Course Reflection

Part One: Course Reflections:
As a result of taking this course, I have learned about many new tools and resources. More importantly, this course has provided the opportunity for me to learn from colleagues about the ways in which they use these different tools and resources in varied classroom situations. Generally, constructivism guides my implementation of most digital tools and resources. According to Roblyer (2016), constructivism is a belief that all knowledge is constructed in the mind through experiences. I like technology that allows students to experience something that they could not do without the technology or to experience something in a richer way with the technology. Examples in a math class would be web sites with simulations and interactives that could not be accomplished with paper and pencil.

Professionally, this experience has added a wealth of resources, along with their annotated uses, to the collection of things that I typically show when I give workshops to teachers. This also reminds me to keep reaching out for different ways to approach learning. Though the focus of this course was not on online teaching and learning, much of what we learned in this course has application to the online course I teach for teachers who are new to online and blended learning. Something I will change in my own practice is to make sure I am setting an expectation for my learners to reflect on how they can apply what they learn with me to their specific classroom needs. We were required to do that all along in this course and I found that to be a powerful part of my own learning.

Part Two: My Blogging Performance Assessment
Looking back at my whole blog I would say that, overall, I am very happy with my blogging for this course. The rubric calls for a blog that is rich in content, thought, insight, and synthesis. I believe that each of my posts includes those things at an appropriate level. I made great effort in each blog to connect the learning of the module to my work. I included references, and cited my sources in text and in list using APA style. I did have one blog post that was almost a week late due to a family reunion at a campground without Internet connectivity. My responses to the posts of other students were substantial. I was clear about the things that I learned, or that I agreed with, or that I would challenge.
Grade
Content: 68/70
Readings & Resources: 18/20
Timeliness: 16/20
Responses to Others: 28/30
Overall: 130/140 (93%)



Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th Ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

Assistive Technologies in the Chrome Browser

The school districts I work with in Riverside County take many different approaches to selecting devices for their students. When they ask for my recommendation, I generally suggest iPads for grades K-2 and Chromebooks for grades 3-12. There are many reasons behind that recommendation - cost, ease of management, touch and interactivity, and personalization. But one of the most important reasons is the ability of both of those types of devices to be adaptive and assistive. For this blog post I am going to discuss some of the assistive characteristics of Google's Chrome browser. While the assignment was to discuss the accessibility of the computer that I use, I decided to focus on the browser itself. At home I use a Mac desktop machine. At work I use a Windows desktop, a Chromebook, and a Mac laptop. The common thread is that I use Chrome almost exclusively on all four of those devices.

Accessibility Extensions from the Chrome Web Store

Extensions loaded on my Chrome browser

According to Roblyer (2016), providing students who have physical, sensory, or communication impairments with some assistive technology is not just a good practice, it is implicit in the 1997 federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Below are some of the capabilities of the Chrome browser that can assist students with special needs:

OpenDyslexic is a Chrome extension that formats pages with a special font and paragraph highlighting designed to help students with dyslexia focus and decipher text.

Before OpenDyslexic

With OpenDyslexic

Clearly (by Evernote) can help students with attention deficits read pages more easily by removing distracting images, ads, and multiple pages.

Google Voice Search allows students with physical impairments or language issues that make it difficult to type to do research on Google by speaking their search questions directly into the computer.

High Contrast

High Contrast is a Chrome extension that can help students with certain visual impairments read pages more easily by converting the view to white text on a black background causing the text to really pop off the page.

Google's Image Alt Text Viewer helps visually impaired students read pages by replacing images with their descriptive text. Then a page reader will be able to include image descriptions instead of just skipping the images.

ChromeVox is a browser extension that reads pages to students who may have specific vision, learning, or language issues. This extension was designed by Google specifically to meet the needs of visually impaired users.

Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th Ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

Obstacles to Integrating Technology in the Mathematics Classroom

There are many obstacles that prevent math teachers from fully embracing the use of technology in their classrooms. The primary challenge appears to be teacher resistance (Norton, McRobbie, and Cooper, 2000). The researchers studied a mathematics staff in a secondary school where there was a high level of access to technology, but also a low level of technology use. They found that teacher resistance was related to beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning and the math teachers' own existing pedagogies. In part, the solution is to expose these resistant teachers to technology integration strategies that could move the teachers toward integration in a meaningful and comfortable way.

According to Roblyer (2016), There are are several more major obstacles to technology integration in mathematics. Some of those challenges are listed here along with some tools and strategies that could serve as potential solutions for these challenges.

Image licensed through PresenterMedia

Obstacle: The need to bridge the gap between abstract and concrete. The use of virtual manipulatives can help bridge that gap by allowing students to interact with abstract math concepts through simulations. The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is one online resource for these virtual manipulatives.
Obstacle: The need to allowing representations of mathematical principles. Technology like graphing calculators can help enhance the way students represent mathematical concepts and equations. Desmos is an example of a free online graphing calculator that is helping students understand problems and equations with a host of virtual tools.
Obstacle: The need to support mathematical problem solving. Students need opportunities to engage in problems without having the solution path outlined for them. Technology tools like the Geometer's Sketchpad allow students to interact with the principles of geometry in ways that are not possible with paper and pencil.


Norton, S., McRobbie, C. J., & Cooper, T. J. (2000). Exploring secondary mathematics teachers’ reasons for not using computers in their teaching: Five case studies. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 33(1).

Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th Ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

Social Networking and Walled Gardens

Molly Large and I worked on this project together. Please take a look and listen to our presentation. Then, join the conversation by adding your voice to our VoiceThread.

Internet Safety & Cyberbullying

This past June I had the opportunity to do a presentation on Internet Safety for a group of parents at a PTA-Family Involvement Network Conference in Riverside, CA. I took the approach of sharing things that a parent (rather than a teacher) could do to keep their child safe on the Internet.

After doing some research that included websites by Common Sense Media and the FBI, I was able to create some slides with pertinent information to share with the parents at this conference. Every parent wants their children to be safe and responsible while they are online. In general, the best first step is to have a conversation with you child to help them understand the seriousness of Internet safety, and to arm them with some strategies for dealing with potential issues. Here are a few things that parents can share with their children:

• Stress the importance of following established family rules about when and where to use the Internet. They should only be online when adults are around to provide supervision. They should also be required to share any account passwords with their parents.
• Remind them to be polite and respectful as they deal with others in online environments. They do not want to accidentally solicit any problems through their own behavior. 
• Teach them how to understand the rules of particular websites they want to use. They should know what is not appropriate and how to report the inappropriate behaviors of others. 
• Review the red flag of being asked for personal information - particularly names, addresses, phone numbers, age, email addresses, and even school names. Children should know that they can be found by strangers just by giving their name and the name of their school.
• Teach children never to send pictures of themselves or anyone else in their family to someone they have never met.
• Finally, it is not always easy to define "inappropriate" behavior. Teach your children with words that they will immediately understand. They should immediately tell a trusted adult if anything "mean" or "creepy" happens while they are online.

I also created an infographic about Cyberbullying. The parents seemed to appreciate the infographic, so I am including it here: Standing Up to Cyberbullying.

Created with easel.ly

Video in the Classroom

References

Collett, Jessica L. and Kathleen M. O’Neill. 2006. “Sometimes less is more effective: Applying educational research to the use of popular video in the sociology classroom.” Paper presented at annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal, Canada.

Fadel, C., & Lemke, C. (2006). Technology in schools: What the research says: A report from the Metiri Group, commissioned by Cisco Systems. Retrieved from http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/TechnologyinSchoolsReport.pdf

NTTI. (2004). Tips for Using Instructional Video and Public Television Programming in the Classroom.

http://www.brptv.com/html/edserv/ntti/nttipdf/02media.pdf

Basic Suite of Software

According to Roblyer (2016), the "basic suite" of software tools includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a presentation application. When I started teaching, in 1985, my school had one computer. That computer sat on the secretary's desk for the sole purpose of typing  letters for the principal. It was 1992 before I had a computer in my classroom with the Microsoft Office suite of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. For the next fifteen years, Microsoft Office dominated my use of word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations in my work and for my personal use.

That dominance was disrupted in 2007 when Google Apps were made available. Google Apps were made available for free, and that was hard to understand after having to pay so much for the Office products over the years. However, more than the $0 price tag, it was the ease of collaboration that made the Google tools so attractive for the classroom. Having students be able to collaborate in real time on a spreadsheet, or a word processing document, or on the slides of a presentation really changed the way a teacher could use this "basic suite" in the classroom.

Image licensed by Presenter Media

Writers write. We know that the more often students write, the better they become at writing. Among the advantages to using a word processing application is that students write more often, they will edit and revise more often, and they can more easily share what they have written with authentic audiences.

For me, the biggest advantage of spreadsheets is that they allow students to manipulate data. For example, a teacher could tell students to look at a chart of data about the solar system - size, distance from the sun, rotation, revolution, etc. Or that teacher could have students go online to research each of those data points and put them into a spreadsheet. Once the spreadsheet is compiled, the students could then sort by each of the fields. Doing this will foster making connections that they might otherwise have missed by just reading a chart.

The power of presentation slides comes from learning to use the combination of text and graphics, along with your voice, to convey meaning beyond what could just be written. When students start using presentation applications as more than just a projection of their written report, they will be communicating in ways that could not be done without the presentation application.

Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th Ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

Relative Advantage of Instructional Software

The purpose of this post is to conduct a brief overview of the five main categories of instructional software and to discuss the relative advantage of using instructional software. According to Roblyer (2016), the five main categories of instructional software include: drill and practice, tutorial, simulations, instructional games, and problem solving. In my opinion, there is a lot of overlap between these categories. However, there is also some generally agreed upon differentiation between them.

Drill & Practice:
The drill and practice category typically includes software that allows students to practice concepts learned in class. A teacher can use this type of software as a pre-assessment, or as practice and reinforcement, or as a required or choice activity. One example that I had a very positive experience with is Quizlet. My son used that program to create flashcards and track his progress as he studied for exams at his trade school. A very different example of this category is WolframAlpha. This website allows students to input math equations and then see the answer.

Tutorials:
The tutorial category includes software and websites that allow students to take control of the time, place, and pace of their learning. Typically, tutorials are built with videos or animations that explain certain concepts and how to operationalize them. The Khan Academy may be the best know math tutorial site on earth. Although it started out as a collection of math help videos. This tutorial site now teachers math, science, computer programming, history, art, and economics. A much different type of tutorial site is Gooru Learning. Gooru allows teachers to curate collections of online resources targeting a particular concept. Then students can work through the collections at their own pace. It is also worth noting that, while YouTube is not truly a tutorial site, it does contain the largest collection of tutorial videos on the Internet.

Simulations:
Simulations differ from the previous categories in that they introduce the idea of choice into the learning experience. Typically, simulations allow students to make choices of what problems to solve or tasks to complete. A great example of a math-related simulation site is Geogebra. This site allows students to create representations of equations and other mathematical concepts while giving students the opportunity to experience and manipulate math in ways that they could not otherwise do. Desmos is another math exploration/simulation site. Desmos allows students to do powerful data analysis and modeling in a simulations platform.

Instructional Games:
I would consider many of the instructional software and websites that fall into the other four categories as frequently involving games or some level of gamification. That makes this particular category very broad. That said, I know of many elementary schools in Riverside County that use BrainGenie and/or Funbrain for math games. Students are engaged by the games, even if most games lean more toward drill and practice than toward problem solving.

Problem-Solving:
The problem-solving category of instructional software is the most intriguing to me. Good problem-solving software includes opportunities for students to practice a variety of skills such as: metacognition, observing, recalling, sequencing, analyzing, organizing, inferring, predicting, making analogies, and formulating ideas (Roblyer, 2016). One of the districts I work with has made a big investment in working with Dreambox. This problem-solving game environment focuses on elementary and middle school math. The teachers really like it because it allows for individualization and it has pretty powerful data analytics. Algodoo is one that I have not seen in use, but have heard many good things about. The non-profit organization, Common Sense Media, rates Algodoo very high in quality and in learning potential.

Relative Advantages:
The relative advantages of using instructional software are many. However, they depend on the category of software (Roblyer, 2016). For example, drill and practice software typically have the advantages of providing immediate feedback, increasing motivation, and saving teacher time. Tutorial software is recognized for having the important advantage of being a self-paced learning experience. Simulation software includes the advantages of compressing time, slowing processes, increasing engagement, saving funds, repeating with variations, and observing complex processes. Instructional games have the advantages of increasing engagement, and working on some non-cognitive skills. Finally, problem-solving software provides the advantages of visualizing mathematical processes, increasing interest and motivation, and making connections to real life situations.

Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th Ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

Educational Technology Vision Statement

This assignment gave me an opportunity to write an educational technology vision statement for my organization. I work as the Director of Educational Technology for the Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE). In that capacity, I work with RCOE’s own internal programs and with all 23 school districts in Riverside County.

The vision of the Educational Technology Services (ETS) unit is to support the education of students in the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and practices that will enable them to thrive in the digital world.

In order to achieve that vision, ETS will:

• Provide consultation and facilitation in the design, development, and implementation of educational technology services and applications to support the learning goals of school districts and the program goals of RCOE
• Plan, organize, design, support and deliver professional development to advance the understanding and application of educational technology approaches in the Common Core State Standards and the general instructional programs
• Facilitate leadership for administrators in the efficient and effective application of technology
• Keep apprised of the current and emerging trends in educational technology
• Disseminate best practices in educational technology with the Riverside County community

Research supports both the constraints and the affordances of educational technology. For example,

Clark (2012) points out very simply that there is no evidence that media or media attributes influence learning. When Clark wrote that he had reviewed 70 years worth of research studies on the topic. That is a mountain of evidence that is difficult to argue with. In counterpoint, Kozma (2012) argues that some students will benefit from a particular medium’s characteristics. Kozma insists that both medium and method are part of instructional design and are then tied together. 

Though I give Clark the edge in this debate, I did have a pretty strong negative reaction to one of his claims. Clark (2012, p.175) stated that “...if different media or attributes yield similar learning gains...we must always choose the less expensive way...” I take that as a very narrow view of the mission of education. I think I understand his point to be that if teachers can get the same results without using computers (as an example of a media) then we should not be wasting money on expensive computers. That argument assumes that achievement is the only goal of education. We can certainly educate students without the tools of the 21st century. It was done that way for a long time. However, by always doing things the least expensive way possible, we are not doing our job of preparing students for college and the workplace.

References:

Clark, R. E. (2012). The media versus methods issue.  In R. E. Clark (Ed.) Learning from media: Arguments, analysis, and evidence (2nd ed.), (pp. 173-185). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Kozma, R. B. (2012). Robert Kozma’s counterpoint theory of “learning with media.” In R. E. Clark (Ed.) Learning from media: Arguments, analysis, and evidence (2nd ed.), (pp. 103-145). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc. 

Educational Design Research: Final Reflection

What more do I hope to learn about EDR?
McKenney and Reeves (2012) noted that, "The insights and the interventions of educational design research evolve over time through multiple iterations of investigation, development, testing, and refinement." The aspect of EDR that I would like to have a better understanding of is the relationship between the iterative process and the results of the study. I have struggled with the idea of putting the treatment through several iterations and then still knowing what I am measuring (or otherwise analyzing) in the end. I have no doubt that an intervention, or treatment, improves its effectiveness and efficiency over the course of pilots and trials and refinements. I am just unclear about how I could relate any results to any particular piece of the iterations.

Will I consider EDR for my dissertation?
No, I am not considering EDR for my dissertation. I am already committed to a case study approach of an existing program. However, learning about EDR this semester has made me think about the process that I (and colleagues in my office) use to develop new programs and projects. I can see using an EDR approach for the next major project that I roll out after my dissertation is completed. It would be interesting to use the EDR approach and perhaps even publish the results.

What aspects of the peer review activities did I find beneficial of challenging?
I found the peer review activities to be highly beneficial. My classmates gave me excellent feedback, often seeing things that I had completely overlooked. While I did not always incorporate all of their suggestions into my final drafts, I did find that I incorporated the majority of their suggestions. In the end, I think my papers were much improved by the peer process. At the same time, I also learned a great deal by doing peer reviews of other students' papers. That process forced me to take a close, critical look at what someone else was working on. I think that one of the outcomes of these assignments wa that I read the work of my classmates much more closely than I would have otherwise. I was purposeful in which peers' papers I read - choosing ones that were fairly closely aligned with my own topic. In the end, I learned quite a bit from reading those drafts closely enough to comment. Some of the ideas I read about in peers' papers even affected my own work.


McKenney, S. E., & Reeves, T. C. (2012). Conducting educational design research. New York: Routledge.

Decision-Making in Educational Design Research

The decision-making process inherent in Educational Design Research (EDR) is still a bit muddy for me. My sense of EDR is that the design is constantly in flux. Assumptions, decisions, and changes all continue to happen throughout the design and implementation process. According to McKenney and Reeves (2012), the interactions and resulting changes to the design continue, and can even increase, as a project matures. The video of Dr. Bannan-Ritland describing the process of decision-making in EDR contributed to my confusion. In the video, she defined EDR as an unstructured, problem-solving process. She went on to describe the EDR process as having large numbers of assumptions and decisions made during the design process. She even indicated that her graduate assistants made many decisions along the way concerning the design of a project.

This situation makes me then wonder how we are able to measure which aspects of the design principles impacted the outcomes of an intervention, and to what extent. Perhaps due to my inexperience as a researcher, I would find it difficult to feel confident about making continuous decisions regarding the design of a program. It seems to me that effective EDR requires an experienced researcher who can quickly make design decisions based upon assumptions from the literature and from experience. My concern is really the potential domino effect of making weak design decisions early on which can then have negative effects on the subsequent decision-making. Very quickly, a design can become either quite convoluted or just based on weak assumptions and decisions. Either way, a researcher would end up in a situation where it would be very difficult to have confidence in the ability to judge the impact of the design elements on the outcomes of the intervention.

McKenney, S. E., & Reeves, T. C. (2012). Conducting educational design research. New York: Routledge.

DBR: Questions & Literature Reviews

I think that McKenney and Reeves (2012) do a good job of explaining Design-Based Research (DBR) in our textbook. They are very thorough in describing the phases of the DBR process. The researcher investigates an educational problem or issue, then enters the design phase, then implementation (with iterations, and then goes into the evaluation phase. My confusion comes from considering who would do this kind of research. A doctoral candidate who is hoping to finish his/her dissertation in a reasonable amount of time is likely to shy away from a process that includes multiple iterations perhaps over the span of a couple of years. I can also imagine that many research institutions also prefer to spend their time and resources on projects that will not take so long to get to the publication stage. I wonder if some DBR studies are supported by vendors (individuals or companies) that are trying to get a product, such as a new professional development program, to the market. Those vendors might have the capacity in terms of resources and time to embark on a long range project which might help substantiate their own product in the long run?

According to McKenney and Reeves (2012), conducting a literature review should help the researcher to gain insight into how to shape the data collection for the study, and it should help the researcher identify important elements for data analysis. Conducting the literature review for my study helped me do both of those things. I had been thinking that a survey would give me enough data in order to improve the online professional development program for new teacher induction. However, as I read more about studying professional development (online or face-to-face), it became clear that in order to get the rich, descriptive data that I would need to be able to improve the online professional development and suggest design principles that others could use, I would need to conduct interviews with at least a subset of the participants in this induction program. Those interviews would lead to the detailed data needed to identify themes, provide rich descriptions, and and make decisions based on the real perceptions of the participants.


McKenney, S. E., & Reeves, T. C. (2012). Conducting educational design research. New York: Routledge.

Clarifying Design-Based Research

This post has two objectives. First, I will identify an area of Design-Based Research (DBR) that I am still finding a little confusing. And second, I will share a concept map that I created to represent some of my current understanding of DBR.

I am finding DBR, or Educational Design Research (EDR), to be a particularly useful methodology for addressing educational issues. However, one aspect of DBR that is still a bit muddy for me is the way some DBR studies end up with a list of design principles that are intended to be applied to other research or to the development of other programs or interventions. Generating a list of design principles as a result of a DBR study ends up feeling like a bit of a leap to me. I like the DBR process of identifying a an educational problem, creating a professional development (or other intervention) program based on the literature and known design principles, and then implementing and revising through an iterative process. My confusion comes when the researcher then generates design principles from the results of the study with the expectation that those principles could be generalized.


easel.ly

Above is the concept map I created (using easel.ly) to represent some of my learning from this module. All of the reading that we did for this module indicated a few basic phases of the DBR process. The phases include analyzing a practical problem, developing a potential solution based on existing principles, engaging in an iterative process of refinement, and then reflecting on the process in order to generate new design principles which might be generalized (McKenney and Reeves, 2012). I chose to use a path design for my concept map because the literature is very clear about the steps involved in the DBR process. The two studies that I reviewed both followed the process outlined by the authors of each of our textbooks. Also, the studies presented in in the VoiceThreads of my classmates followed the same basic steps. Upcoming readings in our texts will dive deeper into each of the phases of DBR. But for now, I am feeling good about my level of understanding of this methodology.

My learning really focused on the iterative process of design, trial, feedback, revision, and more trials. I fear that I have overlooked that phase too frequently in my career so far. The impact of this module will be a change in my approach to my next professional development design project. I intend to highlight an iterative process that I think will lead to a higher quality product than I would have gotten otherwise.

McKenney, S. E., & Reeves, T. C. (2012). Conducting educational design research. New York: Routledge.