61713I-1 Reflection

As this course and the year comes to a close we can relflect on our GAME plans and the other new insights that we can take away from our Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas class. To start, the GAME plan that I developed early in this course has been very successful. I've maintained my goal of integrating one online networking lesson and one lesson that offers several technology choices every month. I will continue to work towards meeting this goal with the rest of this school year.

The one thing that I really am taking away from putting this plan together is how effective the process is. Setting goals, actions, monitoring, and evaluation are the simple steps that I can follow for integrating new plans and goals in and out of the classroom. I'm really hoping to keep up my current plan and continue it next year while integrating a third goal of maintaining a full featured class website, following the GAME plan strategy.

In regards to technology integration,creating a unit plan in this course is something that I was happy to create, because I knew it was something I could actually use. For that reason I'm looking forward to hopefully putting it into play next month and seeing how these technology rich lessons work with students.

I've gotten a lot from communicating with peers and gotten the most from communicating in our discussion board. Hearing about classmates PBL and social networking learning ideas really gave me some inspirations for ways to include similar ideas in my 4th grade class. I'm looking forward to my last two Walden courses and the rest of this school year to put these ideas and everything else I've been picking up from Walden courses into practice. I'm also hoping to apply for a new position as a tech advisor with this completed degree, so I should probably follow the GAME plan model to make that a reality.

Using the GAME plan Process with Students

This week we've looking at digital storytelling and that is just one of the activities I am trying to include in my GAME plan to better meet the needs of my students. After looking at the ISTE NETS for students I can think about how they connect to my GAME plan and what I can do to better reach those technology goals.

The two main goals for my plan have been to add more online collaborative experiences and experiences that give students technology choices for how they want to complete assignments. With that in mind the first thing that jumped out from the technology standards was communication and collaboration. Much of the details of that standard matched closely with my own goal of incorporating more collaborative projects.

One technology standard that I saw that I want to work with in my GAME plan is research and information fluency. In elementary school conducting research on the internet can be challenging because of the various levels of experience with computers and the internet. However I want to work more on including these skills with my GAME plan goals so that all students can be prepared for middle school when they will be starting to do more online research. If any teachers have some ideas or projects for students who might just be starting out with research and online inquiry that would be greatly appreciated.

The last technology standard that I am hoping to incorporate more in my GAME plan and classroom is Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making. I especially think this is important at the 4th grade level because they are shifting from the stage of being given instruction and following it to really starting think on their own about what they want and how they can go about getting it. So with my collaborative and choices goals I am hoping that those assignments can have added levels of inquiry and open ended expectations. Any ideas for making this happen with my group of 4th graders would also be greatly appreciated.

Next week is our last week so I wanted to say thank you to all the other teachers who have given me a lot of grade ideas. Taking these courses online gives us the unique opportunity to connect in ways that a normal classroom doesn't provide. I hope that some of these connections continue for future courses and long careers as quality educators.

Revising My Game Plan

Throughout our Walden Course we have been picking up a lot of great ideas and insights from our resources and communicating with other teachers in blogs and discussions. I've been working these new ideas into my own GAME plan and I think that it has really made a difference in providing a better quality of education in my classroom. Some of the ideas that I have implemented or plan on implementing is a podcast assignment and an overhaul of my classroom website so that it is a communication portal for my students.

I am still working towards my GAME plan goals of implementing one online collaborative assignment and one assignment that gives students several technology options to complete. I have been successful so far and I would really like to stay on top of my plan as this Walden course wraps up.

Looking at the NETS for teachers I think I would like to expand my goals to work more towards the 6th technology standard of social, ethical, and human issues. I feel that I should be teaching and modeling a lot more of the proper and ethical ways for using the internet so that my younger students start on the right foot to use the internet safely and with purpose.

I think the key to continuing to work towards goals and developing new goals is to communicate with other technology savvy teachers to borrow ideas and clarify our own thinking. I'm planning on continuing to take ideas from teachers in my Walden courses, other employees in my building, and other teachers that I have met and connected with online.

If any other Walden teachers know of a good place to network with other teachers who integrate technology in the classroom please share and enjoy the rest of this week.

Evaluating my GAME Plan- Week 5

How effective were your actions in helping to meet your goals?
Things have been going well. I really worked hard this week to meet my 2nd goal of offering students choices and catering lessons to individuals by giving them several options for our poetry unit. The challenge was explaining each type of poetry for the students to choose from. This was really time consuming and I might re-evaluate how I explain the choices if I use this strategy in the future.

What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?
I've learned that it giving students options means more time needs to be set aside to explain each option and give students choices. This is an adjustment that I needed to make so that I could delegate enough time for students to then work on there projects, which this week was poetry.

What do you still have to learn?
I would like to organize a wikipage for my Washington State social studies unit. I can remember learning about a good place to set up a wikipage from early in my Walden coursework, but can not recall. If anyone can remember or can recommend a appropriate site for organizing a wikipage I would appreciate it. I will do some research and see what I can come up with as well.

How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?
I am going to continue to implement my goals, but I need to start organizing time better. Since I teach elementary school I divide the day by subjects so I am lucky that I can plan to delegate more time on certain days for projects that require this. When I am looking at implementing strategies and technology this is something that I want to make sure I take into consideration for the future.

Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress

This week we have been talking a lot about assessment so I think it is fitting to do some assessing of my progress towards meeting my GAME plan goals.

Are you finding the information and resources needed?

For my GAME plan goals I have been spending a lot of time online looking for as many types of lessons for my units coming up to give students plenty of options for assignments and ways to include online collaboration. For my upcoming poetry unit I have been using the internet to learn about all of the different kid friendly poetry styles so that my kids will have a lot of choices for the types of poems they want to write and how they want to share their work. I am always going to be looking for more great ideas so I will also continue to ask other teachers for suggestions in my school and online.

Do you need to modify your action plan?

So far I've been following my action plan of starting the week by looking at the lessons planned and finding ways of integrating technology tools for collaboration and choices. I might modify that to start the month out this way so that if I need to make arrangements or if projects last longer than a week I can be prepared ahead of time for this. Also by looking at the whole month I can look at keeping the projects fresh by not using the same technology tools in a consecutive week.

What have you learned so far?

I've been learning a lot from reading and interacting on blogs for other classmates GAME plans. There has been a lot of great suggestions and ideas that I have looked at and thought that I could add to my own plan to make it better. One in particular is improving my class webpage and how one of my classmates plans on going about that. By making some of those changes myself I can get closer to meeting my own goals for collaboration and choices.

What new questions have arisen?

The questions that have been coming up have really been, how do I go about doing that? I might see a great idea like a weekly blog that students can communicate on and comment back and forth. The questions have really been about making the things like this that we've talked about and learned and how to make them actually happen. A lot of working through those questions is happening for me through trial and error. So far I've really enjoyed seeing what works and what just doesn't fit for my grade and class. I'm looking forward to more questions like these because they are providing a lot of great opportunities for trying things I might not have tried until I wanted to know more.

Carrying out my GAME Plan

Last week, in our Walden course we laid the frame-work for our GAME Plan. This week we are going a little deeper to find what needs to be done to turn these plan into reality. To do that, there are a few questions that need to be asked and hopefully with some self reflection and collaboration with classmates we can take the next step towards meeting our goals.

Q: What resources will you need to carry out your plan?
A: To meet these goals I really need specific technology tools that can be used for my specific lessons and units coming up. Some of those units are in measurement, poetry, Lewis and Clark, simple circuits, and the five step writing process. I already have considered wikis, VoiceThread, PhotoStory, google documents, PowerPoints, and WebQuests. If anyone has any tools that they think might be good with any of the units I mentioned, please let me know. You can never have too many resources, especially when I am trying to reach the goal of meeting students diverse learning needs by personalizing learning experiences.

Q: What additional information do you need?
A: To meet my goal of incorporating more online collaborative tools, it would be great to know which tools work best. It would be great to know which are the most accessible for younger grade levels, like my 4th grade classroom. I plan on doing more research on the subject, but it would be great to hear from some fellow teachers on the subject as well.

Q: What steps have you been able to take so far?
A: So far I have been looking at the lessons in the next week or two to find ways to add collaborative tools and activities that are personalized or meet specific learning needs. I'm working on a VoiceThread to add to my Lewis and Clark unit. As a wrap up to the unit I am looking at having my students create video journals from different points in the journey. Kids would be working in groups, picking out roles in the group, and then when finished they could leave feedback and collaborate with responses to each others video journal. Hopefully this project can help to meet my goals and any feedback about this project would be greatly appreciated.

My Personal G.A.M.E. Plan

Our textbook, Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use, describes the acronym G.A.M.E. as a set of four steps that individuals can take for self directed learning (Cennamo). I will share my own personal G.A.M.E. plan to strengthen my confidence in two indicators from the NETS-T.

G- Set Goals-
Goal #1- I would like to meet to strengthen my confidence in ISTE standard of facilitating and inspiring student learning. Specifically, promoting student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning and creative process. I would like to use online collaborative tools at least once a month in my classroom so that this takes place at least 5 times during the duration of the school year.

Goal #2- I also would like to strengthen my confidence in the ISTE standard of designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments. Specifically, customizing and personalizing learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources. I would like to have a project or activity at least once a month that gives students choices for how to complete the assignment so that it is personalized to their own learning style. Meeting this goal would let this type of learning experience happen at least 5 times with the duration of the school year.

A- Take Actions to meet those goals-
#1 At the beginning of the week I will look at the lessons I have planned and try to find ways that tools like blogs, wikis, and voice threads can be incorporated to let students collaborate and reflect. I will also connect with the other 4th grade teacher's in my building to see if they are interested in collaborating using these tools for upcoming projects.

#2 I will look at all upcoming lesson plans that all ready integrate digital and multimedia tools and see what other digital and multimedia tools can be added so that students have a choice in how they would like to complete the assignment.

M- Monitor progress towards achieving goal-
To monitor my progress I will have a chart that has goal #1 and #2 and a box for each month that is left in the school year. Every two weeks I will check this chart to mark if I have met this goal or if I still need to adapt a lesson plan or assignment to make it happen. If it is half way through the month and I still haven't met the goal of including these indicators once a month than this chart will let me know that I need to re-evaluate the next couple weeks to make sure that I can include these adaptations to meet my goals.

E- Evaluate whether the goals were achieved and Extend your learning to new situations-
At the end of the month on the chart I have organized to check progress I will have the name of each month and a place to write what I did and a score from 1-10 of how it went. By having this chart and details about how each month went I will be able to see if my goals were achieved and also if they went well enough that I would want to do them again next year. If I gave myself a low score on some projects when the school year is over or before next year begins I can look into changes I could make to have these assignments go better.

References:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

EDUC 6712I-7 Final Reflection

As week 8 wraps up for my Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom course I can reflect on the information and personal growth I've taken away from the research, communication, and coursework. I will specifically reflect on what was striking about teaching new literacy skills to my students, what influences I will take away from this course, and a professional development goal that I will work towards relating to what I've learned in this course.

In the first few weeks of the course we started looking at what exactly new literacy skills were and what the education system would need to provide for students to be successful in the 21st century. This was best seen in our resource web article titled, 21st Century Fluency Skills, which included skills like the ability to analyze and authenticate a variety of information sources (Jukes). The thing I found striking about teaching these new literacy skills within my own classroom was that, although the list was at first quite daunting, most of the skills are already being taught within many of the lessons already in place. As I continue to develop these skills with my students I have been looking at which new literacy skills from Juke's list are missing in my classroom and ways that I can integrate them into the lessons I have coming up this year.

Many of the new literacy skills that we talked about in this course will be influential in my future instruction. The experience of creating a unit that integrates many of these skills was a great practice for how the things we were reading about and discussing can have real world application in our classrooms. I also was particularly influenced by the work we did with analyzing websites for credibility and usefulness. Our text, Web Literacy for Educators, offered many helpful tips like, examining the URL, asking about the author, and looking at the content rather than the graphics (November). I put a lot of these skill into practice when I created an audio sample application of examining a website that was questionable. I think these skills are incredibly important for students to gain at a young age, so I am glad I can apply what I have learned and done in my 4th grade classroom.

Our text, Reading the Web, contained a lot of great information about teaching students to properly search for information using the internet. Specifically they talked about getting students to ask inquiry questions and steps to using the internet as a tool to answer those questions (Eagleton). My professional goal for the duration of the school year is to integrate more inquiry and web research into my classroom instruction. To make this happen I plan on examining the lessons that I have coming up and how they could benefit from both inquiry and web research. I also would like to communicate with other teachers in my building and possibly collaborate on projects that they have in place relating to inquiry and web research to see how other teachers approach this task. To keep this knowledge fresh I plan on keeping the texts from November and Eagleton in my classroom so that I can refer to them when planning lessons and to also pick up on things I might have missed during our coursework. By next year I hope to have integrated inquiry and web research into every subject that I teach at least once a quarter. By taking some of the steps I mentioned I hope to achieve that goal so that next years students have a full year to focus on many of these new literacy skills.

In conclusion, the face of education is constantly changing, but it doesn't always keep up with the pace of technology. As educators it should be our goal to prepare students for the future rather than the present or the past. To do this students will need 21st century literacy skills and often the classroom is the only place where this can happen. I've gained a lot of experience and knowledge over the past 8 weeks, but I have a feeling it will be my students who will benefit the most from the work that has taken place.


Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the web: Strategies for internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.

Jukes, I. (2007). 21st century fluency skills: attributes of a 21st century learner. Retrieved from http://www.committedsardine.com/handouts/twca.pdf

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.

EDUC-677I-7 Final Reflection

As this course comes to a close I can reflect back on the beginning of the course and see all of the learning and growth that has taken place in just 8 weeks. Whenever I begin this courses I come in thinking I am up to date on current technology and I am always surprised at how many new resources that I am introduced to that I was not previously aware of.

We began this course by defining our personal theory of learning. When I created that personal theory I stated that I taught from a constructivist perspective and tried to incorporate that theory into most of my lessons. Now, at the end of this course, I am still confident in my previous personal theory of learning but I think that I would add more emphasis on social learning theories if I was to write it again.

I have already began thinking of ways that I can incorporate this new hybrid social-constructivism approach to teaching for the upcoming school year. Two technologies that I would like to incorporate to achieve this are group power points and Voice Thread. With power points I really see students reinforcing their own learning by presenting their research and projects with the class. With VoiceThread I see so many opportunities for students to express themselves and communicate effectively with comments and questions online. This skill seems invaluable as it becomes more and more a part of everyday life in and out of school.

In regards to continued growth I would really like the opportunity to be a leader in the field of educational technology within my own school and eventually beyond. To achieve this I plan on inviting my other classes to join in with the lessons that I think best utilize the technology that I have been learning about. I also am setting a goal to stay as current as possible with new and developing educational technology so that I can implement it into the classroom as soon as possible so that it is relevant to and applicable to the technology students will encounter out of school and in the future. I plan on achieving this by staying updated through online periodicals and also by continuing communication with other teachers who are also passionate about integrating technology into the classroom.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed the learning and communication that took place in this course and I can't wait to implement some of the new strategies that were presented. I also am taking away a new view on what works best for me as a teacher and how I can use my personal learning theory to do what is best for my students, give them the best education possible.

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

So this week we have been discussing and learning about the social learning theory. Our DVD and online text went into the benefits of having children learn things in collaboration with other students. Many of these experiences are often found in a project based environment and that is known as social constructivism. Our text offered a myriad of ways that we can use technology to not only give students tools to create with while they are collaborating, but also tools that help students connect with each other in and out of the classroom.

My favorite example from our text that was provided was having students create a multimedia project as a group, specifically a curriculum video. This just seems like the perfect project to get students to achieve a lot of the goals of social learning. Students are utilizing strengths to take on different roles, they are directing and learning from each other, and they are researching and discussing their research before they present it in a final project. All of these skills are great for the 21st century and have real world application.

I also think webquests are great, especially at the elementary level. The internet can often be too big for kids to find information and with webquests it makes the content more accessible and can keep them on track to meet the learning goals. It's great to see kids work together on these projects, because I see a lot of discussion happening related to the webquests and I think that is a key to having concrete learning experiences.

One other example that our text provided was connecting with other classrooms or experts for collaboration. I believe that this will be the future of education that has students all over the world connecting and collaborating to create things and learn from each other. Tools like Skype and VoiceThread are great examples of this technology. If you would like to view my VoiceThread that I created here is a link to where you can view it... http://voicethread.com/share/527280/ .

I'm hoping that other teacher see the possibilities for learning and growth with connectivism and social learning theories implemented in the classroom. Current and future technology is making it that much easier for students to connect and create things which are skills that they can use and will need for the jobs of tomorrow.

Constructivism in Practice

This week our text gave us suggestions for generating and testing hypotheses using technology in the classroom. During this week we also have been learning and discussing the theory and practice of constructivism and constructionism and how technology can be used to carry them out.

Dr. Orey from our DVD describes constructionism as a theory of learning that states people learn best when they build an external artifact or something they can share with others. Our text described six tasks that teachers can use to help students generate and test hypothesis and a couple really stuck out with some key phrases that related to the constructivist/constructionist approach that Dr. Orey talked about where students are building their own learning experience. The tasks that really stood out were problem solving, invention, and experimental inquiry. To me these tasks could easily be used for any activities where a teacher was having students construct and discover in a project based environment.

Our test suggested using spreadsheet software when students are developing tests and hypothesis. In this scenario I think technology plays a valuable role of helping students organize their data and predictions to use them for further testing.

Another suggestion for technology tools from our text was data collection tools such as digital microscopes and USB connectible data probes. With these advances in technology students have tools that are more accurate and easy to use than in the past. In a constructivist classroom students need tools to experiment, test, and create with.

In conclusion, this week has provided some great ideas for technology use in my own classroom. I always knew that there are many technology tools available that can help students create things to help them construct their own learning. What I got from this week is that there are also technology tools that can help students to organize data when they are testing ideas and also tools that can help students collect that data to use in their projects or constructions.

Cognitivism in Practice

After reviewing the resources for this week I am realizing that many of the lesson adaptations that I make fall under the umbrella of cognitivism that I was not originally aware of. I often will display pictures or play media related to the topics that I am teaching to enhance lessons. My first goal was to make my lesson more engaging by adding these elements, but I also see now that they can make a lasting impact on how students retain and process the information that I provide.

Dr. Orey, from our DVD, explains how cognitivism looks at how learners take in information and what they are capable of processing, retaining, and using. By looking at how learners take in information, we as teachers, can adapt our lessons so that we are creating learning experiences that address exactly what our students are capable of. You wouldn't try and play a game like Call of Duty 4 on an old Commodore 64 computer, because there is no way that the machine could handle a game like that. Similar with students, by understanding the limitations and capabilities of the learning process we can create experiences that students can get more out of.

One of the main strategies that our DVD and text share for this is through organization. Our text, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, talks in Chapter 4 about steps that students and teachers can take prior to learning and lessons that can help organize information. These tools can also help students to refer back to previous learning experiences to continue to build on what they know. One of my favorite suggestions from the text was using multimedia like powerpoints or video clips before a lesson to act as an expository advanced organizer that helps activate prior knowledge and develop a mental model to help them understand new information.

Chapter 6 delves into summarizing and note taking which relates to cognitivism as well since the purpose is to organize learning so that it is more digestible to the human brain. Our text offers several suggestions for classroom technology that can assist students in the art of note taking and summarizing. The one that I could see myself using in my 4th grade class is the note taking template created in Inspiration. I think talking notes is a great skill for students to have and by having a graphic organizer that students can fill in while they are taking notes gives them a framework and helps to keep them organized at a stage when note taking is probably something that they have not had much experience in.

By combining cognitivism with classroom technology we can use software and internet tools to help organize the learning that we want to impart. Many of the suggestions and insights are simple steps that teachers can take that can make the difference of a lesson that goes over students heads to something that they can remember and use for the rest of their lives.

Behaviorism in Practice

This week we have been reading, discussing, and exploring some methods for incorporating technology in the classroom. We also have been looking into the behaviorism and its practice in the classroom.

In Chapter 8 of our text we looked at reinforcing effort and some methods for incorporating technology to do this. The book offered a great suggestion of giving students a rubric and having them grade their own effort from week to week. The book made the suggestion of having students create graphs from their results to see the trend in their personal effort. I think this correlates with behaviorism by giving student a good grade or positive reinforcement for showing effort and a poor grade or negative reinforcement for not showing enough effort. The student should want to put in effort for there own personal motivation so I think that using behaviorism strategies are not the best for reinforcing effort.

However, I think that the homework and practice discussed in chapter 10 have much more applications for the behaviorism model to be put into practice. Dr. Orey from our DVD describes the behaviorist learning theory as reinforcing positive behaviors and punishment for undesirable behavior. Homework and practice can provide great opportunities for reinforcement. Many of the homework assignments that I give to my students are directly related to the lessons from class to let students practice or continue to develop skills on the subjects we are working on in class. Technology is a great asset for homework and practice and our text offers some great suggestions for using word processors, spreadsheet software, multimedia, and web resources to practice, review, and apply their learning. In my 4th grade class I often will offer websites that correlate with the lessons in class that students can explore at home with their parents. At this point in time I do not assign homework that requires students to access the internet since not all students have computers or internet as a resource. It is my hope in the future that this could be a possibility and that all students can have and use this technology outside of the classroom.

Reflection for Walden Technology in the Classroom Course

In the final week of my Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society class I am looking back at what I've learned, but more importantly, what I'm taking away. When I entered the class I thought I had a good grasp on educational technology from my own active interest in the subject, but in the proceeding weeks I learned about many new technologies and how I can use them in my own class. The things I've learned are more than educational theory or facts, I've learned about tools and technology that have real world application value that I can use. When you take a class, especially as a teacher, you hope that the things you learn can actually be put into practice.

A big part of this class was focused on understanding the 21st century student. By understanding this change in the skills students will need to be successful, I have really deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process by looking at what students need and then understanding how we can use 21st century tools to teach them.

Before this class I came in with a constructivist approach to teaching, but after this class I have a heightened appreciation for creating lessons where students create their own learning. When students are the ones creating their learning and the teacher is facilitating this experience the lessons make a bigger impact and really stay with the students.

I can continue to expand my knowledge of learning, leading, and teaching with technology by putting the things I've learned into practice and keeping up on expanding that knowledge by collaborating with other teachers in classrooms that are also striving to create 21st century learners. Many of the blogs I've been introduced to with this class or updated regularly and continue to add new ideas that I can use in my class.

I have 2 goals for the next 2 years, my first is to switch my role from being a mainstream classroom teacher to a tech advisor. The district I want to apply for in San Antonio has a team of tech advisors who work at 2 schools each and organize tech related lessons and help teachers implement technology in their classroom. The challenge is showing that I am well suited for this position by showing that I am a leader in technology in my own class now by implementing the strategies I am learning from my masters program. My other goal is to implement a program for myself and other teachers in the school to have access to the sets of laptops in my school so every student in one class can be on a laptop connected to the internet at the same time. The challenge with this is getting approval from administration to set up a program where teachers can share there classroom sets. The plan sounds simple enough, but I see many challenges in also getting all teachers on schedules to share and pick up laptop sets from other rooms. My hope is that teachers will create lessons that have all students connected to the internet at the same time.

In conclusion, I am very excited to put the things I've picked up from this class. I feel like I've gained many skills to bring me into the future of education. I see my students blogging, podcasting, and creating wikis to gain skills to become 21st century learners as I continue learning new teaching skills to be a 21st century teacher.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

After reviewing the website for The Partnership for 21st Century Skills ( http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ ), I was really impressed with the goals and focus of the organization. I am really glad, as an educator trying to develop these skills that a group and a site like this exists. In my post for my class discussion I mentioned that it's important for students to not only gain knowledge, but also skills to be successful and after reading the organizations misson statement it is clear that they see the need for students to have a combination of both. I was impressed to see that they were working with a handful of states to help implement new plans to integrate new standards and programs. Although my state, Washington, was not listed I hope to see their outreach expand to more states like mine as they continue to gain recognition. I was actually surprised that my state was not on the list, because we have a lot of famous technology leaders like Microsoft, Amazon, and Nintendo that give us a reputation for being in touch with the 21st century. I found a lot of great content on their "Route 21" portion of their website. I particularly enjoyed the snapshots section that showcased videos of some of these skills in practice in classrooms. If I could say anything that I didn't like about the site, it would only be in the "Resources for 21st Century Skills" portion of Route 21. I found it a bit confusing and difficult to navigate, although after spending some time exploring I found a lot of great links. I think a website like is a great step in the right direction. For teachers it means that there is a group out there who recognizes that these skills should be included in every classroom. It is nice to know that a support system like this does exist and my hope is that they expand that impact into all states. For students, it means that we are moving in the right direction and that direction is into the 21st century as future thinkers and innovators.

Using Blogs in the Classroom

Sure, blogs are a nice for sharing opinions and information, but do they have a place in the classroom. Blogs have entered into every day vocabulary within just the past few years, so the possibilities for utilizing this new technology hasn't been fully explored and utilized. With how easy it is to create and post content onto the internet their are many ways that teachers can get creative and use blogs. The benefits of blogging is that students can interact in a situation where they can build writing skills and have more control of their own learning experience. I teach in a 4th grade classroom and have been considering incorporating blogs. Here are a few ideas that I have come up with for using blogs in the classroom....

Teacher Created Blogs

1. Posting answers to questions- Teachers can post questions in blogs that students can respond to. Once students start to respond they can build off of other responses and really construct their own learning with the help of their classmates.

2. Blogs from history- I thought it would be really fun to create a blog as a historical figure and write to students in the class. The students could then post questions to that figure and interact like they were really sharing a dialogue with someone from the past. Hopefully students would be engaged and want to learn more through this experience.

Student Created Blogs

3. Student Current Event Blogs- Students could each pick or be assigned a topic related to news to blog about each week. An example might be one student is reporting on environmental news while another student reports on news related to the War in Iraq. By reporting weekly, students would do research and be able to share links to news stories and opinions. In turn, students could have the assignment of responding to a select number of blogs which would give students the chance to learn from other students reports.

4. Video blogs- Video content has become so easy to create that it could easily be added into an assignment. By creating video blogs where they share things that they have learned or opinions about things that they are learning they can take that interaction to an even further level. It wouldn't have to stop at students just talking either, it could be a student doing a science experiment on camera and then talking about the results of the experiment. Another idea would be a student showing teaching a skill that they know how to do for other students to see.. an example could be a student teaching how to tie a necktie or do a proper push-up. Students could write the script, produce the video, post the content, and then respond to other video blogs.

Let me know what you think and if you have any other ideas that you would like to share. Until then, keep blogging.
Mr. Henne

New Educational Technology from CES 2009.

If you are into new technology, like me, you were keeping your eyes on CES or the Consumer Electronic Show. The products shown at this convention in Las Vegas showed some of the new technologies that will be showing up in products we will use in our everyday lives. After reading about all the new products that companies were unveiling I started thinking about the application of some of this new technology in classrooms. Sure there are plenty of things like cell phones and flat screen tvs that really don't have much place in the classroom, but there were a couple things that I thought were worth mentioning.

1. Programming for Kids

This year Bill Gates handed the keys to his kingdom to new CEO Michael Ballmer who showed out some of the new things to come out of the Microsoft camp during the keynote speech. The big news was about the new version of Windows coming out later this year called Windows 7. The thing worth mentioning about Windows 7, for educator purposes, is that it will incorpororate new touch screen technology which might be useful in a classroom for easier interface for students. However the one thing that made me think about education from the Microsoft opening speech was an introduction of a program called Kodu. Kodu is a program that requires no programming language skills and lets you pick and choose the elements of your design with point and click. In the showcase a 12 year old showed off a game that she had designed. My feelings are that, for kids who are into computers, having a simple design for those who want to make their own games is a great educational opportunity. We need programmers to continue to deveop technology and software. Those programmers have to start somewhere and Kodu might be a good place.

2. 3-D in the classroom

Nvidia, famous for designing graphic cards, showed off a set of 3D glasses that hook up to your computer and let you play some of your favorite games in 3D. Does 3D technology have a place in the classroom? I think it will, but I think it will take some time. I imagine a classroom full of kids going on a virtual field trip through Ancient Greece or exploring the International Space Station (which will probably be complete by the time this technology is possible). 3D technology has been popular in the past and died out, but is making a comeback courtesy of new technology. Anyone who has seen an Imax or animated movie in 3D knows it's not the old red and blue cheap technology of the past. It's becoming a real option that directors like James Cameron, who is releasing Avatar later this year in 3D, and Peter Jackson, who is in talks of making his new Hobbit films in 3D as well as a re-release of his Lord of the Rings Trilogy remastered in 3D. The problem encountered with these films is that needed special projectors and screens to be played on, but new technology is being developed to show these fims on existing equipment. You will see it in theatres with 9 out of the 10 next Disney movies coming out in 3D..... It's hard to say if 3D movies will go the way of the HD-DVD and die out gracefully or if it will blow up and make its way into everything we do. If it does we might just be seeing 3D technology making its way into our classrooms in the future.

If you are interested in learning more about 3D films coming out this year or where theatres that show 3D films are located in your area here is a link to a great website I found...

http://marketsaw.blogspot.com/2007/04/list-of-upcoming-3d-movies.html

Although this isn't a long list, it does give you something to think about as technology continues to shape the future of our classrooms.