Course EDLD 5364, Teaching with Technology, centered on a single group project. Each week encompassed different readings, videos, and tasks that added to the group project. After going through this course, I realize the main goal was to get us to understand that we should not consider technology to be an add-on to our lessons, but should be an integral part of the lesson design.
Throughout the class, we focused on incorporating technology, mainly Web 2.0 technology, into a format of lesson plans called Universal Design for Learning, UDL. In the first week we formed a group and started collaborating using a shared Google Doc. Luckily, I was able to team up with members from the previous course, with the addition of one new member. Since, we knew each other, things started to roll easily. One of our first tasks was to research and create individual UDL lessons. This was a new concept for me and I have learned a great deal from the UDL lesson planning process.
"Universal Design for Learning is an extension of an architectural movement called universal design" (Rose & Meyer, 2002). Universal design is the concept that every building and structure should be accessible to every person, regardless of abilities or impairments. Some examples of universal design are the curb cutouts that allow people in wheel chairs to access sidewalks and the fact that Braille placards are placed at the same height in every building to allow visually impaired people to easily locate what they need. UDL bring this concept to the education realm and opened my eyes to how restrictive our current system is. The lessons in my class are based on the assumption that every student has full vision and hearing and that every student's brain functions pretty much the same. What I have realized after this group project is that I may be missing many of my students especially those with impairments that are not external and easily seen. I have learned that I should start my lesson plans with the end in mind. I should set my learning objectives first and then design activities that meet these objectives. I should also incorporate different levels and types of activities to allow my students the freedom to learn the material on their terms. Most of the activities use technology and Web 2.0 resources, but they should also include paper-based products and traditional textbook and library resources. This is the first concrete reason I have learned of to validate the use of technology in the classroom. I have always understood that technology opens the door to the outer world, but now I understand that without technology, many of my students are shut out of their full potential. I can also concretely explain to others why they should start to incorporate technology into their lessons. I can explain that "technology is simply a tool that assists [our] ongoing assessment of the students’ progress and supports in [our] efforts to make learning interesting, engaging, and meaningful to the students." (Sprague & Dede, 1999, pg. 16).
In college, I finally realized that I learn best when I have examples to work from. I can read a textbook and figure things out, but I have always been drawn to math and science, because the math and science textbooks are full of worked examples. When working a problem, I typically find a similar problem in the book and follow the pattern. This is also how I approached this course. I worked best on the UDL Lesson Builder assignment because I could reference the example lessons on the CASTwebsite. But, I also realize that this is a shortcoming of mine. I struggle when I have to create a new product and there is not an example to work from. This makes it difficult for me when I progress past the examples and need to extend them to new products. However, I am having better successes with this and am becoming more familiar with creating entirely new ideas as I become a more seasoned practitioner, and eventually expert, in the field of educational technology. These group assignments are also helping me in this realm. We are able to work together to create new ideas and I am able to receive instant feedback from my group members on everything. I have seen great improvements in my teammates and my work. It's this type of instant feedback that was discussed in a video from the course. Mr. James Gee explored the relationship of video games and assessment (Edutopia.org, nd). In a video game, you learn and try new tasks and get instant feedback on the results. If the results are positive you move on, if they are negative, you try again. This concept is reflected in these group assignments. When we find something that works, we share it with each other and we all learn from it. When we find a fault, again we share it with each other and we all learn from it. I am beginning to incorporate this concept in my classroom. I have been giving my students shorter assessments that are quicker and easier to grade, so that I can share their results sooner. I also have the students share their results with the class and we collaborate on why certain questions were missed and what we can do to improve for the next time.
The ideas covered in this course have caused a shift in my thinking as I design my classroom lessons. The collaboration in the course has caused a shift in my thinking as I collaborate with my peers on my campus. Google Docs are a great way to share ideas and create a product together. I have also noticed some short comings in the design process when it comes to the Google Docs. We created a new document for each week of the course and copied a bunch of stuff to each new document. There was also a bunch of information in each document that did not necessarily pertain to the assignment at hand. I found it difficult to wade through everything in the document and find out what was new and needed to be done. In the future, I may need to find a better way to arrange the shared document to make it easier to understand and use. There may be some better software to use, or we may just need to setup some guidelines on the use of the document. One of the main issues we encountered was due to scheduling and procrastination. There were several of us, me included, that would wait until Sunday to start working on the weekly assignments. In the future, we should setup some time lines and goals so that we are not "cramming" at the end.
References:
Rose, D. H., Meyer, A. M., & , F. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age, universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Assn for Supervision & Curriculum. Retrieved fromhttp://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter4_2.cfm
Sprague, D., & Dede, C. (1999). If i teach this way, am i doing my job: Constructivism in the classroom. Retrieved from http://imet.csus.edu/imet9/280/docs/dede_constructivisim.pdf
Edutopia.org (nd). Big thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games. Retrieved on April 1, 2012 from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-james-gee-video
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