Part B-Application of TPACK

What is the TP knowledge for the solution?

How does technology support the solution to my problem of differentiation in math teaching in my classroom? I think the question is, how doesn't it help? A typical math lesson in grade 5 here looks like this: 5-15 minute lesson (whole class, generally on the interactive white board), 1-2 pages of math problems (during this time the students work on their own with myself and my assistant rotating around the room looking for students who are not understanding), during this time I have three or four students who finish in about 3 minutes so they move on to a packet of work (at the present a pre-algebra packet), the rest of the students either take the whole time until the end of the period or they finish sporadically. So what do I do with the middle and high group? I let them loos onto interactive online activities that let them move at their own pace, and can be checked for progress... Insert:technology!

What is the TC knowledge for the solution?

How does the technology make the content more intellectually accessible? The content in these online math programs is presented in many ways. In general they start with a lesson, the lesson gives the students problems along the way that keep the students interested (novelty), if at any time the student feels confused or unsure the help is there in the form of tutorials, videos or simplified problems. Thus the presentation of the content is very user friendly for self-pacing.

What is the PC knowledge for the students?

How will my students experience the content given the instructional strategies? The problem that I run into with math is pacing. Just naturally some students are faster at math than others. It's not a problem, we usually move everyone through the standards and in general they receive what they need in order to move on to the next level. The higher level students need a boost up in order to keep them motivated, but I need this to happen while giving me the time to also get the students who are falling behind a helping hand. The content on the programs that I have been researching run at a self-pacing level allowing students to discover the content at a pace they can handle. For some that means flying, for others it may mean dabbling... The content is presented in a way that the students are allowed the freedom to interact with it and stay motivated because they pace themselves.

WWP Part C-Research 2- Khan's Academy

I started using this site a few years ago with all the incredible videos explaining math. Then I attended a math share alike conference a few months back and one of the teachers showed the "Coaching" part of Khan's Academy so it is time to give it a whirl... Here is an article from Wired Magazine about Salman Khan that explains all about how he got started and what the site is all about.

First impressions:

• The video tutoring is great, it is chunked into small enough pieces so the students will not get bored and not have too much to learn in one session.
• The log ins are connected with Facebook and Gmail (which works for us as we are a Google School!).
• The Knowledge Map is incredible (see picture below). Students can easily go through and follow a path or they can choose lessons as they want.
• The coaching is easy to use, students can signup for a coach using their email, with my 5th graders it took about 5 minutes to get everyone logged and signed up with me as their coach!
• We will be experimenting with the coaching this week

The Knowledge Map:

Implementation notes:

• All students with the exception of one (who has a hard time following directions, so she forgot to log into her Gmail before going onto Khan) were able to sign me up as their coach. I was easily able to check whether or not the students were there and what they had accomplished. It was very telling to see what the kids accomplished in 30 minutes, some watched videos, some did lessons, some even tried trigonometry (without success, but it is pretty cute).

WWP Part C-Wicked Problem-Research....

I have started digging around and have come up with three separate categories:

1. Teacher Resources- mostly teacher driven items, such as interactives, resources for the whiteboard, ect.

2. Student Resources- games

3. Student Resources- systems that allow students to learn and grow individually, exploration.

Here is one of the first ones I looked at (that's Melissa White for your incredible wiki!).

Gizmo's from Explore Learning.

First impressions-wow! Very cool interactive activities. I decide to jump right in and invite my kids to use one of the Science labs (I want to concentrate on math, but this was just too appropriate) so I assigned them the Germination Lab. This was an excellent example of a controlled experiment where the kids could choose factors affecting germination (light, water, heat and different types of seeds) and then experiment by themselves or with the pdf document.

The sign in for students was very easy, I sent them an email with the log in link and a code to get to the specific class, they created a log in using their school email and they arrive at the lesson. Here is where it got messy (which admittedly happens a lot with our little net-books which have what we call "problem magnets" on them), only a few of them had the upgrade needed so only a few of them could do the interactive by themselves. I quickly adjusted and we went through the interactive on the active board together, which turned out to be a lot of fun!

Immediate thoughts:

• It is not clearly posted how much this would cost, so asking for funding would prove difficult. If you want to find out you contact them, someone contacts you, they give you prices and blah blah blah... A lot of work..... (Update on pricing 2/3- This was the quote we received, it is WAY too expensive for us to get this... bummer, because it is GREAT, the price fits something we would use on a daily or weekly basis but after experimenting with these lessons this would probably be used two or three times monthly... ) The quote: Definitely. The site license covers all teachers and students at the school for a full year for $7 per student, with a minimum total of $2,995 (all prices are US dollars). A department license would cover all teachers in either math or science and their students for $4.25 per student, with a $1,995 minimum total. Our Teacher Plus Students licenses cover one teacher and all of their students for $799 per teacher, but the rate drops to $599 per teacher if you have at least three teacher subscriptions.
  
  Our online training is $75 per teacher and is mostly self paced. We do include a weekly web conference with our trainer to ask specific questions and provide feedback, but the bulk of that is done in the US, so the times aren't what I would call "Warsaw friendly" (nor would the phone bill!). But what we would do is make sure that one of our trainers is available to you to answer any questions that you have.
• The tech issues will have to be dealt with, so I will try and have my students do another one...My computer was able to play the interactive day 1, but day 2 I needed another update... This can cause confusion with students, especially elementary students.
• It would be worth it for the school to have access, especially with the Activeboards. I will send an email with a link to the librarian who is in charge of databases, it could be a possible addition.....

Implementation thoughts (Feb 8,2012):

• This week I assigned the students a fractions lab. It consisted of 4 pages that they completed along with the interactive. The interactive was really interesting looking. I reviewed the Gizmo and the sheets with the students on Monday. We logged in and made sure that they could access the Gizmo. All this went exceedingly well. However that night I received a few emails from my kids. All of them were asking "Do I have to use the Gizmo if I can just do the math on paper?". Perhaps this is too easy? Looking for a harder one for next week....

Next... Khan's Academy...

Part A-Description of a Need-Wicked Problem Project

The problem:
At my current school we use a very experiential mathematics curriculum (Investigations by TERC) which is perfect for the younger grades, but not as comprehensive for the upper elementary grades. The curriculum is based on a lot of games, group activities and not a lot of actual pencil and paper. It is a great program, however, the transfer from elementary to Middle School, especially in math, can be traumatic for some students as they use a more conventional curriculum. It is not only the transition between schools, it also the fact that the curriculum comes with no resources for implementing any sort of differentiation within the math class for either high or low students. It also does not provide any sort of extra work in case students are struggling with a certain process. While I am at it, I certainly would not mind making math fun by adding some gaming into the equation (see the Ted videos embedded at the end of this post.)
How will technology help?
In general right now we differentiate using the copy machine. We make copies, and then more copies, we assign extra work, give homework, and gather small groups. However I believe with technology it would make a big difference to my different levels of student. I believe especially it would be great to come up with some self study programs for the higher level students who are motivated to continue their mathematics on their own. If I can find some internet based games, programs and/or downloadable programs that can be individualized and teach higher level skills to allow the students to take their futures into their own hands.
What is the scope?

I am hoping to find, review and test at least four different programs for the students. The time the students spend on each program will depend on the scope of the program (Does it focus on one mathematical principle or many?) I will have my students who finish their math early use it, and I will assign as homework for a few students instead of the regular math homework.
Relevant research and resources

I will be using several resources. Aside from general internet searches I will use our Professional Development Library (Mathematics Teacher Magazine), Cool Tools for Schools and our school belongs to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) where I can research their databases.
I plan on adding a web page to my current classroom website that will contain the listing of the resources for the students. I also plan to poll my students when they are using a specific program to see what they like about it and what they do not so I can compare the different tools that I find.

Indicators of a successful project

A recommendation for my fifth grade team and a list of resources that can aid us with implementing a better program for differentiation in math. What will it look like? At first just a website, hopefully ranked by my students, that lists resources as they are found and contains a precise descritption for the user before they choose which resource they will use (if they have not been assigned).

A Funny Thing Happened to Me and Introduction

It's time to start CEP812! My last class before my certification. Yeah!
In order to introduce ourselves we had to tell a funny story about technology.
You can hear it here!
And here is my Video Introduction. I used Prezi and then Jing!

Final Reflection CEP 811

Christmas time is just around the corner and I sit reflecting on my last few months in this class, snow falling in the courtyard behind me...

I feel that I am an experienced teacher who uses tech as much as possible in my classroom. When I took this job I was very excited to be the first year in a lap top program for 5th graders. It was a year of innovation and integration, but also confusion, experimentation and defeat. When I enrolled in the MSU program I was searching for a way to have more control over how we use technology and where it is appropriate. And I am learning up a storm!

I see technology as a way of creating choice and differentiation in my classroom. There are so many different ways to express oneself using technology, from super simple to complex and eye catching, there is something for every style of learner. I have one student who was my techno-phobe until he made his first Prezi, now he is my Prezi expert and willing to share his know how to anyone who will put up with his lengthy explanations of Prezi's wonders! It was interesting to learn of the pedagogy behind why technology helps us meet our needs for differentiation and feel reassured that some of the practices that I put into place automatically are, in fact, best practice (for example allowing choice of medium for presentations, novelty, humor).

By learning Camtasia studio (which was a struggle, but worth it!) I created my first tutorial for Google Calendar which I sent home as homework with my students. By the end of a week I had each student set up with a Google Calendar, they had shared it with me and they were eager for more! I put them onto the Labs part of Calendar and soon each had customized their calendar and was exclaiming the benefits of different tools. Because of this STAIR I was able to minimize the amount of class time used to set up the Google Calendar and allow the students the freedom to I do notice that sometimes technology lessons can suck time from my classroom, one students computer freezes and the whole lesson goes crazy! Or the internet goes down..... All of these little problems make it hard to focus on technology when we also have large amounts of curriculum to get through.

My personal goals for the next semester are to create some more Camtasia Studio lessons for my students and to perhaps, teach them how to (although I am considering using Jing as it is free and a little more user friendly). I would like my students to come up with some ways to introduce next years 5th graders into the wonderful world of their computers, perhaps by having them create tutorials of the basics for 5th grade.

Session 6 and Merlot

My battle with Camedia went into full swing yesterday as I tried my very hardest to upload my STAIR project to Filezilla and then post it to Merlot.... But, I can now report to you that after several tutorial videos, some Oreos and a latte, we have a successful posting! You can check it out my STAIR project here..... I had to post only the first lesson. My intention with this STAIR plan was to make several short lessons about Google Calendar. I will be posting my second lesson soon.

Now onto Session 6 and my feelings about Online Learning.

Before I get to the assignment I wanted to mention that I attended a seminar about the Flipped Classroom by Justin Reich at my school. I have been thinking a lot about the flipped classroom, and although I did not have a name for what I have been practicing in my classroom for math, it now has a name. I use Khan's Academy coaching and Mathletics in my classroom to introduce and sometimes teach math subjects to my students. So in that sense, online learning is a high priority for me, and it comes quite naturally.

Here is the assignment:

Look at the Michigan Online Learning Guide.

Talk about how you could use one of the technologies that qualify as an online experience with your students.

• What content could this help you teach?
• What type of pedagogical strategies might you use with your students?
• What technologies do you think would be harder to use with your students? Why?

The first thing I noticed about the METS was that they were specified for grades 6-12, good thing I am in Grade 5... But, I did spend some time reading through and wondering why the lower grades were not included in this learning guide. Time to move on.

I enjoy blogging in the classroom, so I focused on that subject wondering if I could apply it further in my classroom. . I started out using a blog as a way to communicate with my parents; pictures, short updates, and some examples of exemplar work. I quickly gave up the blog and moved to Weebly. But last year I went back to blogging when we became a Google School because Blogger was so accessible with the students use of Gmail. Currently I use Blogger as a device for literature circles. My students are broken into small groups to read books of their choice and then blog about the book. There are rather loose roles that they take to produce their reactions to the books. What I like about blogging is the ease of use with the students and the ability to use multi-media quickly and attractively. Before I use the blogs for literature circles I use journalism, but when I introduce the blogging the level of excitement is far more tangible. The students excitedly want to know how to share it with their parents, how to add videos, and always ask, is it really live?

I might use Electronic Portfolios. Why? We introduced last year the student led conference. I was manipulated into having station which I painfully created for the students to rotate through with their parents, but none of it felt comfortable for me, and for several of my more verbose parents. So, I began thinking about electronic portfolios. The students could have chosen works in several categories to highlight and show their parents. Everything would be in one place. We could include reactions to writing filmed on the FLIP cameras, math quizzes (in pdf.), embedded blogs, writing.... I have been looking lately at mediums, my top choice currently is Weebly.

What would I not use? RSS Feed. I personally love mine, but a ten year olds RSS feed would scare me just a bit. Think of what they would put on there! I have no more to say about that.