New Directions in Instructional Design and Technology

With technology, and specifically technology in education, changing and advancing at break neck speeds, it stands to reason that the profession we are all pursuing is in constant flux as well.  Many changes on the horizon promise us a career that will be anything but hum-drum.  I wonder if some of the qualifications for the educational technology positions we seek should be flexibility, easily adapts to change, and works well under tremendous pressure at tasks that can never truly be completed.  My guess is that these will all be in the unwritten part of our job descriptions.

 

 In my current position, I use technology in big ways with my students, so discussing integrating these four topics into my world is something I am passionate about.  I am blessed to work in a district that is very forward thinking about applying technology in many ways at every level in our schools.  We are challenged to find ways to integrate technology not just for the sake of using technology, but for the betterment of the education we offer our students!

 

I love the book's definition of Distributed Learning for several reasons.  The biggest reason is that effective teachers have taught in this manner for years in order to reach all of their students at the appropriate level of instruction.  The definition given states that Distributed Learning is any educational or training experience that uses a variety of means, including technology, to enable learning.  As technological advancements have been made, we have all gotten progressively better at creatively including technology pieces in our instruction to the point that we could probably safely say that we wouldn't be as effective in teaching without it anymore!  I know that is a true statement for me in my classroom.  Being able to offer students instructional content in an online method (flipping my classroom) has opened up the door to more face to face and hands on teaching time with my students.  Usually one or two days a week, I post a video lesson to our class Edmodo website and my students watch and take notes as their homework.  Then, the next day we can apply what they have watched with hands-on interactive activities rather than them listening to me talk at them during our 60-minute class.  I have found that my students are better prepared for class when I have front-loaded the video lesson with vocabulary or examples before we tackle it in the classroom making us all more effective learners.

 

Reusable design put simply is able to help us all work more efficiently.  We all talk about collaborating and not recreating the wheel every time we start a new unit, but are we really working to reuse the things that we have?  Do we already have lesson plans or instructional pieces in our repertoire that could be easily adapted to a new lesson rather than starting from scratch?  Are we finding tools that are effective for our students and then adapting them to our next unit so that the familiarity helps students draw on their schema rather than feeling like they are in a brand new world as each unit passes? 

I realize that variety is the spice of life, but there is something to be said for adding variety in ways that will still allow students to hold on to some continual thread throughout the curriculum.  For me, this piece in my classroom is the continual spiraling of lessons as I tie one unit with the last and help the students find the building blocks of math.  This may look like a familiar activity that we can add to as we transition out of one unit and into the next.  For example, we are just wrapping up a long fractions unit and moving into our probability and outcomes unit.  Students can feel like they are ready to tackle this new unit when we work through examples that they can relate to what we've just done with fractions rather than tossing all of that knowledge aside.

 

Incorporating rich media into my classroom has allowed me to differentiate my lessons for several learning styles and levels of learning.  Students have an opportunity to hear my lesson, apply the lesson to the activities and examples we are working on, but some need that added support that rich media pieces offer.  For example, when students have heard me teach a concept every way I can think of but still need something more, I can pull from an internet source to either show a video,  have them practice with an interactive website, play a game that reinforces the concept, or follow a webquest to work through several levels of the concept. 

 

My current favorite rich media is one I am using with my math intervention group.  The website is Think Through Math and it is an amazing adaptive site.  Students begin by taking an assessment based on the standards that I can select and the website then tailors a pathway for them to work through.  Students pass through certain sections without remediation if it's not necessary and spend more time practicing concepts that they didn't score well on in their initial assessment.  The website offers practice problems, explanations both verbal and visual, and video teaching if the student is still in need of more help to master the concept.

 

 Emerging technologies offer us all the excitement of a career that will always have something new to learn, something new to integrate, something new to figure out.  The fun part about that for teachers is how to master (or at the very least tinker with) the new technologies before our students!  It seems that there is always something else that we can play with and find a way to apply in our classroom. 

 

One of the new sites that I am working to integrate is Glogster.  My plan is to create a Glog (an interactive poster as I understand it) to allow students to self-direct their learning on our first unit after the winter break.  We will be working through a graphing unit, so my plan is to create a Glog that has video lessons, interactive website links, games for students to play, and assignments they will submit to me.  In this format, students will be able to make selections all having to do with our graphing unit, but about topics that are of interest to them.  In the Technology Meets Education blog, the author gives a great explanation of how to use Glogster effectively in the classroom.

 

The bottom line is that in the field of education, using technology is no longer an option for a teacher to ponder.  Students come to school having many experiences that we can tap into to further their education and technology allows us the most effective way to do that.  I have included a graphic that can help us all to see the difference in how children navigate the media world and compare that to our school days.  We've come a LONG way in a short amount of time

 

 

Getting and IDT Position and Succeeding at It

I am currently teaching 5th grade Math at a small elementary school in Allen, Texas. I am enrolled in the Masters program for Educational Technologies and Library Science.  I chose this program because I simply love the library.  I love what a librarian position has evolved into over the past several years from a Circulation desk position to a media/technology/research/ circulation position.  No longer is a librarian's biggest job helping students find books.  While that is clearly an important role that will always be part of the position, there are so many more hats that a librarian wears as the career continues to morph into more of a technology based position. 

Having said that, obviously my goal is to find a librarian position in a technology-rich school.  I would prefer to continue working in an elementary school, but would consider secondary if that position was available.  I would like to be in a school where the librarian plays a major role in the school's technology department and serves as a liason between the classroom and the many resources available to aide in learning.

 

 I have toyed with the idea of continuing in a classroom teaching position as that has evolved into a very technology-forward position as well.  In my current classroom, I use lots of technology and my students love that!  I have also considered moving back to the secondary level again but in the technology field rather than math.  The bottom line is that I have not decided what my ultimate dream position would be. 

 

Using the WorkMatrix, I do see myself continuing in a first-level service position of teaching whatever type of classroom that ends up looking like.  Of course, should I transition into a librarian position, that shifts on a regular basis between first and second levels of service as a teacher of students and a teacher of teachers in a professional development role.  The features of work that is most important to me is the geographic location.  Working in the field of education, I am able to have some options on location as my daughter goes through high school and starts looking toward college.  I don't plan to be the parent who follows her child off to college, but I do want to have the option of being near her should she decide to pursue a career away from the DFW area which is highly likely based on the field she wants to study.

 

The skills that I need to be successful in this field are many!  The Masters program that I am enrolled in is highly regarded for preparing its students to be ready to move into a technology or library position.  Because the program focuses on librarians who want to work in an education field of service, I believe that it is the best preparation for me to reach my goals.  When I was preparing to begin a Masters program, I researched several options.  Many schools offer a Masters of Library Sciences, but that type of program is not specialized for working in the field of education.  These programs are designed to give students a wide range of library information from medical libraries, government libraries, corporate libraries, and school libraries.  For me, the Education field is a non-negotiable, so choosing a specialized program was an easy one.  I will need to take a prep course for the state certification exam for school librarians, but there are no other courses that are not already part of my degree plan.

I am a firm believer in continuing to learn to better yourself and your profession.  In working to always learn more about my field, I know there are so many professional organizations that support the field of education in addition to working with veteran teachers and technologists. One organization that I believe is a must for teachers is the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).  As we have discussed since the beginning of this course, technology and education go hand in hand and that trend continues to increase with every passing school year.  ISTE supports seven specific areas of education including multi-media focused educators.  ISTE sponsors the National Educational Computing Conference as well as publishes two journals devoted to integrating technolgoy into education.  A second professional organization that would benefit teachers who are working to incorporate technology into the classroom as well as Library Media Specialists is Association for Educational Communications and Tecnology (AECT).  AECT works to connect educational professional who are working to apply educational technologies to learning.  The organization provides many specialized conferences and trainings as well as monthly and quarterly publications supporting educational technology.  Both of these organizations would further my knowledge of effectively integrating technology into my curriculum for the benefit of my students by linking me with other professionals who are working toward the same goal.  Additionally, I would have access to information about new technologies and ideas that are available for educators.

 

 

 

Trends and Issues in Various Settings

 Currently I teach 5th grade math in a small (just over 500 students in K-6th grade) elementary school in Allen, Texas.  Years ago, I taught math on a secondary level at a private school north of Houston.  There are so many differences in education today as opposed to 15 years ago and in private schools as compared to public schools.  Access to resources is one massive difference! 

 

Fortunately, I am teaching in a district that is very proactive in their approach to technology in the classroom!  My classroom is a technology-rich environment including flipping a couple of lessons per week.  This gives students the opportunity to hear the instructional piece of the lesson at home via Edmodo.com and take notes in their journal.  When we are together in the classroom we are able to apply those lessons with practical activities.  The benefit for me as their teacher is that I have more usable face-to-face time with them to make sure they are understanding the concept correctly.

 

Students benefit from having the opportunities to learn about and from technology; teachers benefit from having so many tools for diverse learners with the technology options.  Of course there are flip sides to any topic, but for me there are so many positives about having technoogy in the classroom that it more than outweighs any negatives that I've seen!

 

In reading the material from this week's unit, I see distinct bridges between the uses of technology in different settings to uses in education.  Resourceful teachers find many opportunities to employ technology in the classroom since it is so beneficial to a classroom full of students with many different learning styles.   We are able to offer students material in their learning style and give them opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of a concept in a way that makes sense to them.  As explained in the text, this was much more difficult before classrooms were equipped with computers and when those computers did not have internet access.

 

However, in a recent study, PBS found that while many teachers have computers in their classroom, a only small percentage feel that they have access to appropriate technology for their level of students or their curriculum area.  Clearly this relates to the information that we read about in our text this week when the author explained that if we aren't using the technology dollars in an effective way, the money is essentially wasted.  Unfortunately, PBS found that many teachers were simply using their classroom technology for glorified word processors rather than having technology that could enhance their students' learning.  In my opinion, that is just simply unacceptable in today's classroom!  The students of today are competing in a global marketplace for jobs and we need to equip them to be successful.  Technology is a huge part of that equation.

 

I found the use of technology for training in the military to be very interesting.  I was raised as an Army brat and my brother and his wife are both currently involved in training areas in the Navy.  My brother recently retired from his Naval position but went directly into the same position as a contractor.  His wife writes and designs computer-based training modules for the Department of Defense.  One difficult area of staffing the training department that I think the text book missed goes hand in hand with finding enough staff to create the training.  That area is finding people with appropriate clearance to have access to top secret information in order to produce the training materials.  This has essentially been a career for my brother and his wife because they both not only have the experience from going through the ranks of the Navy, but they also have the appropriate clearance level to make themselves about as close to indispensable as one can be in a military position. 

 

Having technology based training for the military has made our military much more effective through the years.  As the transitions have been made over the last couple of decades to computer based training, advances have been possible because training is consistent across the entire branch rather than a specific base having one trainer teach something different than another base.  In education, we have made similar changes as TEA has been able to provide immediate access to essential standards and the changes that are made via their website rather than trying to disseminate that information to every school district and school across the state.  This allows district to stay current in their curriculum and provides students with some confidence in what they've learned if they move from one Texas school district to another.

 

 

I have a very close friend who has recently accepted a position as the director of Memory Care Unit.  He describes his unit as "old school" when it comes to technology.  I asked him what that means and his response was that it means that there is none!  I was shocked!  No computer in a medical unit?!  How in the world does it function without technology?  He explained that right now all charts are done by hand.  I would agree that is definitely old school. 

 

They are going through the process of training all of their staff to move to a computer management system over the next year as the state has mandated that all medical facilities be computerized.  His staff is feeling a lot of stress as they prepare for this change, but they are also having to address significant changes in the way they will operate and how they will handle integrating written records into the new system. 

 

When I thought about his situation in comparison to my industry, a fellow teacher came to mind.  She is old school in her style and has no intention of changing that.  She is only a year away from retirement and feels like there is absolutely no good reason to make a change when what she has always done is still working.  When her team or the administration wants to initiate a change that involves technology, she finds herself in a difficult and very stressful situation.  Our campus administration has all but mandated the integration of technology and instead of embracing the benefits for the students and for herself, she has dug her heels in and refused.

 

As a beneficiary of an online education opportunity, I find so many positives about this type of program that I'm not sure where to begin.  About 5 years ago, I found that in order to  continue to do what I love, which is teach, I needed to go back to school to make myself more marketable.  I was able to complete a second undergraduate degree, complete a full alternative teacher certification program, and now nearly complete my master's degree while never once setting foot on the campus.  None of that would have been possible without the option of online learning.  We needed my income, so a traditional classroom setting wouldn't work.  I wasn't willing to go to night school and miss out on time with my family.  Also, my husband's job requires a good bit of travel, so I needed the flexibility of doing the course work on my own schedule.  For me, online learning has afforded me a path to reach my goals!
 

 

From this chart, you can see that faculty members also see the benefits of offering online classes!  Yes, some only teach in an online setting because of the requirement, but many find here that the benefits far outweigh the stress of change.  As I began down the path this year of offering online learning for my students, though on a much smaller scale, I see some of the same benefits found in this survey.  As I mentioned above, having a way to reach many different learning styles in my student body is my top motivation for teaching some lessons online.  The second motivating factor for me is freeing up time that I have with my students in my classroom.  Rather than lecture while I have them, I can use that time to work with them on the concept in a variety of ways.  It is a much better use of our time and a much more effective way to teach math!