ePortfolio

MATLT ePortfolio

Welcome and thank you for visiting my Final Capstone Project!  This eportfolio is a collection of work displaying concepts and theories creatively tying together educational technology tools and MATLT Program Learning Outcomes. View my ePortfolio here on Google Slides with interactive hyperlinks or watch the brief video below.  Enjoy!

Ethical Practices of Technology Use

Julie Danks

EDU 697 Capstone: A Project Approach

Dr. Phillip Orlando

May 15, 2016

Introduction

The field of educational technology and instructional design has developed over the years and has impacted both teachers and learners.  The 21^st century learner has grown accustomed to everyday technologies but technology use in the classroom can still pose many obstacles.  The use of educational technologies can bring about challenges for instructors, as well as for students.  Ethical challenges specifically call for instructors to design and develop effective teaching and learning strategies that can be constructed to tackle the ethical challenges that arise from usage of educational technologies.

Students use weblogs, and blogging, as a tool to improve their writing performance and skill set. The idea behind blogging, and daily collaborating writing, is to support and motivate student learning.  Weblogs provide an opportunity to write for an audience and engage in writing activities such a research and reflective writing.  Additionally, students are introduced to a place where dialogue and thoughts can develop and feedback is readily available. Educational technology tools, such as the weblog, teach students to be resourceful and connected learners.  Blogging in schools in an information-related activity; it requires and develops information skills in students (Clyde, 2005). 

MATLT Activity Redesign

The activity chosen for redesign is a blogging activity in which students were asked to respond to a critical thinking question.  This activity was chosen for two reasons: 1) the ethical technology practices and guidance and 2) for the additional theories and practices imbedded within the activity.  The ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education) Standards for teachers calls for teachers to promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility.  According to ISTE (2016), “The past decade has seen an exponential increase in digital tools and opportunities, which carry the need for students to master a new set of life skills for behaving responsibly online. Even as they sit in their classrooms, they are able to connect with people across the globe instantaneously via chats, email, blogs, social media, virtual conferences, comments and more.” The job of the classroom teacher is to provide guidance and sustained ethical practices during these 21st century learning opportunities.

Teachers are aligning their ethical practices and instructional design by incorporating the right kinds of educational technology tools in support of the differentiated instruction.  This practice offers a way to minimize respective limitations and enhance student strengths.  Weblogs offer an excellent example of the benefit of differentiated instruction.  Blogging expands instructional time for the students who need more by providing a user-friendly online format that reinforces strategies, concepts, reviews important information, and provide enrichment (Colombo & Colombo, 2007).   Additionally, students’ benefit from a collaborating learning environment that allows for social contact, unrestricted communication, and the opportunity to take an active role in planning their writing through positive interactions.  A study done by Lapp, Shea and Wolsley (2011) revealed that students were able to improve their writing based on the near-immediate feedback on weblogs.

Redesigning this activity called for more instructional design and modeling. Cohen (2012) reports that technology should be embedded into student learning and believes that there are abundance of tools from which teachers can choose to ethically integrate. In the past, traditional journals or writing notebooks, have been useful tools for improving writing and developing student skill set.  By redesigning this instructional practice into blogging allows the instructor to reach more individual needs, maximize comprehension, widen student exposure to peers and audiences, and support communication skills, strengthening the collaborative learning dynamic (Zawilinski, 2009).

Overcoming Challenges

Ethical practices are based in trust.  Ethical practices of technology use in the 21^st century carry a great deal of ethical responsibility.  The trust formed between the students and the teacher hold a responsibility of the teacher to exemplify those ethical practices.  The instructor, as well as the learners, must adapt, and adhere to, ethical practices such as respect, protection and well being of all those involved.  Lending to the assurance that all students are protected, the biggest challenge is keeping minor students and parents informed and educated on technology expectations and behaviors.

We often assume that students today are well versed in online etiquette but most are not.  Educators need to talk to learners, just like they would before a field trip, to inform them of potential dangers and expectations.   For example: students should not give out personal information online; Students should not talk or respond to some online who they are unfamiliar with; and finally, students should practice explicitly following online classroom instructions. Students are much more likely to understand good digital citizenship — the norms of appropriate, responsible technology use — when teachers model it on a regular basis. 

Conclusion

While social media sites are a new trend in student-centered learning environments, there are other ways to design instruction in a synchronous study setting that also exemplifies and ensures ethical usage of the technology.  Blogging has a proven track record for instructional strategies from differentiated learning (Colombo & Colombo, 2007) to cross-curricular and integrated real world experiences (Clyde, 2005).  Blogging in the classroom has the potential to motivate students, to build online collaboration, and enhance learning opportunities. 

Even though “violation of individual privacy and the abuse of confidential information have steadily proliferated” (Lin, 2007.p. 414), teachers and students need to abide by ethical procedures to ensure safety.  By providing guidelines, strict instructions, enforced limitations, parental consent, modeling, among other things, both instructors and learners seek to benefit from the importance of well-developed ethical standards.  It is imperative for instructors to develop effective learning materials and instructional design practices, as it is a central role of instructors and ethical standards as it pertains to ethical practices of educational technology use.

References

 Clyde, L. (2005). Educational blogging. Teacher Librarian 32, no. 3: 43-45. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost.  Retrieved May 2, 2016.

Cohen, S. (2012). Apps Meet the Common Core State Standards in

Writing. Teacher Librarian 40, no. 2: 32.MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost.  Retrieved May 13, 2016.

Colombo, M. & Colombo, P. (2007). Using blogs to improve differentiated Instruction. Education Digest 73, no. 4: 10-14. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost.  Retrieved May 11, 2016.

ISTE Standards, Digital Age Learning (2015).  Retrieved on May 10, 2016 from:  http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-students

Lapp, D., Shea, A., and Wolsey, T.D.(2011). Blogging and Audience Awareness. Journal Of Education 191, no. 1: 33. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost.

Lin, H. (2007).  The ethics of instructional technology: Issues and coping strategies experienced by professional technologists in design and training situations in higher education. Educational Technology Research & Development, 55(5), 411-437. doi:10.1007/s11423-006-9029-y

Zawilinski, L. (2009). HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking. Reading Teacher 62, no. 8: 650-661. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost

STEP 7 - Blog about your American Revolution Project

Choose ONE of the critical thinking questions below and respond in the comment box.  YOU MUST HAVE CAPITALS, PERIODS, PROPER PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR.  To receive full credit for this assignment, you will need to restate the question in your answer. Remember to attach your name to your comment.

Critical Thinking Questions
1.  Considering the causes of the American Revolution, do you think something like the American Revolution could happen in our world today?  Why or Why not?

2.  You have been researching all about a famous person from the American Revolution (you chose this person as part of your homework on January 25).  If you were alive then, would you have been friends with him/her?  Why or why not?  Give reasons to support your answer.

3.  Many people worked together to create the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Do you think these documents could have been created without compromise? Who were the people who collaborated to create such important events in our history and what was the ultimate result?

Narrative Writing Wiki

SNEAK PEEK!!!!!!

Attention P3 students!!! Here is a quick look at our next Narrative Writing activity.  You may want to click the link and go exploring on our class wikispace!!  Stay tuned for more information on this exciting and fun technology tool!

Follow me on Twitter

Follow me on twitter @juliedanks

Blogging for our American Revolution Project

For the last few weeks in P3, we've been using educational technology to investigate causes and effects of the American Revolution.  Using our iPads, we've assessed key people of the war, and compare and contrast American Revolution era pictures, battles and events.  Some of the educational technology tools we've explored with include QR codes, web quests, and a handful of iPad applications for collecting and organizing our research efforts.  Now, it's time to BLOG!!

Blogging is easy!  You might remember our first experience with our Narrative Writing critical thinking question.  You were asked to respond to a blog post - but that was just the beginning!  As we delve deeper and deeper into blogging, you will become more familiar with the process of blogging, the benefits of blogging and the importance of always using and applying what you know about how to write (capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, ect.) when blogging!

If you're feeling like you're not quite ready to blog and need to gather more information on the American Revolution, click the link below the picture below to play the Speed Match game.  Good luck and let's get ready to blog!!!

https://www.superteachertools.us/speedmatch/speedmatch.php?gamefile=11768#.VrblhRgrJmA

American Revolution QR Codes

Scan these QR codes with your QR code scanner app on your iPad.  After reviewing the information about the American Revolution, answer the questions in a new Google Doc.  After completing all QR codes and questions, upload your Google Doc answer sheet to Google Classroom.

Washington Crossing the Delaware

1)  If this were an Instagram photo what #hashtag would you put on it?

2)  Using the picture as clues answer the following questions:

a.  When (time of year) did Washington and his troops cross the Delaware River?

b.  Why do you think they crossed when they did?

Ride of Paul Revere

1)  Using the awesome really cheesy rap song as a reference tell me what Paul Revere did to help the Continental Army? (you may have to infer)

2)  Why is the ride of Paul Revere, and other minutemen, significant?

Battle of Bunker Hill

1)  Bunker Hill was a spot chosen to be an army base. Why do you think the Redcoats want to have control of the Hill?

2)  Which group had more casualties (deaths and injuries)  the Redcoats or  the Continental Army?

Battles of Lexington

and Concord

1)  What happened at Lexington and Concord?

2)  Why were the Battles of Lexington and Concord significant (important or memorable)?

3)  Why do you think the British Soldiers retreated (left the battle)?

Battle of Yorktown

1)  Reminder about a vocabulary word: Ally- somebody to fight wars and battles with. From the reading infer who the Ally of the Continental Army is?

2)  Why do you think the more powerful, richer, larger, more experienced, and highly trained Redcoats would surrender to the little brother country, the United States?

Battle of Saratoga

1)  The Battle of Saratoga is when the war between the Redcoats and the Continental Army started to change winners. Please summarize what happened at the Battle(s) of Saratoga and how the winning streak started to change.

2)  Why do you think the Battle of Saratoga is significant?

Critical Thinking Question

How can technology help us become better writers?

Post your response in the comment box below.

Remember to use complete sentences 

and refer to some of the activities

you've completed today.

How can technology help us become better writers?