Journal Article: Extending social networking into the secondary education sector

In summary, this article examines the use of social networking sites as a tool in secondary education classrooms in Macau, China. Su Iong examines the use of social networking sites as a learning management system, a platform for teachers’ professional development, and a means to encourage student engagement. (2016, p. 721) The article continues to describe the social nature of learning, and how discourse and collaboration with peers is a key element to learning new content. Social networking sites lend themselves to this type of interaction, but on a virtual platform. With the use of social networking sites, the teacher’s role has been changed from provider of information to facilitator of discussion. Studies have shown that student attitude, engagement, motivation, and trust can all be improved with the incorporation of social networking sites. However, this study does point to a few issues in the implementation of social networking sites in education. The author is unsure if students are mature enough to use social networking site for academic purposes. A benefit to social networking sites is accessibility. In a study of 851 secondary students, 830 of them currently had a Facebook account.  In this study, the utilization of social networking sites for academic purposes by students was also examined. The researchers found that students see the potential in social networking sites for academics, but may need further support to reap all of the benefits.

I found this article to be very interesting! In my own experience, I have seen teachers struggle with the use of social networking sites, like Facebook, in their classrooms. I think this happens for a couple of reasons. Teachers are worried about the legality of interacting with their students on social media, and also do not trust their students to use social networking sites for the appropriate reasons. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are often seen as distractions to learning rather than tools to facilitate it. In my own classroom, I have set up a Twitter account that students can use to see the weekly agenda, read chemistry jokes, or ask me questions outside of class. I have enjoyed using twitter as a way to engage my students outside of the classroom. I have also really enjoyed the professional development opportunities available on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Su Iong, K. (2016). Extending social networking into the secondary education sector. British Journal Of Educational Technology, 47(4), 721-733. doi:10.1111/bjet.12259

Journal Article: Utilizing Technology in Physical Education: Addressing the Obstacles of Integration

In the article Utilizing Technology in Physical Education: Addressing the Obstacles of Integration, Pyle and Esslinger pinpoint two barriers to technology integration, and how to overcome them. The two barriers the authors point to are administrator views and self-imposed barriers. Administrators often tend to disconnect physical education and technology, and therefore when developing a technology integration plan, administrators leave out PE from the discussion. Physical education teachers may view technology as important, but again, may fail to see how to incorporate technology into their curriculum. One of the ways to overcome these obstacles that Pyle and Esslinger give is teacher preparation. Teachers need to be trained on technology, its importance, and its uses. The authors then continue on to list ideas for how technology may be used by physical education teachers. Some of their ideas include class preparation, classroom management, communication, instruction and feedback, and assessment. Teachers can use technology to prepare for class by finding ideas, lessons, and units online and via collaborating with other teachers. Using technology to set workouts to music is a way to keep your class motivated. Keeping parents, students, colleagues, and administrators in the loop is much easier with technology. Heart rate monitors, ipads, video recorders can all be used to give students instruction or feedback. Online assessments can be used to allow more time for activities while in PE class. Even though PE and technology may seem disconnected, they really do not have to be!

Although this article does not directly relate to me, as I am not a physical education teacher, I found the content to be very useful. I think teacher and administrator attitudes towards technology can be a barrier for any subject. Technology integration begins with a want to use a tool. The solution that this article offers is training. Teachers need to have ideas on how to use various forms of technology in their classrooms. Teachers and administrators also need to know the requirements of their state, and what technology standards they are expected to cover in their classrooms. A quote from the article that really rang true for me is that “technology should be used to enhance student learning, to save time, and to motivate the student and the teacher" (Pyle & Esslinger, 2013, p. 36). This is true for all subjects. We should not be incorporating technology into our curriculum because we need to meet state standards, because it's cool, or because we want to bypass teaching a skill. I really do agree with this quote in that we should use technology to enhance student learning.

Pyle, B., & Esslinger, K. (2013). Utilizing Technology in Physical Education: Addressing the Obstacles of Integration. Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 80(2), 35-39.

Journal Article: Current Trends in Higher Education Technology: Simulation

In the article Current Trends in Higher Education Technology: Simulation, Andrea Damewood focuses on simulation technology as an educational tool. For the purposes of the article, Damewood uses the dictionary.com definition of simulation: a system representing or standing in for another system. Damewood focuses on simulations as they pertain to higher education nursing programs, but much of what she has to say can be used to discuss simulations for education in general. For example, simulations should have a high fidelity, or be highly realistic. With highly realistic simulations, the more real the learning experience while using the simulation, and the better the outcome for the student. This is because simulations are active learning experiences where students can apply what has been learned in class or lecture.  Simulations also produce a low-risk environment for students to explore and do their best to apply their content knowledge. The author also discusses how good simulations allow time for students to reflect on the learning experience and make additional meaning from what they have gone through. The learning theories that simulations touch on are experiential learning and social learning. In a simulation, students get to experience, first hand, a system that they may be using in their career. The social aspect of simulations is built in as students often collaborate with one another as they work through a simulation. According to Damewood, “we simulate to learn what we do not already know; to see situations from new angles; to learn from both our successes and our mistakes; and to experiment without risk to real people, environments, or property” (2016, p. 269).

I can definitely see where Damewood is coming from in her article. I have seen simulations as a technology trend in my own classroom, and have noticed the benefits of using simulations. Being a high school science teacher, we use simulated experiments all of the time. Programs like PhET are full of useful simulations that can make microscopic systems macroscopic. This idea of taking something so small that we cannot see it, like atoms, and blowing it up so students can interact with it is huge! Now students have an experience that they can draw to in order to make connections to what I have discussed in the notes. Going along with the article, I also like simulations in my chemistry classroom because of the low-risk factor associated with them. Not all chemistry experiments are appropriate to run in a high school classroom. With simulations, I can still give my students the experience of that experiment, while also taking out the associated danger.

Damewood, A. (2016). Current Trends in Higher Education Technology: Simulation. Techtrends: Linking Research & Practice To Improve Learning, 60(3), 268-271. doi:10.1007/s11528-016-0048-1

Journal Article: Representations and Equations in an Interactive Simulation that Support Student Development in Balancing Chemical Equations

Carpenter, Y., Moore, E. B., & Perkins, K. K., Spring 2015 ConfChem: Interactive Visualizations for Chemistry Teaching and Learning, 2015

In this article, Carpenter, Moore, and Perkins are focusing on one specific PhET Simulation produced by Colorado University. The simulation is about balancing chemical equations. In the simulation, students see both symbolic and pictorial representations of atoms and molecules, and are then asked to manipulate the simulation to solve the problem. The authors discuss how the simulation can be used, along side class discussion and guided handouts, to teach novice chemistry students how to balance a chemical equation. Throughout the activity, students were able to explore the simulation, and were given feedback from the simulation when a problem was solved successfully or unsuccessfully.

From their discussion of the simulation and a classes’ interaction with the simulation, Carpenter, Moore, and Perkins draw a few conclusions/recommendations. The first conclusion is that online simulations can be a great way for students to draw connections between simple pictures and manipulatives to the content being learned. With the feedback given by the program, and some guidance from the instructors through class discussion/handouts, students can be successful at teaching themselves some material. The recommendation is to have these discussions, and well written worksheets to go with the simulation. The second conclusion that the authors come to is that these simulations can help address student misconceptions, and correct the use of certain vocabulary terms.

I do not currently use this particular PhET in my chemistry course, but definitely will in the future. I have used PhET simulations in the past, and think that they are very effective when introducing students to new content. Particularly content that can be difficult for students to visualize or make sense of on their own. I agree with the authors, too. With any of the PhET simulations, the guidance that is given to students is important. I think it would be tough to just tell a student to go play with the simulation and figure it out. Making these activities guided-inquiry activities is crucial to their effectiveness.

Read Article Here

Journal Article: Resolving the Formative Assessment Catch-22

Waters, J. K. (2012). RESOLVING THE FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT CATCH-22. (Cover story). T H E Journal, 39(7), 8-14.

The article Resolving the Formative Assessment Catch-22 is written by John K. Waters. In the article, Waters describes a Catch-22 that teachers are experiencing when it comes to incorporating formative assessment. For the sake of the article, formative assessment is described as the “process through which teachers evaluate how well their students are learning while they are teaching them”. This process is widely accepted by teachers to be a best practice in education. However, the problem lies in the logistics. Teachers are asked to formatively assess students’ learning during instruction to drive instruction, but then need to use instructional time to formatively assess. One might hope that as technology advances, the tools that are used for formative assessment will advance as well, and help resolve this issue. Unfortunately, it appears that most technology tools used for assessment are aimed more for summative assessment rather than formative assessment.

Waters continues to describe how tools for formative assessment are advancing, just slowly. The strategy that is focused on for this article is the use of various student response systems (SRS). The most well known examples given in the article are the use of i>clickers and Smart Technologies. Both of these, as well as the other examples mentioned in the article, can be incorporated into lessons by teachers as a way to get a quick set of data that can then drive instruction. Waters does not make a recommendation for any specific system over a different one. Rather, the recommendation made is more of a best practice with these technologies, and how formative assessment should work in any classroom.

From the article, it seems that many teachers agree that formative assessment is a vital component to any lesson. However, some teachers fall into the root of giving a formative assessment and moving on regardless of the results. Waters talks about how the main purpose of formative assessment is to correct a misunderstanding or gap in knowledge immediately. This is the biggest take-away from the article for me. It is a great start to have different formative assessment tools in your classroom. Some examples of SRSs that I have used include Kahoot and Quizalize. To take these assessments further, I need to be using the results, question by question, to explain correct and wrong answers.

Time Saving Tech-nique

I am happy to report that I knew most of the techniques that David Progue mentioned in his video.

The one that I was not aware of, and definitely will be using in the future, is pressing "b" or "w" during a presentation to either blackout or whiteout a slide. This is an awesome feature, and will definitely come in handy when I want my students to pay attention to what I am saying rather than focusing on what I have on the slide.

One time saving tool that I use all of the time is my trackpad. There are several multi-touch gestures on mac trackpads that are super useful. My favorite, and probably most utilized, is swiping up with 4 fingers. This separates all of your windows, and you can then easily click between them. I use this gesture to multi-task quite frequently! Unfortunately, I do not know if there is a similar gesture on PCs.

Future Ready Framework - Community Partnerships

Being a firm believer in the "it takes a village..." mentality, the Community Partnerships gear stood out to me as being the most important. This portion of the framework, focuses on how districts and students interact with the world outside of the school, both locally and globally.

At the local level, the framework discusses how through local partnerships, teachers can bring relevance to their curricula. This is something that I have witnessed and participated in at Oswego High School. In the Science Department alone, we have several courses where students get to interact with local experts via field trips, apprenticeships, and guest speakers. A few examples include our Forensics classes, which go to go to the local police station and learn more about crime investigation at the crime lab. The Medical Topics and Anatomy and Physiology classes were able to go to a local university to visit their cadaver lab. The Medical Topics students also spend a semester at the local hospital doing rotations in the different medical fields. In my own Chemistry courses, I have had guest speakers come in and talk about how my students could use Chemistry as a viable career option.

Community Partnerships also emphasizes global partnerships. I believe it is important for us, as teaches, to teach our students to be global citizens. Through technology we can connect with the world in a way that we were unable to several years ago. It is with these connections that we can make students global citizens, expand their horizons, and deepen their understandings of diversity. In some cases, we may even be able to take students abroad, and give them first hand experiences in different cultures.

Read the entire frame work here: The Future Ready Framework.