One Small Step for Mankind...

My personal theory of learning has not undergone drastic changes since beginning this course, although I have definitely tweaked it some.  I still maintain that students need to find the content relevant before they will commit it to long term memory.  Further, I continue to believe that students need to experience the real life aspect of content, especially in my field, social studies.  I believe that technology can be a great aid in making that leap from words on a page to relevant information much easier.  As a part of that, students need to be active learners whenever possible.  Information that they need to retain should be manipulated by them, whether created, presented, or debated.  Technology makes getting students active in their learning easier in a way that little else can.  One of the great benefits of technology is that it is easy for teachers to identify the work of each individual student.

A change I think I can implement as a result of this course is to begin to implement a few of the technologies immediately.  I have already used the website VoiceThread with my Gifted and Talented class and they really enjoyed using it.  I can foresee a couple of uses for this program before the current school year is completed.  Although we did not necessarily use Wikis in this course but as a result of discussions I think I can successfully implement a wiki assignment as a review before the state test this spring.

Something that this course has significantly altered my teaching practice is that I would like to raise the level of technology interaction my students have with the material. This course has made me more determined and focused to make my students use technology themselves in a way that reinforces learning in my classroom.  I must find ways to make not just having technology, but using technology, to better stimulate my student’s learning.

One long term goal I would like to initiate is to make my instructional practice more technologically intensive for my students.  What I have learned during this course is that students need to be active users of information and that technology is a great way to get students to use content.  I will strive to find new and innovative ways to get my students to use the content that they have learned in my class.  Specifically I would like to try to implement one new tech strategy every month.  This may include online games, presentations, and/or research using internet sites.  I must always try to find ways of making my instruction better – just because it may have worked in years past does not mean I need to keep doing it the same way.

Another idea I have is to continue to experiment myself with blogging and using new online tools.  Long term I would like to see my classroom have a blog and podcast site that my students can go to for reflections and study aids.  I think I need to continue to hone my craft for a time before I go public with this strategy.  If I continue to explore my uses of it by next school year I hope to be ready to take it live.

Voice Thread

I have recently used a program called Voice Thread and would like everyone to listen in!  Let me know what you think!

http://voicethread.com/share/1709388/

Thanks!
Michael

Social Learning and Connectivism

Social learning occurs when students have to interact with each other to produce a finished product that exemplifies their learning.  Think of last week's lessons on connectivism but with a group consciousness.   Personally, it reminds me of the Borg from Star Trek  (Oh, if only my students could work in concert like those trying to assimilate the human race.)
The theory gets its roots from the ideology that in order to work collaboratively students must understand both the big picture and small picture details.  Assuming all students buy into the group accountability aspect of learning (which means they would likely have to know that they will be assessed individually for doing their part as well as have an incentive to see the whole group do well).  There are numerous ways to easily and effectively add to the group consciousness:  del.icio.us is a great way of sharing bookmarks and pages of interest with others; google calendar is a fun little tech fix for those that like to see their schedules written out to make sharing easier;  there are dozens of different ways to hone the craft of group thought - webquests, moodle, blackboard, and a myriad of various interactive online games that allow students to build their social learning abilibities.VoiceThread is a neat way of having a presentation that can benefit from group contributions.

The strength of social learning is that it most closely resembles a real life activity.  In most professions people work along side others and must come to a consensus as to how the work will be done and who will do each part.  Thus, it is easy to design a real-life scenario that would use social learning techniques. 
Social learning is extremely beneficial because of the way it occurs.  A student who is presenting information to a group that must then use that information as a part of their project must be very knowledgeable about the information they have researched.  They have to be prepared for the "what ifs..." and the "why nots..."  In this manner, they develop an individual confidence that will translate to a group confidence later.  Learning is not static, it is dynamic, it changes.  During group work students develop a higher level of understanding that transfers short term knowledge into long term memory.