Response to Week 4 Explore and Explain

EXPLORE and EXPLAIN: Teaching with Technology in the Subject Area

As part of the Explore and Explain assignment, we needed to use a digital media tool to report upon what we had learned from the chapter we focused our attention on. I used Prezi to create a brief presentation about what I had learned on Chapter 12, which deals with the specific challenges facing the social studies curriculum and the ways that technology integration can attempt to confront them.

Response to "Elaborate on Transformational Teaching"

ELABORATE on Transformational Teaching:

The presentation (Putting the Pedagogy Wheel to Work.) is driven by the very simple notion that instruction should drive technology-use and not the other way around. Technology shouldn't just be used because it's new and exciting and, therefore, seems like it will magically make instruction suddenly better.

The presentation focuses on the idea of the "pedagogy wheel", which helps breakdown what the creator of the presentation feels is the best pairing of instruction with technology. It matches technology with the purposes, standards, and skills that each type of technology (with an emphasis on apps, the kind associated with iPads) most capable of supporting instruction. For instance, the wheel makes considerations of how Bloom's Taxonomy fits into the picture of technology integration.

The whole point of transformation teaching/the pedagogy wheel is authentic assessment. In theory, instruction will be more thoroughly aligned with the methods of assessment. Each will feel of a piece of one another, and this should encourage students to see the purpose and value of what they are learning and doing. This, in turn, will help increase student motivation; that will then help promote student learning and the development of students' abilities. The presentation repeatedly breaks down the hopes of what it wants students to be able to take away from this sort of instruction into three words of: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

Ultimately, this will hopefully all mean that students will be better prepared for the real world. Now that sounds likely a pretty worthy goal.

Response to "Engage: Integrating Technology Across the Curriculum"

ENGAGE: Integrating Technology Across the Curriculum

We were asked to respond to the above video featured over on Edutopia. What I found really interesting about the video wasn't just how extensive technology was being incorporated into the curriculum at the featured at the high school. It was also just how interdisciplinary the whole approach of the school appeared to be. Physical education activities were being examined in physics and math classes. That seems incredibly cool, and does not feel like it's widely utilized.

 

I found it interesting just how much of this video discusses things we've encountered in this class: simulations, Tech-Pack, video and audio software, digital citizenship, digital mind maps, software for group chatting and collaborating, etc. 

Response to "Integration strategies and example lesson ideas"

EXPLORE and EXPLAIN: Teaching with Technology in the Subject Area

 

Integration strategies and example lesson ideas:

 

Technology Integration Workshop (p. 351): 

 

Part 1: 

 

I'm going to provide the links to the three lessons I discovered along with some brief thoughts on each. 

 

a. 1) http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-social-studies-lessons

 

I'm specifically focusing on the lesson described here called "Battle It Out". The lesson asks students to make videos with commentaries about battles from World War II. This sounded like a solid variant on digital storytelling.

2) http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techlp/techlp062.shtml

This was an interesting take on digital storytelling. It had students pick a country they'd like to visit. Then based on sounds generated from a website, they would pick photos to match the sounds and write a story about their "vacation". 

 

3) http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdelib/librarydevelopment/schoollibraries/lessonplans

This lesson has students design Glogster posters to create interactive multimedia biographies about famous historical figures. I hadn't seen Glogster incorporated as part of instruction until this lesson so I sort of jumped on it. It's a pretty interesting take on doing digital storytelling.

To me at least, digital storytelling is one of the more compelling forms of technology integration for social studies that the chapter discusses (besides the various forms of digital research, which don't lend themselves nearly as well to specific lesson plan instruction, or so it would seem). 

 

b. 1)

2)

3)


c. I really liked the first of the lesson that I linked to here. It's definitely the least fleshed out of the three, but there's a kernel of a great idea that I think has a good deal of potential. However, I feel that that lesson places its attention on the wrong conflict, World War II. The World Wars already have a lot of interest around them, and they don't really need as much effort to create enthusiasm in students. I think that the video projects telling stories about battles from history would be better served by telling stories about battles from ancient history. Imagine a World War II-style documentary discussing the Persian Wars or the Punic Wars. These are important and interesting conflicts that don't get the interest they deserve because they happened so long ago and seem like they might not have nearly as much modern day relevance. But by having a very modern storytelling framework presenting these wars, they might seem fresh and relevant. 

 

Part 2:

 

a. -The advantage here is the potential for generating enthusiasm. The idea is to use technology to tell this historical narrative in a new and hopefully exciting way.

-There a lot of open source, free online resources that would lend themselves well to this type of instruction. 

 

b. -The Objective is: Students will create multimedia video projects recounting the events around a major battle from ancient history. 

 

-Students will demonstrate this through their ongoing work on the video and their completed multimedia project.

-I'm sure that there will be some objectivist approaches initially to ensure that some sort of knowledge base exists for students to work with. But once students start designing their own videos, this will be a very constructivist-minded assignment. 

 

-The class would need to be in a computer lab or have access to a set of computers or laptops in some form. 

 

c. - I'd use the Tech-Pack after the fact to self-evaluate my performance. I'd also assess the success based on students' reactions and the outcome of assignments.

 

d. -Some potential descriptors for this lesson include: 9th grade, Global Studies and Ancient History, Technologies Used: Computers, Internet, video/movie-making software, ISTE Standards: Standard 1: Creativity and innovation, Standard 2: Communication and collaboration, Standard 3: Research and information fluency, Standard 4: Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making, 21st Century Standards: Standard 1: Content Knowledge and 21st Century Themes, Standard 2: Learning and Innovation Skills, Standard 3: Information, Media and Technology Skills.

 

References:

Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating Educational Technology Into Teaching (ed. 7). Boston: Pearson.