Week 7 Assignment #2 Second Life

Second Life

After talking to my cooperating teacher, I learned that she had never heard about Second Life (SL) but was excited to look at new ways to incorporate technology into her language instruction. We brainstormed ways in which she can incorporate SL into her lesson plan to add depth/ quality and came up with a few:

• We can create a virtual classroom or take virtual field trips that will promote more social interaction and help educators save time by making lessons relevant.
• Second Life can be used to explore a specific topic that the class will be studying or has already studied, students can visit and explore interesting topics in a more concrete manner rather than abstract which will enhance their learning experience.
• Since SL supports the playback of audio and video files, has text, images students can create their own scenarios or teacher can flip the classroom which will add enthusiasm and motivate learning.

Week 7 Assignment #1.2 Using ADDIE model in Second Life

Second Life

One of the most important purposes of an educational environment is to promote social interaction among users located in the same physical space. However, technological advances has enabled the use of innovative learning tools like virtual reality for the purpose of education in a way that collaborative. Virtual reality is a tool that assists students with learning and knowledge retention, it allows students to explore and move around their classrooms while learning. According to authors; Shiang-Kwei Wang and Hui-Yin Hsu, one of the newest forms of this technology is Second Life which is a platform of endless possibilities. They believe that, “Educators should explore the possibilities of engaging and improving online learners’ motivation, thereby increasing the likelihood of achieving desirable learning outcomes.” From the article we can see that Second Life (SL) was designed to enriched learning by experience, providing a near-real life experience that strengthens a sense of social presence or encourages multi-level interaction that exemplifies the (1) relationships between students and content, (2) relationships between instructors and students, and (3) relationships among students. Moreover, this tool promotes educational efficacy and constructivism in a way that allows learners the freedom to discover information relevant to his or her interests in an attempt to construct their own meaning.

Week 7 Assignment # 1.1 Theories and practice of Multimodal Education

    Multimodal Education

   It is becoming quite evident in this “new media” age that a transition from print-based education to multimodal education is occurring. Even Though, many traditional roles for teachers remain necessary; they act as facilitator, instructor, model, and so on. However, they are three additional roles teachers need to adopt in order to facilitate children’s navigation of complex, multimodal, electronic worlds, these include teacher as resource manager, teacher as co- constructors of knowledge and teacher as design consultant. In the article; “Theories and Practices of Multimodal Education: The Instructional Dynamics of Picture Books and Primary Classrooms”, authors Dawnene D. Hassett and Jen Scott Curwood posits the idea that that teachers’ and students’ interactions with the characters, plots, and visuals of interactive children’s books can highlight new shifts in literacy learning. They suggest an approach that is multimodal. To them, a multimodal approach in the classroom can be a source of creativity for both teachers and students because it focuses on the combination of text, audio and image as individual modes and how these can be creatively combined to produce meaning, encourage interaction and learning in the classroom. Furthermore, as Siegel noted, “language arts education can no longer ignore the way that our social, cultural, and economic worlds now require facility with texts and practices involving the full range of representational modes.” To me, this approach to teaching and learning is exceptional because teachers combine two or more multimodal learning modes to provide a well-rounded educational experience. They help their students to construct knowledge through the use of pointed questions and open ended questions. Since school environments have diverse student populations with a wide variety of learning styles, a multimodal approach helps each student achieve academic success in their own way.

Week 6 Assignment #2.2 Edmodo in the classroom

       Write a paragraph on how ELA teachers can use Edmodo to enhance their ELA instruction. 

          In this day and age of smartphones, apps, social media, and always-connected devices, students are having a harder and harder time keeping their focus on their teachers. Yet the idea of 21st century learning is encouraged and deemed necessary, a tool like Edmodo is great for digital natives. It is a safe environment where both students and teachers can learn across all areas. This platform is based around groups with a common interest or purpose, such as a classroom learning community. It provides a secure and private environment since, the administrator or teacher is the one who invites the members of the group. This controls who can and cannot interact with the members of the group. The thing I like about Edmodo is that instead of teachers competing for their students' attention, they can engage them with real conversations through the devices and interfaces they’re already familiar with.

        Edmodo can be incorporated into the ELA classrooms in a variety of ways to enhance instruction and elevate the learning experience. It can be used to consolidate all of classroom activities in one place. The teacher can post assignments, allow students to take quizzes, create polls for students to respond, and provide links for useful information. Moreover, the teacher can facilitate project based learning in his/her classroom by leveraging Edmodo’s small-group feature, or he/she could use Edmodo badges to help motivate students to push their learning and increase their practice time on new topics. Also, he/she can enable students to tap into individualism and build self-esteem by sharing their writing projects with each other in Edmodo or they can help students understand key historical and literacy events by reenacting them through role playing activities in Edmodo.

Week 6 Assignment # 2.1 Response to Articles

Assignment 2.1 Read the two articles Middle School Science Teachers’ Confidence and Pedagogical Practices of New Literacies and Using Social Networking Sites to Enhance Teaching and Learning in the Science Classroom and share your Reader Response. 

    The two articles; Middle School Science Teachers’ Confidence and Pedagogical Practices of New Literacies and Using Social Networking Sites to Enhance Teaching and Learning in the Science Classroom were very eye opening to me. Prior to reading these articles new literacies seemed to be geared at English Language Arts but I was astonished to see that they can actually be used to enhance or facilitate inquiry learning on many levels, as well as they can provide new strategies for presenting the nature of science in the classrooms. As a science teacher in the elementary classroom I am excited with the idea of learning strategies and techniques that will enhance my students inquiry skills. I believe that when teachers engage students in the scientific inquiry process, they can actively develop their understanding of science but when they incorporate new literacies in the classroom the Science lesson takes on a new meaning and come to life like the example unit on Humans Impact on the living environment. 

     The other thing that really stood out to me was the teachers ability to use new literacies in the science classroom. I usually like to incorporate videos, Powerpoints etc into my science lesson but to me I feel limited in what I can and cannot do. However, I believe that school administrators and curriculum directors needs see the interconnectedness of new literacies and scientific literacy. Moreover, they need to increase teacher and student access to technology, provide professional development opportunities to enhance teachers’ ICTs integration skills and design a way to connect teachers’ strong ICTs skills to their classroom practices.

    I totally agree with the article; Using Social Networking Sites to Enhance Teaching and Learning in the Science Classroom. To me, the integration of social networking sites and ICTs provides meaningful ways for teachers to enrich students’ learning experiences and cultivate their new-literacy skills. In our fast paced world students need immediate feedback and motivation, thus enabling social communication and integrating ICTs motivate them in the learning process. Moreover, their opinions and thoughts are valued by their peers in the collaborative discourse and argumentation process within a scientific context.

Week 5 Assignment # 2 Philosophy on Gaming

Philosophy on Gaming and game design.

   To me, teaching and learning is constantly evolving, the content remains the same but the methodology can and has varied over the years. The traditional classroom is no longer meeting the diverse needs of our learners thus the use of gaming can be instrumental. Strategic games improve the functioning of the brain and creates a dynamic that can inspire learners to develop skills and build an emotional connection to learning and subject matter. Moreover, through gaming students can develop their critical thinking skills, creativity, teamwork, and good sportsmanship. They mirror the way the human mind was designed to learn and motivate players to take risks and actions, persevere through failures, set and achieve increasingly difficult goals, and devote attention, time, and effort to acquiring knowledge and skills. Also, the nature and timing of learning activities through gaming can be tailored to the child’s needs and interests.

Week 5 Assignment #1 Scratch Project

Below is the link to my scratch project
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/334634279

Week 4 Assignment # 3 Gaming

Below is the link to my Screencast-o-matic video for the game I chose
https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cq6VlQu6kd