This document provides guidance and assignments for a unit focused on designing learning activities at higher cognitive levels of applying and analyzing. It outlines objectives like developing guided learning activities using backward design and differentiating digital tools. Key aspects covered include the importance of higher-level learning given new technologies, Bloom's taxonomy levels included (applying, playing, uploading/sharing, editing, analyzing, mashing, linking, reverse engineering, screencasting), ensuring online safety and security, and assignments like developing learning targets and a student code of conduct for online activities.
Application of Matrices in real life. Presentation on application of matrices
Unit 5 powerpoint
1. Analyzing and Applying Unit 5 Designing Learning Activities at Deeper Levels of Understanding
2. Unit 5 Objectives Design guided learning activities at the Applying and Analyzing cognitive levels utilizing the 4-step process of backward design Differentiate between the kinds of digital tools for teaching and learning during the Guided Learning Activities in your classroom that use the cognitive levels of applying and analyzing Describe why learning at higher levels is important given the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies in response to broader worldwide access Communication and collaboration expand the constructivist learning into connectivism Developing an effective code of student conduct plan for online activities
3. Go back and review Chapter 7 You read this chapter last week and we continue using it as a framework for incorporating the backwards design process. You may want to skim over the chapter to refresh your memory.
4. Using the 4-step process again State objectives Select instructional strategies Choose technologies Plan assessments
5. The realities of our changing world compel us to change the way we teach our students to learn
6. Friedman’s 3 reasons the world has changed 1) new technologies/processes have created new ways to work, 2) new ways of working are heavily impacting the way business is conducted and businesses are learning new techniques to respond; 3) new sets of people are entering the marketplace and they are utilizing the internet to gain access to those markets. Listen to Thomas Friedman’s explanation of these ideas during a lecture at MIT
8. “By the early 2000s, the notion of interactivity went from linking and clicking to creating and sharing. Now individuals not only find and read information, but also create and share their own in real time. It is a new Web, known as Web 2.0…This transition from using desktop based applications to online tools means we can work differently.” (Solomon, p 8)
9. You might want to read this article in which Friedman talks about how he has revised his World is Flat ideas beyond the original book.
12. Twitter has changed the face of journalism Want to listen to the podcast of NPR’s Neal Conan show about Iran’s Twitter experience. Click here.
13. Analyze Find patterns and use them as entry points to the new learning students will do. Patterns easily connect new learning to prior learning. Apply Possessing “usable knowledge”, ie knowledge that is connected and organized around important concepts. Challenge students to find other patterns within new content and generalize those patterns across disciplines
17. Playing Use games to engage and teach Second Life Watch this video clip that explains how Second Life (which is frequently abbreviated like this SL) can be used in classrooms.
18. Uploading and sharing Students create their own sources of information and share them with others Flickr stores photos, searchable and many photos are licensed with CC license...meaning students can remix those photos to meet their needs as long as the original work is cited Glogster online poster and collage maker; upload digital images, video, documents, web links,audio Voicethread allows students to upload content and invite others to comment and respond
20. Editing At this level students are taking information they’ve already found and paring it down…fine tuning the writing….changing it into what they need for a product Useful digital tools that are commonly found include GarageBand Audacity iMovie Google Docs Moviemaker
22. Mashing Integrating several data sources into a single resource Very close to what students might do in applications such as Voicethread and Glogster. In this level, they analyze projects that have already been made. Big Huge Labs have some easy to use Flickr manipulation tools Google Earth integrates many data sources Pageflakes would be another way to find many resources listed at one place around a topic or theme
23. Linking Finding connections between and within documents and/or web pages Searching and uncovering patterns that exist between resources
24. Reverse engineering Matches to deconstruction; this kind of learning takes apart what already exists in order to understand how it was created
25. Screencasting Creating your own video clips is a powerful way to share with students…how about if they must analyze what you’ve done in order to create their own screencast?
26. As students begin to use more digital tools, you will need to take steps to ensure their safety.
28. Creative Commons license Changes the way we re-use images, ideas, video and web-based content Embodies idea of respecting intellectual property while allowing others to use it for specific purposes (such as classroom use) Watch this video to see more on Creative Commons
29. Student safety is a top priority http://cybersmartcurriculum.org/lessonsbygrade/ http://bnetsavvy.org/wp/category/blog/
30. Assignments and Activities for Unit 5 Post what you learned about using a social networking site on your Moodle blog. Complete the Online Discussion about learning targets at the Applying and Analyzing levels. As you finalize the learning targets from the Online Discussion, post those to your wiki page. Create and develop an online student code of conduct that matches your technology integration learning activities. Post the final copy to your wiki page.
31. Learning Target Discussion Assignment Complete the Online Discussion about learning targets at the Analyzing and Applying levels. You should post your learning targets by Wednesday, September 16th so that your classmates can read and comment on what you've drafted Then you should comment and dialog with everyone so they can fine tune their learning targets and integrated technology. This online discussion will be due by Saturday, September 19th. As you finalize the learning targets from the Online Discussion, post those to your wiki page. This is due by Sunday, September 20th.
32. Student Code of Conduct Assignment Review the CyberSmart website relevant to your classroom. These should be posted by Wednesday, September 16th so that your classmates can read and comment on what you've written. Post a summary of the main points from the suggested lesson plans. Post what you must teach your students about ethical behavior Discuss with your classmates how do go about doing these activities with the constraints of your classroom. Take the most important learning from the online discussion and develop that into a home/school letter to explicitly inform parents about your online learning activities. Be sure to include the consequences of NOT adhering to the code. Post your code for the rest of the class to read. This online discussion will be due by Saturday, September 19th. As you finalize the Code of Conduct from the Online Discussion, post those to your wiki page. This is due by Sunday, September 20th.
Editor's Notes
Guided learning should include discussion, problem solving, instructional games, experiments, hands-on learning and collaborative learning. Guided learning must be scaffolded in order for students to be successful. By design these support mechanisms must give substantial help in the beginning stages of the unit so that students acquire the knowledge or skills that will be needed later. Then the support decreases or “fades out” over time.
According to researchers, deep thinking often follows a sequence of mental actions: relationships between ideas within a discipline are recognized->the relationships are recognized as forming pattern(s)->thepattern(s) are decontextualized/generalized->examples of the same pattern(s) are recognized in other disciplines->ideas from one discipline “overlay” with another, generating new ideas.Analyzing and applying embody these attributes and will be the focus of the learning targets you will develop in this class.
Technology in this phase should enhance the instruction as well as help move students from guided learning to self-directed learning. (p113) Even though it is the same process, we will work on learning targets that are at higher level of thinking.
As we move up Bloom’s taxonomy, the realities of our “flat classroom” come into focus. Thomas Friedman’s work The World is Flat lays out three reasons why the world has changed:
. Listen to Friedman describe his ideas in this video lecture offered through MIT Open Courseware. http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/266/ “ This lecture is about an hour long. You may want to make sure that you have enough time to listen to the whole thing because you can’t go back and fast forward to where you left off.
Friedman would have you believe that how you teach children is more important than what you teach them…all of which is applicable to the process you are learning about and applying to the design of your Unit Project. This idea brings us back to the notion of constructivism and how we might use technology to engage and inspire students to learn in new ways and think more deeply than they have traditionally done.
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=9045 This article updates his original ideas. You will find it listed under Resources on the Moodle site.
it is an approach to learning that considers technology as a key feature. He believes that this idea changes how learning takes place…because there is too much in existence for any one person to know. It changes too quickly and we cannot use the techniques of constructivism to connect what we already know to what is “new”. So we can use technology to exploit knowledge beyond our own brains. If we learn to connect to sources of information and then to form connections, we will begin to discern patterns…. finding ways to uncover the distributed sets of information. This is the new process of “learning”. It’s a way of organizing your personal learning networks so that you can absorb and process all the information being produced right now. Realize that this is the difference….old learning was about the information….new learning is about how to process the sources of information
The “Read-Write Web” is a phrased coined by Will Richardson. Richardson is a well-known educational technologist that specializes in the use of blogs, RSS and wikis. He was one of the first educational bloggers and has been a classroom teacher for more than 25 years. As Richardson explains, the Read-Write Web “holds transformational changes in store for teachers and students of all stripes….”. He goes onto to explain the story of Howard Dean, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate. “Although Dean didn’t end up winning his party’s nomination, his Blog for America altered the face of grass roots politics and campaign fund raising as we know it. With the ability to not only read about campaign events and platforms, but to easily publish their own ideas…tens of thousands of Americans became a part of the community that discussed the major issues of the campaign through the blog”. (Richardson, 2006)
The ease of publishing text, pictures and video is changing the face of journalism. Take the most recent rioting in Iran. Neal Conan from NPR puts it this way…”As protests continue in Iran, both demonstrators and many Western reporters rely on Twitter, a social networking site where users can send very short messages to large lists of readers. The government has blocked cell phones and a lot of Web sites, but there are workarounds that make Twitter difficult to stop. There’s also no way to check the accuracy of tweets, who’s sending them and why. And some dispute exactly how influential Twitter is to begin with.” (Conan, 2009) http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nfh&AN=6XN200906221502&site=ehost-live is the podcast for this interview.
With all these changes, it becomes more and more imperative that our students take learning to a deeper level than simply being able to remember what we said or be able to explain it. They must meet this changing world with more complex, thinking skills. How do you go about teaching these ideas???First, teach the disciplines through patterns. By using patterns as entry-points to material, teachers can connect students’ prior experiences to new content. This helps students construct deeper understanding of the content and alerts them to associations between major ideas.Second, teach to understanding. Moving from simple recall to understanding is moving from being able to answer a trivia question to possessing “usable knowledge”—knowledge that “is connected and organized around important concepts” and “supports transfer (to other contexts) rather than only the ability to remember.”4 Engaging students in connecting new content and patterns fosters understanding.Third, challenge students to recognize other patterns within new content. Challenge students to explore how else the major ideas may be organized, identify the new patterns that result, and to generalize those patterns so cross-disciplinary possibilities can be explored. (This is a process of thinking that will need to be delineated and modeled for students.)
Remember back to Unit 4 where you first saw this chart. We worked on Remembering and Understanding learning targets in that unit. In this unit, we change our focus to learning targets that require students to use what they’ve learned…demonstrating higher thinking skills and more critical thinking.
in this level students carry out or use a procedure…students apply what they’ve learned in one setting and use it in a different place. It encapsulates the notion of transferability. In the process you are learning, students apply discrete skills they’ve learned in the classroom to real or realistic situations they might encounter away from school.
The use of games as mode of education. Students who successfully play or operate a game are demonstrating understanding of process, task and application of skills. The most discussed software that is being utilized right now is SecondLife. http://secondlife.com/ . Check out this explanation of educational uses for SL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA
uploading student created materials to hosting sites. Sites like flickr www.flickr.com offer the opportunity to share pictures with others. This is a simple form of collaboration, which is a higher order skill.www.flickr.comwww.glogster.comwww.voicethread
A tool like Glogster allows students to collect via collage many different resources. As you can see, the collage can include almost any kind of digital media there is…including hyperlinks to other websites, audio, still images, text files and many more.
Editing is process or a procedure that students employ to make the information they’ve found relevant to the learning. Digital tools like GarageBand, Audacity, Google Documents, iMovie, MovieMaker, Photostory provide different kinds of editing experience for students
in this level students carry out or use a procedure…students apply what they’ve learned in one setting and use it in a different place. It encapsulates the notion of transferability. In the process you are learning, students apply discrete skills they’ve learned in the classroom to real or realistic situations they might encounter away from school.
mash ups are the integration of several data sources into a single resource. The most common place you will find mashups at this time is on Google Earth…read how Google Earth works here http://computer.howstuffworks.com/google-earth.htm Datasets can be superimposed on maps to create new profiles of patterns. Pageflakes www.pageflakes.com is considered another type of mashup because it combines social bookmarking with RSS feeds, news, games, and photos. Read how this 4th grade class used a mashup of scientific inquiry, with mapping and communication to aid scientists in their study of horned lizards. http://www.edutopia.org/naturemapping Bi Huge Labs http://bighugelabs.com/
this matches up with deconstruction. It requires the students to analyze the object, application or system being engineered, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses and exploiting that knowledge to understand how it was originally constructed. Check out Incredibotshttp://www.incredibots.com/ or Fantastic Contraptions http://fantasticcontraption.com/ .
Capturing what you do on the computer with an audio file describing the process or procedure used. www.jing.com This can be coupled with a SmartBoard so students can demonstrate their understanding by narrating something as they write and manipulate the image.
Teachers need to plan ahead and create student safety measures before they engage in these kinds of projects. Teachers need to take a proactive approach, creating communication channels between the school and home, describing what they plan to do with students, create training programs for students, and making sure they have parental consent before starting.
Be familiar with what you should be teaching to your students before they get involved with technology. These should emphasize safety and security online and netiquette.Schools that utilize E-Rate federal funds or Title II are subject to the requirements of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). In your classroom CIPA requires that you obtain explicit parental consent if students will be using Web based resources.In addition to personal safety issues, students must be taught how to respect the intellectual property of others. Copyright law is confusing. Although some use of music, video, text and images fall within the Fair Use doctrine, it doesn’t mean students have the right to use someone else’s work without attribution. Problems have arisen because copyright law was never intended to address the capabilities of technology and it is inadequate.
http://creativecommons.org/videos/get-creative explains why CC was created and an overview of what it tries to accomplish. You should know the name Lawrence Lessig. He is a law professor who saw the mismatch between how we use intellectual property now and how we used intellectually property before technology. His work has centered around trying to make copyright right laws make sense with the new kinds of media and sharing that is available.
CyberSmart, a 21st century skills for education website, has 5 grade bands of premade lessons that address the age appropriate learning your students should have. http://cybersmartcurriculum.org/lessonsbygrade/ http://bnetsavvy.org/wp/category/blog/ provides another viewpoint on safety…teachers present ideas for how to use many of the web 2.0 tools safely
See the next two slides for more details
Here are the details about one of this week’s online discussions forums.