Module 5 responses

I responded to KCDavis and Burian Kitchen's blogs.

EDUC 7105: Module 5 Motivation

At my former school, I was a Master Technology Teacher. Part of my responsisbility, as such, was to teach teachers how to use and create interactive lessons using Promethean ActivBoards. Doing so, required me to step into a leadership position at school and truly see teachers' resistance to technology in a different light. Although teachers in this system resisted, I believe in the technology strategies and changes being made. Many teachers hid behind closed doors hoping that "out of sight, out of mind" would mean not having to participate or use the material. Others believed that if they fussed about it long enough, they would not have to use the equipment and their problems would magically go away. Had I, at the time, been aware of John M. Keller's ARCS model for motivation, my colleagues outcomes could have been different while learning how to integrate technology into their classrooms. According to Driscoll (2005), Keller's theory"assumes that students' motives (or values), together with their expectancies (efficacy and outcome expecations), will influence the degree of attention and effort they will supply to a learning task" (Driscoll, 2005, p. 332).

Had I applied Keller's ARCS model, it might have looked something like this:

Attention: When starting a new lesson, I could have intrigued the teachers by showing them a new gadget to use when teaching a lesson like the reveal tool in a miniature form. When using the reveal tool with a bit of imagination, it can become a magic wand, x-ray machine, or magnifying glass.

Relevance: During the lesson, I could help teachers see the relevance of the tool. Using the tool in this manner, will be more intriguing to the students and make any of their lessons more interesting.

Confidence: One way to help teachers gain confidence is to walk them through creating the reveal tool using simple steps, so it will be easier for them to recreate it on their own. By breaking down how to create the tool and how to use the tool, I can help them be more confident when creating interactive lessons using their grade level curriculum.

Satisfaction: Once teachers see how easy it is to use the tool in one lesson, they will be more willing to create more lessons using the reveal tool to make interactive lessons. In addition, as teachers participate in the lessons, they could have a positive consequence such as receiving SDU credit to make them more willing to create more interactive lessons.

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

module 3 comments

I commented on Burian Kitchen and Duane Colman's blog for Module 3.

Module 3 Blog Post

Humans, in general, are very selfish creatures. By looking at our history, one would conclude that competition is good (chariot races, olympics), greed leads to success (corporate businesses), and war is inevitable (Middle East). These qualities have overshadowed human societies since the beginning of modern time. Therefore, I doubt Howard Rheingold's altruistic view (2005), which alleges that it is basic human instinct to "interact and work as a group." An instinct is something that comes naturally or relfexive if you must, but working together takes work.

I do agree, however, with the fact that survival is one of our basic instincts. If that means we must "interact and work as a group" as Howard Rheingold discussed, then humans will do what it takes to survive. After reflecting on the video, the concepts that "there is strength in numbers," and "it takes a village to raise a child" came to my mind. Both of these represent the benefits of working collaboratively. I then began to ponder the benefits of wolves working together. Although they have to work continually to keeping their pack together, the benefits out weight the consequences of being alone in the wilderness. With this thought in mind, I reexamined Rheingold's concepts and became intrigued about the possibilities that collaboration can provide. With a little help from a friend, maybe, just maybe, there is hope for human kind after all.

How can technology facilitate collaboration among learners based on constructivist principles? "The computer offers an effective means for implementing constructivist strategies that would be difficult to accomplish in other media" (Driscoll, 2005, p.406). In the video, Rheingold examined the benefits of open source platforms and peer-to-peer productions. He pointed out, "…new forms of cooperation enabled by new technologies create new forms of wealth, we may be moving into yet another economic form that is significantly different from previous ones" (Rheingold, 2005). Therefore, collaborative platforms are necessary so collaborative efforts can ensue.

This week our group examined Cloud Computing when we explored the Horizon Report. Cloud Computing allows users to share web-based applications for editing, word-processing, social networking, and media creations (New Media Consortium, 2010). One example of that our group used was Google Docs. This web-based platform allowed our group to effectively communicate, collaborate, and construct our ideas about the effectiveness of a specific emerging technology to solve a current work place problem. The resourcefulness of this type of platform allows learners to collaborate while maintaining the developmental and motivational needs of a constructivist environment.

Driscoll, M.P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston:Pearson Education, Inc.

New Media Consortium. (2010). One Year or Less: Cloud Computing, 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. Retrieved from http://wp.nmc.org/horizon-k12/chapters/cloud-computing/).

"Howard Rheingold: Way-New Collaboration" http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

Module 2 responses

For Module 2, I responded to Amanda Dickerson and Burian Kitchen.

Why choose between learning theories?

After participating in our classroom discussion this week and reading the blogs by Bill Kerr, Stephen Downs, and Karl Kapp, it only strengthened my belief that we do not need to choose between behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, or connectivism learning theories to promote learning in our classrooms. Instead, our responsibility is to create "learning utilizing an entire tool kit of philosphies, techniques, and ideas" (Kapp, 2007).

In today's learning environments, students bring with them a plethora of learning abilities and prior knowledge. Therefore, instead of choosing a particular learning theory to explain how they learn best, I believe that we, as teachers or instructional designers, must differentiate our instruction to meet the needs of all of our students, which ultimately means utilizing our understandings from all of the learning theories and applying what works best to achieve the particular learning outcome.

From my previous classroom discussion post, I must make a reprieve. I originally made the analogy that

"…choosing between cognitive and behaviorist-learning theories is like choosing between chlorinate bleach and bleach for multifaceted colored clothes without chlorine. Both are effective cleaning agents, but only if they are applied appropriately. Likewise, cognitive and behaviorist learning theories are both appropriate means for explaining how students learn, but they must be applied to appropriate learning situations as with all learning theories."

I still believe that both are effective learning theories if they are applied to the appropriate learning situations; however, I do not believe that this analogy is a strong enough to explain the complexity of the need for differentiation. As Kapp (2007) explains, "We need to take pieces from each school of thought and apply it effectively because…Cognitivism doesn't explain 100% how humans process information and neither does Constructivism or Behaviorism." With my analogy, we cannot utilize bits and pieces all of the cleaning agents without creating havoc on our laundry; therefore, it is insufficient when explaining the need to mix together concepts from each theory. However, I still stand by the fact that each cleaning agent as with each learning theory is valid when applied to an appropriate learning outcome.

I understand the complexity and the difficulty of expecting teachers to create diversified lessons to meet students' needs. However, as Kapp explains,

"The issue many forget is that "learning" is not one thing…it is a multi-layered word that tends to get treated as if it were just one thing…and it's not. It is multi-facetted and that is why developing new models for "learning" is so difficult…there are too many levels for one school of thought or one model to do it all."

Therefore, we cannot expect all students to learn successfully when we teach only one type of lesson, provide only one type of learning task, or allowed students to demonstrate their understanding by only one type assessment.

Bill Kerr. (2007, January 01). Re: _isms as filter, not blinker [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/isms-as-filter-not-blinker.html

Kapp Notes: (2007, January 02). Re: Out and About: Discussion on Educational Schools of Thought [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://karlkapp.blogspot.com/2007/01/out-and-about-discussion-on-educational.html

Blog responses EDUC 7105

I responded to Kiana Thompsons and Thomas Harris blog sites for Module 1 blog assignment.