ISTE Standard 3- Using technology with data

This week we focused on the ISTE standard 3, which states, “Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.” This standard means to me that teachers provide access and opportunity for students to organize and evaluate data, whether it is their data or not by way of technology. This week I focused on portion D of the standard that stated “Process data and report results.” I think that this portion of the standard allows for students to process data individually and as a class using multiple technological resources.

Our trigger question for this week stated, “What are ways in which students can apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information?” That question led me to create my question of, “Is there a resource to compile class data that students can see to track class growth without singling out individual students?” For this module I wanted to see if there was a way that I could share class results to have students be able to see their own growth as a class. This would provide the opportunity to bring community to the learning environment as well as push toward a class academic goal. For answers I first turned to Dr. Wong’s article “How technology enables blended learning.” This article didn’t quite hit what I was trying to find, but did provide some new found learning that I think could be very beneficial! The article talked about a resource that enables students to take assessments, and based on their achievement level a learning path would be specifically geared told them. How is that for differentiation! The article also gave many examples of how different schools in different states are moving to blended learning models and are providing technological learning! I loved the quote that stated, “The goal is to take learning to a different level that expands beyond the four walls of the classroom”(Wong, 2014). If teachers can find a way to bring students to want to continue to learn outside of the classroom, can you imagine the progress that would happen within a classroom.

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2014/04/how-technology-enables-blended-learning

This article was inspirational and gave me motive to be one of those blended learning classrooms, but didn’t quite answer my question so I looked online to find other resources that would help answer my question more specifically. I ran into my answer by actually talking to one of my colleagues who uses Google forms to give her class quizzes. This way she can invite her class to join a quiz. They will immediately get their scores, and she can project the class averages and who got what wrong to the class later. I think that this is a really cool way gather information that engages and includes students!

https://www.google.com/forms/

I think that Google forms is a great way as a class do multiple informative assessments that lead up to a larger summative assessment. This would let the class know how they are doing while creating a common learning community. Using this as a learning activity would also fulfill the ISTE standard because students are organizing, analyzing, and computing data using technology, while testing their knowledge of learned information. It seems to me that it could be a win for everybody!

 

Resource: Google Forms https://www.google.com/forms/

Class Article: Wong, W. (2014). How technology enables blended learning. EdTech Focus on K-12. Retrieved from http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2014/04
/how-technology-enables-blended-learning

ISTE Standard 2-Student Collaboration

This week we focused on ISTE standard 2, which states, “Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.” I decided to focus on portion D of this standard. Part D says that student’s will, “Contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.” To me standard two pushes students to use technology as an avenue for a different type of student collaboration that may enhance a collaborative experience. I focused in on portion D because in younger grades the main source of collaboration stems from problem solving and explaining their thinking.

Our class trigger question was, “How can students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others?” This made me think about the more specific question of, “How can I find a resource that is easy enough for students use without parent help and wouldn’t worry parents as students interact and collaborate during a learning task?” I began my exploration by reading Megan Cicconi’s article, “Vygotsky meets technology: A reinvention of collaboration in the early childhood mathematics classroom.” This article shared Vygostky’s theory about student interaction and the benefits of using online interaction. She states Vygotsky’s research and findings when it comes to online participation as well as points out the three main benefits. These benefits are, “First, they found that the virtual world allows students to complete tasks that would other-wise be improbable due to realistic constraints, including money and time…The second benefit that Antonacci et al. (2008) identified is the virtual world’s persistence and constant accessibility, which increases social interactions and therefore provides more opportunities for collaborative learning…The third benefit of utilizing virtual worlds for collaborative learning that Antonacci et al. (2008) discovered focuses on the adaptive and emergent nature of virtual worlds.”All of these benefits are not only specifically found in online collaborative learning, but are indeed met by this process!

Cicconi’s reading led me to my resource of Voki and helped me answer my question for the week. I was worried about having students be monitored while being online/ having parents feel secure as their students work collaboratively. Cicconi’s article made it clear that there are many resources that are available that teachers can manipulate depending on what to do, who can see it, and how students may and may not interact. She states that teachers may control, “student-initiated publishing and sharing, utilizing privacy controls and creating pairs, small groups, or whole group activities based on objectives and projects, and allowing students to interact through teacher-selected social network sites.” This affirmed my question of how to keep online collaboration within a safe environment. After that question was answered I was pointed to a resource by the name of Voki. This is a website that allows students to make an avatar and share their ideas through that avenue. Students can retell a story, challenge other students with word problems, and so much more. This site is student friendly and that student can only access each avatar, but the work can be shared with their classmates and teacher.

http://www.voki.com/

Overall I think that Voki as a resource, along with many others, could be teacher monitored and could provide the collaboration that standard two talks about. Technological collaboration could open up communication in a whole different way for students and if monitored and kept in a safe environment, I believe all students could flourish using digital media.

 

Resource: Voki  

http://www.voki.com/

 

Class Article: Cicconi, M. (2013). Vygotsky meets technology: A reinvention of collaboration in the early childhood mathematics classroom. Early Childhood Education Journal, 42(1), 57–65.

ISTE Standard 1- Creative Process

This week we focused on the ISTE standard 1, “Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity” To me this standard means that students are given the opportunity to expand upon the given material and redirect or share their learning in a creative and engaging way. I think that my findings from this week relate most to section c of this standard,” c. Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.” I think that my resources help students do this because of the steps that they would have to use-to-use storybird. It is important that in this process students think about what they want their end product to be, as well as the different steps they would need to take to successfully deliver that end product.

The weeks trigger question was, “How can students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology?” The word that stood out for me in this question was a creative product. I wanted to know how students could show me what they learned in a creative way using technological resources. From there I came up with my own question of, “How can I provide easy to use interactive technology to spur creative thinking in a primary elementary classroom.”

So I began my search for my answer by reading to Bob Dillon’s post “The Power of Digital Story.” After reading the article and connecting it to my internship, I found great importance in his points of “creating space for listening” and “amplify with images.” I these topics are so important for younger students because for them to be able to be creative alongside technology students need time to digest what they are seeing. I also found importance in Dillon’s point about amplifying with pictures. Student engagement and creativity can be ignited through pictures.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-power-of-digital-story-bob-dillon

I connected my question with this article resource because with my young students my resources would have to be some kind of interactive technology that isn’t super advanced or individual because of our lack of whole class computer access. These restrictions lead me to see digital story as a great option! From there I began to search digital story telling and building links and I ran into my resource, story bird.

https://storybird.com/create/ (Links to an external site.)

This website would allow students to do so many different things! As a whole group the class could look at pictures I put together and create a story themselves to match the pictures. This would spur creativity because they would have a general idea of a stories beginning, middle, and end; but would have to fill in the detail. As an individual (if resources available) students could create a story themselves and then pick out their pictures to match their stories. I think that the storybook option would be appropriate for my students because of their level of writing and reading, but to type the text into their story may take way too long. If students could read their story while going through the pictures or have their writing next to their pictures, I think it would be manageable to grade and connect to common core standards.

Storybird would allow students to show me evidence of the skill that I am teaching them. This evidence would also show the creative process, as students have to plan how they would show me their conceptual understanding of the learned skill. For example if students were learning about a stories beginning middle and end. They would have to plan how their story could show those three things. They would next have to creatively piece together a technological sequence that would show their conceptual understanding of beginning middle and end. The end product would show a student driven and creation of a piece of technological evidence showing middle beginning and end. I found that this was just one of many different easy and interactive websites that students could use to show a product of their learning. I hope to run into many more of these websites so I can continue to integrate technology as well as keep track of my student’s creative process like standard one challenges us to do!

 

Resource: Storybird

https://storybird.com/create/ (Links to an external site.)

 

Class Article: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-power-of-digital-story-bob-dillon (Links to an external site.)

Dillon, B. (2014). The power of digital story (Links to an external site.). Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-power-of-digital-story-bob-dillon