**Course Reflection ~ Tech**

I came into this class with very little knowledge in technology, and couldn't imagine how I could possibly use technology in my future classroom. In my mind, it was easier to just teach math the old school way. However, this has now changed upon completion of this course. I have come to the realization that technology isn't a burden after all, but is instead a useful tool. It is a way to incorporate different teaching techniques and to also get students involved more actively in the lesson.


I found that the voki was a fun tool, and very entertaining. However, I don't think that it was time well spent. Instead, I wish that we could have spent class time learning more about Internet Workshops or Smartboard applications. These last two tools I could definitely see myself using in the future, especially the Smartboard application. Because my classroom in the fall has a Smartboard, I thought that this was a very useful component for me in particular. Now that I am more comfortable with the program, I am very excited to use my newly acquired technological skills to utilize this classroom tool.


Due to the fact that we were given instructions and then left to our own devices for the assignments, I have learned to become less dependent on step by step instruction. I was forced to depend on myself to solve problems that I faced along the way, and this made me more tech savvy. I now feel as though I am ready to go forth and use these technologies to enhance my classroom.

*** Google Reader= AWESOME***

Google Reader = Awesome : This sums up how useful google reader was for me. This is a great tool to use whether you are blogging for fun, or if you are using blogs for educational purposes. I hope to be able to get my future students to create their own blog, and if I do get this opportunity I will most definitely introduce google reader. This was the easiest way to view all my fellow peers' posts without going absolutely insane trying to find them. Instead of having to search for their blogs, I had them all on their own tab. Also, I love the fact that we can change the names of the tabs pertaining to the different blogs. This made it easier for me to know who's blog is who, since many of us didn't use our actual names for their blog. 


As for the blogs of my peers, it is apparent that we all were similar in many of our blog responses. Yes, we were given the same questions, but this is also probably because of the education that TCPCG is instilling in us. It wasn't surprising that we would all try and incorporate these methods from our classes into our blog posts. One idea that I found interesting was Megan's early use of integrating videos and such into her future classroom. Being at the end of our first semester, I know that we all want to incorporate visual aids such as videos into our lessons. I just thought that it was very advance of her to mention this in her first blog post for the class. She wrote:  A video such as this is something I could prepare ahead of time, with preparation, and showcase information in a new and exciting way. If I were doing a unit on To Kill A Mockingbird, I could construct a video like this to highlight characters, specific plot points, or provide examples of reading strategies for deeper understanding of the material.    -Go Megan :)

*Week 5 ~ Technology*

The two websites which I found to interesting, as well as very useful were the Math Forum, and National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. The first, provided many different online assignments which I found to be particularly useful for my Statistics and Probability class. Upon searching through the assignments, I found an internet workshop that I could utilize in my classroom as a project. In the project, students will be exploring and creating theories of their own in relation to the data (Mathforum, 2004). Then they will explore their theories to see if they can find any correlation between the data distribution and that of their theory. They will be given the chance to re-evaluate their theories and even create new ones, based on this exploration. Being a statistics class, this is a key skill that students should learn how to utilize.

The second website, the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, was a website that I found to also have materials pertaining to my Statistics and Probability class. The assimilations I found here were geared more towards the Probability aspect of the class though. It it, I found one particular assimilation that goes along perfectly with my Unit Plan for Probability. I introduced the Monty Hall Problem as a thinking exercise to start off the unit, and on this website I found an assimilation of the same problem(National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, 2010). Thus, I would use this assimilation as a class experiment to test the theory. One half of the class would simply pick a door at random, while theother half would pick a door at random and then change their answer. As a class we would compare our results after 20 or so trials to see if putting theory to practice yielded higher probability chances in the Monty Hall Problem.

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives(2010).  Lets make a deal: Stick or Switch. Retrieved on 6-29-11 from http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/topic_t_5.html

Mathforum (2004). How to use Census data on E-STAT with Fathom for a data analysis project. Retrieved on 6-29-11 from http://www.keypress.com/documents/fathom/Activities/EducationalAttainmentAndIncome/IncomeEdStatCanada.pdf

*Week 5 ~ T2P*

By looking at the inner workings of our brain's development throughout the course of our lives, we as teachers can better understand the intricacy of how our students think and act. If we factor in the ideas of synaptic density, it is apparent that many different factors affect the how, what, and whys of education. How our mind develops over the course of our lives is a process that never stops, and it continuously building upon itself. Our brain self-generates through the "pruning" of ideas, relationships, interests, experiences and many more aspects of life. Pruning is a way of maintaining the connections that our brain makes which we feel are important, or have a profound affect on us. Pruning also "weeds out" those which do not have a profound affect in our lives. This weeding out allows our brain to expand on our connections that do make the cut, so to speak.

Focusing on this aspect of pruning is one component of today's lesson that I found to be particularly interesting and applicable to teaching. I feel that it is my job as a future educator to provide the means for pruning to occur in my students. I can do this by providing many different components to my lessons which can include different theories and applications. These can help build networks of connections, and even provide "hot spots", i.e. profound experiences, that impact the inner workings of their brain. On the other hand, we must look at the other side of pruning. These experiences and ideas we bring to the mix as teachers may not have profound affects on our students. Rather, they may be what gets pruned out by their brain. This isn't always negative though, because this pruning out may help the student realize where their true academic interests lie. Thus upon looking at this scientific theory of brain development, we can better understand what inner processes may be occurring in the minds of our students.

~*A Good Teacher*~

When I think of a "good" teacher the first thing that comes to mind is the mixture of someone who is caring and has a nurturing nature, along with someone proficient in their field and the delivery of lessons with respect to their students. Showing students that you care about them, I feel, is essential because it gives them support and enables an open learning environment. Proficiency is also necessary because you want to be able to answer questions and dive deeper into the background of your subject area when necessary. However, a good teacher needs to delivery the course content in a way that appeals and reaches their students. When combined, these attributes make up my version of a "good teacher".




Look Back at....
If...Then...Because... post from week 3
If you use Bloom's taxonomy to formulate questions which you ask your students, then you are better able to model for them the different steps of comprehension with respect to the classroom lessons. This is because of the nature in which the questions progressively grow from factual answers into more depth analysis of the material. 


Revised addition: 
By asking students questions we give them the chance to come to their own conclusions, as well as instilling in them the notion that they are capable of completing any task at hand. This is a way of building them up to their conclusions, rather than requesting these conclusions right off the bat which may at times be intimidating to students. When intimidated, students may not be able to perform as well as they are capable of, due to a sense of fear. Instead, leading them to the final task through a process of questioning can make students feel less pressured. Also, this enables a sense of autonomy for students because they are able to draw their thoughts together from each step of questioning. Thus, this is a great tool for building self-confidence as well. Through this directional questioning, students get a sense of autonomy and self-esteem along the way. 

*Technology Accommodations*

As teachers, it is our job to reach every single child in our classroom. Using technology as an aid is one way that we can more readily do so, however we must take into account which technologies are most appropriate for our classroom situation. When planning our lessons, we must take into consideration the different impairments that our students have, and how these can hinder their learning experience if no accommodations are made to assist them. For instance, if there were a student with low-vision in my classroom, it'd be crucial for me to utilize technology as a means to allow them to participate and continue their work accordingly. As a math teacher, I plan on integrating the use of computers into my class for projects. One project I had in mind was a statistics-based assignment requiring students to gather data and then share amongst each others via google spreadsheets. Then, once data is gathered the students would use computers to graph distributions and draw conclusions. For a student who has low-vision, the use of a standard computer wouldn't be a sufficient means to complete this project. Instead, I'd integrate DAISY as an option for this student to remain independent in their studies. DAISY consortium is a program which combined with Microsoft Office to assist the hearing impaired. In using DAISY consortium students can save any Microsoft Office document or spreadsheet as a DAISY file. Windows speech recognition is what makes this possible; it is a verbal command based program which allows the visually impaired to use computers independently (Wikibooks, 2009). This ability for students to verbally use computer programs doesn't just apply to the visually impaired though. It also is relevant for students with physical handicaps which hinder their ability to use a computer. For instance, if a student had a broken arm and wasn't able to use the mouse of a computer as a result, this verbal command system would accommodate to their needs as well.

Likewise, if a student is hearing impaired similar accommodations need to be made. For example, when teaching in front of my class, those students who are hearing impaired are at a disadvantage if they have no means to "view" my explanations. This is where programs like Windows speech recognition are helpful (Wikibooks, 2011). By implementing this into my classroom, my voice is recognized by the technology and then put into a verbal display. This is a great breakthrough in educational technology because of the mass appeal that it has in the classroom setting. For students who are non-communicative, this same program could help them as well. It can be used as a visual aid for students who aren't able to maintain focus at all times. Instead of leaving them in the dust, whatever was said in the classroom in documented for them and the teacher can refer back to those notes when helping them remain on track. Also, sometimes seeing a physical representation of what is said can help the student learn the material by presenting it in different forms. Thus, by integrating these technologies into our classrooms, we can close the gap that sometimes forms with respect to students that have different impairments.

References:
Wikibooks (2009). Assistive Technology in Education/DAISY. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/DAISY on 6/22/11

Wikibooks (2011). Assistive Technology in Education/Speech Recognition Software. Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_Technology_in_Education/Speech_Recognition_Software on 6/22/11

**Week 4- Class Reflective T2P**

If we incorporate the many diverse learning theories of influence, into our personal pedagogy of education, we can better reach our students. This is because no one theory is flawless; they all have points of debate and even some that we may flat out disagree with. Therefore I suggest taking pieces from different learning theorists' methodology and creating an integrated idea of what learning is, the roles of students and teacher, content, and context. This allows us as educators to incorporate the ideas of great theorists into our own theory. Then, we are able to apply our borrowed ideas with our own personal ideas to our classroom.

For instance, an aspect of Piaget's stages of learning that I would take with me, is the idea of not teaching content that is beyond the years of my students. This refers to content of my class curriculum being age-appropriate. I also like Vygotsky's main focus on the social aspects of learning which I could apply to my classroom by having my class work in group, and do group projects. By focusing only on the ideas I completely agree with, I am able to pick and choose what I think is important for me to bring to the mix instead of bringing an overload of theories with me, many of which contradict each other.

Week 4- Learning Theorists