Journal+Entries+Fall+2009

Journal Entries for Field Study #1 **__Meeting the Needs of Differentiated Learners Through the Use of Discussion Boards__**. September 23, 2009 What a day! It was not only “meet the teacher” night, but we had our first LTT meeting for the term. It was an informal mentor meeting to check in and see how everyone was feeling about their field study. Some of the group haven’t started, like me. Others are well on their way and have gotten the kids using the computers in various ways. I would say I have a legitimate excuse though. I’ve tried to get on to the computers twice now and have had disastrous results. Last Thursday, all the students were in our downstairs lab and a circuit blew. All the computers in the lab and the office went down. Later on I found out that Karla had done the same thing with her class. So, yesterday, I figured we’d try again to get onto the Sharepoint site, but they all blew again. Wow, were the kids disappointed. Not only that, Bruce got quite upset with me. I had no idea that we weren’t supposed to use the lab! If that was the case, an announcement should have been put on the school roundup. As it was, he immediately put an announcement on the P.A. How embarrassing. Well, I’m determined to try again soon. Get right back on the horse as they say. After hearing that two or three in my group have used online surveys to have a baseline for their study, I’ve decided to try that myself. I remembered from the summer institute that Survey Monkey was a legitimate site so I just tried it out. I’m quite proud of myself actually because I was also able to put a link on my Sharepoint site. I’m planning on having the kids try it out tomorrow in the lab. September 24, 20009 Success!! The students were able to not only access the computers, but the link to the survey worked. I was more than half expecting it wouldn’t. The only thing was that when I created the survey, I didn’t include space for the students to answer the open ended questions, so they were left blank. Overall, I have three working questions which is better than nothing. I also did an informal poll of the class to get some data for the questions they couldn’t answer online. Essentially, most students said that they would prefer to discuss current events topics on the computer rather than in the class because it was easier and they didn’t have to stand in front of the class. September 30, 2009 We just finished our LTT and had a check in to see how everyone is progressing with their field study. I must say, I’m feeling quite overwhelmed right now. I have not even begun to get the students onto a discussion board yet. I’m still working on building class culture and rapport. Furthermore, the students need to learn how to present current events articles to the class before they can go online and do this. Therefore, every Tuesday and Thursday I’ve built time into my schedule to have the class share current events. So far, it has gone quite well. Some of the issues are that students “forget” to bring their article to share or there are doubles of articles. I have found ways to get around this though by allowing them to share what they have brought regardless. If they have forgotten an article, they go to the library to find one. One student didn’t want to present to the entire class because of anxiety issues, so she just presented to me. The class must be very attentive and ask questions of the presenter after they are finished. I am happy that the students are enjoying the sharing of current events. When we have to postpone the presentations for whatever reason, they get quite upset. My worry is that I’m spending too much time on this aspect of the study. I am chomping at the bit to teach them about discussion boards and how to communicate on them, but I know I have to bide my time until they are all ready. I just keep telling myself that this is an important process in the bigger picture. October 7, 2009 For tonight’s class we were asked to bring an article that we have been using to shape and guide our field study. I brought

November 4, 2009 Constructivist vs. Instructivist Learning  - ** // How does this theory relate to learning and teaching with technology?

- What are the pre-conditions for learning and teaching with technology? What role does instructivism play in creating those conditions?

- How can I build these into my planning? // ** For our exploration of new technology tonight, our small group worked with Prezi. We went to Prezi.com and took the tutorial. I was not as straight forward as the tutorial implied it would be. In fact, it told us that we could learn how to use it in ten minutes. It took us 45 minutes to create a simple document.