Task 1--D092—Educational Technology for Teaching and Learning

 PURPOSE:
The purpose of this website is to help teachers at this school to develop their process of creating educational technology tools for supporting students in their classroom. 

1. A View of Educational Technology

2. Educational Technology Resources

3. Integrating Educational Technology

4. Technology for Independent & Assistive Learning

5. Sources



1. View of Educational Technology

Philosophy:

Educators from all over the world were ironically united by the pandemic because we were forced to become creative with educational technology to bridge student learning in response to school closures. Now as many students are back in school, the lessons learned from increased and necessary use of educational technology are showing signs towards resilient benefits to students in the classroom. Educational technology will now remain as part of the class curriculum and will be expected by the students and administration.

There are a few reasons to embrace the educational technology but foremost it provides teachers with more tools. And with more tools the students will have more opportunities for understanding the material. Each student is unique and learns in different ways so increasing the number of techniques for teaching will only increase the possibility of producing their spark of knowledge. 

Equitable Use:

It’s important for teacher’s to understand that all students do not have equal access to computers or internet. As a group we need to find ways to expand access and find solutions to close the technology gap. But a step in the right direction is using educational technology that can be accessed through mobile devices. Many students or families seem to have at least one mobile device that carries the internet. Another option is prioritizing computer access for certain students during school time without creating any stigmas.

Ethical Use:

As teachers we uphold a standard as helping students in their civic duties as a citizen of a democracy, but also as it becomes increasingly important to teach about the ethics of being a digital citizen. The concerns of being a citizen of your community are related to being a citizen in a digital community.  Evaluating safety concerns prevent break downs in service. Taking care of the computer equipment, being wary of malware, evaluating credible websites and understanding the Fair Use Act are some of the ways we can help students be competent digital citizens. 

Social Responsibility:

In an effort for students to realize their digital presence as digital citizens they need to comprehend that their clicks matter. There are important topics for students to be made aware of while online like cultivating an online self-image and cyberbullying. A student needs to be aware that their self image online will be on the Internet potentially forever. This is not meant to cause anxiety for students but to help them grasp that it’s easier to be respectful and thoughtful about what one posts online then to thoughtlessly post emotional outbursts or personal information. This can lead to cyberbullying. The only way to help prevent cyberbullying, is to address it, and discuss it and if it’s happening, to report it(Smith, Yoon, 2013).


2. Educational Technology Resources

Educational technology can seem intimidating at first, but soon many teachers go from substituting paper and pen for computer documents to totally transforming their lessons with technology. And, of course there is everything in between. It’s great just to start with technology you feel excited and/or comfortable attempting to incorporate into your lesson. Maybe it something you use in your daily life that could help students. As a teacher you know the learning journey has twists and turns, but with dedication and humor we will persevere to create lesson plans that incorporate educational technology.

There are many resources online to help teachers with educational technology. Here are a few to get started.

(1). You may want students to start with relating to being digital citizens as a way to frame their experience using technology.
Common Sense Media website has many resources that can help with educational technology.  On this site are some interactive games that give students from grades 3-5 a “digital passport. ” This means they learn about various principles of being online like passwords, appropriate information sharing, cyber-bullying and other topics.


With a little searching the site also has lessons for older students on media etiquette and cyberbullying, as well. But in general Common Sense Media is a good beginning resource for teachers and educational technology.

(2). Another angle to get started in Educational Technology is finding ways to work with students in forms that they already use with their own technology. Many students will eventually get information about their local, state, country and world online. There are several websites that conglomerate news sources appropriate for children to investigate and understand. One of those news sites is called the News Literacy Project. On the website there are resources for teachers to create lessons that help students engage with news material. 


(3).  Another part of integrating educational technology into the classroom is looking for a technology resource that aligns with instructional design, like the Addie Model of analyze, design, develop, implement and evaluate.  One such resource is called Buncee.  It’s a tool for educators and students to communicate and to create interactively. The teachers and students can build classroom content together. It’s a collaborative way to understand concepts visually and creatively between student peers and educator peers. There are many tutorials, blogs and educator community resources within the Buncee platform to help get you started and enter into interactive educational technology.


 

Another way for you get started in educational technology is to look at examples. Here are two strategies to integrate technology into the classroom to facilitate student learning.

(1).The website storybird is a good website for kids of all ages to start enjoying, understanding and creating all aspects of story.  That means engaging students in literacy and writing. Regardless of the grade level and proficiency of your students the website offers all levels of writing prompts, quizzes and lessons created by both teachers and authors. 


For example if you’re learning about non-fiction personal historical narratives, the students could transition to creating their own personal narrative from a family story or something important that’s happened to them into the storybird platform. As a teacher you would be able to create mini-lessons and assignments for students within the platform.  Also, you would be able to track their progress in understanding the different elements of story. At the end of the curriculum cycle, the storybird website offers the ability to print the students stories. 

(2). Learning math can be tedious for some students and fun for other students, but most students like games. Introducing gaming into lessons is fun way to integrate educational technology into the classroom. There are many math game websites to chose from that are free.  Here are a few:






They are several ways you can incorporate them into your lessons. These games are fun, full of variety and many can offer a way to track progress. These games might be used:
- as reinforcement of lessons 
- as a choice in a lesson plan that has different math stations 
- as an activity in small groups to help students cooperate and learn together

I’m sure you’ll be able to find many ways to use math games or any technology game into your lesson plans.


3. Integrating Educational Technology 

(1).
Here is a specific example of using a Florida 3rd grade math state Standard with educational technology.

3.MD.1.1 Tell and write time to the nearest minute and measure time intervals in minutes. Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of time intervals in minutes, e.g., by representing the problem on a number line diagram.

Basically this standard is about telling time and here are the specific skills.
Match clocks and times (3-T.1)
Match analog and digital clocks (3-T.2)
Read clocks and write times (3-T.3)
A.M. or P.M. (3-T.4)
Write times (3-T.5)
Elapsed time: find the end time (3-T.6)
Elapsed time word problems: find the elapsed time (3-T.9)

These websites have games for each of these specific skills.





(2). 
When moving from practicing and initial learning to formative assessments a helpful website to specifically track strengths and areas of need for each student is a website called IXL.


The IXL website offers diagnostics in real time. This tool is flexible and can show what students know in each area of the standard. With that knowledge, as a teacher you can offer students the help they need to build their understanding of specific concepts that are challenging and support their work that is going well. Some of their diagnostics are connected with state standards.

(3). 
An educational technology that helps with summative assessments is Google Forms. This tool is free online and gives educators the ability to make quizzes, forms and questionnaires. Other teachers can collaborate, edit and share different tests, quizzes and forms with other teachers within your grade at school or across the state.  Teachers can assess their students with exactly the items each specific curriculum needs and gauge their knowledge of each topic. And importantly, a teacher is able with these forms to give students feedback directly to help students retry assessments with adjustments or try new assessments. The students and/or parents can also give feedback directly to teachers if they want.  

This is the Google forms site:



This website is helpful for creating and using google forms.



(4).  In combination these games and assessment tools can give an accurate determination of student’s knowledge of Florida 3rd grade math state Standard 3.MD.1.1. For a teacher’s own assessment as a total group of students, these technology tools can also reveal which topics as a whole, the group needs help with resolving. And over consecutive school years data can be tracked to further specify lessons. The possibilities with collecting data for each topic increase if teachers of each grade level coordinate with their formative and summative assessments. 


4. Technology for Independent  & Assistive Learning

Education technology improves student access to information, enables knowledge sharing between media forms, and teachers can curate important concepts for learning. This gives students opportunities for self directed and independent learning.

A. Here are two examples of websites that offer students the ability to work on their own and at their own pace. 


Khan Academy offers free access to a variety of courses for math, science and some language arts for K-12. The ability to use these classes for a preview of subjects a student might take, or as a review of a class a student has already taken or an extra class not offered at the students school provide a good platform for selfdirected learning. 

(2).  Another website that could allow self directed study is TED-Ed. 


Many people are familiar with TED Talks as video lectures that spark thought and TED-Ed is their education initiative for students and teachers. This platform has talks and animated videos on many topics for all grade levels. Often they are multidisciplinary and/or about topics that spark dialog or journal responses. These videos could be used as extra-credit topics or as self-directed topics to present to the classroom.
 

B. Here are 2 examples of assistive technology that help students meet their learning needs.


Natural-readers is a text to speech assistive technology.  Students with learning challenges that interfere with the student’s ability to read like any type of visual impairments, dyslexia or other processing disabilities this web application can help these students be part of the class. Some students who have language barriers might have better help listening than reading. This assistive technology helps any student that needs voice support with written text.


 The Otter application is the opposite assistive technology. This application provides speech-to-text services that can accommodate students who cannot hear very well, who are deaf, who have auditory processing disorders or working memory deficits.
Speech-to-text assistive technology can also give some students a better opportunity to get their ideas written down for students who have writing difficulties. Also some students who have language barriers might be more comfortable with text than voice lectures.


5. Sources

Equity:

Moore, Raeal. 2018.  The Digital Divide and Educational Equity.
ACT Research and Center for Equity in Learning. Iowa City, IA.

https://digitalpromise.org/2019/04/29/equity-in-schools-access-technology/

https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2022/03/tech-leads-way-equitable-education-k-12-students

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/26/nearly-one-in-five-teens-cant-always-finish-their-homework-because-of-the-digital-divide/

Ethical Use:

https://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/responsible-student-technology-use.shtml


https://online.nwmissouri.edu/articles/education/ethics-technology-use-classroom.aspx

Social Responsibility:

Smith, J.A. and Yoon, J. 2013. Cyberbullying Presence, Extent, & Forms in a Midwestern Post-secondary Institution. Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ)  ISSN: 1545-679X  

https://intetics.com/blog/social-responsibility-is-a-must-for-edtech-how-technology-and-learning-environments-shape-each-other/


Resources:
https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-passport

https://newslit.org/

https://www.dashe.com/blog/instructional-design-models-comparing-addie-bloom-gagne-merrill

Strategies:
http://www.hoodamath.com/

https://www.mathgametime.com/

https://www.funbrain.com/

Integrating

https://www.splashlearn.com/time-games 

https://mrnussbaum.com/clockworks-online-game

https://www.mathnook.com/math/skill/timegames.php

https://www.ixl.com/diagnostic

https://www.google.com/forms/about/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15i1AamaA_47cI-9Wc9Rw_A-Tr7h6yM0lp-xofJImgzI/preview?hl=en&forcehl=1#



Independent learning
https://learn.khanacademy.org/khan-academy-kids/

https://ed.ted.com/lessons?direction=desc&sort=featured-position

Assistive technology
https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/

https://otter.ai/education

Comments

Post a Comment