lnash

Accessing Constructive Learning and Problem Solving With Technology

 
I had already done the reading, so I thought I would add it to my journal anyways.

I also agree that in order to have meaningful learning, there must be authentic assessments.  I think that too many times we provide opportunities and experimentations for children to participate in and fail to see whether the children were interested, whether they truly understand the process they went through and whether modifications need to be made the next time.  I believe that the best most useful tool of assessment is observation.  Through our observations we will see whether children are engaged and enjoying the process of learning.  Our class has been asked to demonstrate our skills learning throughout this course by working through Google 1 and 2.  In completing this task, Jason will quickly come to know whether we have understood the directions. 

 

Feedback is crucial to learning.  Receiving a grade is simply not sufficient enough to tell me where improvements needs to occur.  The same is true with children’s report cards.  There are grades and generic comments added beside the grade.  However, the comments tell us what the child has been able to accomplish.  If you are lucky, there may be one or two recommendations added to the bottom portion of the report card.  An additional page is added to the report card in which children and parents are given opportunity to comment. Children are also encouraged to explain where they feel their strengths/weaknesses are and to list specific goals they will work on over the next semester.  It would be very helpful for the child and the parents to be given some constructive comments that would truthfully explain to the child how they are doing.  I really like the idea of the teacher and the children creating their own rubric together for a variety of activities.  This would allow both the students and teachers to are clear on the expectations for a particular assignment.  It would be quite an interesting experience to have the children set out their own expectations.  It would also provide a clear understanding to the children and the parents what is expected and would be easy to understand because it would use terms, etc. that are understood by all.  I have often thought about the terminology used in report cards.  If you do not have an understanding of the curriculum and learning skills, some of the terminology used will go over many individuals’ heads.  We assume that everyone knows what we mean.  This would eliminate the problem.

Accessing Constructive Learning and Problem Solving With Technology

 

I also agree that in order to have meaningful learning, there must be authentic assessments.  I think that too many times we provide opportunities and experimentations for children to participate in and fail to see whether the children were interested, whether they truly understand the process they went through and whether modifications need to be made the next time.  I believe that the best most useful tool of assessment is observation.  Through our observations we will see whether children are engaged and enjoying the process of learning.  Our class has been asked to demonstrate our skills learning throughout this course by working through Google 1 and 2.  In completing this task, Jason will quickly come to know whether we have understood the directions. 

 

Feedback is crucial to learning.  Receiving a grade is simply not sufficient enough to tell me where improvements needs to occur.  The same is true with children’s report cards.  There are grades and generic comments added beside the grade.  However, the comments tell us what the child has been able to accomplish.  If you are lucky, there may be one or two recommendations added to the bottom portion of the report card.  An additional page is added to the report card in which children and parents are given opportunity to comment. Children are also encouraged to explain where they feel their strengths/weaknesses are and to list specific goals they will work on over the next semester.  It would be very helpful for the child and the parents to be given some constructive comments that would truthfully explain to the child how they are doing.  I really like the idea of the teacher and the children creating their own rubric together for a variety of activities.  This would allow both the students and teachers to are clear on the expectations for a particular assignment.  It would be quite an interesting experience to have the children set out their own expectations.  It would also provide a clear understanding to the children and the parents what is expected and would be easy to understand because it would use terms, etc. that are understood by all.  I have often thought about the terminology used in report cards.  If you do not have an understanding of the curriculum and learning skills, some of the terminology used will go over many individuals’ heads.  We assume that everyone knows what we mean.  This would eliminate the problem.

Learning by Exploring Microworlds and Virtual Realities

 

            As young children observe and listen to what the people around them are doing or saying, they are building an understanding about that situation.  As these children grow older, they may observe the same situation being done or said totally different than what was first shown.  It is then that they begin to develop their own understanding fro what they have seen and begin to explore and try it for themselves so they come up with ‘their’ understanding.  The more experiences and exploration opportunities we participate in with concern to that specific topic or event may cause us to continually change or tweak our view and understanding of it.

            As we have read over and over again, kids need hands on experiences.  Microworlds motivates students to not only learn but to actively participate instead of being a passive listener.  This typed of activity leads to that higher-order thinking described in this chapter.  For kids to learn, it is important that they develop their own understanding of a topic or event.

            The numerous sites quoted in the text (Star logo, SumCalc, Math Cats, counting money and snowflakes) are fun interactive activities to teach skills in a fun and relevant way.  My kids love to visit sites similar to these ones.  One of my sons struggles with some of the math concepts, so we have created a math game on the computer.   It is not a struggle to get him to practice his math.

            OWL sounds like an amazing program.  I really like the idea that they have peer mentors (student teachers) supporting students.  This is a great confidence building tool and a great way inspire young people to use their skills.

            The virtual reality technology tool has been very useful to us when booking vacations or hotel rooms.

            Sick Kids hospital has a site for kids to log on and take a virtual tour of the operating room and various other parts of the hospital that children may need to visit and are apprehensive about.  This technology has allowed the children to investigate and become familiar with a situation or place before they actually have to physically visit it.

            Technology is wonderful!

 

Lisa Nash

Learning by Constructing Realities with Hypermedia

 

            Multi media technology is highly effective because it introduces more than one form of communication.  People take in information differently, just as everyone has their own style of learning. 

            I have sat through presentation after presentation where people have not made effective use of power point technology.  Each screen would be filled with paragraph after paragraph with no inclusion of images or sound.  I usually became bored quite quickly and tuned out.  However, those that incorporated various forms of multimedia captured my interest and attention.  Multimedia presentations have forced me to be creative and to really think through what important information should be displayed in my presentation.

            Students as Hypermedia Authors

            Students work collaboratively as only one person can work on the computer at a time.  The others researched and helped each other out.  This seems to be a well organized project that easily connects to other related sites (easy manipulation).  It involves lots of problem solving which we have already mentioned on numerous occasions.  Students also need to carefully design and prepare a plan of action before starting up.  This skill is extremely necessary (organizational skills) throughout the rest of their school life and into the work world.  I feel that my children have not been taught this vital skill in school and it overflows into daily life organization.

            I have found that the role of the teacher in most of the technology lessons in this text, require the teacher to act as a coach, generating open ended questions that promote and encourage critical thinking and problem solving techniques.

            What an amazing story about the students who designed an information kiosk for the zoo.  It was obvious that these guys were highly motivated and took ownership in this assignment.  Again, we see that when kids are involved in something that is meaningful and relevant to them wonderful things occur. 

I would like to have been able to find the website in the book http://www.rockets.org but was unable to find it.  Was anyone able to check it out?  It sounds like a great site.

Storage was always a pain with our old fashioned camcorder.  Today with the creation of CD’s and DVD’s it has allowed for a better storage system.  Technology is more efficient and will continue to become more efficient with the amount that can be stored and the speed at which it can be saved.  We are amazed at technology now, but we know that someone will always be thinking of and creating better and more efficient systems and ways of storing.

Lisa

Learning by Visualizing With Technology

 

            I think the majority of people including adults view T.V. more in an entertainment sense than as a learning tool.  Although I do believe a lot of learning and information sharing takes place through T.V.  The downside with T.V. is that children are just watching and not participating.  There again are no hands on learning taking place.  It’s easy to sit children down in front of the T.V. if you need to get things done and you want them to stay in one place.  I’m guilty of that.  Children spend a significant amount of time sitting in front of the T.V. and because there is little or no interaction, children are not learning the vital skill of critical thinking.  They take things at face value and accept was being fed to them.  I believe that are misled or misinformed with a lot of news stories because they tend to highlight one part of the story.  We need to always remember that there are two sides to a story.

            T.V. can be a great tool just like the Internet, but it needs to be monitored and used in moderation just like anything else.  It’s a good idea to sit down with our children and watch T.V. with them once and a while because if a controversial topic or quote is overheard by them it gives you the opportunity to talk it through with them and allow them to ask questions.  Otherwise, they will come away possibly confused and misinformed. 

            I love the idea of the children producing video.  This actively engages them and sparks creativity.  I watched two young teens on the street the other day making a video.  They were totally into it.  This implementation is much more efficient and cheaper than before.  I remember traveling through Europe with this huge camcorder than broke our back.  It was great to have and at the same time a pain in the neck (literally).  I like the sentence in the book “when students become producers rather than viewers, they naturally become more engaged.

            “Anchored instruction” is a great, fun idea.  It’s a unique way of getting kids to work collaboratively, problem solve real world problems and to creatively come up with solutions because there isn’t one answer to the problem.  I really like this because I feel that in the classroom there generally is just one correct answer and this stifles their creativity. 

            The whole idea sounds great in an ideal school setting.  Unfortunately finances are always an issue.  The parent council usually ends up fundraising to purchase the basic necessities in the classroom.  I don’t think there are a lot of schools that have the budget to afford such technology.  They may have enough for one video camera, but to be effective there should be a good number so that multiple groups can be participating at the same time.

       Long but interesting research studies.  I think that we tend to underestimate the creativity of children.  Interesting to see the types of things these different age groups focused on photographing.  It doesn't surprise me that the older age group snapped pictures of their social life.  Pictures would tend to be very interactive.  I recall a couple of summers ago up north, my dad organized an old wooden boat show.  There were other booths that were set up and one particular booth was the local art shop.  They decided to run a contest for children.  Each child was given a disposable camera and they were encouraged to roam around the boat show and take the most interesting pictures possible.  Each child was able to choose one shot that they thought could be entered into the contest.  Throughout the week their pictures were displayed in the local mall and judges marked their photos.  My niece came in first place!!!!!  It was quite interesting the things that they chose to photograph.  They found parts of boats that I would have never imagined to be fascinating.  Cameras are an amazing way to find out about children's interests, etc.  I would love to see them used more in schools by children.  They love taking pictures. Thank goodness for digital.  I remember when I got my first camera.  I was so proud and excited.  I think I used a film in 5 minutes flat.

Hacking Human

Interesting article. I’m a little confused though. If I reading this correctly, human hacking could be good or bad depending on what you do with the information you’ve collected at the end. I have always seen it as a negative thing. I guess maybe the new emphasizes the bad. I’m not sure really what is good about it if you are collecting personal information about other people.
The term ‘hacking’ makes me cringe when I hear it. It is frightening and an invasion of your privacy. Hackers manipulate people who are generally trustworthy, to gain illegal access to their personal information and use it for their own benefit. I think sometimes that these people have too much time on their hands because sometimes I think it’s a thrill for them to just mess the whole system up. I think everyone is at risk to be hacked and I think the risk is growing. People install product after product in hopes of protecting themselves and these hackers out smart these systems. As the article has said, hackers are around to stay and we just need to be very diligent and maybe not so trustworthy on the Internet.
Do the people who are permanently connected to the Internet have a great chance than people who are on dial up of being hacked? Those on dial up are usually on for shorter periods of time.
Children and chat rooms sometimes make me uneasy for exactly the reason that was mentioned in the article. Kids share a lot of information that could be overheard by someone who is not intended to be part of the chat group. This is where safety becomes an issue. It’s frightening to me that you have no way of knowing if you are being watched or not. For this reason, it is extremely important that we educate our children about the dangers that could arise and to also monitor their conversations in some way. There are too many stories of how children have been lured into meeting with someone that they had been in a chat room with. It turns out that the person isn’t who they said they were.
I think my thoughts over the last few blogging sessions have sounded very negative about technology and I think that it is because I am still new to a lot of it.

Lisa Nash

This chapter was very eye opening and exciting especially towards the end of the chapter. It truly is amazing how exciting learning can be if technology is emphasized in the classroom. I really have not taken the time to think of the positive impacts it can have on a child’s writing skills, confidence, critical thinking, and the list goes on.
The story about the African drum was used a s a means to communicate to the other villagers reminded me about how the slaves working in the fields used drumming to communicate to one another. They created a drumming language that was only known to the slaves. Their masters banned them from using the drums to communicate for fear of a revolt. This didn’t stop them. They creatively figured out another way to speak to each other. Humans desire and need to communicate in some form and so various ways of communication have taken place since the beginning of time in some for or other.
The Internet connects us to the rest of the world and people can stay in contact with people who have the same interests. I read a disturbing article in the newspaper a couple of months ago about an Internet community chat group. It was a suicide chat room that individuals shared their desire to die and wanted to help others as to the best way to carry it out. Individuals stayed connected regularly to this group until they carried out their suicide. It was very eerie how they would encourage one another and count down the days as though there was a celebration soon to take place ( I guess in their minds it was). Each would send a note of encouragement and hope that they are able to fulfill their desire and then they would wish them luck. Apparently, this has become a very popular and fast growing site. This is just one of the many community chat rooms available. As you can see the topics can be very simple or complex and unethical.
I really like the few sentences on page 72. “When students own the knowledge, rather than the teacher or the textbook, they become committed to building knowledge, rather than merely receiving and reprocessing it. Knowledge building becomes a social activity not a solitary one.” This once again reinforces working collaboratively and also the need for children (and adults) to be engaged in activities/topics that are relevant and meaningful to them in order for them to truly learn.
I totally agree with the section on page 83. We assume that students can easily participate in online communication when in fact they struggle with critical thinking because they have not had enough practice and opportunity to contribute their opinions on the topics discussed in class. Everybody’s level of participation in a conversation is different. I believe that online communication provides everyone with an equal opportunity to express themselves. My experience as a child in class was negative. I was shy and afraid to speak up with my opinion and therefore rarely participated. There was always someone who dominated the discussions. I also think that this could happen online; however, I think its easier to push into an online conversation easier than in person. This is where the teachers’ role comes into play. If they see that someone is dominating the online conversation, they can step in and lay out the ground rules. For those children that struggle in situations like this, online conversations may empower them by providing a less threatening, stressful environment. It builds student confidence.
Face to face conversations are so much richer and you pick up a lot more when you see someone’s body language and hear different tones in their voice. Using the computer for frequent conversations can lose a lot of meaning and could be misinterpreted if you are missing the other things that make up conversation. I don’t know if I am making myself clear. You see if I could speak to you I may come across more convincing. I guess I also look at it as a challenge. It challenges me to be a better, more articulate writer to get my point across.
Lisa Nash

The idea of this chapter is to emphasize the idea that the Internet serves as a tool for individuals to expand their knowledge by exploring (page 49).
It doesn’t seem that long ago that the public library served as one of my main (if not the main) venue I used to explore topics to complete an assignment. The World Wide Web has exploded since then and has become the venue people use to research a topic.
The Internet has instantaneously connected us to every topic imaginable and has allowed us to experience other parts of the world that we may never be able to experience.
As the chapter has said, the Internet has opened up amazing and endless opportunities in the classroom. I agree this will only be made possible if teachers get up to speed on the latest technologies and implement this form of technology in the classroom. The teachers role is a to guide their students as they work and not to complete the work for them.
Another amazing part of this technology that has been exciting for our extended family is the videoconferencing. Today so many families are spread out all over the world. This form of technology has connected families and in some way has brought them back together again. My husband’s cousin moved to B.C. a few years ago and has since had two children. Medical conditions have prevented the grandparents from traveling to see their grandchildren. Both families purchased web cams and every day they turn them on for a couple of hours so the grandparents can talk to and watch their grandchildren engaged in play, eating, story reading and singing. These couple of hours every day are very special times for all of them, made possible by technology. This has made this particularly difficult time much easier to deal with.
The Internet has opened up possibilities to individuals who for one reason or another are not able to physically be in a classroom setting. A lady in one of my classes last semester travels in from Walkerton to attend classes. She’s always happy when a course is offered online to give her that flexibility.
The “Modeling Tasks or Content” section of the chapter is very interesting. I believe when speaking of children, that they are better able to grasp and understand a concept by understanding it in different ways. Children learn best when multiple areas of development are challenged and when they are actively involved. Collecting additional information from the Internet on a topic they may know little about or know well will help them to challenge their thinking and help develop a better understanding of the topic in a variety of ways.

Lisa

This chapter was very insightful. I had never before really thought about the different types of problems we may or may not come into contact with every day. This gets me thinking as to whether we have provided children with enough opportunity to effectively practise their skills in problem solving. It is vital that children have the chance to practise different problem solving tasks individually and in group situations. Life will toss circumstances at us when we don't expect and will be required to solve a problem on our own or on the spur of the moment because no one else may be around at the time. Children will be lost if they haven't been given opportunity or if we are providing answers for them. This happens when we don't have the patience to wait until a child solves a problem (which can be a long time). I've seen children have difficulty making simple decisions because we've always done the thinking for them. As children grow up, they will be placed in situations that require other people to work together to come up with solutions, so I feel it is important that opportunities be given to practise both individually and as a group because this problem solving method reflects real life circumstances.

I agree with the authors comment on page 20. I also believe memorizing for a test is a waste of time. I've experienced that myself. We cram for a test by memorizing and soon after forget all we've memorized - not learned.

Everyone learns differently. My son learns best from hands on experiences. We've helped him study for tests many times. One particular time I remember him having difficulty studying for an electricity test because he was trying to memorize. When we tested him from his sheets, he clearly was unable to understand the concepts, so my husband constructed a project with him that visually explained the process. He was able to retell and show a clear understanding of how to produce electricity once he had the hands on experience. This is what is lacking in our classrooms!

As teachers, it is important to know each childs problem sloving styles and to provide as many individual and group solving problem strategies as possible to prepare them for the challenges they may face every day.

Just this week, my older son was using troubleshooting to work on a problem with his computer. I was pleasantly surprised to see how determined he was to figure out the problem. After a good hour, he had fixed the problem.

Blogging is new to me. This is my first experience with this type of technology. I am both intrigued and a little apprehensive. Blogging is a fast growing trend being used by more and more people every day. Blogging is a web based communication tool that people find easy and convenient. This interactive phenomenon encourages people to share knowledge and debate topics with people from all over the world. Students and teachers are using this learning tool for educational purposes and allowed for greater flexibility. It was quite interesting how this particular family was able to share their travel experience with the child’s class. Children can learn first hand about life in another part of the world. It’s a fun and unique way of learning.
Since feedback is an important part of blogging, it forces people to really think about their own opinions and allows them to think about how their own opinions may affect or be interpreted by other people. The part that I like about it is that it allows me time to reflect and think about what I want to say in my response before my classmates and possibly those around the world see it. It is a great way to see articles/discussions from a variety of people’s views. We can learn so much from others. It is also teaching me to be much clearer and more articulate in my writing style so that I can get my point across clearly to my classmates. This will be a challenge for me as writing is not one of my skills. I think as information is being exchanged over a period of time the quality of the exchange will improve as issues, etc. are being shared and new ideas and views are being introduced.
I see how beneficial blogging can be in searching out information and reading others points of view. My children attend Oxford Learning Centre and they have just started up a parent blogging section in hopes that it will provide a venue for parents to discuss parenting issues particularly related to education.
I see how beneficial a multimedia portfolio can be to those who want to choose a unique way of highlighting their education and career, but I also have the concern that it is too much personal information being shared with the world.

As I began the first couple of pages in this chapter, I couldn't help but reflect back to my experience as an educational assistant, through my observations as a parent of two children in the public school and as a volunteer in various classroom settings.


For the most part, I believe our children are not encouraged to think for themselves - they are robots following directions from the person standing above them. I have found that my children, particularly my eleven year old is afraid to take chances for fear of failure. He has had teachers in the past that wanted the students to work through solutions their way and not to come up with different ways. My son had actually been able to get the correct answer in a very different way and was told he couldn't do it that way. I continue to tell him that we learn best from our failures. If we just follow along and do as we are told all the time without questioning the reasons or how they arrived at the answer, we learn to not think for ourselves. Unfortunately, I think teachers are in such a rush to get through the Curriculum that time is not provided to explore children’s thoughts and ideas. I don’t recall many opportunities in my experience as a child or in the field where children were asked for their feedback and thoughts on a topic. In my opinion, this has stifled our children’s creative and critical thinking. Children can come up with quite unique and fascinating ways to solve a problem that we may never because sometimes we think to deeply.

We need to engage our children in meaningful learning opportunities. In order for learning to take place, activities must be purposeful to a child or they will not be completing it for the right reasons. When children are engaged in activities than are fun and challenging, there will be less opportunity that children will instigate or be involved in conflicts. I recall a time I helped out in one of the kindergarten rooms. The teacher had not engaged the children in any specific activities nor was she emotionally involved with them. This resulted in a room that was chaos. Children were screaming, running around and getting into conflicts throughout the morning. Needless to say, the teacher was distraught and couldn’t believe how badly behaved this group of children were.

People learn in different ways. Some learn simply by reading, others require hands on experiences. I believe that children in particular need numerous hands on activities to learn. It is important that teachers educate the families about the importance of play in the curriculum. In my opinion, children are not learning by sitting at a desk filling in the blanks. It is through hands on experiences that children begin to understand how and why things work.

Lisa Nash