Using Technology to Organize your Life

This week we got the opportunity to explore three different websites that help organize your life.  was excited about this assignment because I love to organize things, just look at my planner!

The first website was Google drive, which most people at least know that it exists. While I have had a google powered email since my freshman year in college, I still learned a lot of new features about my google drive. I think Google docs are especially helpful for teachers for their collaborative nature. You can essentially make any type of document, presentation, and spreadsheet, and there is also the feature of being able to collaborate and share on it. Collaborating with colleagues is made easy by the accessibility and intuitive nature of Google docs.

We also looked at an application/website called Evernote. This tool mainly serves to organize your individual life into notebooks, with a variety of notes within each notebook. The function that I liked most about this application is that you can put to-do lists in each notebook. This way you can organize what you have to do by each class or however you choose to arrange your notebooks. Coming from an ultra organized person, this feature brings me a lot of happiness because now I can even organize my to-do lists by class!

Last but not least, we explored how to use Blendspace. This website helps teachers make lesson plans in five minutes by giving templates that teachers can drag and drop online resources into. You can get resources from a variety of places including YouTube, Google, and your very own Google drive :) Also, another important feature of this website is that you can share your lesson plan with others, and look at lesson plans that other teachers have already made.

I had to teach others how to use Blendspace, and I continued to learn about this website as I was telling others how to use it. I think it is really helpful to explain and be able to summarize about a topic in order to become fluent in it. I thought that I knew a lot about Blendspace before I taught about it, but I learned so much more about it based on people's questions. People asked questions about the website that I hadn't even thought to explore. This is something interesting to keep in mind in terms of teaching in a classroom, in that we are continuously going to learn about our content area. The questions of our students are going to force us (in a good way) to continually be doing research in our own field.

To do some research on educational games, I chose to play some games on SuperSaber.com. There were a variety of games that a student could choose to play. The website is for students whose native language is Spanish, not for students learning Spanish. There were a lot of cool things about this gaming site, like there were reoccurring characters in many of the games. Students could get attached the some of the characters like "El Visitante" or "Señor Pi". It also made for a more cohesive website, when students can see the characters in more than one game. The directions were also really easy to follow, and they popped up before every game was played.

However, there were a few things that I found not as helpful on this website. I didn't like that the games were so short. In most of the games there were only a few questions, so it could be that once a student gets used to the game, it is over. Also, it was not clear to me what the exact age range these games were meant for. Many of the games were pretty basic like "What do animals eat?". In this game a character encountered various animals and the gamer had to pick if they ate meat, plants or insects. However, there were also games with multiple digit addition and multiplication.

I think that overall the website is a fun place for younger students to play educational games. I think that it could be a productive tool, but at the same time I think the website needs to add more games or more dimensions to some of the games. I think students could play all of the games in like an hour, judging by the website now. It would be cool to see more levels added on to some of the games, and have each level increase in difficulty. Some of the games do this, but on the more basic games it would be cool to see more complexity in adding more levels. Overall this website is a lot more useful for younger students than students in high school.

While I do think this website should not be used for students that are native spanish speakers in high school, I do think this could be a fun website for high school students that are learning spanish. Students can practice their spanish because in order to know how to play the game, they have to read the instructions in spanish. Also, some of the games are simple enough content wise, that while they are working hard to understand the spanish, they don't have to work as hard to come up with the answer. It could be a really cool, interactive and more hands on way to practice spanish. Students wouldn't be consciously thinking that they are practicing spanish because they would be doing it through playing a computer game.

Smarter Balance Assessments- Technology in Testing

Through an activity that we did in class today it brought up many issues about standardized tests and how they are administered. In the activity, people had to write a short essay following a standardized test's prompt. Some people were given restrictions, like they could only type with one finger, and others had no restrictions. At first I thought the restrictions were just a metaphor for some students coming in better prepared for standardized tests than others. This is true and applicable because some students go to schools where they are given practice tests, and have better teachers, while others do not. Some students are going to go into these tests knowing the content better than others. So while what I was thinking was true, the restrictions are also literal examples of what some students might have difficulty with. Some students are coming into these tests not knowing how to use computers that well, let alone being able to type proficiently.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment is an online assessment tool that helps students gain proficiency in different content areas. Since it is solely based on the computer, as mentioned before it gives some students a head start compared to others.  The increasing amount of standardized tests being on the computer automatically gives students that are experienced with computers the upper hand. These students normally relate to students with good, reliable resources. The students that really do need help in gaining proficiencies, most likely do not have access to reliable computers or can competently navigate them. This is just perpetuating and increasing the gap between high performing schools and low performing schools. These assessments are assuming that using the computer is a basic skill, when for many students it is not.

This being said, there are definitely some positives to the Smarted Balanced Assessments. Since it works as a cumulative approach, it assesses students fairly and on the level of proficiency that they currently are. I think this is really amazing, in that these tests can personalize to the needs of every student. This is really helpful because it assess the student to provide them with challenges, but not so that the questions are impossible. Also, while the variety of ways to respond to the question can be challenging for some students, at the same time, it provides students with examples of what they may encounter. It helps students be prepared for different types of questions, and how they should respond. This variety, also helps students that think differently and are better at certain questions.

There is no answer to how much technology should be incorporated into testing. There are definitely positives, in that technology can provide many different types of questions, and assistance to many different levels of proficiency. I think there are many negatives as well because it just adds to the achievement gap between schools with resources and schools without. It is important to change with the times, and incorporate technology in the classroom, but not everything has to have a technological component. I think testing is one thing in the classroom that is better done on paper. I find it really hard to read off of split screens and go in between different windows in order to do a test. I think this requires a lot of mental effort, and so I can't spend as much mental energy on the actual questions. For me tests, including standardized assessments, are better done in the old-fashioned way- on paper.

John Dewey's Pedagogic Creed

I think that John Dewey's view on education is very applicable in today's society even though it was written over 100 years ago. Much of what is wrong today, is that public education is not seen as a good education. We are losing our faith in public education, so that we cannot see it is a vehicle for social change. Public education is at the very roots of democracy because in it's ideal form is an equalizer, but this is not the case in reality. Dewey does a good job in describing how school is more than just about schooling.

The school today is very content focused, as seen in the increased importance being put on standardized tests. Teachers can lose their jobs if their students do not perform well on these tests. I think with this, we lose the other side of education and teaching. We forget that educators are there to make whole, happy students, not just students who can do well on tests. In John Dewey's Pedagogic Creed, he emphasizes the importance of the social aspect in school. This is the main thing that jumped out at me because judging by the structure of schools, that aspect is not accentuated in today's public schools. When describing what a school is, Dewey focuses on forming future citizens and making them instrumental pieces in social change. During this section he doesn't focus on students being able to do algebra, but that they should have good morals and be able to function as a part of society. I think this is put in the foreground of our education system because it is so focused on learning content in terms of English, Math, Science, etc. Content is also very important, but it cannot be the only focus.

John Dewey says, "I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living". I think this statement is a radical thing to say at this time in our education system. Schools are so focused on getting students ready to take tests and college that they don't make school a part of their life. School is seen as a means to an end. You have to go to school so that you can get a good job, and support your family. While teaching students, that going to college is a great goal to have, it also needs to be clear that middle and high school are important parts of their lives as well.

Dewey sees school more as a place where children form their identities, and not just for schooling. Normally this is what happens regardless of whether or not this is emphasized, but students don't make it part of their current life. Schooling needs to become more of a part of the present, and not so much as a way to their future. It is almost like we are in constant preparation for our life to start. The attitude of living in the present should start in schools.

 "I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth" - John Dewey

He places the very huge responsibility of social change on the shoulders of educators and schools. He does place this enormous feat on educators, and at the same time he respects and admires the work that teachers do as well. Dewey puts the profession of teachers on a very high level; he sees teachers as being the instruments to help solve world problems. I agree with this. I think that we have public education as a way to equalize society in that anyone can be successful. While currently this is not the case, with education reform and the new movements to help urban schools, I think eventually it could ensure equity. We educate children so that they can make positive changes to society because they are our future.