Effective Online Searching

These days, when we want to know about something, it's very easy to go onto the internet and do some quick searches to find more information. "Just Google it" becomes a common saying. How can we most effectively search? How do we know that what we've found is good information? As I mentioned, Google is one popular search engine available on the internet. From the Google main page, you can type your search in such as... San Diego Zoo. In this manner, millions of possible websites will come up, though not all directly related to what you are looking for. There are more advanced ways to search however, such as putting your desired information in quotations... "San Diego Zoo" or you can go to the bottom of the page and click on advanced search for more options to refine your search results. Once you've located what you're looking for, you may want to check a few things to ensure that you are reading good information--especially if you are reading an article or researching information. Some things you can check on a website to help ensure good information include: the purpose of the article or website, whether it appears biased, who the author or publisher is, the quality of writing to include grammar and tone, whether reference links are still active, and if the article is up to date or recent. Using these tips will help refine your searches and ensure your information is more accurate.

Blog 2: Build An Assistive Technology Toolkit

Build an Assistive Technology Toolkit 

          In Ahrens article, Build an Assistive Technology Toolkit, she explores the many technological advances we now have that enable special assistant students to be mainstreamed into a class with the greater student body. Special assistant students are the students with a myriad of challenges that can be either physical or mental and can include: hearing impairment, vision impairment, difficulty in writing due to physical constraints, the Autism Spectrum, ESL (English as a Second Language) students, and many other learning disabilities. Ahren states, “Assistive technology by its very nature consists of a variety of personal and customized tools for multiple learning styles and physical challenges”. Ahren walks us through the steps where a parent can locate many free or low cost tools for their child’s specialized needs and how to go about working with the school or school district to encompass these tools into the classroom. Ahren also provides a starter list for online tools that include free online books where students can change to a larger font for easier reading or with text-to-voice tools so that students can learn the words in an auditory format, language translator tools, online websites where students can create “mind maps” to create a visual layout of their ideas, and several other assistive tool websites.

          Though this was a short article, I found it an engaging starting point to the topic of technology tools. As we learn about the various technologies that are available for classroom use, it is a nice lesson to recall that many of these technologies enable us as teachers to greater include students that in the past may not have been included in the regular classroom. Indeed, I feel that one of the greatest achievements of technology is that it enables so many more people to actively pursue education. I found this article to be a great starting point to want to learn more about the technologies that are available and I’m sure that many of these can be useful not just for assistant students, but for the student body as a whole. Immediately after reading the article, I did an online search for assistive tools and was amazed at the myriad of websites that came up—I plan to further explore some of these websites in the future. Ahren talked about streamlining what assistive tools were used in a school or school district and how that will enable teachers to better serve their students—I fully agree with that idea. If we as teachers use the same or similar tools, for creating mind maps for example, then we can provide a more fluent structure for our students as they pass from one grade or class to another. I know from personal experience, as I’m sure most of us do, that the more you work at or with something then the more proficient you become.

          I believe this article is a clear example of NETS-S standard two for teachers: Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. By learning more about current or emerging technologies that can be used both for assistant students as well as the general student body, I can exhibit “incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity” as well as “customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styled, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources”. I can even pair assistant students with non-assistant students to enable them to teach one another the tools that they use—so that they can learn teamwork skills, how to work with diversity, a sense of community, and further enhance their education and abilities. 

Ahrens, K. (2011). Build an Assistive Technology Toolkit. Learning & Leading with Technology, 39(3), 22-24. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201111#pg24

Blog 1: Teach Your Students to Fail Better with Design Thinking

Teach Your Student to Fail Better with Design Thinking

            In Long’s article, “Teach Your Student to Fail Better with Design Thinking”, he promotes a new approach to teaching students that combines modern day (and potential future) technologies with “real word” questions and problems to solve. Through his many years of teaching, Long was often frustrated with the typical teaching approach of posing specific questions or problems that had specific gradable answers and solutions. He felt that this sort of textbook learning left students at a disadvantage to use their education in the real world—post high school graduation. He insists that there are plenty of real world challenges that can be posed within the classroom environment to teach students the skills and knowledge that we as teachers are trying to impart. One way that Long feels we can do this is through Design Thinking which “combines collaboration systems thinking and a balance of creative and analytical habits… The process essentially comes down to a continuously evolving feedback loop with four elements: empathy, ideation, prototyping, and testing”. Long points out that using this type of teaching and learning enables all of us to think outside of the box, become more creative in how we approach problems and search for solutions, and most of all enables us to create solutions that work in real life experiences.

            I found Long’s article both interesting and agreeable to my own perspective on teaching. As I make my journey to become a teacher I am finding it difficult to accept the bureaucracy with the school system—the No Child Left Behind Act requires so much teaching to pass reading, writing and math tests that it seems to leave students very lacking in the rest of the skills required to become a successful adult and good citizen. I enjoyed Long’s perspective on how as teachers we can pose real world problems to students to better prepare them for life’s requirements of creative thinking, flexibility and the ever changing need to find new solutions as problems themselves change. One of Long’s points in the article is that failure can lead to solutions and in failure itself we learn. I believe that by providing textbook answers—where there is always a concrete and specific solution—we are not teaching our future generations how to tackle life because life itself does not have concrete answers or solutions the majority of the time. Life can be messy and change quickly, so requires quick and creative thinking.

            I think this article embodies characteristics of both NETS-S standards 1: Creativity and Innovation and 4: Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making. In 1: Creativity and Innovation students “apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes” and also, “create original works as a means of personal or group expression”. In Long’s article he tells of how he brought together a diverse group of high schoolers and posed to them the challenge to create “their own classroom of the future”. The students collaborated in smaller groups, used various means of technology to communicate with experts around the world, regrouped into a larger group to determine what the “classroom of the future” would encompass, then put it all together to actually create the classroom at a convention. In the process of completing the project the students also exhibited characteristics from NETS-S 4: Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making. The students encompassed every aspect of this standard, “students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources”.  In conclusion, this was a wonderful article to read because it presented a new approach to teaching along with real world examples of its application and also because this article clearly demonstrated at least two of the NETS-S standards for students.

 

Long, C. (2012). Teach Your Student to Fail Better with Design Thinking. Learning & Leading with Technology, 39(5), 16-20. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201202#pg18