Module 2: Powerful Learning Experiences (Part 1) - Audio Productions

Hello everyone, Here is my audio interview, and I hope you get as much out of it as I did. My interview was uploaded on Soundcloud. Here is a link CEP 800 Module 2: Powerful Learning Experience (Part 1)-Audio Production or you can cut and paste
https://soundcloud.com/kareemdowner-shojgreen/cep-800-interview

CEP 800

Hello and welcome to my Educational Technology Classes blog. Here I will providing the most current articles that I have created for CEP 800, and I'm very excited to take on this endeavor. I hope that you like or don't like the information posted, in order for us to engage upon further discussions.

PQ & CQ Technology and Me

Survey Summary for Technology Integration

After examining this data, I have come to the conclusion that technology is improving in the schools, but overall they do not feel that the integration is occurring as fast as wanted. The trend I see is that teachers want to have the opportunity and ability to be at the forefront of technology in order to better educate students, but the road has not been paved all the way. As we covered the current use of technology in their current practice, teachers said that technology integration is occurring but not at the pace most teachers would like it to. Some educators mention that their schools are acquiring more and more technology to be used in the classroom, but the necessary training required to use it, or the seminars to discover more usable technology are not being sought out by most of the teachers. There are only a few teachers that are making the effort to look and find the necessary technology to make a difference in the classroom. Teachers also would like to make technology more user friendly and accessible to all. All teachers mentioned that they find the technology in their schools useful, but must of them have not taken the time to find if there was other technology in their schools that they were not aware of, or not using. 

Some of my colleagues are integrating technology as fast as they get it, or have access to it. The rest are waiting for others to initially blaze the new technology trail. Non of my colleagues were remotely asking, wondering, or even thinking about what are the new technologies that will have an impact in the classroom in the future. That said, my colleagues would like to change or improve their technology integration practices when it comes to the role the students play, from a passive role to an active one, depending upon the user from teachers to students. They also mention if the person is willing to learn a new technology they need to feel as though they are supported in order to continue using it. This is were educators run into road blocks and become frustrated and both teachers and students shut down and refuse to utilize the technology. Few teachers said that within certain constraints they feel they have the opportunity to practice and experiment with new technology or the access to good models of instruction. That a more technologically savvy administration in the technology integration process would be more effective. Throughout this survey, the ideas expressed more frequently were that educators were open to learn, but finding the method of learning in order to have the appropriate balance of learning to instruction was important. 

What concerned my colleagues more regarding integration of technology, was the speed at which the technology was being integrated. They felt unsure of being far enough ahead in the knowledge of technology in order to know and understand it completely enough to use it to the best of their abilities for the purpose of education. Most teachers new that there were benefit to teachers and learners when making technological connections with the real world and their environments, and most of them could point out  the exact benefits gained. Some mentioned that as instructional coaches they have the ability to model lessons, create lessons embedding technology, and take the risks of putting themselves in technological uncomfortable positions for the benefit of students, but most teachers would not take the same risks. Some teachers also saw the importance of the social technological development of learners, they believe this is paramount as the world continues to rely more heavily on technology. They worry that immature students will struggle with the social aspect of the internet, and that digital citizenship must be taught along the way.

Teachers felt that In order to better prepare, grow, and excel as an educator using technology, the professional developments that they were more apt to participate in were informal dialogue to improve teaching (face to face or distant learning), courses and workshops face to face, professional development network, individual and/or collaborative research (face to face or distant learning), and mentoring and peer observation.

The only remaining questions that have been developed upon the completion of this survey are the following. Is there enough access to technological advancement for educators, or is the price of it the limiting factor? Do the students understand why educators push for more technological engagement in schools?

Community Integration Technology Survey

To all my colleagues, thank you for taking the time to answer the questions on my survey. My goal is to start discovering the importance of having the necessary, current, and proper technologies available, what improvements can technology integration take on, and what is the best way to provide educational technology. 

Thank you

Here is the link to the survey for anyone else that would like to take it.

https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8exeEa1hcRCVPQV

The Zen of a Healthy Info-Diet

The Zen of a Healthy Info-Diet by Downer-Shojgreen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Public schools are better than private schools.

My first info diet inclusion is the site Education Votes (http://educationvotes.nea.org) This site and its affiliates fight for public schools when compared to private schools. They make the point that there is no need to pay to go to school, students can develop greater social skills, public schools have a very welcoming environment, students develop better intellectual abilities, and that public schools provide the potential to bring together any number of young students no matter his or her social standing or lifestyle. The points of view I mentioned are the ones that push my thinking and vision on how schools should be. 

Schools should not be ran like businesses.

Sites I visit, like Edutopia, Ed Week, and others I belong to mention address this particular topic. My second info diet inclusion comes from http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org, the blog post “The Best Posts & Articles Explaining Why Schools Should Not Be Run Like Businesses,” and others. These blogs contributors focussed on this topic. Several points where made, like schools of choice work by waiting for low-income customers to approach them rather than going to them, these schools ignore fundamental desire of parents in under-served areas. Others mentioned that schools are a community and communal responsibility and business fall short at this. Public educators collaborate with one another, share information about the students, and share what they have learned about successful methods. 

Unions are good for schools.

For my last info diet inclusion I found the following sites supporting teachers unions, the Chicago Teachers Union (http://www.ctunet.com), and Teacher Solidarity (http://www.teachersolidarity.com). What they mentioned focused on how teachers unions are the only major educational players still focusing on advancing school equity by leveling the playing field, how teachers unions fight to protect teachers’ First Amendment rights, allowing them to advocate for children and schools without facing retaliation, how schools with unionized teachers often produce higher achieving students, how unions help improve teachers, and how unions focus on student and teacher safety. 

 Zen focusses attention to the attainment of enlightenment and the personal expression of direct insight, and to the absorption and use of knowledge. I understood this more as I reflect on the topic of Public schools are better than private schools, I believe that the points made by these sites, when defending public schools, are extremely valid and cannot be dismissed. As a matter of fact, it would be fantastic if private schools can adapt some of the characteristics of public schools for the betterment of students. Next, while thinking about the subject that schools should not be ran like businesses, I agree that the singular approach that proponents of this view present is flawed. Some of the points made in these blogs seriously need to be considered and enforced. Lastly, when looking into the argument stating that Unions are good for schools, I could not deny some of their points, and furthermore, this info diet research has helped me understand the history and commitment unions represent to education. In conclusion, during this process I discovered that my bias extends from past experiences. That some of my bad experiences are strong enough to curtail my view of the world. Speaking for myself, I have to admit and recognize that it is not hard to find valid points to other peoples view if I am willing to listen to their argument. Typically, no one likes to admit that they are wrong, or that the other point of view could be correct. I would like to belief that at this point in my life I am educated enough to admit when I’m wrong, stubborn, narrow minded, and when someone is wright. 

Non-Verbal Learning Disability and 3-D tools

After been in multiple grades extending from kindergarten to Adult Education, I have noticed that Nonverbal Learning Disabilities or NLD have interested me. Although I have witnessed how they have crippled learners ability to be successful, I did not know that this disability was so influential. “By definition, students with learning disabilities have neurological deficits that keep them from grasping certain content areas at grade level. Students with...nonverbal learning disability, (NVLD, or sometimes NLD) have a unique set of academic strengths and weaknesses.”(Connell, 2012) This is “a neurological syndrome that impairs a person’s natural ability to learn how to communicate with others non-verbally and also cope with their surroundings and responsibilities.”(Silas, 2012)

Some of the areas affected by Nonverbal Learning Disabilities are:

Physical Motor Skills - Poor co-ordination, gross motor skills development, graph-motor skills, possibly problems with balance.

Visual-Spatial Motor Skills - Resulting in problems understanding graphs, maps, geometry, and how to make mobiles, and with seeing.

Visual and Spatial Difficulties - People often fail to grasp the big picture, physical navigation. 

Reading Comprehension -  Deeper meanings, abstractions, and implications of literature; they can no longer survive by rote memorization and focusing on the details.

Sensory - They can have heightened senses of touch, taste, hearing, smell and vision.

In this post I will specifically talk about a new tool I believe can help learners with NLD. The sooner the teachers are aware of the signs of NLD, the sooner they can intervene and help those dealing with with this disability. The older the learners when the intervention occurs, the more difficult it becomes to help the learner. Even if a learner is not diagnosis until middle school, the educators help is extremely important. “Johnson and Myklebust (1967) were the first to talk about the Nonverbal Learning Disabilities (NLD). Nevertheless, it is only during the 90's that the disability was well known thanks to Byron Rourke's book entitled ‘Non Verbal Learning Disability’, which suggests that NLD is characterized by a significant gap between verbal and non-verbal IQ due to the right hemisphere brain malfunction.”(Errichiello, A; Angelillo, N; Di Costanzo, B; Barillari, U. Acta Phoniatrica Latina34. 1-2 (2012): 73-82.) “The difficulties for learners with NLD are often picked up late because decoding and spelling may be quite strong. On the other hand, inferential reading comprehension is weak relative to decoding and spelling skills. The first academic subject to be viewed as problematic is math, because spatial and conceptual aspects of this subject are problematic. Also, because of spatial and fine motor problems their handwriting is usually poor.”(Dinklage, 2012) Maggie Mamen, a clinical psychologist, “describes...that there is an underlying neurological disorder linked to pattern recognition. This then affects not only motor and spatial skills, but also those aspects of language and social skills that require inferring rules. Four subtypes are described: Perceptual NLD, Social NLD, Written Expressive NLD and Attentional NLD.”(Hooper, 2008) It is difficult to find a technology that can help with all aspects of a learning disability, or NLD’s, and I believe that this technology can do a good job at addressing each of these aspects of NLD

The technology that would support a learner who suffers from Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities are 3-D printers and tools. For NLD there are 2 different classes of 3-D tools that I believe could help learners, and these 3-D tools can print items that have been designed, print items that have been drawn, and draw freehand in 3-D. Two are 3-D printers and the other is a 3-D tool. So far, with 3-D printing there are two individual printers that can be used. The first 3-D printer is the Cube 3D Printer and the second is the Doodle3D. The main difference between this two printers is that the Cube 3D prints objects that have been created in a computer, and the Doodle3D prints 3-D objects created from the learners drawings. Since arriving to the availability of the public people have found a myriad of uses for 3D printers, know it’s new use is in the classroom. The Cube 3-D Printer and the Doodle3D can aid students in areas like reading comprehension and visual-spatial difficulties. The printer can help provide deeper meanings into stories by helping create a model of the story, it can provide more insight into abstract concepts, and implications of literature. With this tool the learners can develop  better visual and spatial acuity and the ability to grasp and understand the big picture and hopefully master the material covered. Also, NLD affects physical motor skills and visual-spatial motor skills. The next 3-D tool is the 3Doodler and it sketcher with extruded plastic rather than ink. Some learners can trace stencils on paper and assembled a complete 3D object or just draw structures in the air. The learner can work on physical motor skills and create writing samples that they can inspect, they can take part on coordination exercises to improve graph-motor skills, and gross motor skills development. The learner can also work on visual-spatial motor skills and make 3D representations of mathematical objects, graphs, maps, geometrical figures, and they can improve their physical navigation by creating 3D maps of their surrounding area. 

Some may say that the cost of these 3-D tools may be to much, but now days the price for these tools has gone down dramatically. 3-D printers have been around for 30 years and they have began to make an entrance into the market, and depending on the type of work you would like it to do more or less money can be spent. It is my belief that these 3-D tools can be used in the classroom right now, and with more time spent on the development of other technologies 3-D printers and tools will become a staple of classrooms and schools. These printers and tools can benefit the educational experience of all students. 

Work Cited

Connell, D. (2012, May 27). The Invisible Disability. [website]. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/invisible-disability

Dinklage, D. (2012, May 27). Aspergers Disorder and Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities:
How Are These Two Disorders Related to Each Other? [website] Retrieved from http://www.aane.org/asperger_resources/articles/miscellaneous/asperger_nonverbal_learning.html

Errichiello, A., Angelillo, N., Di Costanzo, B., & Barillari, U. (2012). The non-verbal learning disability. Acta Phoniatrica Latina, 34(1-2), 73-82. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1347808012?accountid=12598

Hooper, J. (2008), Understanding Non Verbal Learning Disabilities: A Common Sense Guide for Parents and Professionals. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 13: 211. doi: 10.1111/ j.1475-3588.2008.00513_4.x. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/doi/10.1111/j.1475-3588.2008.00513_4.x/full

Silas, D. (2013, May 27). Special Educaitonal Needs/Non Verbal Learning Difficulties. [website] Retreved from http://www.specialeducationalneeds.co.uk/UsefulInformation/TypesofSEN-Disability/Nonverballearningdifficulties.html