Bit of trivia

I was reading an article from my RSS News Literacy: Critical-Thinking Skills for the 21st Century

30 Edutopia RSS by Peter Adams - 651071  /    and came upon a statement that made me stop and think, twice and thrice, and it seems to fit what we are learning.  I apologize if you've heard it before, and that it is not part of an assignment but here it is:

 

Students today face a greater challenge in evaluating information than their parents or grandparents did at their age. The cumulative amount of information that exists on the planet, from the beginning of recorded history to the present, is, by realistic estimates (5), doubling every two years.  

SAMR

I am a part-time reading interventionist at Tyner Middle Academy in Chattanooga, TN, this is full Title 1, urban school, this is my second year here.  I work with a group of 19 students that are between six years to six months below grade level in reading, and in the classroom helping all students with their writing.

I have to admit I am a little confused by SAMR, is substituting not considered  productive?  I kind of get the impression that if all we are doing is having them type a paper instead of writing it that is not considered genuine use of technology.  But for my students typing is a real challenge.  Next week we are facing the statewide writing assessment, in one hour they must read an article, then type an essay answering a prompt.  Some will have trouble finishing, not because of the difficulty but because of the typing.  Over the past few weeks we have practiced timed writing prompts, a lot, to help them improve their typing skills, so I will consider that my  substituting  part of SAMR.

I have been using the Augmentation part without even realizing it.  In my work as an interventionist I use a computer based reading program, Carbo Reading Styles, http://www.nrsi.com/.  With this program the students read short stories/articles, at their level, then have to answer questions based on comprehension skills.  They receive immediate feedback on their answers then we discussed what they could have done to better comprehend the story, emphasizing skills that they need to improve.  The program has been quite successful, moving up 1 to 2 and ½ grade levels in 4 months.

For Modification I am going to continue on my theme of using the reading program and the work I do with those students, by adding to the class a blog assignment.  Before we would discuss the different questions they missed and I would work one on one to help them improve those skills.  With a weekly blog addressing a different skill, their feedback and discussion among each other would give them another way to understand the skill.  Embedded in the blog would be the need to use the skill being addressed. http://kidblog.org/MsHinkleysClass/wp-admin/?signup=new#comment-1

For Redefinition I will have the students work on a video speech presentation for their Promotion Ceremony in May.  Each year the eighth grade students write speeches about their years at Tyner Middle to be read in front of their peers, teachers, and families.  This year I will continue with with their speech writing but add in a video to be shown that displays their work.  It can show their athletic accomplishments, academic, artistic  and more.  Using some of the Web 2.0 tools the video can include the band, and choir.  This video could then be loading into the schools web site and the students could have it as a video yearbook.

Technology in the class room Unit 1 week 2

Four videos , 3 articles and 2 web sites, if you include Alan Novembers’, all about introducing technology into the classroom.  They are all pretty adamant on their view points, either without technology in school learning is boring and slow paced or that with too much technology our youth are in danger of damaging their brains and becoming sensory deprived.  As with most arguments a compromise must be reached.  We cannot deny the benefits of using technology in keeping students engaged, using it as an alternative method of teaching, and the need to be able to know how to use technology to function in our new world. 

                Prensky and some of the videos take the stance that using technology is a must to reach the new generation of students.  That is a generalization that I can say from experience will not always work.  I teach eighth grade language arts/reading intervention, I do make my students do research on subjects using the internet and there are too many that do not know how to navigate it.  They do not have the ready access to the internet at home and if they do, it is used only to play games.    When a short information power point or Prezi is used they pay attention, but do not seem to retain or learn the material any better than if it were printed out for them to read.  I have not done the research so I will not claim this to be absolute, but it is what I have observed.  On the other hand I have students using a reading program online that they are excelling at and improving their reading comprehension by several grade levels.  That claim I do have data to support.

November seems to take that middle ground approach that recognizes technology must be brought into the classroom as a tool to teach with and also to teach the students how to use.  November says that “the internet will be the media of choice for the majority of our students” but that they must be taught how to discriminate between fact and fiction.    Students still need to be taught the basics, reading, writing and arithmetic.  Using the best tool for teaching the basics is important and then teaching the student the skill to figure out what tool/technology would be best for them. 

Using technology to teach the same subject we have taught for years makes us rethink what we are teaching.  Yes we have to teach the same core content, but teaching it in a different way will make us learn it again.  And I have always believed that to teach something is the best way to learn it for yourself.  Let the students teach us, about technology, as we teach them, the core content.

WSU classmates

My name is Barb Hinkley, I am taking this class on line because I am no longer in Michigan.  I started my Masters degree at Wayne State, but then moved to Tennessee. I will be able to finish everything on line.  I am married, Duane has 3 children from his first marriage, I have 2, between us we have 14 grandchildren and one on the way.  Duane and I are classic Corvette fans, we have two, a 76 and an 88.  I am working at Tyner Middle Academy as  a Reading Interventionist.  I am using an on line reading program, Carbo Reading Styles Program.  So I have seen the benefit of on line learning and wanted to explore it further for myself.

So I've created a blog, don't quite know what to do with this but I am fulfilling an assignment from my class at Wayne State, will go from there.