CET 726: Technology in the Curriculum

Course Reflection: (Includes Goals and Objectives for the Course)

For this class, we were required to create an intensive unit/project which will include multiple forms of media and technology tools. The project requires the following components: 1) title, 2) description, 3) timeline of events (if applicable), 4) explanation of how project addresses technology and content standards, 5) lesson plans (if applicable), 6) all assessment tools whether tests or rubrics, 7) rationale, explanation, or rubric to be used. Listed below are but a few tutorials and downloads of different products available as examples of our project.

Course Description	Theme Met	Professional Use of Project	Skill Developed with Project	How Theme Was Met
Unit created w/ multiple forms of media and technology to gage and support different learning activities	Collaboration	- Project used as Professional Development to increase educator knowledge in forms of media and technology	- Creation of a Wiki space	Because the course was use as a means for creating professional development so that skills could then be applied in the classroom setting, I believe this course works well with collaboration.
	Leadership and Management	- Project used as Professional Development to increase educator knowledge in forms of media and technology	- Creation of a Wiki space - Understanding Camtasia as a tutorial aide - Create concept maps to aide in Constructive learning - Use of video editing software for tutorial creation - Familiarization of Office 2007 - Familiarization with Dreamweaver for webpage updating	Again, since we were using this as professional development to later be applied in the classroom setting, I believe it works well with the theme of Leadership and Management.
	Constructive Teaching/Learning and Technology	- Project used as Professional Development to increase educator knowledge in forms of media and technology	- Creation of a Wiki space - Understanding Camtasia as a tutorial aide - Create concept maps to aide in Constructive learning - Use of video editing software for tutorial creation - Familiarization of Office 2007 - Familiarization with Dreamweaver for webpage updating	I believe this course works well with this theory because again, these are technology-related activities that are constructively created.

Specific Course Work:

Description:
It is very important to utilize technology in meaningful ways in this technologically advanced day and age. Our current understanding of learning indicates some situations involve behaviorist learning, but true understanding other than learning facts or repeating actions requires constructivism instead of behaviorism. According to Meaningful Learning with Technology, “meaningful learning [constructivism] requires learners who are actively engaged by a meaningful task in which they manipulate objects and parameters of the environment they are working in and observing the results of their manipulations.” According to the text, students learn best by thinking and reasoning, therefore we have to allow the students to become their own teacher utilizing technology by teaching the computer not having the computer just ask questions as in behaviorism. In addition, it is important for students to take the leading role in the classroom. Teachers can now stand in the background (hinting to students) and watch as students begin to teach themselves with technologically advanced tools.

In this training, we will teach our staff how to utilize technologies that allow students to become constructivists in their classrooms.

TECH TRAINING
Time	Activity	Overview
8:00~8:15:	Check In and Introduction to the day.
8:15~10:30:	South Dakota State Library	Introduces how to navigate their website.
10:30~11:00:	Break
11:00~11:30:	Introduction to Renaissance Place	This company will house our accelerated reader and accelerated math programs.
11:30~12:00:	Wiki Page Links to: Camtasia – creating your own tutorials and more. Concept Mapping - creating maps with two different software programs. Video Editing - creating tutorials with movies.	Teachers will learn about a wiki page and how it can be utilized in their classroom. We will create a wiki page on our website that has troubleshooting information on it for our staff and students. Staff will be able to add to this page as well. We have also created some links to some software programs that might be helpful for teachers in their classrooms. (see first column)
12:00~1:00:	Lunch
1:00~2:00:	Introduction to Office 2007	Staff will be updated and introduced to changes in Office 2007. We will have them surf through the different programs and allow for a question and answer period.
2:00~3:00:	Dreamweaver	Because FrontPage is no longer in Microsoft 2007, we will introduce our staff to Dreamweaver which will take the place of FrontPage in our district. We will teach staff how to navigate to and open their webs with Dreamweaver, how to work with this software while updating their webs, and will allow time for a question and answer period.
3:00~3:15:	Break
3:15~4:00:	Introduction to the idea of Constructivism	Through the use of different software programs, we will introduce the idea of constructivism: Inspiration & Word (Concept Mapping).
4:00~4:30:	Question/Answer and Work Period	Work Period will continue on for those that need it.

Lake Preston will be a part of the 1:1 initiative this year. Due to this change, our teachers will be expected to utilize a lot more technologies than previously expected. In addition to the 1:1, we have added a promethean board to our library for our elementary teachers. Our hope, through a two-day intense promethean board training and a one day general technology training, is that our staff accepts the new challenges. As far as content standards are concerned, teachers will be able to gain graduate credit for the promethean board training. In order to obtain the credit, they must create their own flip board project for their designated grade level. They will need to utilize their standards in order to make this project meaningful.

Because we really won’t have a final project on our tech day, we will be handing out a survey to the teachers to get their feedback on how the training helped them. We can answer question from our Promethean Training and the 1:1 training that took place this past summer as well. Here is an example of our survey...

Concept Mapping: The general consensus seems to be that students are able to retain important information more often than not when they can draw a mental picture of the material, which helps them better visualize the information. Concept Mapping allows students to create relationships among material. I used both inspiration and Visio to create example concept maps.

1) Inspiration Concept Map - Inspiration seems, to me, to be a step down from Visio. However, I believe it to be easier for student-utilization than visio. In order to help students retain information, have them create a concept map on their own.

2) Visio: (A Microsoft Compatible Program) Concept Map - Visio was more Microsoft compatible than Inspiration Software. There were more choices in fonts and it seemed to produce a more professional looking product.

Animated Screen Recording: - Sometimes tutorials help students and staff to better visualize what is expected of them. Although our sense of smell is said to be the strongest, it is important to utilize as many of the senses as you can to help students better retain and make sense of information!

1) Camtasia: is really quite an extraordinary program. I would say it is a step up from Microsoft Movie Maker, although I like the way Movie Maker allows you to work with chunks more easily.

Photo Editing - There is a plethora of software for picture editing on the market in today's world. Photoshop and Fireworks are a couple of my favorites. Photoshop is an Adobe product and Fireworks is a Macromedia Product. Besides simple photo editing, these products can go into creating your very own images and web pages. My homepage was created with both Photoshop and Fireworks.

Video Editing - is also a huge hit in software creation right now. Once again, there are several programs that allow you to work with editing.

Wiki Spaces - A Wiki is a collection of webpage's designed to allow anyone to contribute to and modify it using a simplified language. Wiki's are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. It is a helpful space that allows several to collaborate via the internet.