RSS in Education Lesson Plan

RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a new term for me, but it was one I was excited to hear about.  On the video on our class site in Moodle, the gentleman in the video talks about the wasted time we spend going to individual websites or blogs to check for updated information.  I had to laugh, because that person is, wait no, WAS me!  I did just that daily!  Learning about RSS and the website, feedly, was very exciting for me, and will hopefully save me enormous amounts of time.

When I first began thinking about this assignment, I had a very difficult time trying to figure out how to make feedly work in a fourth grade classroom.  Until I realized that my students can do more with technology than I have given them credit for.   Just this week, we began using Google Classroom during our math time, and the students have soared.  They are learning at their own pace, learning more than they were before, are more engaged than I have ever seen them, and are having FUN!

I honestly don’t know right now how I could improve this lesson without diving in and trying it with my fourth graders.  We do have curriculum maps that we have to follow, so I won’t be able to try this lesson immediately.  We are scheduled to do informative texts during our second quarter, which starts the beginning of November.  I will be trying this lesson then!  I will be sure to let you all know how it goes, and make any adjustments that may be needed.

Below is the link to my lesson plan in Google Doc.

https://docs.google.com/a/u.boisestate.edu/document/d/1n5d7JS7YR-xKs4OPYmzI95QyEXkdgXxj4NRrFREcP6w/edit?usp=sharing

Code of Professional Ethics in Educational Technology

I have to be honest.  When I first saw that we were studying a chapter and focusing on professional ethics, I was not real excited.  I thought, “Do we really need to study this?  Isn’t it just common sense?”  Looking back on my thoughts, I cannot help but think of something one of my favorite teachers said to me: “Common sense is not that common.”  This statement is so true.

When I really dived into chapter eleven in our book, “Educational Technology: A Definition with Commentary,” it made me really think about these ethics and specifically how they apply to technology.  I have always followed a code of ethics as a teacher, but have never really put a lot of thought into applying those codes directly to technology until now.  When I reflect on the situation in my community that I wrote about, I have realized that these codes of ethics are interlaced in the situation.  I felt like one code was being met, while another code was not being met.  As educators, we must work hard and be very thoughtful about all of the codes.  We need to make sure that while meeting one code, we are not violating another code.  Each code should be thought about and addressed equally.

Here is the link to my paper, “Too Much Technology?”  on Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16PoJ4WWxS_fqpMadnc6DteLbAiiJMQQ_3bQXG8DK0WE/edit?usp=sharing.

EDTECH Definition Graphic

I used the online program, Tagxedo, to create this graphic showing the definition of Educational Technology.  I chose a hand to display all of the words that stuck out to me that correlate with educational technology.  One of the biggest pieces of the definition that stuck out to me was the shift from teacher-centered to learner-centered.  We are truly placing more of the learning into our students’ hands, thus the hand graphic.  This is something I still struggle with as a teacher and am working on continually.  I do not want to just hand them answers.  I want them to discover them, even if it’s a slow process to get there.  Another word that kept jumping out at me was evolving.  Technology is constantly changing and evolving, and we must change with it.  It is so easy to find something that works at the time and continue doing that same thing without ever changing it.  However, this is unrealistic in our world.  As a teacher, I need to be ever evolving just as the technology we are using is ever evolving.

Reference:

Januszewski, A., & Molenda, M. (Eds.)(2008). Educational technology: A definition with commentary. NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group