Chapter 10 & 11

Blog Ch 10 & 11

                What stuck out to me in Chapter 10 was using technology with linguistically diverse learners. Student teaching this semester I have seen firsthand a lot about this. It really is amazing how much technology helps with this in terms of ELL learners. I have come across children who can barely understand a word of English but because of technology they are on the same page as their classmates. But also with English speaking students who want to learn another language. On page 247 the text brings up online translators. Yes, they are extremely helpful but from my own personal experience they aren’t always reliable. Personally, yahoo translator I think is extremely unreliable because I needed help translating a small paragraph for Spanish class back in high school. I know this is wrong, but I thought I could just copy and paste the paragraph into the online translator and homework done right? Well wrong! It translated the paragraph into something completely different, and inappropriate and let’s just say it didn’t end with a 0 for my homework grade. So just like any other piece of technology there are pros and cons for this. On the following page the text also discussed interactive maps. Being social studies is my concentration I think interactive maps are extremely beneficial for a student’s learning. It brings the map to life, therefore the student is learning in a more fun way. If a student learns in a way that if fun for them the more likely they will understand and retain the information being taught to them. “The Modern Language Association (MLA) has an online interactive map of languages spoken in the United States. The map uses census data to display the locations and the number of speakers of over 300 languages. Zoom in from the entire country to a region, state, local community, or zip code to view which languages are spoken there.” This might be the social studies nerd in me, but that’s awesome! How extraordinary is that?!

                Chapter 11 discussed the topic of teaching portfolios. This is extremely relevant since this is our final project for this class. Like Professor Chen said the Philosophy of Education is the most important part because it describes and discusses who you are as an educator, what you stand for, and what you believe in. Along with this, reflection is a big part of this because it is a form a self-assessment. In reflection a learner “examines past actions to identify what to maintain or change.” I think reflection is extremely important for everyone, teacher, student, anyone in any profession because it allows you to take a step outside yourself and examine an entire situation without being in it anymore.

Lesson learned 11/11/15

What I am taking away from today's lesson is the importance and universal use of assistive technology. Professor Chen made statement she said, "We are all disabled in some way or another." That really stuck out to me because It is so true. When I think of assistive technology I think of electronics and fancy expensive gadgets. There are so many other things people use everyday without even realizing it is assistive technology. People wear glasses, use pencil holders, even certain strategies. These are all assistive technologies to some degree. As well as people use and need assistive technologies far beyond learning in the classroom. People need them to live their everyday lives such as wheelchairs and walkers. This is something an educator really needs to keep in mind with every student because that one strategy or device can mean a world of change for a student.

Blog #5

Ch 7 & 8

            Chapter 7 was particularly intriguing because it discussed how to teach problem solving through computers. The ability to problem solve at any level has always been a critical subject for students to learn. This is a life skill that people use in every aspect of their everyday lives. It is imperative we teach our future students as many problem-solving strategies as possible so they are as equipped as possible for any problem that comes their way,

            The steps to problem solving are simple; 1. Understand the problem. 2. Using problem-solving strategies. Finally, 3. Checking results. The kinds of problem-solving we will be teaching our students more often than not deals with the social, economic, or political world. These problems are called ill-structured problems because there is no manual that you can follow that help you solve what was the problem in the first place. Hard-to-solve problems offer students the most knowledge and are a great learning tool because this is where students learn how to zoom in on the problem and define it at its core. Once they find the core of the problem they can then take the necessary steps to solve it.  

            Computers are great solves to teach problem solving because they offer so many programs, apps, games, tutoring, and any kind of help or support you can even imagine. With these tools students can take into consideration their different options and with the feedback provided to them they can then determine what would be the best choice so then for future problems they already have an idea how to handle and solve the problem. With this the student will also learn when they need to use in-depth thinking or just surface thinking.

            Using computers to teach problem-solving is a very modern and even futuristic way to teach problem solving to students. It fascinates me that there are programs, games, and apps out there that students can use and have “mock-trials”. They can learn how they have to think in a certain problem and if they choose they wrong way to solve it, they basically get a reset button and can do it all over. I think this is good and bad because they are learning through “experience” for lack of a better term. But the real world doesn’t work this way. You don’t get a reset button if you chose the wrong way to solve a problem and the results weren’t as good as what you were expecting them to me.

            I feel like Chapter 8 was repetitive because it discussed communication between students, parents, and teachers. I feel like I have learned about this over and over again since freshman year. This is continuously discussed. I understand the importance of it but there’s only so much that can be said. I know the different kinds of communication that is possible via phone calls, emails, social media, blogs, wiki, online discussions. I have been using them for most of my life. I understand how they work. I feel like instead of discussing the different kinds of communication, they should be teaching us how to communicate. Like how to properly speak to a parent about their child and so on.

My questions after reading the two chapters are:

1.      What is the most effective way of communication between students, parents, and teachers?

2.      How effective is teaching problem-solving through computers?