Reflecting on My Personal Learning Theory

This week I am reflecting on the changes to my own personal theory of learning and my ability to effectively and appropriately integrate technology into my classroom. I am realizing that some of my views have been altered, but that others remain fairly constant.

At the onset of this course, I made the following statement regarding my views on learning, "My personal learning theory is that learning is reliant upon students being engaged in the classroom and making connections with new information." Of course I still think that this holds true, but after taking this course, I would like to expand on this idea. Yes, learning is dependent upon students being engaged, but I really feel that the principles of the constructionists and social constructionists are also a crucial part of my personal theory. I can think of no better way to learn and remember something than to dig in and do it. Constructionists call the product of this hands-on approach an artifact. Social constructionists prescribe that students need to interact with others while creating their artifacts. Both of these ideas ring true with me, and I think that both of these ideas will help students make the connections that they need to make to learn.

As I have stated before, I am the computer lab instructor in an elementary school where I teach students in K-5th grades. This makes my situation as far as technology integration a little different from most of my classmates. My entire school year is devoted to technology. (Well, at least the parts not devoted to testing: MAP, STAR, etc.) My biggest struggle is not how to use technology in my class, but how to integrate it with other subjects so that I am not teaching technology in isolation. This is also one of my long-term goals. My students need to have an authentic purpose for the tecnology that we use. To this end, I have decided to make an even stronger effort to plan with other teachers in my school so that the projects in my room reinforce the standards and material being taught in the regular classroom. For instance, I am planning virtual field trip projects with the fifth grade social studies and science teachers so that our students can visit places we would never be able to visit otherwise. This way our students will be able to create episodic memories of their experiences. I plan on extending this to the lower grades this year as well.

Another technology that I plan to incorporate this year is cognitive mapping. I want to teach the students in my lab to use tools such as spinscape and Kidspiration (which we have, but is not being used) so that they can create visuals to take advantage of Paivio's dual codong theory, but I also want to teach my fellow teachers to do this so that they can use it in their classes on their Smartboards. I just see this as being so useful in the regular classrooms, and I think my peers will, too, once they are introduced to it.

Perhaps the technology that I am most excited about is Voicethread. I am already working with our art teacher to create an online gallery of student artwork using this tool. We will post this gallery on our school website, just like I post the podcasts of our Principal's Pride Writing winners each month. I can't wait for the students to share about what they have learned in completing their art projects instead of just having "pretty pictures" to show to our community. I think the students and community will be excited about this as well. Voicethread has other possibilities, too. I want to use it to have students share projects thay have completed in their classrooms and to collaborate on problems they are trying to solve. With guidance, I think this technology could be used with even the younger students in my school. The trick will be to interest their teachers in it so that they will collaborate with me.

I guess this leads into one of my biggest long-term goals. I want to show my fellow teachers what technologies are available to them and help them integrate these into their classrooms. I can do this first of all by modeling the technologies with the students in my lab. I think that once the teachers see what can be accomplished with technology, they will want to use it too. I can show them what the students are doing in the lab by asking them to allow the students to share their projects on the Smartboards in their classrooms. I can also offer professional development at my school or dsitrict on using these tools. I am also willing to give up my planning time to help my fellow teachers if they need assistance.

One last long-term goal that I would like to mention, and perhaps my toughest challenge, is to do a much better job of using technology with my kindergarteners. Most of them cannot read yet and they are so young with such short attention spans that one 55 minute block of computer lab time each week is just not ideal. I would love to have their lab time broken down into two shorter segments, but since this is not going to happen, I need to think of other solutions. I have never taught kindergarten before, and last year I spent entirely too much time on Starfall with a little Word and Paint and a few other websites in the mix. I need to find other activities and projects for them to complete in my lab, and herein lies my challenge. Where do I find these activites? Everything I seem to find online is for older students or doesn't fit well into a lab setting. I think my answer is to begin building a network of other educators who teach computer skills to kindergarteners. A wiki would be a good place to compile and share our ideas. Another idea would be to share bookmarks through Delicious. I certainly hope that I can get some help in teaching these littlest members of my school.

I have learned so much through this course, and I am excited to share with my students and peers. It is amazing what is available out there for us to reach our students and help them learn if we are just willing to take a chance and try it. I think I will give it a try.