Technology Course Reflection

At the beginning of the course, we established a personal theory of learning. I believe the goal of this assignment was to create a starting point for our journey into the use of technology in the classroom. Over the weeks, we revisited many of the instructional strategies used by educators over the past decades. Most of these strategies were reviewed, since we had been using them in the classroom before. However, with the review of each strategy, we tried to introduce an element of technology.
My initial theory of learning stated that students benefit from a wide variety of instructional methods. As I progressed through the course, this belief was reinforced through discussions and applications about behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Each method reminded me of some of the things I already did in the classroom, and some of the things I probably should start doing more of in the classroom.
I don’t think there really has been much of a shift in my theory of learning since the start of the class. Instead, I think I have recognized the importance of shifting the responsibility for the learning away from the teacher and toward the student. I understood this before, but I have really tried to shift from just delivering a safe version of active learning through technology to implementing it into my instruction. One example of this shift applies to the use of PowerPoints in class. Before this class, I would try my best to make PowerPoints interactive, but I was still the one in front of the class, and my students were still the ones in their seats. One of the activities I planned around the constructivism lesson was for the students to create their own PowerPoint slides and
share them with the rest of the class. While I recognized the need to be progressive when implementing technology into my instruction, I never really applied it before this activity.
The two technology tools I would like to use with my students in the future are the VoiceThread community and the Virtual field trip. I was very excited to learn about the VoiceThread application. I plan to use this application to enhance my lesson plans by making them more interactive. Most of the lessons I teach that include a written assessment can easily be replaced by a shared, classroom review that would allow the students to show off their work, and take a more active role in their learning. In addition, I think the application will be a good way to provide alternative methods of assessment for students, individually, or in a group. Another fantastic use of technology I was introduced to during this course was the virtual field trip. I was a little bit surprised to discover that the virtual field trip was actually fun and interesting for me, the teacher. I was very interested in following along the field trip as I investigated which ones I would use in my class. I look forward to finding the time to create my own virtual field trips as well, ones that I can manipulate and fine tune to match my curriculum.
Some changes I would like to make to my instructional practice would simply be to continue expanding my repertoire of technology tools. Although it is important to make sure you are adhering to effective and varied instructional methods, I believe that at this point in my career, I have gained a relatively strong understanding of differentiating instruction. The area I hope to focus on in the future would be connecting new uses of technology to each lesson I create. In order to accomplish this goal, I intend to investigate as many new forms of technology as I can. In addition, I intend to network

with other teachers in my school and over the internet, with the hope that I will discover a variety of new ways to use technology in the classroom.

Recycling

Voicethread- Recycling

http://voicethread.com/share/529992/

Social Learning in Practice

Social learning theory is the newest theory of education, and is actually still being defined and implemented into today's classroom curriculum. Of all the learning theories we have studied, social learning theory lends itself to technology the most. Some of the specific instructional strategies that have been tied to social learning theory include: webquests, VoiceThread, and PowerPoints. I have used two of these strategies before, and I intend to try using VoiceThread in the future.

All of these instructional strategies rely on individual members of the classroom providing input and demonstrating their mastering of the instructional material. In the case of PowerPoints and VoiceThreads, the students are given an excellent opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge to the teacher and their classmates. In addition, they are given the opportunity to collaborate, and give each other positive and constructive feedback. The finished product gives the students a sense of accomplishment and teamwork. In addition, it helps students get to practice real world applications that they could quite possibly utilize in their future endeavors.

In this respect, these instructional strategies are very closely connected to the social learning theory. In addition, they are linked to technology and effective strategies for learning.