New Directions in Instructional Design and Technology

      In my class I incorporate e-learning through the use of websites like Edmodo.  All of our eighth grade students received iPads this year as a part of the Gear-Up Grant.  I distribute my class worksheets in paper form but I also upload all of the files in .pdf form to Edmodo.  This way, all of my students have access to the files, even if they have lost their paper copy.  My students have all downloaded an app called pdf notes which is free that allows them to annotate any pdf file and save it.  They can then snapshot their work and upload it to edmodo or email me a pdf copy of their work.  We've also started using the TI nSpire handhelds along with the TI navigator in our classrooms so that students can send and receive files.  The handhelds act as response systems as well.  I have my students do research on their iPads as well.
   
  I will continue using learning objects in my class by creating presentations and visuals for students that can be easily incorporated into my lessons.  With math, it's important for the student to understand what is going on not only abstractly but first they have to be able to visually see what is going on.  I've been creating documents that can be sent to my students via the TI nSpire handhelds in which they can answer questions and I can collect the documents and receive feedback on how they did overall on the assignment.  Sometimes I find videos on the internet that connect to my lesson to serve as visual aids in the learning process. Before the handhelds, I used the eInstruction clickers in my classroom to figure out what items I needed to reteach to my students.

 
      I plan on using Prezi to present my lessons to my class.  I have used it once before to present a lesson and even though the information was stuff they had seen before, prezi made it more exciting for them than me just writing notes on the board for them to copy.  I think that as teachers, we need to change things up a little bit sometimes so that students do not lose interest in what is being taught because they are bored.  I also want to create short video lessons or tutorials on mathematical concepts that are being taught in my class so that students who are struggling can have access to the videos when they need extra help.  I've started creating short gif animations that model processes that have been taught in class and have uploaded them to my teacher website.  These little animations are one of the first things that you see on my teacher page. 
    
      Since our students have iPads, we look for apps that are either games, or learning activities that match what is being taught in class.  Sometimes students are sent home with an assignment to play around with a certain app that will give them practice with a specific math skill.  Students think they are playing but they are really learning at the same time.  I think that it would be really neat to design a virtual online classroom, but it is not readily available in our school.  My school district has plenty of technology to float around.  Some of the other instruments that I currently use to teach with are Mobi, Interwrite Whiteboard, document cameras, and projectors.  I would like to get more involved in using web 2.0 tools in my classroom.  My goal is to have students communicating with each other about educational topics.  I want my students to create meaningful content that they can present to the rest of the class.

     

Section 6: Getting an IDT Position and Succeeding at It

         My current job position is an 8^th grade math teacher and had been so for the past 6 years.  I really enjoy teaching the content that I’m teaching. Math was always my favorite subject in school.  In the past six years I’ve realized that many students really do not like math, and I think that it’s because they do not understand it.  My goal is not to make students love math.  It’s to help them understand math and in the process learn to like math.  I am currently enrolled in MED-Curriculum and Instruction.  I chose this path because I want to be able to make a difference in education and help choose better materials and forms of technology that classroom teachers can use to teach their classes.   After I graduate, I want to work in the classroom for a few more years, maybe even teach at the high school level or teach college before I move into curriculum.  I think that it would give me the necessary experience that I would need to work with all levels of teachers to help promote success in the classroom. 

         According to the WorkMatrix^TM I am I the right type of work which is the first level service.  Second level service comes in at a close second place.  I really do enjoy where I am in my career path right at this moment.  I learn something new every year and get to work with brand new group of students every year.  I do one day hope to make it to the second level service working on training trainers. I would rather develop instruction.  Location is important to me.  I used to work about thirty minutes from where I live which is not that far, but after a few years the drive took its toll on me especially after tutoring students after work getting them ready for state assessments.  I just found that the extra drive became tiresome.  I currently live less than one-third of a mile from my workplace, and I’m enjoying it.  I would like there to be opportunities for promotion in my field so that if I would like to move up in a few years that would be an option for me.  I would like to continue to work in the education economic sector.  I think that it’s important to educate our future leaders. I believe that I’ve taken a majority of the classes that are available in order to be successful in the path that I have indicated.  I have learned many skills that are required for working in the educational sector. I would like to take more college level math classes so that later I could teach college courses.

In my experience, it’s better to join organizations before you get out of college. The main reason is that usually if you do, you are more than likely able to get a student discount of some sort.  You also get a feel for what the organization is all about before having to pay the full price.  The organizations that would best benefit my learning are ISTE.  I am attending ISTE this summer for the first time.  I think this would help me because I love technology, but sometimes it’s hard for me to incorporate all of the technology that is given to us into a classroom setting.  I’d like to see what types of technology that other teachers are using in their classroom and take back ideas to my own classroom to use.  Another conference that I’d like to attend this year is TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association).  I’ve been to it at least three times.  I haven’t been able to attend but I’d like to go and see what new types of technology are out there and how they are being used by teachers all over the U.S. As teachers, it’s important to continue learning new ways to incorporate technology into our classrooms because let’s face it, most of the time our students know more about how to use technology than us.  We have to find a way to grab their attention and keep it.  I think that technology is the way to do just that.

 

Section 5: Trends and Issues in Various Settings

I currently work as an eighth grade math teacher, and have been doing so for the past 6 years.  I've worked for two different school districts.  The first school that I worked for had one teacher computer for every classroom with a laser printer and three student computers.  We also had to teach with an overhead projector because at the time there were not enough projectors to go around.  I took the liberty of buying my own projector to hook up to my personal laptop in order to project computer images onto the wall.  The next year the district built an all new school, with brand new ceiling mounted projectors and Smartboards.  My current district also has ceiling mounted projectors, Interwrite boards, and a Mobi to go along with it.  Our district recently wrote a grant that allowed all of our 8th grade students to receive an iPad, and the 8th grade math teachers received classroom sets of the new TI Nspire handheld calculators along with TI navigator.  Our district is very proactive in getting us technology for our classrooms.  

I think back to the old days where I was working on the overhead projector, and sometimes it just seemed easier than trying to incorporate all of this brand new technology into the classroom and make it meaningful.  I also could not imagine going back to only using an overhead projector.  All of the new technology allows me to show better visuals and representations of mathematical concepts to my students.  I no longer have student computers in my classroom, but all students this year have iPads, so it's okay.  I think that the important thing to do with incorporating technology within a school is to make sure that you are using it to enhance student learning and understanding of what is being taught.  Whether it is a computer based program to help catch students up, students doing their own research for a project, or students creating presentations after a lessons has been taught, the use of technology should connect to the concepts being taught at the time.

Through reading the chapters in section five, I've learned that technology has grown throughout it's implementation in many different  work environments.  In a military setting, it's important the the instructional designer knows exactly what type of training that is needed.  Training in the military setting has to be flexible and the products have to be adaptable to any type of environment.  Training in the military is mostly computer based training along with some hands on learning.  Instructional designers of this type of setting should take into consideration the different cultures of the people who are members of the military in order to increase the chances that the members will learn.  There is greater emphasis on the needs of the individual along with the needs of the whole organization.  It takes the work of everyone as a group to accomplish many of the goals in the military.

Members of health care education learn through problem solving.  Students research different medical diseases and have to apply that to either an actor who is showing certain symptoms, or through a computer based program that simulates symptoms of a person who is ill.  In the health care profession there are many risks involved.  If a person is not trained correctly, there are peoples lives at stake.  Not only are their risks for patients, but there are also risks for health care practitioners as well if they are not trained to handled situations correctly.   In medical education there are two main types of methods in which students learn which are simulation and multimedia.  Multimedia is used to show students visuals and videos of what different types of diseases do to individuals.  It was also mentioned that some training consists of virtual 3-d environments that mimic an actual clinic scene.  

I truly believe that in the world of education and instructional design, we can take ideas from the other fields and easily apply them.  I think that from the military setting, we should take the idea of learning about our students backgrounds in order to understand them and their learning styles.  We all know that not all students learn in the same way shape or format.  If we understood them better, maybe we could improve their sense of learning and understanding what we are teaching.  I believe that from the military setting we should also try to apply the idea that if the group succeeds, then we all succeed.  We should also incorporate computer based learning with our students in order to get them caught up, help them learn new concepts, or even to go into lessons in more detail or provide better visuals for students.  As teachers it's nice to see our students working as a team to learn together.  the medical field also has some important ideas to apply to the classroom setting as well, such as, problem based learning.  Students need to know that in real life they will be solving problems.  We should make sure to incorporarrite real life problems into our curriculum that students can work together, research online materials, and solve the problem that was presented to them.  Maybe the students could then create a presentation that consists of their conclusion.

Section 4: Human Performance Technology

1. This year our students received a grant that allowed them each to get an iPad (I teach 8^th grade math). A current human performance problem in on my campus this year is using the iPads that were distributed to our students productively in the classroom setting.  I too am guilty of not using them to their full potential.  I have found a few useful apps that allow my students to take notes directly onto pdf files.  I’ve also briefly tried nearpod, which is an app that will allow you to send lessons to students that allow them to respond to the teacher.  I gave up on it, because it would not work at first.  I will come back to it and try again.  We’ve been to a few trainings on how to use iPads in the classroom, but honestly none of the trainings really provided us with good apps that would match our content areas.  Most of the apps that I find are more geared towards elementary grades.  Also, students tend to want to use texting apps and contribute to social networking sites, rather than use the iPad for educational purposes.  They spend time playing games and the battery is low sometimes by the time they get to my class.  I think that instead of trying to instruct teachers on how to use the iPads, we need trainers to come in to our classrooms and actually use the iPads with our students.  Maybe our teachers would then feel more comfortable taking over.  I think that would provide for a better learning experience.  I would rather see how someone else uses them in a classroom setting.  I could then take those ideas and expand upon them.
2. Performance support systems are systems that provide what performers need, when they need it, and how they need it.  Performance support systems take the form of both on-line and off-line resources.  Some examples of performance support systems include printed resources, handbooks, and job aids. 
   
   I think that performance support might be helpful to solve the iPad problem. I believe that many of the teachers at my school do not implement the use of iPads into the classroom because they, themselves, do not know how to use iPads.  If someone were to come up with detailed instructions on how to use certain apps that would be useful in the classroom, then I think teachers would be less reluctant to use them.  Since not many resources have been provided, I think most teachers feel as it if takes too much time to search for apps that are meaningful to their content area.  Maybe even a data base could be created by the district providing us with quicker access to relevant tools, apps, or websites that could be used in conjunction with the iPads.  Also, as mentioned above, more training on how they can be implemented into classroom use without off task behaviors would be helpful.
3. Knowledge that would be helpful to solve the problem from above would be tacit knowledge because this type of knowledge includes what makes performers more productive, more insightful, and smarter than others. Tacit knowledge in the situation with the iPads would be knowledge that people know about educational apps by asking questions, attending trainings, and gathering information over time.  Explicit knowledge also might be helpful because, teachers need to know how to operate the iPads themselves.  This type of knowledge could come in the form of manuals or user guides.  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Maybe the best way to collect tacit knowledge would be through social media, a blog, or web 2.0 tools that teachers could use to share thoughts or ideas.  I think that in order to collect what data teachers have to offer, the district or even a teacher would create a blog or thread that would allow teacher’s to communicate over the internet and share sites or apps that have been used in their classrooms.  This would allow for teachers to share their thoughts on their own time without having to worry about meeting with colleagues.  This would also allow for teachers to collaborate and tell what worked for them and what did not work.  Explicit knowledge has always been available.  It should be collected through searching databases on the web or even visiting apple’s website for information on how to use iPads in the classroom.
4. Within my job, I’ve been to conferences which have incorporated the use of communication by using websites that allow the participants to provide feedback or questions through texting their responses to a website that can be displayed for everyone to see.  That would be considered as web 2.0, which allows participants to be an ongoing part of the learning process.  I’ve also been to trainings that provide hands trainings, which included the speaker guiding us through how to create manipulatives for teaching certain mathematical concepts in the classroom.  I think that students sometimes need that visual or hands on experience to connect what is happening in math to why it happens.  These types of learning experiences could and have been shared with numerous others through conferences. 
   
   
   The knowledge gained though these experiences could be codified and managed online.  The sessions could be recorded and put online so that they could be easily shared through websites like Youtube.  Participants of the trainings could create a blog or Facebook posting sharing their ideas and thoughts on the learning that they participated in.  I think these types of learning experiences should be replicated so that others can learn and take ideas from them.  In my opinion, sometimes we have to break away for formal types of learning to better reach our audience. Sometimes a blog, a wiki, a museum, or anything that gets the learner outside of a classroom setting can help students or workers make connections if they apply knowledge to real life situations.