EDLD 5364 Teaching w/ Technology Week 2

Monday, February 28, 2011

My group decided to divide the work up as follows: Jeron, general education students, Shannon, special education students and adaptive technology, while Sharron could be in charge of G/T and professional development for the teachers. To identify responsibilties, we gave each person a different color font in which to type his/her contributions. Sharron created the wiki and posted the UDL's, TEKS, planning pages, and the scenario. She also pasted all the assignment questions in the wiki for us to each fill in our portion. I created and shared the Google Doc with my team. We began working on Week 2 this past weekend (Feb. 26-27) Sharron Bills and I were able to do quite a bit of brainstorming about how we wanted our lesson to look. Several of our cohort attended the web conference on Saturday, February 26 at 11:00am. We discussed the idea of using the Jr. High level contemporary bestselling novel, Hunger Games. We discussed novel content, technology that could be used, adaptive devices for the special ed students and research projects for the G/T students. We dicussed using Google Maps to research countries affected by poverty, wikis to make a collaborative site for G/T to work with, or perhaps creating a bookcast, a recorded audio podcast about the book. There were a number of different composition methods discussed, such as Animoto, PhotoStory, CAST Bookbuilder, Powerpoint presentations and Dragon Dictation speech to text software. I also suggested watching a short video titled, The Lottery to help the students understand the concept of irony. We could even conduct a mock "reaping" or "lottery" in which a student could "win" the "prize" of doing some unpopular classroom task.

Sharron located a lot of materials that can be used with the novel we chose, as well as, a UDL Template and a presentation rubric. I created additional pages on the group wiki and attached these two documents.

The constructivist learning theory lends itself nicely to the CAST brain network research. We began labeling our activities and materials with this research. We plan to have all the students read the first two chapters on the iPads provided for all Jr. High students and then to have students in need of adaptive technology use multiple apps to compose their assignments. The special needs student can also use online research tools such as dictionaries and encyclopedias. The iPad Kindle reading app also has a feature that allows any word that is clicked to immediately produce a dictionary definition so students wouldn't have to go to a separate app to find the meaning of word. The Dragon Dictation app would allow students to simply tell the iPad the story they wish to compose and it will automatically compose it complete with a pop keyboard that can be used to correct any misheard words. This can then be emailed to a computer that has MS Word for more editing. The iPad allows for many outlets to publish a work. Draw apps make it possible for students to draw a picture rather than typing or speaking if those are limiting factors for the student.

One of this week’s readings focused on how technology integration strategies impact student motivation and self-esteem. This seems to be proven not only in all student demographics, but also in non-traditional students and minorities, including low socioeconomic status (SES) groups. The studies presented showed that positive self-concept and achievement were strongly related to increased use of technology. The studies also seemed to show that students benefitted positively from exposure to technology by gaining a sense of accomplishment and a higher sense of worth. The students engaged more with peers resulting in increased collaboration and interactions. This seemed to produce significantly more creative projects from which they drew higher self esteem and better attitudes toward school overall. Computer –aided instruction (CAI) in math showed evidence of math achievement increases with the most profound positive difference in elementary aged students. Authors Swan, Guerrero, Mitrani , and Schoener “ conclude that the less threatening environment, along with immediate feedback, individualized diagnostics, and greater academic support contribute to greater productivity among such populations” (Swan, Guerrero, Mitrani, & Schoener, 1990)

Overall, children’s attitudes regarding technology were significantly different from adults. Students seemed to prefer computer learning over more traditional methods and stakeholders tend to feel that tech makes sense and makes positive educational differences. The article was a bit dated in that adults may no longer think of technology as simply a means to an end, but as a way of teaching and students, today, expect computer learning to help them create and succeed. Why does technology seem to positively impact student learners of non-traditional groups, which include low achieving, at risk, learning disabled, ESL, etc?Computers seem to be especially popular and productive with children defined as non-traditional for several reasons. Problem-solving activities showed to increase logical-thinking tasks for some disabled students who were previously more susceptible to failure. Also, studies showed that the recognition and support these students garnered translated into higher self confidence and self esteem. One result of students having higher self esteem was that they stayed out of the at-risk category the leads to more dropouts. CAI also has been shown to enhance attitudes towards school and learning in some minority population, thus keeping them in school and eliminating some instances of dropouts. Computers can be a great equalizer in the classroom. Students who tend to work and/or struggle alone, are able to “shine’ in some situations where traditional students may have difficulties using computers and technology.

Swan, K., Guerrero, F., Mitrani, M., & Schoener, J. (1990). Honing in on the target: who among the educationally disadvantaged benefits most from what cbi?. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 22, 381-403.

Page, M. S. (2002). Technology-enriched classrooms: Effects on students of low socioeconomic status. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 34(4), 389-409. Retrieved October 5, 2009 from the International Society of Education at http:/www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Number_4_Summer_20021&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&ContentFile=830



I thought Page’s article this week was very effective in describing some of the reasons that technology integration improved student attitudes and self-concept. Computers seem to improve a student’s sense of accomplishment by creating more opportunities for collaboration and interaction with peers. More group projects were created that could feature the strengths of students who may not have the same level of achievement as others in the class. This recognition helps to increase student self-esteem and self-confidence. Students who tend to work and/or struggle alone, are able to “shine’ in some situations where traditional students may have difficulties using computers and technology.
Page, M. S. (2002). Technology-enriched classrooms: Effects on students of low socioeconomic status. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 34(4), 389-409. Retrieved October 5, 2009 from the International Society of Education at http:/www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Number_4_Summer_20021&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&ContentFile=830

Student-led learning is obviously becoming a major factor in today's schools with technology leading the way, but I agree with Sharron that the reality is that teachers are required to teach the state expectations for state assessments. My school started using CSCOPE this year and the teachers aren't enthusiastic. Virtually everyday is scripted and there is little time for other activities. This time of year, almost every available minute is used for tutoring the students who are feared to fail the state assessments. A few years ago, one of the curriculum directors at our ESC began telling workshop attendees that the TAKS left no room for those "love units" that they loved to teach and that assessments are becoming more rigorous and our teaching has to be also. I am a technology teacher and love showing the students new free/open source tools that they can use at home to create, ut the self-contained classes of elementary students don't have the time or professional development to do it.

Final Word

Paula, I agree that educators tend to “power down” students the moment they enter a classroom. Marc Prensky mentions that “our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.”(Prensky, 2001) Today’s students have fundamentally changed from students of the past. With the arrival of all encompassing technology that most adults didn’t grow up with, sometimes it’s difficult to realize that today’s student don’t ever remember a time without digital games, toys and communication. It’s difficult for schools to compete with the computers, video games, mp3 players, iPods, cell phones video cameras and all the other digital tools available to today’s youth. It is very hard for schools to stay on the cutting edge to teach students with tools with which they’ve become accustomed.


Prensky, M. . (2001, October). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20-%20digital%20natives,%20digital%20immigrants%20-%20part1.pdf