Cognitive Learning

Question: 1. How could software applications and/or other technologies help you provide opportunities for your students to access their prior knowledge and better organize new information? That is, describe a lesson for which you might use technology to help with organization and describe the technology(ies) you might use?

Response:
While reading about the cognitive approach to learning and memory, I found myself thinking about how I personally remember things and how I best learn. I know that I am more of a hands on and visual learner. I found it very interesting taking those memory experiments. I noticed that I did much better when the information was organized. In order to teach my students to access their prior knowledge and better organize new information I would use a graphic organizer program (Kidspiration). This program allows students to create concept maps using pictures, words, or sentences.
I would use this program from the beginning of the lesson or unit if we are starting a new unit. I would give the students a word or picture that has to do with the lessons to follow and just have them create a map of what they already know about this word or picture. They could write down things that go along with the word, where they would find or use it, when they heard or saw the word, etc. That would have the students access their prior knowledge. Then as the lessons and unit continued the students would go into and add to their map.
While adding they might reorganize the map into different categories but the information that they have learned has now been already connected to something they already knew. According to the cognitive approach getting information into your long term memory is tough to do however it is easier if you attach it to something you already know. By having the students create these maps and place words and pictures into the map before they started the lessons on a certain topic will have the students creating the links to their prior knowledge when then learn something new.

Smartboards

So yesterday I went to the Smartboard workshop that was led by one of our TEAM members. It was great! Very interactive and showed me some new tools to use on teh smart board! Sharon lead the workshop and the way she led it was great! I particularyly liked how when we came into class we had to sign in on the smartboard and then she used our names to call us up to use a tool! This gave me an idea of how to start my lessons with my fellow teachers as well as my students!
During my free time I had read an article in Digital Directions. The atricle is Whiteboards Inc. It talked about how schools started using the interactive whiteboards and the many uses of them. Within the article I came across a stunning statistic: about 60% of classrooms in the United Kingdom have interactive whiteboards while in the United States ONLY 12% of the classrooms have them! It makes me feel very fortunate to be a school where each classroom has a Smartboard (even if it is the portable one that can be quite annoying at times!)

I created a Poll to see what grades we are teaching in TEAM. I am curious to see how many teach each grade. Please complete the poll if you visit this blog! Thank you!

GLEF

So after looking through the Edutopia website I have decided that there is way too much information out there! My mind is racing with everything I have just read about in the technology integration section. From Hana lulu schools testing water and having their own TV show that is produced by elementary school students to students providing more research on the frogs that live in their area. I want to do it all with my students! I know it doesn't happen right away and I have to find something of my own to do but just reading about everything that is going on is inspiring me to go on a search for the main project I want to start with in my classroom as a technology teacher. I have always said I wanted to visit other schools and see what they are doing with technology, well this is allowing me to read and watch what others are doing. It is so inspiring as well as overwhelming to see where the technology is bringing our classrooms.

Field Experience

So I decided to start writing about my field experiences with technology. Basically I am surrounded by technology in almost every aspect of my job at work. I am the technology coordinator, testing coordinator, and recently the data coordinator. I teach every grade in the school 2 times a week and at least 2 times a month I offer professional development for the teachers and using the technology that we have. I also provide the school with tech. support after school hours.
Today I had my first meeting for the data coordinators in the city. You see my school was chosen as part of a Teacher Incentive Grant for Charter Schools. It is called PICCS I am on the Data team. This entails using our students test data to drive our instruction for each student to become successful. It is not just printing out the reports and looking at numbers, it involves answering the now what do I do of the “ok so I know what the students received on all of these tests…now what” We will be using a data management server called TetraData. This server will allow me to have all of the data available to me and I will choose how to manipulate this data and run reports. It seems like it is going to help a lot once we have everything in order.
Yesterday’s field experience involved a lot! My Wednesday schedule is packed with teaching pretty much all day. I taught at least one class in each grade yesterday. It was a tiring day. My students are not exposed to computers unless they are in our school so yesterday’s task was showing the 3rd – 5th graders how to save files to a writeable CD. It was very interesting to see that maybe 1 student knew how to do this. My kindergartener’s are working on their fine and gross motor skills now so they have been using Starfall to reinforce their letter skills. The current first graders are lucky because they already know how to use the computer because of the previous year with me. These first graders are learning about weather through a Sunburst computer program. The second graders have started their computer groups. Within these groups I have students reinforcing their reading skills with either Reader Rabbit or Starfall, their science skills with a Sunburst science program or Weather Wiz Kids, using KidPix in order to foster their creative side while reinforcing the computer skills while my last group is working on a computer project. These groups switch every class in order to allow for all students to reinforce each skill. The computer project is a small group that will work with me, while the other groups are working very much independently. I sort of created guided computer groups or centers. This was something new I tried this year and it seems to be working quiet nicely.
After school I offered a professional development for the teachers. In this professional development I was able to show how to burn an exact copy of a CD for those teachers who needed it. I also walked them through installing and using an interactive math computer program.

Refelctions

Being a technology teacher and starting your own curriculum is sometimes more difficult than it seems. As we all know its not true technology until something goes wrong on the day you need to use it. This happens many times at my school and it is very hard to describe to some people who don't understand technology that I honestly have no control over some situations and that is when you just roll with the punches. But enough about that!
I would like to share about something I noticed this week. Last year was the first year many of the students in my school had ever been exposed to a computer. This week I decided to see how much the students remembered from last year. I was not sure if they could do it but I had spent a lot of time with one grade using PowerPoint. This grade I sent onto PowerPoint and told them to create a 4 slide presentation about themselves. I also told them they had to add animation, and change the fonts and colors as well as add a picture. I did this for myself just to see where I needed to start from this year. I was so proud of the students because yes they didn't get it by the first shot but they remembered how to do it all on their own. Now last year I didn't have them take notes, nor did I test them on what they remembered. It was more the final product that I was looking for. Their classes were completely hands on and they had to apply what they learned each day (practice). They had fun doing work and learning but I was scared that over the summer, not using the programs and possibly not even using a computer that they would lose everything. There is usually a typical "Drop" in learning because of the summer. Yes they didn't know it as quick as they did at the end of last year however they didn't lose it at all!
When I was a classroom teacher I taught my classes differently than i teach my technology classes only because that is how my partner teacher taught.
I still added my touch to everything but it wasn't the way I would have taught completely. Having this position at the school has given me the opportunity to see that if taught with hands on and application our students might not forget everything that is taught to them during the school year over the summer. Now if i could get all of the teachers in my school to see this we wouldn't have to worry about the state tests as much as we do!

Reconstruction

After tonight's class I decided to re-do my posts! Looking around at everyone elses made me feel like I could have done better. So here it goes!
I hope to challenge myself to the level that I expect all of my students. Going back to school was just a thought before I came across TEAM on C.W. Posts website. I am working on actually liking the way this blog looks so with time I hope to be happy with the content and all of the details.