End of Course 6711 Reflection

In my personal learning theory, I stated that I base most of my lessons on presentation of information, recall for students, application of use and practice and feedback for students. My lessons often lack use of technology and are only occasionally open-ended. As I am now much more comfortable with and knowledgeable of the vast array of technological tools available, I will gradually start to add these into my lessons. What I worry most about is the limited time and multiple requirements the fall will bring. It's easy now to plan all of these wonderful lessons, but for me each new technology-based lesson is time-consuming. My goal is to do at least one major technology-based project per class for each grading period. These could be student made PowerPoints, voicethreads or podcasts. I have created a blog for my algebra classes and a wiki for my physics classes and hope to use those on a weekly basis. I really like the online concept maps such as Bubbl.us and hope to be able to use the laptops computers for my students to make these maps for reviews, experiments, etc.
Long term goals for me are to put some of my lecture notes on PowerPoints or voicethreads, using more images, expand the blog and wiki I've started and train my students to work collaboratively more effectively.

Voicethread URL

http://voicethread.com/#u393626.b530217

Instructional Strategies for Social Learning

The concept of social learning contends that by learning by conversing with others the learning takes on more meaning and is learned more thoroughly. Cooperative learning allows the attainment of goals that might otherwise be difficult or impossible. Since learning is connected to environment and culture, the use of real-life examples, problems and situations makes learning easier. This translates into the classroom as group work in which all members contribute and an artifact for sharing is produced. Technology offers options such as the creation of a website to display the accumulated information, producing a wiki to encourage the input of others and interacting in multiplayer simulation games that allow human to human interaction. All of these provide opportunities for the students in a classroom to interact with not only each other, but with students worldwide, thus broadening the learning experience.