A reflection on the course

Based off of my own experiences from this course I feel that I finally understand how to use technology in the classroom much better than I did the day that I walked in. However, my only wish is that I had taken a course as informative as this years ago when I first began teaching English overseas and was using technology everyday in the classroom. The sections of class that I feel I benefited the most from were the classes in which we learned how to use Microsoft Excel, WebQuests, SMART Boards, podcasts, Inspiration software, and online software to build a website. Overall, I feel that my experiences using these components and learning from them will benefit me in the future when I teach my own class of English language learners in the country of Turkey.

My first comprehensive non-linear PowerPoint

The ability to use technology to bring life to a classroom lesson so that it can be successful is the aim of teachers all over the world. In a well-run classroom where the teacher uses technology to deliver a lesson to the students, all elements of the technology being used must function well together for student learning to prosper. While many different types of useful technology exist within public school classrooms all across the country, none have gained the recognition and dependability over the last ten years that the Microsoft Office program PowerPoint has. PowerPoint has had a high reputation in recent times as a program that is sophisticated enough to deliver high quality lessons to students that can be either simple or complex, and powerful enough to support the lesson being taught so that printed books can be set aside in favor of this technology. One kind of PowerPoint that seems to have gained a high reputation among teachers over the last few years is known as non-linear, by this I mean that teachers can jump around from slide to slide using buttons at the bottom of each page rather than progress through each slide, one by one. My own previous personal experience using PowerPoint revolves around using those that have been non-linear in design, to improve and support the learning my English language learners do in the classroom. These PowerPoint slide shows tended to be limited to ten or eleven slides and filled with basic information about nouns, verbs, word formation, placement of articles, description of prepositions, and other information about the Englsh language. Unlike in the past, however, the non-linear PowerPoint that I have created for my technology class consists of fifty-two slides and is covers the topic of the Tudor Dynasty of England, starting with King Henry VII and ending with Queen Elizabeth I (excluding the nine days queen, Lady Jane Grey). Never before have I created such a comprehensive non-linear PowerPoint, but because of my experience working on it I was able to generate a useful understanding of how information for a large non-linear PowerPoint can be compiled into one slideshow. I feel as a result of my work I have completely familiarized myself with how effectively construct a non-linear PowerPoint slideshow.

Podcasts

Podcasting. I was still teaching English overseas when I first heard that word in 2008 and, I must admit now, I had no idea of what a podcast was or how useful they could be. Through a stroke of luck, however, I was able to gain knowledge about podcasting that same year from a fellow teacher that was employed at the school as I was. It was through her that I was able to make sense of the fundamental usefulness of the podcast as well as discovered my first podcast, about using smart technology to teach ESL to South Korean students. I was immediately taken with this new technology. Since that time my knowledge of the history of podcasting has grown along since with my knowledge of how to create them. Over the years since then, I have discovered podcasts that pertain to all of the my hobbies and also create a few new key hobbies too. However, before my class on this very topic I had created just one podcast that was meant to fulfill a requirement for a Masters-level class I took during the Spring semester of classes at Nazareth College. As a result of the work I did on my podcast, which had as its main focus a short narrative of the life of the first king of the Tudor dynasty, King Henry VII, I feel that the podcast is the most important and useful technology for delivering knowledge to students since the creation of the blog.

The benefits of using iPads in the classroom

     While this blog will look at the use of iPads in the classroom, it will not talk about the use of iPads to teach English to English language learners, since that topic has already been covered. Instead, this blog will focus on the overall value that the iPad has when used in the classroom. 

     For our class we were required to go through the Apple iStore and download free apps that could be beneficial to new students and evaluate their usefulness. Even though it is a new technology, I believe that the applications of the iPad can be used within each class that a student is required to take as part of their curriculum, because the iPad gives students the opportunity for self-learning. When I was working as a teacher in South Korea last year, I found it important to specifically emphasize the use of the iPad as a credible teaching instrument because it helped to develop a student’s skills for the better while helping them meet the demands of their content area. Having knowledge about how each specific iPad application found on the Apple iStore is distinctive and how these apps can both define and influence the amount of knowledge students build for themselves is knowledge that all educators must know.

     When I downloaded apps for my own iPad there were five categories that I focused all of my attention on, and these were: art, tesol, history, science, and math. The applications that I chose to download to my own personal device were the Phrasal Verb Machine, History Line, Starwalk - 5 Stars Astronomy Guide, Louvre: 20 Must-See Masterpieces at Musee de Louvre, and Math Kid. Letting the students use these reliable, high quality apps to access the content that they learned in the classroom is fundamentally necessary because it helps them review what they learned in a classroom lesson. 

Using iPads to increase literacy rates (a reflection of my research paper)

First, as I reflect back on the research I did for my paper on how to use the iPad to teach the English language to students who are learning it in school, there are three things that I now reflect on more than any other knowledge that I gained at that time. The first is the novel uses for teaching English using the factory-installed apps on the iPad as well as the apps available for purchase or free download through the Apple App Store. The second was the year-long use of the iPad at Euclid High School in Ohio to affect the achievement rates of sophomore students on the Ohio Graduation Test and the Measures of Academic Progress test. The third is the little research that currently exists about the benefits of using the iPad tablet to teach the English language.

     Next, in terms of what I learned about using the apps, both for download from the App Store and installed by Apple in their factories, for teaching English, I was astonished by how they could all be integrated for use in English lessons. As a former teacher of English to ELL students, I had never analyzed the benefits of the built-in camera for taking video, the built-in microphone for recording audio, or the photo library with its catalog of photos as a useful way to teach English. For example, I realize now that the built-in microphone can be used by non-native speakers to record their own speech, and then they can listen to a playback of it, to check for progress in their fluency, intonation, and pronunciation. In addition, I had never considered the benefits of using the Facetime application, the Skype application, or other applications that use the video camera to help the students communicate in English.

   Then, in terms of how the iPad was used to change the achievement rate in literacy on the Ohio Graduation Test and the Measures of Academic Progress test for sophomore students attending Euclid High School in Ohio, I was astounded by how high the scores were for students that used an iPad tablet before taking these important tests, especially at a school where traditional literacy had been undervalued and multiple literacy approaches ignored. Ultimately, the iPad gave these students the maximum advantage over students that didn't use the iPad by equipping them with the 'tools' needed to pass these tests. These 'tools' were the vocabulary-intensive apps WordFlick and Words with Friends, the apps Puppet Pals and ToonTastic that focused on visual literature, the apps Storyrobe and Strip Design that focused on story retelling, and the apps Keynote and Pages that focused on authoring content. Additionally, I believe that using the iPad to write journal articles instead of a paper-based journal is a great way to take in to account the wishes of the students, and the teacher, to use better technology in the classroom.

     Finally, I was surprised to discover a lack of articles currently available on a majority of online databases about research on using the iPad tablet in the classroom to teach English. As the most important personal technological device currently being sold in shops and markets, and Apple Stores throughout the world, I had expected that there would be more articles available on the iPad as a visible and viable tool for teaching English literacy that's crucial. Yet, even while little research has been done, educators do realize that there is an advantage in using the iPad to teach literacy to students, so I do expect the number of journal articles to grow exponentially over the next three to five years.

The experience of writing this paper has shown a truth to me about why the iPad handheld tablet can and will improve one, two, or all of the four areas of literacy students struggle with (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) because it has the resourceful app students need to carry out meaningful change that is required for them to succeed.

My response to the video "Fat City: How Difficult Can This Be" for our Technology in Education class

After viewing the program on YouTube for our class meeting tonight, many of the issues covered by Richard D. Lavoie that learning disabled children deal with in public school classroom are of interest to me but, there was one thing that stood out for me the most and that was processing. The inability of learning disabled children to establish a process for language that occurs as quickly for them as it does for non-learning disabled students. Even if a class is moving at a normal rate a learning disabled child has twice the processing rate, focusing first on the question and then, second, on the answer. In a typical classroom, these LD children, after giving an answer, either are made fun of by other students because their answer is wrong, or, they are chastised by the teacher for giving a wrong answer, and sent out of the classroom. Next, the processing deficit that they deal with on a daily basis, when they focus on images and other material that is around the teacher, rather than on what the teacher is saying, negatively affects their ability to correctly process and monitor information given by the teacher. Six years ago while I was working as a substitute teacher within the State of Florida I was given the opportunity to observe a child who dealt with a processing learning disability, a child who I believe still suffers with this issue. Removed from his normal classroom and placed into a classroom for children with special needs, when I taught him he would focus more on the color of my tie or the color of my hair rather than on what assignment I was trying to teach him. His inability to monitor the new knowledge that could be processed prevented him from moving forward with his regular fourth grade class and placed him at a disadvantage. In a situation like this I believe I should have known more about learning disabilities, and how children process knowledge, yet, at the time I did not possess enough knowledge about how to help children with learning disabilities. Having the knowledge that I have obtained now, I believe, provides me with a better foundation on which to work in classroom with learning disabled students.

When using technology for the student who is a visual learner...

When using technology for the student who is a visual learner, I must take into account the following: their ability to see all of the colors present on the screen; their ability to see the words written on the screen (the font size must be large enough); the organization of the material on a movie or television screen; their seat placement in the classroom; the use of notes,diagrams, maps, graphs, charts, and pictures on PowerPoint lessons; the use of key words in a visual lesson; a reliance on visually appealing materials in all classroom lessons. All of these must be taken in to account before a visual learner is able to begin learning the material presented on a PowerPoint lesson, because their ability to learn will quickly fall apart a minute or two after the lesson has begun, causing them to feel frustrated and restless about their inability to recall what they are learning. It is important that the teacher pay attention to the "photographic memory" of these students, especially if this photographic memory is exceptional, because doing so will gain the trust of the student and prevent their self-confidence from sinking low.