Below is my first attempt at a podcast using Audacity

How To Use Windows Live Movie Maker
      

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Above, you will find my first attempt at an iMovie project. This part of the process was very easy. The software is incredibly intuitive. My hope is to add music to this, sometime soon.

Sharing the video is another story. Uploading this to the blog has been very smooth. Uploading to TeacherTube, YouTube or my wiki, on the other hand, has been troublesome. The size has been prohibitive and I am in the process of working this out. My first attempt has been with compression. Cross your fingers.

Total Immersion

The use of video games in teaching is total immersion. Video games are one of the most remarkable uses of information and technology for education. They drop the student into the deep end of the learning environment. I found it difficult to cut the following quote by Max Lieberman:

“One of the more sophisticated arguments for teaching with content-aligned games is that such games present players with an entry route to expertise in a given field through what educational theorists call "epistemic frames" (Shaffer 227-228). These frames are collections of skills, practices, values and identities held in common by "communities of practice" (227). Games can create these epistemic frames by embedding a player in a virtual community of practice, where he or she will learn these ways of seeing by acting as an expert and interacting with other experts, in the form of teachers, other players and "non-player characters" controlled by the software (Shaffer, Squire, Halverson and Gee 9).  These epistemic games spur learning even outside of gameplay, as players share information about game mechanics, game narratives and real-world topics that bear on the problems they are solving within the games.”

So many different standards and goals are met through this use of technology. The fact that students continue to learn after the game is over, is wonderful. As a teacher, I have had students come to me after a lesson or unit and tell me what they found out on their own. At that point, we became an epistemic community. I consider this one of my greater successes in education. Learning more about how to teach with technology, will allow more such successes. Throughout this course, I have become much more interested in the professional development needs of our teachers. The project we completed gives me the experience, albeit just one, to share with other educators. At the end of this course, I am eager to show my colleagues the possibilities with educational technology.

Lieberman, M. “Four Ways to Teach with Video Games”, Currents in Electronic Literacy, University of Texas at Austin, (2010). Retrieved from http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/2010/lieberman_four-ways-to-teach-with-video-games

Flexibility is a thinly veiled synonym for change

Flexibility is a thinly veiled synonym for change. Through the use of technology, we are asking our teachers and students to accept change, constantly.  Being comfortable with change is an evolutionary process. If, however, we embrace the curriculum and slowly embed the technology, we can allow the participants to become comfortable. Using interactive assessment is ideal.  As a music teacher, I have the good fortune of having alternative assessments, specifically, performance assessments.  Yet, I must still provide flexibility. Often, I have a student who can play by themselves, but not with a group, or vice versa.  Early on, I allow them to test in the manner they feel most comfortable. As things progress, I push them out of their comfort zone. If the student is completely unsuccessful outside their comfort zone, I allow them to retest in the original setting. This is all we are asking of technology. Allow our students to interact with us and others, as well as the curriculum, in a variety of ways. It could be considered a numbers game. The more variety in learning approaches, the more likely we are to address all learning style, therefore, successfully teaching more students.  

How do we get teachers to enjoy technology?

While looking at different tools, I could see why teachers balk at adding technology. A sense of perfectionism haunts every good teacher I have met, both as a colleague and as an administrator. If there are so many options, the next one may be better. Teachers, more than many, hate to be wrong. If what they are currently doing is right, why would they want to mess it up? We must have more timely professional development for our teachers to explore, evaluate and just play with technology. During this time, we need to provide a limited number of options. One session every six weeks that provides three similar tools, (e.g. animation, pod-casts, etc.) would ease them into technology. Then, I believe the administration should require the addition of one of these tools into at least one unit every six weeks. Over a period of three to five years, we would have a campus addressing technology in a thoughtful, stress-reduced environment.

This could really matter!

"Our understanding of learning and teaching is constantly reshaped by theory, applied research, and changing media. As our knowledge of the distributed processing in the brain grows, we know that students do not have one kind of intelligence or one way of learning; they have many. To accommodate these many ways of learning, we can use what we know about how each brain network operates to make our teaching methods and curriculum materials flexible in specific ways."

This really could matter. In the past, I heard educators talking about the latest trend in education. Even though I was very excited to find out about these new theories, they could tell me the names of several other theories based on the same information. I thought they were just being negative. As time passes, I see the same thing. Cross-curricular learning has become grade-level PLC’s, with a twist, admittedly. We cannot blame anyone for trying to rejuvenate the theories of education.  

As we continue with brain-based research, we cannot help but find quantitative ways to measure learning, and therefore, measure teaching. As a teacher, I have always tried to present information through all of the senses. Usually, I could hit every sense but smell, if you consider speaking as tasting. This approach has been very successful. My students, if I access all of the senses, learn to recognize new information in one-fifth the time it would otherwise take. With the identification of three areas, Recognition, Strategic, and Affective, we have more direct access to successful teaching. I anticipate the information to become far more specific in the near future. Intuitively, good teachers know, and can then prove a student’s best mode of learning. The brain-based research can validate that information and allow us to pinpoint instruction. 

Rose, D., & Myer A. (2002) Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning. Alexandria, VA.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at the Center for Applied Science Technology Website. Retrieved on March 18, 2012 from: http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/