EDLD+5364+eportfolio


 * Week One**

What I took away from this weeks videos and readings is that teachers have to entrust the learning to the "individual". As I stated in one of my discussion board posts, this is very similar to how adults are taught (or should be). Technology has allowed for one on one instruction, it should allow for students to learn with their style in mind. At the same time I recognize that most of the teachers have been taught to be in charge of learning because that is what worked in past generations. This paradigm shift is going to be difficult as change always is and we still have a generation of teachers that will never accept the new reality of teaching.


 * Week Two**

This week we reviewed the UDL principles which is primarily designing learning based on the "what","how" and "why" of learning. I think I might be at a disadvantage when I read these concepts since I am not involved in the current public education system and work in the corporate learning and development world. I look at these concepts and say to myself this is how we teach adults and I as I see some of the posts on the discussion board some of the concepts seem new to some in the class. Do we always do a good job of designing in this way? I would say no. I do see how technology can help with the delivery of content. I keep abreast of many technological advancements, but as I have reiterated numerous times, technology is a tool. Design and delivery of the content are more important. The advantage technology provides is the ability for the learner to be in control of delivery and in some cases the design as well which leads to higher motivation and ultimately to higher comprehension in most cases. Page, M.S. (2002). Technology-enriched classrooms: Effects on students of low socioeconomic status. Journal of Research on Technology in Education,34(4), 389-409.

 Many of the observations dealt with taking "control" of the classroom away from the teacher and giving it to the students. Change is difficult and many adults have problems empowering the students. The difficulty not only lies with the teacher, but with the parents who may view this empowerment of the students in a negative light. Self-directed instruction can be viewed as the "teacher not doing their job". As we continue down the road of teaching using UDL principles, change management for teachers, administration, parents and community will be paramount and this degree program will hopefully assist our future leaders with those skills.


 * Week Three**

This week I continued to review the UDL principles and put into practice these principles by building an ebook and using UDL to build a lesson plan. I built a lesson plan using the CAST lesson builder based on a portion of the topic my group it utilizing for the group project. Within the lesson plan I integrated the use of technology for the students retention of the information. Part of the lesson was for the class to brainstorm and utilize a SWOT analysis on the problem at hand. Technology tools I suggested for use in the lesson include interactive maps for the geography portion such as Google maps, the use of an online brainstorming tool for those who need that interactive channel and finally the use of online research tools and sites such as the New York Times to research the current events portion of the project.

I was interested in the videos presented this week. It made me realize that I was way ahead of the curve when it comes to using multi-media tools in trying to teach. My twin boys were exposed to podcasting and video editing several years ago before many people knew it existed. I tend to listen to a number of technology podcast have done so since I discovered podcast several years ago. These podcast were normally done by the early adopters of the technology and I would hear discussion of the virtues of using the ipod to learn a foreign language, I played with one of the first flip cameras and used them to record videos in my leadership courses 5 years ago. I did rudimentary video editing as far back as 1999 on my Mac and taught my kids how to make videos and post them to YouTube when no one knew what YouTube was. I was one of the first to discover microblogging on sites such as tumblr and twitter and found useful ways to use them in educating my children. All of these principles are part of UDL. Change is difficult for most, when I presented these tools to my organization they could not see the value and now they are playing catch up, many school districts are the same.

I also developed an ebook using the CAST book builder site. I found the tool easy to use, it felt very much like building a Power Point and I can see this used especially for students so they can exhibit their creativity.

The group project has been a struggle. The use of web 2.0 tools helps, but I am not sure that other members of the team are comfortable with the tools. I have attempted to have the team use real time web 2.0 tools for some processes so that we can chat or talk in real time. The use of a static Google doc or collaboration site is great, but it is on a delay. Therefore communication is hampered and disjointed. The main problem with working virtual is the team has to develop rules of communication and engagement. This is hard to do in the short time that we have and causes a delay in getting the real work done. A leader of virtual teams has to exert their leadership. I did not step up to the leadership position for fear that I would overpower the others on the team. Over the last week I have been more pro-active, but a few team members only check the information during the weekend before the assignments are due. This would be a rule of engagement that should have been set early.

Rose, D., & Meyer, A., (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology Web site. Chapter 6. Retrieved March 8, 2011, from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/te s

Edutopia. org (nd). Digital Youth Portrait--Cameron. Retrieved on Oct 5, 2009 from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-profile-cameron-video.




 * Week 4 Reflection **

In this weeks reflection the information and concept that struck a chord with me is the notion of project based learning. I am constantly working with my children and asking them how can the things they learn in school apply to life or to a future job. I think most teachers miss this mark, especially in todays atmosphere of high stakes testing. When my kids are frustrated with a subject, we explore how we can apply this to their current life and in most cases once they recognize the real world use they typically understand the concept they are learning.

I have introduced project based learning in a number of courses I have worked on and facilitated. The ability to take what may seem unrelated content and show students how they fit together is very rewarding. Currently my team teaches a week long course that takes a basic business finance course, basic project management course and an advanced presentation course and melds them together. The students have to take all the concepts they have learned and make a presentation to either a potential future customer or upper level management team using sound financial judgement along with the project management skills they have learned over the week and all this has to be done in a persuasive presentation that reaches an audience with mixed knowledge and learning styles. At the end of the week the response from the students is overwhelmingly positive and many have attributed this course to the positive responses they are receiving for their end of year reviews that are required in which they have to make a presentation on a year long project they have undertaken. The ground my team has broken is causing other departments to look at this methodology for instructional design.

The team project is progressing, I still have some issues with participation from the entire group as a whole. Over the last week portions of the project that I volunteered for earlier in the project were taken on by other members. I want to ensure that everyone participates, but in some cases the majority of the work was finished and some team members have taken that work and made slight changes and then completed the task as their own. I understand team dynamics and I recognize that this will occur, however when you are graded on participation it is hard to prove who has done the majority of the work. Regardless the work is getting done and we should be able to finish on time and under budget.


 * Edutopia.org (2007). //Project Learning: An Overview.// Retrieved on March 14, 2011 from ____http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-overview-video__ __ **


 * Edutopia.org.(2008). //Two teachers, three projects, one subject// .Retrieved on March 13, 2011 from ____http://www.edutopia.org/high-tech-high-team-teaching-video__ __ **

**Week 5 Reflection**
 I paired some of the readings this week with information that I am very familiar with to discuss the topic of effort in students. In my opinion effort is tied to motivation, Daniel Pink wrote a book title //Drive// in which he discusses most people live in a era of motivation 2.0. Motivation 2.0 in our schools would dictate that teachers are the masters of knowledge and if students will open their mind to what teachers say then they would do well, go to college and get a job and live a happy life. Pink states that we are moving toward motivation 3.0 in which student's want autonomy, not empowerment, then they want to master the topic and lastly they want purpose (Pink, 2011). If we look at Maslow's hierarchy or Herzberg motivation hygiene theory, students in the United States have physiological needs, safety and even social needs met in most cases. Some would argue that there are kids that don't have these needs met and I would agree, but on the whole most kids are only going to be motivated by the higher factors and this leads to the amount of effort put into their tasks. Instead of teaching, we should be leading. When we don't see kids putting in effort we need to determine are they unwilling or or they insecure? Most of the time it is insecurity and as teachers we then need to tell and sell them on the value of learning a subject. There are students who are engaged and we should delegate that learning to them and then there are students that we need to use participatory leadership with so that we are there when they need us.(Hersey, Blanchard, & Johnson, 2000)   That leads me into my other thought concerning all the emphasis put on technology, again it is not the technology, it is how it used or the value of the information that comes through the technology. I already see a very non-chalant attitude toward uses of technologies. Kids today are not in awe of the technology, it is a tool similar to the way my generation did not see telephones or color TV as a big deal. At some point kids will have the same "banner blindness" when it comes to some technologies that we have when looking at ads on websites. We have to ensure the information is topical and it meets the motivational needs of the students. (Willingham,2009).   In conclusion this weeks readings and videos made me think about my current theories on motivation and effort and how to combine those into a model that I can explain and deliver to my followers as a leader.   Hersey, P, Blanchard, K, & Johnson, D. (2001).//Management of organizational behavior: leading human resources//. Prentice Hall  <span style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"> Nielsen, J. (2007, August 20). //Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings//. Retrieved March 22, 2011, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html <span style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"> <span style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"> Pink, D. (2011). //Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us//. New York, NY: Riverhead Books. <span style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
 * Willingham, D. (2009). //Why Don't Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom.//San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. **