Beneficial Ipad App for My Classrom

I am an Early Education major, so an Ipad add that I would find beneficial for my classroom would promote language, reading, spelling, etc. I found an app called Word Magic which was nominated for the best educational app. It works to help children with their spelling skills. It gives a child a word with a letter missing and then gives the child four letters to choose from in order to fill the missing letters spot. It also has pictures and sounds. Most children just view this app as a fun game, but it allows them to advance their spelling skills while having fun! There are reviews at the end of my link.

Motivational Factors

      I must first say, that I am slightly confused on how we started with the seven barriers one day and then the next class period went to this long list of other factors. However, I am going to try my best to put that aside and discuss how I see these other factors used in the classroom. When I think of the  internal motivational factors, I think solely of myself because for the most part all of these depend on me. I came into this class with previous beliefs, a certain level of self-efficacy, personal interests, a preconceived importance of school, and goals, just to name a few of them. Therefore, as an individual, these internal motivational factors that I bring to the classroom differ in some ways to my classmates. So, as a teacher, it is Professor Kruse's job to assess these issues in order to better understand where each of his student stands mostly because these internal motivational factors highly affect the environment and cognitive factors and likewise. By getting to know us in the first few days of class, Professor Kruse was able to do this by assessing where we stand using questions.
      In my opinion, much of the external environmental factors lie in the teachers hands. On the first day, Professor Kruse addressed many of these issues: establishing respect for himself by the way he approached the class, making himself a role model for good teaching, and building relationships. Along the way he has also shown support by always answering questions, being available for help, giving us advice, etc. As a teacher it is up to him to meet the level of teacher expectancy and one way you could say he is doing that is by our grades. Not doing it the easy way and deciding our grades for us, but providing us with feedback in order to give us the opportunity to truly learn how to assess starting with ourselves. Another thing that is obvious to me is that the kinds of activities that are used by Professor Kruse make his teaching unique. Not all my classes focus so much on discussion, asking questions, blogging, etc. However, Professor Kruse uses these methods in order to provide the best opportunity for success in his class and these kinds of activities are confirmed beneficial by the learning theories.
      Another part of the internal factors relies completely on the learing theories: cognitive. Yes, it is Professor Kruse's job to help us learn these theories, but it is our job to cognitively make use of them. However, as I stated above all of what we learn in this class is taught by using the learning theories. So, whether or not we may be aware that we used a learning theory to do something, does not mean that we didn't. Professor Kruse put the learning theories to use on the first day with learning names, took it further with the moon phases, and continues it daily with group discussions, concept maps, etc.

Education 107

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this course so far. I find most of it interesting, however it's still very weird to me to be learning about learning. This could also be why I feel the course can seem difficult, just because it's a hard concept for me to grasp. One thing I do enjoy about the class is blogging. I find it very helpful for me to be able to try and put my thoughts on concepts in this class into my own words in order to better understand them. One thing that I don't really like about this class is that nothing is graded. I find it very difficult to feel okay about this class when I truly don't know how well I am doing. I find it hard to access my own learning when all the concepts are new to me, if that makes sense. I'd much prefer a grade for all assignments and etc, so I could know what I need to do to better myself in this class. I am very much a person who likes deadlines and grades, but this is probably because I've always had them, so i'm so used to it. I am curious to see how I feel about this class in the end because it is such a new experience for me.

Teaching

     One of the endorsements that I am in the process of obtaining is reading. Therefore, when I was asked to have a friend explain a concept that I will be teaching in the future, I immediately turned to reading. I plan on teaching early childhood, so this example isn't completely accurate, but it still got me thinking of how my future students could incorporate the learning theories into their acquisition of knowledge without even knowing it.

     When I asked a friend to explain the concept of reading this is what they said:
  - learning the phonics of how words are sounded out
  - learning how words are put together to form sentences
  - practice

     One of the reasons I stated above that this wasn't completely accurate is because of the age of my friend. As we get older, we think more abstractly and therefore questions such as the concept of reading can be thought into way more than need be, which is what I feel like happened in this situation. The answers I was hoping to get were more along the lines of reading with someone else or having them read to you, obtain a better understanding of new vocab, etc. All things that I could undoubtly label to a specific learning theory. I almost feel that the answers of my friend were more about the process of learning language, but either way I think it is hard to put those specific thoughts into a learning theory other than constructivism. I chose that one because the process of learning phonics/sentence structure comes from prior knowledge, but it might also involve some reconstruction of your schema in order to completely understand the concept of reading. Practice could be labeled as all three because depending on what type of practice is it, I think it could possibly fit into any learning theory.

Technology in the Classroom

     I am not certain what grade I want to teach exactly, but I am thinking either kindergarden or first grade, so it is hard for me to see how my students would benefit from the use of technology. However, if I was teaching older students, a technology that I would most definitely integrate into my classroom would be a website used for blogging. I have never really used blogging prior to my 107/109 classes here at Drake, but I already find it very beneficial.
     If I used it in my classroom, I think I would use it daily and I would set aside a period of time for my students to blog in class. This would be most appropriate during a "free time" set aside for studying, reading, etc. I would do this because not all my students may have access to a computer outside of class. In case my students had a hard time thinking of something to blog about, I would give them options of questions to choose from all which relate to concepts we've recently been discussing in class . This way students could interact with each other by using the blogs to ask questions for example. On a specific day, perhaps Friday, I would allow students to blog about whatever they want to blog about. This would serve as a chance for students to write about themselves, something their interested in, etc. This way students could have a chance to use blogging for something that they enjoy.
     The benefits of blogging in the classroom allow for continued learning if a student is able to access a computer from outside the classroom. It also give students an opportunity to read the ideas of other students and ask questions to better understand specific concepts. Issues that could arise from blogging include inappropriate topics/language, lack of interest, or lack of participation if other students don't comment on their classmates blogs. However, I think if all these things are closely monitored, blogs can be a very beneficial way of giving all students a chance to participate in classroom discussions.

Twiducate

      As I was searching for a blog post about technology in the classroom, I came across an article about Twiducate. This is a new social networking sites for schools. A major pro of this site is that student accounts are linked with a classroom code, therefore students never have to put any personal information on this site. This is beneficial because it ensures students safety more so than a site like Twitter. I think this because unless you want to approve "followers" on Twitter, anyone can see what you tweet for example. However, on the other side, a con to Twiducate could be that your students are only allowed to interact with their classmates.
     Other benefits are sharing information between you and your students or one student to another. Also, students would be able to access this site on any computer therefore this is something they could do at home to continue their learning after they leave school. However, an issue that arises with Twiducate is that most other social networking sites are blocked at schools. So, there is a chance that this site may or may not be accessible to students at school, which poses a major disadvantage.
      Another thing I would add is that Twiducate will only be what you make it out to be. Therefore, I think this could be something that could be considered as a pro or a con. Like Professor Kruse mentioned in class, a new technology is only interesting to students for so long. Therefore, it is crucial to keep the students attention by acquiring new knowledge about the technology as you go in order to keep the students entertained, but also moving forward in learning through this technology. If you give students access to a site that you never use, students will never get anything out of it. This is the same idea as if you tell your students to read a book, but you never discuss anything from the book after.
     Currently there are many people addressing this same debate: Is Twiducate beneficial or not? The link to the article I recevied information from is below. It also provides you with more practical uses for Twiducate.

 http://www.mraspinall.com/?p=248

Social Learning Theory

     Compared to Developmental Learning Theory, I think I have a much better understanding of Social Learning Theory from the start. In my opinion this is because I feel that the learning theory as a whole is more concrete, so I am able to grasp the concept a lot easier. I feel that DLT is so abstract as it is that it makes it hard for me to explain ways in which DLT is used in my blog posts.
     I feel that I have been exposed more to SLT throughout my education, therefore it is easier for me to grasp. I also feel that the title helps me remember the theory very easily, although i'm sure some people think the same about DLT. I find that in most cases, learning through discussions has been very beneficial for me. I think this helps me better understand concepts and I also like have the opportunity to look to my "more knowledgable peer" if need be.
     I think it is easy to see that DLT and SLT have a relationship. In my opinion, DLT presents the concrete/abstract examples, but SLT could be used to bridge the gap. I also feel that they are interrelated because you could start with DLT and move to SLT or vice versa. Either way they both make learning easier for all types of students.

Google Earth

     I am still obtaining new information about Google Earth, but there are many opportunities that it could give students in order to help them better learn. One of the first things that Google Earth could do for students is help them learn directions. This site provides students with images and the further you zoom in, you can even see street signs which would be a lot more realisitc then talking about North, South, East, and West in the classroom because those are very abstract.
     Another benefit of Google Earth is the fact that students could "travel" to a new destination even though they never actually leave their classroom. As with directions, this is a lot more concrete then listing off characteristics of  a place they are not familiar with. Google Earth provides images of places, buildings, and the even the sky. This could allow for discussion of time zones, climate, or perhaps even moon phases.
     There are many other features of Google Earth that I have little knowledge about, but one thing I did see was information about the community. This could be beneficial for students so that they could learn ways to keep their community clean for example. Many of these topics could fall directly into lessons that students already learn in different ways. However, by using Google Earth students can have more concrete examples which will help them learn easier. As students get older Google Earth could still be beneficial for them as well.

Developmental Learning Theory

     It is apparent to me that Developmental Learning Theory affects all aspects of teaching because of our previous class discussions. However, just as it is hard for me to come up with concrete examples to help students learn new concepts, it is hard for me to think abstractly in order to come up with how DLT informs all aspects of teaching.
     Just as we have been using DLT to learn about learning how to learn best, I think teaching uses DLT in all aspects because often times with teaching we start off at the most concrete examples too. Due to the fact that teachers have been learning for long periods of time, it could possibly be more difficult for them to think of what the most concrete examples could be. Perhaps this is a reason as to why most teachers do not use DLT like they should or atleast none of my previous teachers in high school really did.
     It is just as important that teachers use concrete examples in order to learn themselves as it is that throughout their education, children are taught using concrete examples. This is how I think DLT informs all aspects of learning. Not only do the teachers use DLT to learn the concepts and ways in which they can teach them to their students, but they also use DLT to make learning easier for their students. If DLT is being used positively, it should be used in some way throughout all teaching and learning strategies these days.

Education 109

In Education 109 today, we talked about ensuring that all technology used in the classroom is used efficiently. I do find this concept very important because just like with textbooks, I feel it's important not just to expect students to read and acquire information only from doing that, but I feel they should be able to engage and find new understanding of specific topics by interacting with their peers. Blogger is a good way to do this.