Activity Types Reading

The Activity Types Reading provides a meaningful context for technology in education. I suggest that this be the first reading for the course. I am someone who is hesitant to use technology in the classroom because of the unpredictable nature of the media. However, the Grounded Technology Integration model provided the reassuring message that teachers can integrate technology into planning without restructuring what is already in place.

Matthew represents our English methods course well in mentioning the Constructivist model. The emphasis for English instruction is connecting lesson with life. Recursive planning is arguably the most important feature of our methods course, and I appreciate the note that recursivity is present in the five steps of planning.

The English taxonomy reading is very refreshing. Again, I encourage this to be the first reading for the course. The comprehensive table of Activity Type/Brief Description/Example technologies should be as important to planning as the SOL map for student teachers. This table should be an integral part of teacher planning to streamline instruction because technology could stray from objectives. What I appreciate is the simplicity of design of the chart to correspond with lessons to put students before the means.

A suggestion for this table is to clarify the example of “web searching.” This vague topic could take too much time and have students wandering through cyber space. Are there any recommended search engines or educational sites? Specificity in technological tools is crucial for beginning teachers so we are more inclined to use technology without fearing the unknown consequences of this new territory.

Activity type in Language Arts

The activity type approach makes sense on many levels. For instance, by choosing student goals and objectives first, one insures that activities we use have some sort of measurable outcome. We need to plan effective lessons that could be used without technology, and then think about how technology might enhance the lesson. The continuums are also helpful to determine how teacher or student centric one wishes a lesson to be. In my English methods class, we learn a student centered, constructivist approach to designing lesson. Constructivists want students to be active, engaged learners, who construct their own knowledge. We also learn that lesson design is a process of pre-planning, planning, and post-planning. In the AT approach to lesson design, we would incorporate graphic organizers into a vocabulary lesson during the planning phase, after we had designed the bulk of our lesson. The content specific taxonomies are certainly helpful in designing instruction. For instance, as a Language Arts teacher, I can see what technologies might be helpful for pre-reading, reading, and post-reading instructional strategies. I can see how technology might assist the analysis and synthesis of literature which post reading requires.

Activity Types Reading

From the articles about the AT approach to planning, I think that the method will greatly benefit planning technology integrated instruction. By first considering what your students need to learn and how you want to teach the material, you will keep this focus as you select what technology to add into the lesson.  This ensures that the uses of technology are effective for student learning.  There are a variety of ways that math teachers can use technology in a way that benefits students, and the Math Learning Activity Types are great suggestions for planning instruction to serve student needs at a variety of learning levels.

Activity Types

The "Activity Types" (AT) approach to lesson planning is surprisingly simple: determine what you need your students to learn, and then determine how technology can be of service. As straightforward and even as obvious as this may seem, there is little doubt that teachers of all levels of experience and exposure to technology might base the lesson around the technology simply for the sake of having students use a novel teaching method. To do so, however, as Drs. Hofer and Harris have explained, is to present exposure to technology as the primary "lesson," and this is very seldom the case.

There are many steps to planning one's lesson and incorporating the use of technology into the lesson as an enhancement. The AT approach guides us to first choose our learning goals, to then make pedagogical decisions about the type of learning experience we want our students to have, to thirdly combine our desired activity types, then select our assessment strategies, and only then to select the technological and other tools we will need to teach the lesson. This approach is not contradictory to that which is taught in methods courses (at least, for social studies methods courses), as the function of these courses is to learn how to design lessons that accomplish certain strategies (i.e. step one of the AT method). Thus, the AT method is really nothing novel; it is simply a reminder that incorporating technology should not necessarily be a goal, but it should rather be a strategy if deemed appropriate and useful.

I do not have any particular questions about the AT method. I believe its design is quite clear. However, I would be curious to know about any research that has shown which technologies (from those made available in different segments on the inventory) appear to be most useful in various combinations of the pedagogical decisions outlined in the AT theory.

Lesson Focus Possibilities

For my lesson, I am focusing on ninth and tenth grade Algebra 1 Part 2. 

My first idea is to use a PowerPoint presentation to represent the pictorial and area representations of manipulating polynomials with multiplication.  This relates to SOL “A.11 The student will add, subtract, and multiply polynomials and divide polynomials with monomial divisors, using concrete objects, pictorial and area representations, and algebraic manipulations.”

As a second idea, I would like to create a graphing calculator tutorial or presentation to teach students how to factor binomials and trinomials.  This comes from SOL “A.12 The student will factor completely first- and second-degree binomials and trinomials in one or two variables. The graphing calculator will be used as a tool for factoring and for confirming algebraic factorizations.”

For my third idea, I would again use the graphing calculator to teach students how to find the zeros of a function graphically.  SOL “A.15 The student will, given a rule, find the values of a function for elements in its domain and locate the zeros of the function both algebraically and with a graphing calculator. The value of f(x) will be related to the ordinate on the graph,” relates to this lesson idea.

My fourth idea is to use a software package like Excel or other statistical software to analyze groups of data by calculating vital statistics and creating graphs.  SOL “A.17 The student will compare and contrast multiple one- variable data sets, using statistical techniques that include measures of central tendency, range, and box-and-whisker graphs,” covers this topic.

Finally, from SOL “A.18 The student will analyze a relation to determine whether a direct variation exists and represent it algebraically and graphically, if possible,” I plan to teach a lesson using online videos that discuss real-world applications of direct variation.

Parent/ Teacher Communication

Maintaining an open line of communication with parents is crucial toward establishing a positive teacher/parent relationship. This can be as simple as sending parents e-mails at the beginning of the school year telling a bit about yourself and briefly outlining the educational objectives for your class. Of course, this also means that you respond to parent e-mails as quickly as reasonably possible.

As David Walbert suggests in his article, knowing your audience is the key to communicating on the web, including parent communication. Thus, whether most of your students come from SEC backgrounds versus parents who are Harvard professors, will likely change the tone and style of parent communication. Technology like e-mail can make it easier to communicate with parents, but it might also cause communication errors on either end of the spectrum. If your writing is not clear and concise, parents are more likely to misunderstand you and get frustrated or angry.

The two most promising and realistic technologies to allow parent/ teacher communication are probably e-mail and services such as Edline. Teacher or district web pages can serve the same purpose as Edline, that is, they allow parents to see exactly what students are doing in class and even view how and why a teacher makes decisions. Although services such as Edline posts student grades and assignments, web pages could work in the same manner, as long as privacy was afforded to the students grades. Each student, for instance, could be identified by a unique number, known only to the parents, so that grades are not publicly displayed.

It is extremely important; however, not to assume that all parents have access to a computer or the internet. Some parents simply cannot afford the expense that a computer or the internet entails. For these parents, you must be willing to make concessions. If every parent has access to their students’ grades through edline, how will the concerned parent without internet access know how their child is doing? In these cases, a phone call or a letter home would still be useful. Certainly, a teacher should never use social networking sites such as facebook to befriend either students or parents. In such a case, the potential risks far outweigh the benefits.