Third week reflection

I really enjoyed reading this article. Most of the knowledge and facts that are provided enrich my teaching practice. Therefore, I wrote some key elements from the article:

It is vital for high schools to become technology-enabled learning environments that are sharply focused on knowledge building, idea improvement, and collaboratively creating community knowledge.

If we really want our children to face the challenges of the future with confidence and skill, we must teach them not only that they can acquire current knowledge, but also that they can help shape what their society comes to accept as knowledge.

I really like the sentence” Today’s youth deserve to be engaged in technology-enabled learning environments and intellectually demanding school experiences that prepare them to move into ever-changing and complex social, economic, political, and cultural contexts”. Yes todays’ kids have the right to learn by technology environment. They must learn how to live and deal well with using technology tools.

Participatory learning enable learners to participate in local and online communities to share ideas, peer review each other’s expressions and creations, build on each other’s work, work collaboratively to improve ideas, and design, develop, implement, assess, and discuss their strategies, solutions, goals, and ideas.

The technological infrastructure and network designs used in most high schools – built on broadcast media and information delivery assumptions about knowledge flow – are not serving students well.

Most students use personal connectivity for socializing and play, not for knowledge building, exploring compelling science or mathematics problems, improving and building on each other’s ideas, or writing persuasive arguments. Young people need engaged teachers more than ever to make the leap from digital technology as play to digital technology as a tool for knowledge creation. To prove this, A team of researchers (including the authors of this articlehttp://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/web-exclusive-hands-vs-hands-technology-enabled-knowledge-building-high-sch) recently completed a two-year, Alberta-wide study of the relationship between technology and high school success in 23 school jurisdictions. While we observed some innovative and engaged teaching and learning practices, student engagement in learning and knowledge building was low. In most of the classrooms, we found little evidence of students completing authentic tasks or of rigorous and complex work being designed for and required of high school students. The predominant use of technology we saw in these classrooms was watching or listening to the teacher present material to the entire class.

The use of computers is more effective when the students are in “control” of the learning; yet, it is fairly evident that the technology is not in the hands of students in many secondary school classrooms.

Teaching practices have identified a number of factors that impact student engagement: (i) the types of instructional practices teachers enact; (ii) the authenticity and complexity of work students are invited to do; (iii) the types of technologies utilized in learning; and (iv) the amount and type of feedback students receive while they are learning
Teachers need support to design inquiry-based tasks and assessments that integrate digital technology into one or more disciplines of study. They need to harness their enthusiasm about technology to the design and support of knowledge building work that cultivates genuine engagement with learning

Second Week Reflections

Through the readings for this week, I learned about critical parts of a research:
Purpose statement, research question, research hypotheses, and research objectives.
Purpose statement: is a statement that advances the overall direction. It is about one to two sentence. I can write it in quantitative or qualitative research. Its place at the end of the introduction.
Research question: are questions in quantitative or qualitative research that narrow the purpose statement to specific questions that researches seek to answer.
Research hypotheses: are statements in quantitative research in which the investigator makes a prediction about the outcome.
Research objectives: is a statement of intent used in quantitative research that specifies goals that the investigator plans to achieve in a study.
These statements are really important to make it clear for readers the key or central ideas that will be addressed in my study.
Through the readings I find myself tend more to qualitative research. I do not know exactly why, but I think the best way to investigate in problems that I faced or I will encounter in my field is the qualitative research.
Qualitative research questions are open-ended, general questions that researcher would like to answer. To design these questions, we should
Expect the change of these questions and emerge of others. Use a few questions to emphasis on learning information from participants. Ask questions that use neutral, exploratory language. Design 2 types of qualitative research questions: the central question and subquestions.
There are 5 misunderstandings about case study research:
1- Theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge;
2- One cannot generalize from a single case; therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development;
3- The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building;
4- The case study contains a bias toward verification;
5- It is often difficult to summarize specific case studies.
The author of this article provided good reasons to reject this misunderstanding.
The video talks about the natural occurring data and why it is important. Many researchers prefer this way of collecting data because they want to see how participants perceive or respond to a phenomena rather than looking at what they say to produce the phenomena.

First Week Reflictions

It was really nice to start the book with a story that is similar to our situation in this course. I really had the same fears about planning and conducting a study. What do I have to know about research? How can I use knowledge and information provided in the book in practice? How can I evaluate my research problem( do we really need to address this problem, does its contribution in the literature worthy to work on, what is the potential of this topic? What is the best way to conduct my research problem? What ethical concerns or issues may arise?....
     Most of the reading makes a clear sense to me, but translating this knowledge into practice still challenging task.
   Chapter 1 provides important ideas with clear description aboutThe definition and the importance of educational research
The six steps in the process of research through quantitative and qualitative research.
The difference between quantitative and qualitative research which is in (sampling, instruments/ protocols, data analysis, and interpretation).
The types of research designs associated with quantitative and qualitative research. Ethical issues.
The skills needed to design and conduct research.
     Qualitative research is the approach of studying social phenomena. It deals with humanities, and uses multiple methods that are interactive and humanistic. In contrast, Quantitative research relies on statistical data and analysis.
    Chapter2 talks about identifying a research problem in more practical details.How research problem can be researchable? What are the needs to accomplish the research problem(time, resources, and skills)? How to justify the importance of the problem? Who is my audience?
   Giving examples is the best way for me to explain compliex things which is one of the John W book characteristics.
   From the article and as we discussed in our first session of the class, I realized that educational technology definition depends on its focus over a period of time.-The new AECT definition (Januszewski & Molenda, 2008) becomes the latest beacon to guide our thinking into the 21st century. It states as follows:
-The definition of Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources.
-The purpose of educational technology is “facilitating learning and improving performance”.
-We can do this: “by creating, using and managing”.
-The article raises some question about the new AECT definition. For example, “Some may wonder at the words ethical and appropriate within the definition. Are ethics and appropriate use something that is pre-determined? Or are they applied after the fact? Is a device still an exemplar of “educational technology” if it is later deemed inappropriate in a particular context?”

Impressionism video

Intended audience:
My audience is grade 12 students.

Goals for learning:
Through this video students will learn
1) Impressionism as a critical principle in art.
2) Impressionist style characteristics.
3) Different techniques in impressionism.
4) Vincent van Gogh as one of the famous impressionist artists.

Descriptive text of the video

        My goal by choosing this course is to have the knowledge and the ability to achieve teaching tasks through digital tools, so I can cope with my students’ digital world. In other words, I want to deliver knowledge, experiences, and information that I choose for students by using digital tools.

Movie topic:I chose impressionism which is one important principles in art to teach my students.

Intended audience:
My audience is grade 12 students.

Goals for learning:
I will teach students
1) Impressionism as a critical principle in art.
2) Impressionist style characteristics.
3) Different techniques in impressionism.
4) Vincent van Gogh as one of the famous impressionist artists.

Connections between the impressionism video and the theory:
          Through this video I attempted to offer a nonverbal way of teaching, so students can enjoy different type of learning experience. Sometimes, I use a video from the internet to enhance and support the learning environment that I organize for them. Some of the video I use do not cover all the elements that I need. Now, through the learning experience I had in this course, I have the ability to create and design a visual learning environment for my students independently. I can control over every small component in the video I play in my classroom. Knowing, understanding and interpreting the language of sound and image that we discussed in this course helped me in many ways creating this video. "Media literacy empowers people to be both critical thinkers and creative producers of an increasingly wide range of messages using image, language, and sound. It is the skilful application of literacy skills to media and technology messages. As communication technologies transform society, they impact our understanding of ourselves, our communities, and our diverse cultures, making media literacy an essential life skill for the 21st century."(The Alliance for a Media literate America,2000)

       Visual learning experience offer a unique ways of learning "The visual arts offer ways to ask questions and respond to ideas and feelings in terms of colors, lines, movements, rhythms, textures, or perspectives. Music and dance suggest ways to hear and express ideas in tones, sounds, rhythms, distance, and space. Drama, film, and modern technology chart ways to invent and represent meanings in terms of images and point of view" (Piazza, 1999).
         Students today live in a digital world and they find learning with a mixture of text, image, and sound more interesting than learning based on verbal way. "Media study does not replace text. It broadens and deepens our understanding of texts." Philip M. Anderson, "Visual & Verbal Thinking" in Media Literacy, A Reader

        In our class, my friends and I enjoyed watching the video and we often started our discussion talking about the video we watched. It is not just about what we enjoy the most, but we remember the most of what we see and hear not what we read. As educators, we want students get involved and engaged in their learning. Video including images and sounds can generate excitement which motivates students’ engagement, and help teachers creating innovative and effective learning environment.

       Through my video I displayed a number of impressionist paintings which will be difficult for me to show students this number of paintings by using textbooks. Also, students will not enjoy watching a big and clear painting from a textbook. In addition, I provided students with lots of information that combined with images which might be hard to do it without digital tools. Moreover, by using video images with music I can transfer students into different world, history, and emotion. Finally,Oliver Knill claim” The reason to use one or two minutes of the time for a movie scene is: 1) to stimulate memory: students associate the scene with a mathematical concept. It is used as a memnonic trick.2) to breaks the routine. Especially for a 90 minute lectures, a little movie clip can be a fresh start”.

      I used Windows Movie Maker to create my movie. I really enjoyed this learning experience.
I found this experience very beneficial and practical for my teaching future. It is really met my goal for taking this course.



References:
1. The Alliance for a Media Literate America, 2000
http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/clayton/index.html
2. Piazza, 1999,
http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_literacy_cluster_1/17/4549/1164764.cw/index.html
3. Philip M. Anderson, "Visual & Verbal Thinking" in Media Literacy, A Reader
http://www.frankwbaker.com/Media_Lit_Quotes.html.
4. Oliver Knill http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/pedagogy/benefits/paper.pdf