Mobile Learning Lab

I visited The Innovative Educator Blogspot and chose two articles to read:  Ten No Nos of Teaching with a Projector or Interactive Whiteboard and The Worlds Simplest Online Safety Policy. I'm pleased to report that I am only guilty of one of the "No Nos," the one that says "Don't Leave Your Audience in the Dark."  I plan to follow one of the author's tips for this problem, which is to add several lamps throughout the classroom to help with this problem. The Worlds Simplest Online Safety Policy outlines the hows and whys and teacher implications of an easily adoptable school policy for online safety. The topics in this blog are very relevant to me and I added it to my RSS feeds. I also visited Handheld Devices in the Classroom and saved a section on "digital cameras in the classroom" for future reference. I also visited all the other links provided in the lab.  
I was already a member of Classroom 2.0, but added myself to the Cell Phones in Education group and added a comment in the discussion forum.
I visited Poll Everywhere and created a poll for my students asking them about their favorite movies with PG-13 or lower ratings. This information will be helpful to me because in a few weeks I'll be a bus leader (my 4th year doing this) for our annual 8th grade Washington DC trip. Having a few DVD's for once-a-day bus downtime on the 4 day trip is very helpful.  I was very surprised at how easy this site was to use and happy to see students can respond via the web (not just cell phones.) Our current school district policy is student's phones have to be off during the school day. I also liked how you can customize the design settings for your poll. I also looked at the PowerPoint graphing template they provide. Again....very easy to use.  I currently do a lesson in my class where students create a class survey, gather data, then turn their data into a spreadsheet and corresponding graph.  I can incorporate Poll Everywhere into this lesson. My students currently gather data in the face-to-face mode.
I do use digital cameras in my classroom, currently on a pretty limited basis.  I plan to start using them for podcasting. I would also like to be able to incorporate use of students cell phones in my class but think this would be a "hard sell" to get administrators on board due to school policy against this. I also saw the question come up on Classroom 2.0 of what to do about students who do not have a cell phone, and nobody offered any suggestions. I am inspired by all the suggestions I saw from other teachers about how to incorporate these technologies in the classroom!

Wicked Problem Project - Final

Wicked Problem Project - Final

Text of My Problem The important educational need I am seeking to address with my Wicked Problem Project is how to effectively teach academic (content specific) vocabulary. Educational researchers have concluded that "systematic vocabulary instruction is one of the most important instructional interventions that teachers can use." (Classroom Instruction that Works, Marzano, et al. 2001) For my own students, I have identified 50 technology specific vocabulary words they need to recognize and understand in order to perform proficiently on our 8th grade county-wide technology assessment.  Additionally, our Reading School Improvement (SI)Team has identified teaching content specific vocabulary as an across the curriculum goal for our school.  I think the strategies I am proposing for using technology to address this problem in my own curricular area will be transferable to other content specific situations and therefore will help in our school's quest for overall improvement. Our Language Arts Department Head indicates that the way teaching content specific vocabulary is currently handled in our school is that: "1) it is ignored, or 2) students define words and draw a picture to go with the definitions and that’s it." While the second solution is better than ignoring the problem, we feel we can and should do better. Text of My Solution I propose using technology to address this educational issue by utilizing Web tools and interactive games that make learning vocabulary fun and interactive for students and that offers teachers tools for designing and implementing "a comprehensive approach to teaching academic vocabulary." According to the research, students will benefit in significant and lasting ways from this instruction. In “Building Academic Vocabulary.” Marzano and Pickering identify a six-step process for teaching new terms.  Here is a link to a video that explains these six steps:  http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/media/siteASCD/common/six_step_flash.html. This table outlines the six-step process and how I’m incorporate technology in each step to make the process more effective and engaging. So, how does TPACK fit in with my project? What is the TP knowledge for the solution? This is the six-step process combined with the various technology applications outlined in the previous chart.  It is important that the steps are followed specifically and consistently to get optimum results. What is the TC knowledge for the solution? Pictures and graphics present powerful visual information that increase students understanding of sometimes abstract or confusing vocabulary. Also, students would not always be able to come up with lists of synonyms, antonyms, or related words on their own. The use of an on-line thesaurus or dictionary would aid in this aspect of six-step process. The threaded discussion makes the content more intellectually accessible to students who do not like to speak up in the classroom setting. Students who rarely volunteer anything are often much more willing to share via the "written" word in a classroom setting. What is the PC knowledge for the solution? Students construct meaning of the vocabulary by describing terms in their own words.  Using non-linguistic representations helps many learners "get" the content. Also because we are using a six-step approach, scaffolding is "built-in" to the process. The strategies are engaging, collaborative, and represent "best practice" in the field of content specific vocabulary instruction.  Here is a short video of a couple of my students discussing vocabulary.  Kelsey and Dylan’s focus is on the terms browser and grammar check. Findings and Implications Due to time constraints, I did not fully implement my project, but I do feel I was able to test out the most important parts of it. I saw evidence of success in implementing my wicked problem project on Systematic Vocabulary Instruction when observing: Student’s electronic academic vocabulary slides including definitions they created for the terms and pictures they found or created to illustrate them. Student’s informal discussions with each other of the meanings of words and why they illustrated them the way they did. Accurate responses when we played vocabulary games. Lessons learned in my vocabulary project that others might benefit from knowing about are all about making assumptions! First of all, do not assume that just because our students utilize technology frequently and on a daily basis, that they know the "language" of technology. Secondly, do not assume that just because you know how to play a game that your students will also know about it. I would not have a clue where to begin to play the video game "Halo." Likewise, my students had no idea where to begin in "Password." Marzano’s approach to teaching academic vocabulary is current best practice. I think my integration of technology into the approach improves student learning. This is the essence of TPACK. I’m committed to making this wicked problem project part of my regular curriculum.  I will also be sharing the project with our School Improvement team in hope of getting other teachers “on board” with me!

Group Leadership Project - Final

We used several tools to deliver our professional development Edmodo tutorial.  Jing was used for the narration and screencast.  Jing videos were recorded with Quicktime, imported into iMovie to edit, then uploaded to YouTube.  iMovie was used to add the title, headers, and ending text.

One of the things we learned during the final production was that Jing has a 5 minute contiguous recording limit. Because of this, the narration and screencast were done in six separate video segments which were from 1 to 2 minutes long each. During final production I also learned about the site yousendit.com. This is a free site you can use for sending and sharing files up to two gigabytes in size.

If we had to develop a similar product again, we would avoid using Jing in the creation of it. The SWF format files are difficult to convert.

Here is our professional development screencast:

Personal Learning Plan

Wicked Problem Project Part D

Findings and Implications
Formative: Did the project get implemented as planned?
A problem that I was trying to work around in implementation of the project is that my classes follow a nine to ten week "marking period" schedule.  I get all new students four times per year.  The implementation part of our projects hit at the end of a marking period and was followed by a week-long spring break.  Key parts of my wicked problem project on Systematic Vocabulary Instruction were implemented as planned with some modifications due to time constraints. Specifically, I was able to:

• Identify 50 crucial academic vocabulary terms for my subject area and grade level.
• Invite two four-person teams of 8th grade teachers to join me in implementing technology infused instructional processes for teaching vocabulary in their subject areas.  These teachers represent science, social studies, math, and language arts curricular areas. Even though I invited them to join me in this effort, one of the four-person teams said they did not have the time in their instructional schedules to implement this plan.  The other team said they would like to try it at the beginning of the next marking period.
• Use video or computer images to introduce academic vocabulary terms to students.
• Have students begin to create electronic academic vocabulary notebooks. They created slides that defined 10 of the 50 technology terms in their own words and added a graphic to represent the word.
• Involve students in games to reinforce the meaning of the words.

One part of the Systematic Vocabulary Instruction project that I did not implement at all was to have students revisit the slides they made and "add knowledge of the term" in the form of synonyms, antonyms, or additional pictures.  Another part of the project that I spent very little time on was in having the students "revisit the terms and discuss them with each other."

Summative: Evidence of success in addressing the problem of practice.
I saw evidence of success in implementing my wicked problem project on Systematic Vocabulary Instruction when observing:

• Students electronic academic vocabulary slides including definitions they created for the terms and pictures they found or created to illustrate them.
• Students informal discussions with each other of the meanings of words and why they illustrated them the way they did.
• Accurate responses in the vocabulary games.

How would you approach another project of this type differently given what you've learned here?

If I were approaching another project of this type, now that I have this experience, I would try to narrow my projects' scope and focus more.  Marzano has written a whole book (and sections of several others) on how to effectively teach academic vocabulary. I could have started specifically with vocabulary games and built my whole project on that topic. Marzano's approach is a multi-step approach though, and that is why I tackled the problem the way I did.

What are the lessons learned that others might benefit from knowing about?

Lessons learned in my vocabulary project that others might benefit from knowing about are all about making assumptions! First of all, do not assume that just because our students utilize technology frequently and on a daily basis, that they know the "language" of technology. Secondly, do not assume that just because you know how to play a game, that your students will also know about it. I would not have a clue where to begin to play the video game "Halo." Likewise, my students had no idea where to begin in "Password."

In what ways will you endeavor to do the same project again, and what will you change or not do?
Things I will change include:

• Incorporating threaded discussion into the initial classroom discussion when introducing new vocabulary for students' electronic notebooks.
• Setting aside time for students to revisit their notebook so they can collaborate with classmates and so they can also "add to" their slides.

Marzano's approach to teaching academic vocabulary is current Best Practice and I think my integration of technology into the approach improves student learning, so I am committed to making my wicked problem project part of my regular curriculum.  This is the essence of TPACK.

Group Leadership Project - Part B Storyboard and Script

Our storyboard and script for the group project was created using Google Docs so we could all collaborate and contribute from our separate locations. Our screencast is aimed at teaching teachers:

• how to create an Edmodo teacher account and adjust the settings
• how to create a class group and student accounts
• directions for having students log in to their accounts
• instructions for retrieving student information
• and "how to's" on polling students

We all contributed to the project. My major contribution was the "script" and "transitions" portion of the assignment. The andragogy used in the script portion considered the needs of the adult learner.  Specifically, I tried to:

• help decrease anxiety by making connections to something most teachers already know (i.e. Facebook or at least the knowledge that our students are big users of Facebook!)
• trying to take a coaching rather than judging approach
• explaining why they need to know something (Edmodo would be a valuable tool in motivating students to participate)
• making the topic relevant to their immediate needs (again helping to motivate students)

(Malcolm Knowles, 1984).

Jing will be used for our final product.  One member will be the "voice" of the screencast. The rest of us will take care of editing, revising, and polishing the screencast. Click on the link below to see our Google Doc:

Group Leadership Project - Part B Storyboard and Script