of these disabilities is some sort of working memory disorder.

The working memory is the part of the brain that holds information for short term so the brain can manipulate that information for cognitive tasks (Rasmussen, Treit, and Pei 2013). These processes are often used in math and reading. Students are required to remember the numbers while following the various steps, manipulating the information, to create an answer. In reading the students are required to remember the sequences of stories and create inferences. It also includes tasks such as planning ahead, organizing, paying attention, and problem solving.  With the working memory essentially being the “post-it note” of the brain, this makes these tasks extremely hard for students.

There are two main functions of the working memory. The first function is the verbal working memory. This function is the focus on being able to remember auditory instructions and repeat them mentally to complete tasks. This also includes learning language and comprehension tasks. The second function is the visual-spatial working memory. This is the brains ability to envision something. This is used primarily when working with math skills that allow the students to envision patterns, images, and sequences of events (Stuart 2013).

Like previously stated, working memory problems are often a problem for children with various disabilities. These disabilities can include Down’s Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), learning disabilities, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and acquired brain injury (Rasmussen, Treit, and Pei 2013). Since there is such a variety there are many interventions and strategies used to assist students.

One of the first technologies that could be used to help a student with a working memory disorder is to have the students practice their memory-building skills. There are several online memory games that can help with that. A few of them are Memory Games by Lumosity, The Original Memory Gym, and Easysurf Memory Games. This would allow the student to exercise their working memory and hopefully strengthen that part of their brain.

Not only could you help train the brain, there are several other ways to aide the student. According to Gathercole, a teacher can “evaluate working memory loads and reduce as necessary, re-present information to the child as needed, encourage the use of memory aids, and develop the child’s strategies to support memory” (2008). There are a plethora of technologies that could be used to support these ideas.

The first strategy demonstrated is to evaluate the child’s memory load. This could be done through various programs that track data. It would be very clear for the teacher to track a student’s success rate on assignments and be able to identify trends and patterns to accommodate to the learner.

The second idea stated is to re-present information to the child as needed. This used to be a cumbersome task for teachers, and often very discouraging for both the teacher and the student. Now a teacher could record their lesson and upload it on a website for the student where it could be listened to over and over. Or the teacher could find various videos, that re-present the information with more visuals or different perspectives than the teachers own. Cutting down on the time and attention the student needs one on one with the student and also cutting down on the time the student could be waiting for the teacher to help them.

There are many memory aids available on the internet where students can create their own games. On www.superteachertools.com there are options to create a variety of interactive games such as Jeopardy. There are also websites that allow students to make flashcards such as www.quizlet.com.

The final strategy is to help the child develop strategies to support memory. This might include helping the student chunk instructions into sections. This could be done using the Internet to give instructions. The students could then break up the instructions into sections. One way this could be done is by creating a slideshow with each slide including one or two steps necessary to complete a task. Thus teaching the student how to break steps down to feel success and less anxiety. These are just a few suggestions of how technology could help with these principles. The amount of possibilities is very large and has the ability to be tweaked for each individual.

Overall, throughout this research I was able to put together several ideas and strategies that would allow a student more success with the aide of technology. Many of these ideas are ideas that were presented to us in a previous class where we learned of the UDL principles. If a teacher took the time to create their lessons with these principles in mind, I believe the students with working memory disorders (and many other disorders) could have much more success.

Gathercole, S. E. (2008). Working memory in the classroom. The Psychologist, 21(5), 382-385. Retrieved from http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm/volumeID_21-editionID_160-ArticleID_1342-getfile_getPDF/thepsychologist\0508gath.pdf

Rasmussen C, Treit S, Pei J. 2013. Memory Interventions for Children with Memory Deficits. In: JH Stone, M Blouin, editors. International Encyclopedia of Rehabilitation. Available online: http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/encyclopedia/en/article/276/

Stuart, A. (2013). What is working memory and why does it matter?. Retrieved from http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/executive-function-disorders/what-is-working-memory-why-does-matter