Distance Education

Distance Education is becoming more and more prevalent in our society. Some of the benefits of distance education include that it allows students on nontraditional life paths to get their high school diploma. Distance education also lets students work at times that work best for them. Additionally, students can access their classrooms for anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. Also, teachers required to be certified, just like in any other public school. Probably the biggest benefit is that students get individualized curriculum.
Despite the many benefits of distance education, there are also many drawbacks. Students lose the positive social aspects of high school including sports and clubs. Also, there is limited face-to-face interaction between teachers and students. Students do not have as many external motivators, which may diminish student achievement. Distance education may foster unauthentic student interaction, and lastly,distance education has an extreme reliance on technology which may not always work.
For a teacher to become a distance education teacher they must have excellent communication skills in nontraditional avenues. Teachers must also be technology savvy to be able to use these different avenues of communication. Lastly, the teacher must have a state teaching certificate.
I think distance education will greatly impact my career starting in the next 2-3 years. One main way it will impact my career is that it is very possible that I will teach at least some of my classes as distance education classes. Another way that distance education can impact me is that I may do my professional development as distance education, so that I can get the credits I need while being able to work from home.
For distance education to work, there must be strong communication between teachers, parents, and students. There are many different ways that these three groups can interact including field trips, video conferencing, talking over the telephone, text messaging, instant messaging, and writing emails. Each of these methods are quick and direct, and excellent ways to facilitate conversation.

Engaging Students with Concept Mapping Activities

Triangle Congruence and Similarity
I. Congruence
A. SAS
B. ASA
C. SSS
II. Similarity
A. AAA

One way that I can use concept mapping in my future classroom is to create a unit outline out of a concept map. I can give the outline to my students to help global thinkers see how the lessons they will learn will fit into the overall topic. At the end of the unit, I will have students create a concept map of the unit as a class, without refering to the outline I gave them. This will help sequential learners see how all of the lessons fit together. This will also create a list of the topics to study for the unit exam.

Another way that I can use a concept map in my future class is to help my students see the method, pros, and cons of different methods for addressing a problem. For example, there are many different ways to solve a system of linear equations. The concept map would show the type of problem the methods work for and how to use the method. Additionally, as a class, we could discuss the pros and cons of the methods and include those on the diagram. This will create an easy reference for my students to access this information, and will create a clearer understanding for visual learners.
One last way that I could use concept mapping in my future classroom is to demonstrate hierarchy and sets. Often times, students have a pretty decent understanding of Set theory based on their experiences, but do not know how to convey it. By using a concept map that includes hierarchical structures as a lead in to discussing Set theory will allow students to concrete the concepts they are probably already familiar with in a visual way, instead of having to jump straight to abstract descriptions.
I think that learning a program like inspiration would not take very much time. In fact, I feel fairly comfortable with the basics of the program after working with it in class for a half hour or so. I think I would feel comfortable enough to integrate the program into my classroom with only a few more hours of practice with the specific types of maps that I would like my students to create. The program is very straight forward, and it offers a great visual alternative to other note taking techniques.

Teacher Web Reflection

One way that a website could be used is to check for accuracy of student grades. By posting the grades, students can check their grades and let you know if there was a clerical error. The second use is to give students links to websites you would like them to view outside of class. The third way a web site could be used in a classroom is as an electronic resource of all class handouts so that students can find their own handouts if they have lost them. Students can use the website as a means to find information about assignments because the handout and rubric will be posted. Another way that students can use the website is to become more familiar with their teacher. By becoming more acquainted with me, they will become more comfortable in my classroom which will making learning easier.

My favorite page style is the response page. It allows students to self-test which is an excellent study aid. The other feature that I really like is that students can send an email to me directly from the website.

Blogs and Wikis in Education

One way that blogs are being used in K-12 classrooms is to create a means for classes to publish their work. Considering the great amount of online resources created by professionals, it only makes sense that students would learn to create similar publications. Another way to use a blog in a classroom is to use the comment features to get feedback from your students. This would encourage metacognition. An additional benefit for using blogs in a classroom is that it allows teachers to share materials and resources with their students so they can access them at school and home. Additionally, this is environmentally responsible by eliminating paper waste. These ideas and many more can be found at http://edublogs.org/10-ways-to-use-your-edublog-to-teach/.
RSS readers would be very useful in a long-term project. This would allow students to frequently get updates on the topic of the project without wasting time by searching for the information. This also would make it easier for students to get the most recent information, instead of using outdated sources.
One positive outcome of using blogs and wikis in education is that students will become more technology literate. This will be useful throughout their entire lives. Another benefit of blogs and wikis in the classroom is that they give students more responsibility. Publishing in a public forum requires a significant amount of responsibility, and this will make students more thoughtful about their submissions.
A negative outcome of using blogs and wikis in education is that students that have a difficult time with technology will focus on using the technology opposed to the technology being a means to support learning the content. Another negative aspect of using blogs and wikis in the classroom is that it eliminates the need for face-to-face social interactions. Many young people spend so much time interacting through technology that their social skills have been diminished.

Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom

My two strongest multiple intelligences are intrapersonal and rhythmic intelligences. The core characteristics of the intrapersonal intelligence are affective awareness, ethical awareness, self-regulation, and metacognition. I identify with self-regulation the most out of this list of characteristics. Self-regulation is monitoring your own thought, actions, and emotions. I am constantly monitoring all of these aspects in my life. The main characteristics of the rhythmic intelligence are oral orientation, patterning, resonance, and audiation. The core characteristic that I identify with the most from the rhythmic characteristics is patterning. Patterning is when you try to find patterns in everything around you. This is very true for the way I look at the world.
Intrapersonal students have a great understanding of themselves. They know what they are good at and show confidence in it. They make reasonable goals and make appropriate choices to accomplish the goals. Students with a strong rhythmic intelligence use the elements of music throughout their life. They like to move to a rhythm and appreciate the cadence of language. They respond well to sound, and pick up on foreign language easily.
It is important for teachers to support all their different learners. To support intrapersonal learners in my classroom, I will allow students time to reflect on their learning. Typically, math teachers go from one topic immediately to the next. By allowing my students time to look back over their learning experience, I will scaffold developed understanding for my intrapersonal students. To support my rhythmic learners, I will emphasis the patterns in numbers. Often times teachers skill and drill mathematics without pointing out the beauty of the patterns within math.
There are a variety of different technologies that are helpful for instructing rhythmic and intrapersonal students. Most of the technologies for rhythmic students are related to sound. Examples include speakers, CD players, tape player, headphones, etc. These technologies interest rhythmic learners because these students have such an auditory focus. The technologies that stimulate intrapersonal learners are technologies that assist in reflection. Some examples include diaries, journals, surveys, self-assessments, etc. These technologies stimulate intrapersonal students because of their self-reflective and metacognition tendencies.
By paying attention to the multiple intelligences of my students, learning should be greatly increased in my classroom. I will focus my teaching around the way my students view the world. Since I will consider the way my students perceive things, I will present math to my students in a way that they can easily understand.

Information used in this page is from http://surfaquarium.com/MI/profiles/index.htm

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I created this blog for my Tech class at WSU. We will see what happens with the world of technology and classroom integration.