Final Reflections

I learned in ED110 that using an IWB will enable me to create lessons in the format that 21st Century learner will relate to best and find the most stimulating. I will continue to practice and become more familiar with the Notebook software because it is a great tool for building interesting lesson for students. It will enable me to design lesson plans that are interactive, visually and auditorially pleasing for my students in addition to being educationally stimulating. It will be the primary tool for me to use when I build sample lessons for my future classes at Trinity.

My experiences in ED110 with technologies new to me like Wordle, Scratch, Prezi, iMovie and IWB Notebook, have given me the confidence to try new things with an eye on how I can incorporate them in creating lessons. These tools will be incorporated in IWB lesson that will surely stimulate students. I also learned that when using technology it will not go perfectly but that is OK! The important thing is how I deal with the adversity. It gives me the opportunity to model calmness and grace under difficult situations for my students and colleagues.

I loved how all the assignments introduced me to new software and teaching tools that I will be able to incorporate in my classroom. The use of the new technology reinforced the principles I learned in ED100 about creating non-differentiated lessons that will leverage each student’s primary and secondary intelligences so every student will have material presented in a way that they can understand and master. I order to educate 21st century learners I will have to embrace existing tools and continue to grow as our technological world evolves, because the state of the art methods used today will probably be obsolete in a few years and replaced by a new tool/method I cannot even image.

Interactive White Boards are Beneficial to Students

·         What is the impact of an interactive whiteboard on student achievement?

o    The use of IWB has the ability to improve the quality of education for today’s students and they have be shown to improve student’s overall performance

§  Robert J. Marzano quotes one study where it was found that using an IWB improved student’s performance by 16 percentile points versus a control group with no IWB.

§  The use of IWB with add-ons like a hand held voting device for entering answers; with the visual, interactive nature of IWBs and employing methods that reinforce accuracy with immediate feedback like adding applause all will improve scores an additional 10-15 points.

• The improvements noted above only work if the emphasis in the IWB lesson is to enforce understanding and mastering the material, not just on presenting information in a fun way. That is the challenge that will face teachers using IWBs. Teachers will have to create organized IWB lessons with a purpose and clear success criteria.  

·         What are the Xs and Ox for designing effective IWB lessons?

• IWB lessons are not much different from other lessons.
• It should start with a title page that clearly explains the lesson’s objective and method.
• The lesson should be interactive for the students. They should use the board more than the teacher.
• The IWB lesson should incorporate the following interactive elements:
• Pull down tabs to reveal or add important information. This little element of suspense help keep the students engaged.
• Drag and reveal question and answers are a fun and interesting method for students to understand and correlate material.
• Make the lesson visually appealing by maintaining a theme and using animated objects.
• The smart board is also a great tool for creating learning games for the students.
• One should not be afraid to experiment and try new things and continually update an IWB lesson. Through trial and error by keeping what works and throwing out what doesn’t 21^st Century teachers will be able to create an exciting and successful learning experience for today’s learners.

Digital Natives

Digital natives are students today who have only known the world that includes smart phones, PCs, Google, IM, social networking and such. Getting information from books is almost a foreign concept; their primary source of information is from some digital device. The challenge for today’s teacher of digital natives is to be able to adapt and think of ways to use the latest technology teaching subjects like logic, mathematics, geography, etc.  Designing a curriculum where the primary source of information and learning is through a digital device is a hard concept and daunting idea for many digital immigrants whose only use technology as a second or third choices for information. Digital native learn better from processed that are random and visually let them explore, like many games.

The technology used when I was in school was prehistoric be today’s standards, we used slide rules instead of calculators. We had things called film strips that were premade series of slides with an audio background. We only used chalk boards, no white boards or overhead projectors. Children today might find it novel and cool for about five minutes before being totally tuned out and bored to death.

Digital immigrants like me must become proficient with smart board in order to create lessons that are dynamic and will keep students interests. We should use embrace creating lessons in a game format, and design project that require the use of technology with a purpose.

Reflections about 21st Century Learners

List five common themes, concepts, or ideas you observed when watching the videos.

• Today's learners are required to adapt to change. 
• Kids in school today are making pod casts and use blogs for communicating their ideas.
• Today students have embraced using text messaging, IM and blogs as a form of communication and are much more proficient at them than the adults in their lives.
• In order to engage students in school, current technologies should be welcomed in the class room.
• The old way of teaching is not the way to prepare 21st Century learners for their futures.

What is meant by 21st century skills?

• These are the skills that allow a student to create and problem solve. They could include engineering and design software on project. Using Blogs and pod cast for sharing information with other students and teachers.

Why are 21st century skills important for today's learners?

• Students today want to learn how to think and create. Teaching methods have to shift from stressing the absorption of volumes of factual data and measuring students by their ability to recall it, to one where teachers provide and encourage the use of new technologies as an aid for critical thinking.

What is the role of technology with regard to 21st century skills?

• Technology will enable web based, colabortive learning. Student could work on project and share information with other students all over the world.

Reflection: List three questions or ideas you have related to 21st century skills.

• What will it take for current teachers to learn and accept the needs of 21st Century learners?
• Will there be a need for a physical classroom in the future?
• Will educational technology evolve to the point that implants in our heads will replace the need for external devices? Should we go that far in our embracing technology?