(T)PaCKing It All In
It seems hard to believe that my MAET journey is drawing to a close. Originally, I chose this program so I could study somewhere overseas while earning a Masters degree. I never realized I would learn so much in such a short amount of time.
Technology has always gone hand in hand with science. Being a science teacher, I embrace new types of technology. I try to explain to students that technology can be something as simple as a pair of scissors. It consists of taking an idea and putting it into practice. Over the years, technology has gotten progressively advanced. Because of my background in science, I decided that a Masters degree with a focus on technology for education would be perfect. Education and science are my passions, so adding technology to my list of important subject was inevitable.
While I have been taking my courses, I realized that I've learned something new and practical in every class. One of the most difficult things about taking classes during the school year is not having the time to develop websites, lessons, and blogs that can be used in class. My challenge to myself is to find a way to integrate technology, but still have it be maintainable. For example, I have class websites, but there are times when testing and grading and meetings get in the way of my maintenance of the class website. I am still looking for that perfect balance of technology, pedagogy, and content, also known as TPaCK. The question I ask myself on a daily basis is, "Is my lesson reaching my students and am I using all the necessary tools to do so?"
During the Dublin MAET program, I took the course, Technology and Leadership. It was one of the most influential courses I took throughout this program. As a teacher, I feel that part of the job is leadership. I coach various sports, and I feel that part of that job is also leadership. Naturally, being an educational technologist in a school or educational facility would also fall into the leadership category. I take my job as a leader in the classroom very seriously. I try to model good behavior for students as much as possible. Things like attendance, tardiness, responsibility, and courtesy need to be taught as well as curricular goals. In the course, Technology and Leadership, my class was expected to organize and host a technology conference for teachers. The program was taking place in Dublin, so our conference would be opened to Irish teachers as well as the first and third year MAET students.
At first, this course seemed to be very out of control. I must confess, it was difficult. As a leader, I would have liked to take control and start assigning jobs. The class had to organize a schedule, get a website up and running, advertise the conference, get and assign speakers, and many other aspects of planning a conference. During the beginning, there was little guidance from our professor and I found her lack of leadership very disturbing. I understood her lack of involvement since she wanted us to organize everything, but I did not agree with it. The fifteen of us in the class barely knew each other and it was difficult to get organized. Once we had finally come up with a plan for attacking all of the different aspects of the conference, it was much more enjoyable to work on hosting an international conference for technology.
I find planning educational conferences to be extremely interesting, which is why this course was my favorite and most influential. We titled the conference GREAT or Global Resources in Education And Technology. Our plan was to develop many sessions of different ways teachers could integrate technology into their classrooms and invite as many educators from the area as we could. It was a free conference, and our public relations team did a wonderful job of spreading the word about the conference. The website was fully functional, and we offered live feeds of presentations for those who were unable to attend. The conference was a GREAT success. Besides the first and third year MAET students, there were a good number of Irish educators who attended. Our keynote speaker was Fred Boss, who is an Irish educator who has created an educational chat every Monday night on Twitter. We had various sessions that guests could attend from Digital Storytelling to Differentiation.
This opportunity to help plan a conference and be a leader in the field of educational technology was the most influential for me. One of the main reasons for that is because I am interested in informal education, such as museums, and educational consulting. I hope to be involved with both formal and informal education, so planning a conference and having the opportunity to share some of my knowledge with others with and without technology was extremely beneficial for me. I learned how to communicate better, how to cooperate with others, and expanded my knowledge of how an educational conference works.
One of the online courses I took, Teaching K12 Students Online, was very helpful to me. My school had just started a 1 to 1 laptop program, so I was interested in creating lessons that would take advantage of the technology. Throughout the class, we learned how to create online lessons, resolve technology issues, and investigated different platforms to use for online classes.
Creating online lessons was the topic that I thought would be most beneficial to me. Since my students each had a laptop, I was hoping that I would be able to teach using the technology which would then help them get the most out of my class. During this time, I had decided to use Edublogs for my students to create blogs where they could post their research for different topics, and their results from various labs and experiments. Writing blogs would be an easy way to integrate some technology into the class as both they and I learned how to become accustomed to the laptops. I used various applications on an iPad in order to create pictorial instructions for assignments. For example, I used Skitch to draw of screenshots to show how to log in to the blog and post to the blog. I used Weebly to create webquests to help students learn how to sift through information on the Internet. Technology was supposed to improve my lessons, and I learned that technology itself became a lesson that needed to be incorporated to my lesson plans.
Resolving technology issues turned out to be the topic that was most often used in my classroom. The laptops my students had were constantly updating and there were issues whenever the students turned them off or logged off. If a computer had updates that needed to be completed, there were days when a student would sit for close to twenty minutes waiting for the updates to finish. Students sometimes would not have access to their drives when they logged on to their laptop, so all of their work would be unavailable to them. One way I tried to combat inaccessible drives was to use Google drive and applications. It allowed students to save work that they could then access anywhere there was Internet. Google also allowed students to collaborate which turned out extremely beneficial for me because I could see students working together on projects and activities. There are many technology issues that I never found ways to resolve, so I hope to continue learning how to adapt when technology does not cooperate.
Investigating different platforms to use for online classes was an interesting part of this course. Haiku, Wordpress, Weebly, and Moodle are all examples of platforms that could be used. I tried to develop lessons using each of these platforms, but there were a couple which I found extremely difficult to use. Wordpress does not seem to be easy to develop into a website. It had many benefits, but for what I was hoping to do at the beginning, it did not work. Moodle is not easy to use. I have tried on several occasions to use Moodle in my classroom, and I am still at a loss for how to use it properly. I liked Haiku, but I did not feel I had the time to put into learning how to use it to its full potential. I used Weebly, and still am today. I liked that Weebly had the "What you see is what you get" platform. I did not need to know a lot of HTML code in order to use it. Since taking the Teaching K12 Students Online course, Weebly's features have increased, so it makes it much easier to create lessons that can be used in class.
As I look back at this course, I realize that Teaching K12 Students Online has become more and more important with the advent of virtual classes and distance learning. I hope to be able to use much of the knowledge that I've gained in the course and develop more and more online classes. Currently, I have many students who struggle with attendance. Perhaps some online lessons will enable them to be successful when they are unable to attend class. I hope to continue to use the knowledge from this course and put it into practice as often as possible.
Technology has always gone hand in hand with science. Being a science teacher, I embrace new types of technology. I try to explain to students that technology can be something as simple as a pair of scissors. It consists of taking an idea and putting it into practice. Over the years, technology has gotten progressively advanced. Because of my background in science, I decided that a Masters degree with a focus on technology for education would be perfect. Education and science are my passions, so adding technology to my list of important subject was inevitable.
While I have been taking my courses, I realized that I've learned something new and practical in every class. One of the most difficult things about taking classes during the school year is not having the time to develop websites, lessons, and blogs that can be used in class. My challenge to myself is to find a way to integrate technology, but still have it be maintainable. For example, I have class websites, but there are times when testing and grading and meetings get in the way of my maintenance of the class website. I am still looking for that perfect balance of technology, pedagogy, and content, also known as TPaCK. The question I ask myself on a daily basis is, "Is my lesson reaching my students and am I using all the necessary tools to do so?"
During the Dublin MAET program, I took the course, Technology and Leadership. It was one of the most influential courses I took throughout this program. As a teacher, I feel that part of the job is leadership. I coach various sports, and I feel that part of that job is also leadership. Naturally, being an educational technologist in a school or educational facility would also fall into the leadership category. I take my job as a leader in the classroom very seriously. I try to model good behavior for students as much as possible. Things like attendance, tardiness, responsibility, and courtesy need to be taught as well as curricular goals. In the course, Technology and Leadership, my class was expected to organize and host a technology conference for teachers. The program was taking place in Dublin, so our conference would be opened to Irish teachers as well as the first and third year MAET students.
At first, this course seemed to be very out of control. I must confess, it was difficult. As a leader, I would have liked to take control and start assigning jobs. The class had to organize a schedule, get a website up and running, advertise the conference, get and assign speakers, and many other aspects of planning a conference. During the beginning, there was little guidance from our professor and I found her lack of leadership very disturbing. I understood her lack of involvement since she wanted us to organize everything, but I did not agree with it. The fifteen of us in the class barely knew each other and it was difficult to get organized. Once we had finally come up with a plan for attacking all of the different aspects of the conference, it was much more enjoyable to work on hosting an international conference for technology.
I find planning educational conferences to be extremely interesting, which is why this course was my favorite and most influential. We titled the conference GREAT or Global Resources in Education And Technology. Our plan was to develop many sessions of different ways teachers could integrate technology into their classrooms and invite as many educators from the area as we could. It was a free conference, and our public relations team did a wonderful job of spreading the word about the conference. The website was fully functional, and we offered live feeds of presentations for those who were unable to attend. The conference was a GREAT success. Besides the first and third year MAET students, there were a good number of Irish educators who attended. Our keynote speaker was Fred Boss, who is an Irish educator who has created an educational chat every Monday night on Twitter. We had various sessions that guests could attend from Digital Storytelling to Differentiation.
This opportunity to help plan a conference and be a leader in the field of educational technology was the most influential for me. One of the main reasons for that is because I am interested in informal education, such as museums, and educational consulting. I hope to be involved with both formal and informal education, so planning a conference and having the opportunity to share some of my knowledge with others with and without technology was extremely beneficial for me. I learned how to communicate better, how to cooperate with others, and expanded my knowledge of how an educational conference works.
One of the online courses I took, Teaching K12 Students Online, was very helpful to me. My school had just started a 1 to 1 laptop program, so I was interested in creating lessons that would take advantage of the technology. Throughout the class, we learned how to create online lessons, resolve technology issues, and investigated different platforms to use for online classes.
Creating online lessons was the topic that I thought would be most beneficial to me. Since my students each had a laptop, I was hoping that I would be able to teach using the technology which would then help them get the most out of my class. During this time, I had decided to use Edublogs for my students to create blogs where they could post their research for different topics, and their results from various labs and experiments. Writing blogs would be an easy way to integrate some technology into the class as both they and I learned how to become accustomed to the laptops. I used various applications on an iPad in order to create pictorial instructions for assignments. For example, I used Skitch to draw of screenshots to show how to log in to the blog and post to the blog. I used Weebly to create webquests to help students learn how to sift through information on the Internet. Technology was supposed to improve my lessons, and I learned that technology itself became a lesson that needed to be incorporated to my lesson plans.
Resolving technology issues turned out to be the topic that was most often used in my classroom. The laptops my students had were constantly updating and there were issues whenever the students turned them off or logged off. If a computer had updates that needed to be completed, there were days when a student would sit for close to twenty minutes waiting for the updates to finish. Students sometimes would not have access to their drives when they logged on to their laptop, so all of their work would be unavailable to them. One way I tried to combat inaccessible drives was to use Google drive and applications. It allowed students to save work that they could then access anywhere there was Internet. Google also allowed students to collaborate which turned out extremely beneficial for me because I could see students working together on projects and activities. There are many technology issues that I never found ways to resolve, so I hope to continue learning how to adapt when technology does not cooperate.
Investigating different platforms to use for online classes was an interesting part of this course. Haiku, Wordpress, Weebly, and Moodle are all examples of platforms that could be used. I tried to develop lessons using each of these platforms, but there were a couple which I found extremely difficult to use. Wordpress does not seem to be easy to develop into a website. It had many benefits, but for what I was hoping to do at the beginning, it did not work. Moodle is not easy to use. I have tried on several occasions to use Moodle in my classroom, and I am still at a loss for how to use it properly. I liked Haiku, but I did not feel I had the time to put into learning how to use it to its full potential. I used Weebly, and still am today. I liked that Weebly had the "What you see is what you get" platform. I did not need to know a lot of HTML code in order to use it. Since taking the Teaching K12 Students Online course, Weebly's features have increased, so it makes it much easier to create lessons that can be used in class.
As I look back at this course, I realize that Teaching K12 Students Online has become more and more important with the advent of virtual classes and distance learning. I hope to be able to use much of the knowledge that I've gained in the course and develop more and more online classes. Currently, I have many students who struggle with attendance. Perhaps some online lessons will enable them to be successful when they are unable to attend class. I hope to continue to use the knowledge from this course and put it into practice as often as possible.
Earlier I mentioned TPaCK, which stands for technology, pedagogy, and content. TPaCK was one of the most influential parts of my entire Masters program. It is introduced at the beginning of the program, and is woven throughout the fabric of almost every course. It is symbolized by a Venn diagram which intersects all three in the middle. This area is known as the sweet spot. The sweet spot is when a lesson encompasses technology, good pedagogy, and content information in one lesson. The sweet spot, I have found, is only attainable rarely. What TPaCK has done for me is it has made me really reflect on lessons and see if the lesson is close to that sweet spot. I find myself constantly questioning my lessons, seeing if technology is actually enhancing it or if I'm just using technology for the sake of using technology. Technology should be used to enhance a lesson. Pedagogy should be used to enhance a lesson. Content is content; it's the presentation of the content that changes. I ask myself if I want to differentiate a lesson or if I should give a lecture. I also ask myself if I am using technology just so I can say I've used technology. My school wants teachers to use technology as much as possible, but I constantly find myself questioning many aspects of this mindset. I'm not sure if technology is always the answer to helping students learn. Sometimes students need to do an hands-on activity instead of a virtual lab. It is a skill that should be experienced.
When TPaCK was first introduced, I was challenged by its idea. I confess I still am. To me, it is just another way of being a good teacher. Good teachers should be doing all of these different activities, and introducing students to different learning styles. Teachers should expose students to as many different things as possible to create well-rounded students. Students do not need to be experts in various subjects, but in middle school and high school, they should be exposed to a varying amount of information. It will help them become informed members of society. One of my goals as a teacher is to help students learn what they enjoy. As a science teacher, many students have given up on science because they were not successful at it when they were younger. I'm in the process of creating lessons which, through TPaCK, will give students a chance to be successful in an area where they may not have been successful in the past.
When TPaCK was first introduced, I was challenged by its idea. I confess I still am. To me, it is just another way of being a good teacher. Good teachers should be doing all of these different activities, and introducing students to different learning styles. Teachers should expose students to as many different things as possible to create well-rounded students. Students do not need to be experts in various subjects, but in middle school and high school, they should be exposed to a varying amount of information. It will help them become informed members of society. One of my goals as a teacher is to help students learn what they enjoy. As a science teacher, many students have given up on science because they were not successful at it when they were younger. I'm in the process of creating lessons which, through TPaCK, will give students a chance to be successful in an area where they may not have been successful in the past.
As I look forward to finishing my degree, I know my education is going to continue. I want to attend conferences such as the International Society for Technology and Education (ISTE) and the National Science Teachers' Association (NSTA). I have recently joined a group that assists teachers who want to try the "Flipped Classroom." I am a member of the MAET Facebook group where members are always offering new and fascinating ideas for integrating technology in class. I follow various technology gurus and education societies on Twitter. Albert Einstein said, "Never let your schooling interfere with your education." I feel that my formal schooling for the Masters program has prepared me for the education that I will continue to receive. I have learned how to question different aspects of teaching, and to truly reflect upon how I teach. As a scientist, I can definitely say that questioning and reflection led to many discoveries that all people use today. Questioning enables me to see problems, and reflecting allows me to figure out ways to solve problems. Without these two concepts, our society would come to a standstill. Education is what is needed to help students question and reflect.