Building podcasts

The hardest part of my tasks this week was to find out how to create a podcast in the most effective way I can. I started by learning how to use GarageBand on my computer, and tried to learn the basic setup. So far, I have not had too many problems, and have made a nice short audio track that has some added sounds for effects. From here, I think it is necessary to learn how to combine the audio track with a video (probably using iMovie) and post that to a website.

What I would like to do in the future is learn how to create a flash video for a website since they are smaller and take up less server space. I have started to record some of the notes I present in class in short segments using my SmartBoard, and will need to learn to combine the video with audio so I can create the video podcasts. Overall I am quite confident in what I have done so far, and think that I should be able to construct a variety of podcasts starting with my unit on DNA which started Monday. I want to create one by the end of the week focusing on how mutations are made, and what they can do to a protein’s function.

Overall, I am interested in learning more and want to find the simplest and easiest wa to do what I can to make high quality podcasts that the students can use to help them learn the concepts we are discussing in class.

Improving GAME plan

After last weeks GAME plan update, I realized that I should have held off on a few of my key points I made. First of all, I updated my plan to include the use of podcasts and other ways to help students learn material outside of school. This, at the time, I did not realize was part of this week’s post (If you have any questions, please see last week’s post). However, one of the things that I am struggling with that idea is trying to find a good way to make vodcasts so that my students can see what I do on my computer screen and hear me narrate each step. I am currently trying to look into it, but have not found anything worth trying.

In regards to constructing a calendar and blog, I have started to update the calendar for the month of November, trying to backtrack and see what I have already covered. I plan to have this completed over the four-day weekend. The blog has been created, and I have made the first post, but I still need to inform all of the parents of the site, so that they know to check it periodically throughout the semester.

When it comes down to it, I feel as if I’m progressing well through my GAME plan, but still need to find an effective way to create the podcasts and video podcasts that would be a good place to put them online for students to access, and also what would be a great tool to use. My new inquiries focus on finding resources to help me with the podcasts, so that I can create them within the next week or two.

Happy T-Day!

Working towards my GAME plan

Last week, when discussing my GAME plan, I set up several goals for myself, focusing on integrating technology into my instruction in order to communicate more effectively with my students and their families. To improve on my communication skills, I set goals that focused on setting up a blog and a calendar on my school webpage. I have made progress in these areas, and have set up the blog this week using the school’s webpage software from SchoolCenter. I have set up my calendar for my class, however, I have not updated it yet this week, but plan to tomorrow.

Since reading this week’s course text, I have added a new goal to my GAME plan. One of the things that I always see is that students struggle with certain areas of science, or forget what happens in class when they are doing their homework. As a result, I have decided to add the following goal to my plan: create podcasts to further aid my instruction. One of the things that my students could benefit from is mini-lessons through podcasts that may help them. For example, right now we are studying genetics, and learning how to determine possible genotypes and phenotypes using Punnett Squares. Often students do not understand what to do with them. Using a podcast to reteach the lesson using various examples, students would be able to get extra help outside of the classroom. My only concern with this is finding the right resources to create a video podcast to demonstrate to the students how to do various Punnett squares and provide some one-on-one instruction that can move at a pace they prefer. As I begin to work towards completing this new goal, I will first start to search for new software to use to create podcasts. Being somewhat new to making podcasts, I will take any suggestion.

Improving Teaching Skills Using the NETS-T Standards

As the world is quickly plunged into the digital age, it is vital that teachers integrate technology into their classrooms. Using the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) set forth by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), a outline is provided for teachers to incorporate technology into their classrooms. “Rapid advances in technology are putting new demands on educators and students…The refreshed ISTE NETS will provide a framework for educators to use as they transition schools from Industrial Age to Digital Age places of learning,” (ISTE 2009a). It is important for teachers to not only be knowledgeable about the technology around them, but also have the ability and resources to integrate it into their instruction.

Areas to Improve

In my classroom, I try to incorporate technology as much as I can throughout the year, however, I know there are areas that I need to improve on. As I studied the NETS-T, I realized that I should work on several areas to improve my teaching. The first area I would like to improve on is how I communicate with parents and students outside of class. Standard 3 of the NETS-T standards asks that, “Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society,” (ISTE 2009b). The two aspects of this standard that I would like to improve on deal with collaborating with the classroom community (parents, students and peers) to support student success, and also communicating important information to them using a variety of digital tools.

Another way I would like to improve on is having students take more of a self-inquisitive approach to learning. Standard 2 focuses on designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments. Section b of this standards states that teachers should “develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress,” (ISTE 2009b). This is an area that I would like to improve on because provide a great deal of opportunities for students to be inquisitive through hands-on learning, however, I struggle to incorporate technology into the projects as much as would like.

Making a GAME plan

In order to improve in these areas, I have created a GAME plan, which is designed to improve in the above-mentioned areas. The first goal that I have set for myself is to begin to communicate effectively with my students and their parents. In order to do this, I will use a variety of applications to communicate more effectively and efficiently with the classroom community. The first thing that I will do is create a calendar on my website for students to check and see what we have covered if they have missed class, or forgot what our homework assignments have been. This is also a good tool for parents to use in order to see what has been covered and to use to help their students complete their homework and stay updated on the class’s progress. In addition to this, I will have a blog posted on my page to provide parents and students with key information about upcoming events, activities and important information they may need when they are completing various projects and tasks.

My goal for this objective is to have the calendar and blog started within the next week, and also be able to update the calendar on a daily basis, and the blog on a weekly basis for the remainder of the year.

My goal for improving on my second area of concern is to have my students create blogs that can be used as an educational tool in various ways. The primary use of the blog would be to have students create their own personal blog to give them a chance to discuss the classroom activities, question their own views and beliefs on various scientific concepts and ideas. They would also be able to use this blog as a place to reflect on their own understanding of the subject and help others who may have questions about what we are learning in the class. My main goal for completing this objective is to have the blogs set up and have proper guidelines and objectives set up for the students within the next month of school. The reason I would like to achieve this goal is to allow students to be more reflective and collaborative within their own learning process.

In order to assess my progress in these areas, I will not only meet the deadlines set forth above, but I will also continue to find new ways to communicate with students, their parents and my peers, but also make periodic reflections in my own blog focusing on how to improve on my methodology and communication skills.

References

ISTE | NETS for Teachers. (n.d.)a. International Society for Technology in Education | Home. Retrieved November 11, 2009, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/NETS_for_Teachers.htm.

ISTE | NETS for Teachers 2008. (n.d.)b. International Society for Technology in Education | Home. Retrieved November 11, 2009, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm.

Reflective Essay

As I created my unit plan for teaching new literacy skills to my students, I learned a great deal about how to effectively teach students how to evaluate websites. Growing up, my teachers demonstrated correct formatting to evaluate and cite resources such as books, encyclopedias and newspapers. However, as the Internet became more developed, my teachers did not teach me how to cite and evaluate websites. I, instead, taught myself, and realized how important it is to determine the validity of the information being presented. This is one of the most important things I could have learned about citing new references, and I will be sure to pass it on to my students.

The biggest way this new knowledge will affect my teaching is that I will teach my students the correct way to cite their resources, and give credit where it was due. One of the things that sticks in my head about respecting work, and I have already started to have my students do this, is to have them copyright their work. During one of the videos presented in the course, one of the speakers brought up how effective it is for students to copyright their work because it not only gives them ownership, but it also makes them realize that all other work that they find online is the product of someone else’s hard work. From there, they should show respect to the creator by citing them as a reference to their work.

To take this one step further, not only will I work on having them copyright and respect their work and their peers, but I will also show them the correct way to document resources before they use them. Part of the unit plan that I created focuses on gathering information and learning how to cite them. The unit that I created is on a topic that I usually focus on early in the school year. It will be a great time to lead them into proper citing and respect towards other sources. As a result from my planning, I have one main goal that I will work on in the upcoming year.

My professional development goal based on my new knowledge is to properly educate my students on how to evaluate sites and cite them correctly. This is something that I know I have not done effectively in the past. I realize that it is important, and that it is the proper way to do so, but I have often felt that it is not my duty, and that other teachers should teach them proper procedures. Instead, the next time I teach the unit, I will demonstrate and expect nothing less than the proper citation procedures because I realize the importance of students respecting other creators, and properly giving credit where it is due. As an individual, I will always properly cite references for my students as a way to model the method for my students.

Reflecting on Learning Theories

As a teacher progresses through their career, they learn new things, just as their students do. When their newfound knowledge questions their views and pedagogy, they must reflect on and if necessary change their own beliefs. As I progressed through this class, I began to consider new instructional methods and as a result, have changed my way of thinking. From there, I have created some goals to help me integrate my new views into my teaching style.

The first change in my pedagogy deals with the way students learn in my classroom. As a science teacher, I try to have my students learn through activities that are student-centered, but I did not realize how beneficial it is to have them learn by creating an artifact or project to demonstrate their knowledge. Long gone is the ways of teachers lecturing to students, and the students regurgitate the information back through a worksheet, test or quiz. Students learn best through the constructionism theory, which is based on the idea that students need to create a project or artifact that allows them to learn and challenge their current knowledge and views (Han & Bhattacharya, 2001). In order to reinforce this theory of learning, I will implement a few new forms of technology into my instructional methods.

Technology is a very beneficial tool that teachers can use to help facilitate learning within their classroom. Two new tools that I have learned about and will implement in my classroom are VoiceThread and Virtual Fieldtrips. Voicethreads are great tools for students to communicate and collaborate with others while creating a presentation on various topics. A great example of how I would use this would be having students create threads on the various cycles in nature (water, nitrogen, carbon/oxygen cycles), and have them learn and comment on each others thread in order to understand the different cycles. Virtual fieldtrips are also great tools to use in the classroom because they allow students to travel to places that they could not normally travel to. For example, since it is impossible for my students to visit all of the biomes throughout the world, a virtual fieldtrip to them through a place such as Utah’s Education Network’s “Biomes of North America” would be beneficial for them to learn about the various flora and fauna that lives in these biomes. To take this one step further, my students could even create virtual field trips for other students to view from other schools. Within the next school year, I will use both of these tools to help my students learn more effectively.

In regards to long-term changes in my pedagogy, I would like to have more constructionism style of assignments or projects in my classroom. Students learn quite effectively from this style of learning, and I would like to use it more frequently than I have in the past. It is my goal to have a student-centered learning project for students to complete at least once a month for my class. These projects could be technology-based, such as a wiki or a blog, or something more concrete such as a board game or poster about a certain topic we are discussing. Dr. Orey discussed in his lectures that 21^st century learners acquire knowledge through visual cues more effectively than through notes, and also struggle to learn how to summarize what they are learning. In order to strengthen these skills in my students, I would like to adapt my teacher-centered strategies to be more visual, and less written notes than they have in the past. This will allow students to summarize each section in their own words and to create their own understanding of the material we are covering in that particular lesson.

As I progress through my career, I am constantly learning a great deal of material, learning methods and theories, all of which contribute to my style of teaching. By implementing these theories and strategies in my classroom, I am becoming a more effective educator, and my students are learning a great deal of knowledge while having fun in the process.

References

Biomes of North America . (n.d.). Retrieved June 25, 2009, from http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourFames.cgi?tour_id=14051

Han, S., and Bhattacharya, K. (2001). Constructionism, Learning by Design, and Project Based Learning. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved 19 June 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Laureate Education Inc. (2008). “Instructional Strategies, Part One.” Baltimore, MD: Laureate Education Inc.

Voice Thread Post

My VoiceThread post can be found at this link:

http://voicethread.com/share/527384/