Final Reflections

Technology is an important part of everyone's life and it should be up to us to be able to bring it into our classroom and help students learn about its complexity in the real world and its ability to give them a better learning experience at school. CEP 811 has provided us with tools that brings us one step closer to effectively integrate technology into our curriculum. From learning about blogging, wikis, web design, and StAIR projects, we have been given and learned teaching strategies that can exercise the student's creativity and individuality. Furthermore, they can improve their socialization, critical thinking, and obviously their technological skills. After learning, exploring, and incorporating from the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, I have also learned that integrating technology can help us effectively meet the needs of all types of learning styles. I feel that it makes us more aware on how we design our lesson plans to eventually succeed in molding outstanding 21st century learners.

The web is a "one stop" shopping mall. A student can find vast amounts of information and tools which can help them create wonderful presentations, communicate and socialize with others, and showcase their creativity. Above all, many of these web-based technologies such as Google Docs, Zoho, Wikispace, Prezi, Weebly, and many others are free and can be accessed anytime and anywhere there is an Internet connection. I used to live and be trapped in a Web 1.0 world, and once again due to classes such as CEP 811, I have deeply evaluated the use of technology in the classroom and have realized that it is a must. Its effectiveness to provide students with success in the classroom has surpassed my expectations and now I would not think twice about trying many other technologies and watch students learn.
 

At the beginning of the course, I set goals for myself to effectively learn how to incorporate the new technological tools we would learn in CEP 811. I know I have gone beyond my own expectations and now I am enjoying myself creating new curriculum using wikis, blogs, prezi presentations, and even creating StAIR projects for my students. I have also fulfilled my own goal to not be afraid of trying new things. I am willing to integrate UDL Guidelines and technology and hope to provide my students with a more successful learning experiences and help them become more prepared for a technological future.

The Science and Social Department at my school are in full force in trying to convince administration to purchase class sets of iPads. It might be a far-fetched idea since all we hear is that money is tight; but we are working on it. I have been asked to learn about applications that students can use through the iPad to improve comprehension cross-curriculum. So my newest goal is to do just that, learn and become proficient on those applications so that I can transfer this knowledge to students and other teachers. Hopefully if this idea becomes reality, it could become something that other schools in the district could benefit from. Once this course is over, I will make it a long-term goal to continue expanding my technological skills and to become a better educator.

Online Learning

In the last few months I have realized that Online Learning should be an intricate part of teaching. It gives educators an opportunity to prepare students to become 21st Century Learners. With such advancements in technology, it only makes sense to use all the wonderful tools found in the Internet to provide our students with better learning experiences. After further reading The Michigan Merit Curriculum Online Experience Guideline Companion Document, I am overwhelmed with the abundant available resources. It is a matter of finding and fine tuning the ones that will work better in our current teaching environment. The two technologies that truly stand out for me are Web-Quests and Online Simulations.

A Web-Quest is a wonderful tool which can allow a student to discover visuals, support material, and terminology while learning any content. It can be used as an introduction to a subject or reinforcing the learning of a unit. It definitely challenges students to be able to find the information using the Internet. As a pedagogical strategy, web-quests have become inquiry based internet tools which have provided students with a vast amount of information. In my opinion web-quests works better because instead of telling a student go ahead research and find the information, you are providing directed instruction as to where to find the information necessary to accomplish the task. Often times research assignments can turn into hours of meaningless web browsing. I prefer to use web-quest at the end of a unit to reinforce learning.

Another technology which I tremendously benefit from is Online Simulations. The primary goal of Online Simulations is to stimulate active engagement and learning from students and to provide a visual sense of what the student is learning. They also provide teachers with the ability to "recreate real life experiences". It can dramatically improve learning while connecting the students with the real-world. As a Science teacher, I can truly have and advantage when using Online Simulations, specially when conducting animal dissections. In the past I have use Online Simulations to preview an actual dissection, my experience is that it provides students with guidelines and minimizes the amount of questions students can have. I have compared from previous when not using a simulation and I can honestly say that there is a big difference.

Although all the technologies mentioned in the Companion Document can truly benefit students, there is one that I believe would be harder to use with them at my current school and that is Interactive Discussion Between Students. Our current technology status is almost non existent. A high percentage of students do not own a computer at home and rely with the library or computer labs to do any computer work; so if a quick response is needed for a discussion then that is almost impossible. At our school we have two computer labs with approximately thirty computers each. It is extremely hard to get a day to use the labs and many teachers tend to skip teaching with technology. I wish the situation was different for the benefit of our students.

Wikis and Wikipedia

The concept of using Wikis is pretty new to me. After learning about it, I believe that it is one of the best Internet-based tools a teacher can use in the classroom. It not only promotes learning technology but also to work collaboratively. As we know one of the biggest wikis in the Internet is Wikipedia. Whether or not one can trust the information in Wikipedia has been quite a dilemma. As educators we want to make sure our students are provided with the proper information and to make sure they find valid academic sources in the Internet. Some will argue that Wikipedia is simply information put together by people who do not have a solid background on the subject and that often times it does not have enough support material. Others argue that most information is checked, edited, and updated continuously by thousands of people making it more reliable. The more I discover and learn about Wikipedia, I do support the fact that information is monitored quite frequently and successfully. I have seen this first hand when trying to add information to a Wikipedia page without citing any sources; the information was deleted seconds later. Over the years I have compared information on Wikipedia to other sources in the Web and I have yet to find a discrepancy. I do believe that if Wikipedia does ultimately provide reliable information, then it will become one of the best tools created for the Internet. It is amazing how it has become a "one stop shopping information paradise" where you can find information about almost any subject and the best thing is that you too can add your own piece of information to any of the pages. So after finding my school, the information that I added was that Anaheim High School's Yearbook will be celebrating its 100th Edition during 2012-2013. I am the current Yearbook Adviser and I thought this was necessary to add to the school's wiki page. The bottom line is that nowadays I do encourage students to use Wikipedia as an Internet resource, but I make sure they have another one to support the information.

MY WIKISPACE

It was a lot of fun creating my first Wiki using Wikispace. As I mentioned earlier, I am the current Yearbook Adviser at Anaheim High School, so I created a wiki page where Editors and myself can exchange information throughout the year. This will be a trial period since it is the first time any of us are using a wiki. Eventually, if this goes well I will like to set up one where the whole class shares information and ultimately I will like to create each one of my Biology classes. It is going to be exciting using wikis!

UDL Guidelines: Educator Checklist

UDL Guidelines 

UDL Guidelines: Educator Checklist

"One size does not fit all". Often times educators need to be reminded that all students are not equal and bring about different learning abilities. It is how we accommodate our pedagogical teaching strategies which helps us reach everyone of them.  This is the first time I have done work using the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines. I must admit, I have been one to disregard the lack of differentiation in my lesson plans. After using the above UDL Guidelines: Educator Checklist and further reflected on the objectives and presentation of my lesson, I can see how ineffective I have been in promoting the learning experience of every single student in my classroom. We make assumptions that every one will comprehend at the same level. For example, at my present school, the majority of students are English Learners. I tend to forget and assume that everyone has the same English skills, but I complain when students fail to demonstrate mastery of content when I should be aware of the differences in skills. Another example is that I recognize that in order to allow students to be able to express themselves, I need to be more open-minded and provide them with various options of expression. Learning and practicing these guidelines will certainly improve my delivery of content and surely promote the learning of all students.

Evaluation of MERLOT Resource

After exploring MERLOT for resources to use in my Biology class this upcoming school year, I found Biomes of the World by the Missouri Botanical Gardens. This website if full of information that can easily be navigated by everyone. Following, I will provide an evaluation based on the content, effectiveness as Teaching-Learning Tool, and ease of use.  First a short background: A Biome is a large geographical area that is characterized by certain types of plants and animals, climate, soil, and amount of precipitation. 

The content of this website is very significant in learning about the subject. It provides detailed information about each one of the major Land, Freshwater, and Marine Biomes. It also includes facts about the different characteristics which make each one of them unique. Each section is very explicit in explaining the various ecosystems found within each Biome and also the interactions between animals and their environment. If visuals is what you need, then you will find them here as well. There are many pictures of animals and plants. Another great addition to the content is that it provides reflections from other students whom have experienced visiting these different landmarks.

This website can be a very effective Teaching-Learning Tool which can be used as an explanation for the introduction to the unit. After learning the material, students should be able to define what a Biome is and understand the characteristics and differences between each one of them. The targeted audience is a combination of 9th through 12th grade students taking Biology and are between the ages of 14-18 years old.  The vast amount of information all found in one place can be beneficial for both teacher and student and can influence in learning the material more easily. The instructor can take advantage and readily include this resource into their curriculum and improve their quality of teaching methods. Also, due to the amount of information provided, other assignments can possibly be developed which can further teach or assess the student's comprehension about the subject.

You can easily find your way around this website. The interactive color-coded icons provides simple navigation. Click on any of the titles and you will be on your way to discovering what each Biome is all about. There is no need for any other technical support in order to use the information. You do not have to be an expert to use this website since the layout for browsing should be familiar to most students. Ultimately, the visuals are extraordinary which can attract most students and capture their attention for a long time. 

I will definitely use this resource for my own purposes and I hope that if you are another Biology or Science teacher like me, you do the same.