Reflections

Foundations of Educational Technology:
As this course concludes, there are some key elements that really come to the forefront of my mind. Being exposed to new and interesting programs was a nice break from focusing on the programs we work with most often. Delving deeper into online ethics was definitely eye-opening, and it was nice to be reminded that our team's efforts are aligned with current research and trends.

With the integration of Google and the G Suite Apps for Education in D99, there are so many great programs readily available, it's difficult to spend time researching and experimenting with new ones. Having these different assignments and discussions has basically forced me (in the most positive way) to do just that- experiment. Practicing on my own and reading about classmates' experiences with other programs has opened my eyes to other potential ways to collaborate and create.

As students, we learned the importance of citing work and appropriate use of others' property; but somewhere along the way we tend to forget these principles as teachers. The ethical dilemmas regarding licensing and copyrights were great reminders that just because we use resources for educational purposes does not provide us free passes to whatever we like. Luckily, the Internet provides easy ways to determine the legality behind using the information found.

Finally, we (the team of Instructional Tech Resource Teachers and I) are always trying to provide the best and most recent methods of integrating technology into the classroom, both directly and indirectly. We remind teachers of their necessary role as a facilitator and that technology doesn't always create the best lesson. These same points are consistently reiterated throughout all of the blogs and research that we covered in this course. It's confirmation that your message is aligned with other professionals in the field of Ed Tech. Yay!

Word Cloud Use in the Classroom:
Some may find including this assignment in a post surprising. Integrating technology sounds like it should involve only robotics or creating websites. "Word clouds, big deal." In fact, this assignment was surprising to me on two fronts: 1) it seemed very simple and 2) there are more uses in the classroom than I thought. When I began the assignment, I was thinking back to my when daughters used to make these in their earlier grades. They really enjoyed the process of making the word clouds, but they had no educational value to them. Though I used to help them, I didn't pay attention to the additional information and options on the websites.

Once I noticed the different image choices and vast color options, class assignment ideas began coming to me. I was very please with the word cloud I created for my own assignment, using the bright red stop sign to represent ethics in tech integration. The image really makes a statement with not even showing complete sentences or multiple images. Fortunately, the universal stop sign image is recognizable to everyone and goes well with the theme of ethical dilemmas.

The post provides suggestions for classroom use of word clouds, including a book review or a self-portrait. Selecting images that represent the message is definitely an important factor in the success of the word cloud. The drawbacks to incorporating word clouds are not providing legitimate rubrics for grading the assignment and overusing the activity. If students do not know that this is a real assignment and should be completed as such, they may just use a bunch of thoughtless words and create a random image. The message is then lost and meaningful expression useless. Finally, just as with everything, there can be too much of a good thing. Since this activity can be done quickly and is fun, it's possible to allow students to create word clouds too often. Variation should be incorporated to keep students engaged and excited.



Trends is Technology Research Paper:
Including a research paper doesn't appear to be super exciting for a blog entry.  Often entries are much shorter, funny as a story unfolds, and include an experience regarding the subject of the post. In this case, I've included the paper because of how much the economy influences education and why it's important to modify the approach to education to reflect the needs of the workplace.

As I began to read the assignment requirements for this research paper, I must admit my reservations. It has been quite some time since I've written a research paper! Fortunately, the possible topics were of high interest to me and narrowing down the options became the tricky part. Technology is ever-changing and advancing to it was exciting to see where education is heading. The more I researched my topics of PBL and makerspaces, in particular, the more I found my research going back in time.

The main trend that I found consistent throughout history is that education reflects what is happening in the economy.  For example, during the agriculture age, emphasis was placed on farming techniques: fertilization, irrigation, crop movement, etc. Then when industry was king, skilled labor was highly valued and encouraged. Now that we're in a time where information is readily available, value is placed on being able to collaborate, problem solve, and think critically.

Education is now trending towards emphasizing those components to make a well-rounded learner. Real word situations and problem solving allows students to implement the higher level thinking that aligns to 21st Century skills. Because technology updates at such a rapid pace, it can be difficult for schools (especially in remote locations) to stay current. Educators need to also adapt their lessons to include these societal expectations. Taking on the facilitator role rather than 'sage on the stage' is where teachers should find themselves.