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Slide Notes

Created for EDEL 545, Summer 2014 by Jennine Poirier (1144179)

This presentation describes my vision for the future of education at the present tim, from an elementary classroom teacher's perspective.

It is my opinion that education should be meaningful, engaging, authentic, challenging, and dynamic. It is up to educators to create these learning opportunities for their students. The following slides demonstrate some of the ways that teachers can revolutionize their practice and provide educational opportunities for our 21st century learners. Each slide represents a piece of my vision for what I see as the classroom of the future.

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My Vision for the Future

Published on Nov 23, 2015

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

My Vision for the Future

Jennine Poirier
Created for EDEL 545, Summer 2014 by Jennine Poirier (1144179)

This presentation describes my vision for the future of education at the present tim, from an elementary classroom teacher's perspective.

It is my opinion that education should be meaningful, engaging, authentic, challenging, and dynamic. It is up to educators to create these learning opportunities for their students. The following slides demonstrate some of the ways that teachers can revolutionize their practice and provide educational opportunities for our 21st century learners. Each slide represents a piece of my vision for what I see as the classroom of the future.

1:1 Technology

Giving every student the tools
In today's world, students' lives are often filled with constant access digital technologies. There is a wide body of research available that suggests that by integrating technology into education, students will be engaged and eager to learn. Ideally, as education continues to advance towards the goal of creating 21st century learners, all students will have access to 1:1 technology.

Having the opportunity to implement a 1:1 program creates a wide range of benefits for students in the classroom. Pettyman, et al. (2012) write that students developed creativity, innovation, collaboration, communication, creative thinking, problem solving, literacy, and fluency with tools and information through the use of 1:1 technology (p. 7).

Storz & Hoffman (2013) list some of the many benefits of 1:1, including
*more small group and individualized instruction
*hands on, interactive instructions
*provides an outlet for creativity, which increases motivation and engagement
*more individualized learning and student autonomy
*more innovative, engaging instructional approaches (p.7).

Dunn (2012) wrote on Edudemic that 1:1 helps make learning more "real" for students. He listed that it allowed students to write for real audiences, to work on real areas of need, and eliminated the isolation of skills.

1:1 RESOURCES:
The video below, which I created, describes some of the benefits of 1:1 technology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfsEBDmTQWQ

Another resource for 1:1 technology is this site -1 to 1 Technology- which was created by our group for EDEL 545. It contains a wealth of resources on the topic.

https://sites.google.com/a/ualberta.ca/1-to-1-technology/home




Photo by Toastwife

Gamification

Engaging students using games and game features
Games have incredible educational potential in terms of hooking learners and providing authentic contexts for learning in the classroom. They also provide us with "epic" learning experiences. This leads to student buy in and promotes learning in a way that makes sense to students.

*McGonigal (2011) writes that "game design isn't just a technological craft. It's a 21st century way of thinking and learning" (loc. 294). Schools that have turned their pedagogy towards games have "result[ed] in a learning environment where students get to share secret knowledge, turn their intellectual strengths into superpowers, tackle epic challenges, and fail without fear" (McGonigal, 2011, loc. 2203).

Games in education can also be non-digital, and be about using games to "deliver instructional content" (Farber, 2013). Some game elements that Farber describes using in his classroom include badges for checkpoints along the way, and leaderboards to provide feedback, which is "an integral part of game-base learning" (2013).

GAMIFICATION/GAME-BASED LEARNING RESOURCES

This is a great infograph on gamification in education
http://www.knewton.com/gamification-education/

TED talk on gamification in life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2N-5maKZ9Q

Sites for creating badges
http://www.classbadges.com/

Design packs for creating games in the classroom from Institute of Play
http://www.instituteofplay.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/IOP_QDesignPack_G...

Google "Helpout" where the speaker discusses how he gamified biology
https://helpouts.google.com/114396090672772207839/ls/aa35060e1531ede7

Maker Movement

Joining the creation revolution
Now that students are gaining unprecedented access to computers and other technological devices, the potential to create content rather than just absorbing information is coming to the forefront of education. This is being referred to as the maker movement.

Pettyman et al. (2012) highlight that there is a shift, where students are no longer consumers of knowledge, rather they are "creators of knowledge whose curiosity about the world contributes to their capacity to develop as 21st century learners"

Martinez & Stager (2014) discuss the learning revolution that has been coined the "Maker Movement". They write that "Children of all ages can use tools to move from passive receivers of knowledge to real-world makers in their own right. This has the potential to completely revolutionize education as we know it" (p. 13). They also say that "Classrooms that celebrate the process of design and making, which includes overcoming challenges, produce students who start to believe they can solve any problem" (p. 13).

Gary Stager, in an online post (Winter, 2014) wrote that "The shift to "making" represents the perfect storm of new technological materials, expanded opportunities, learning through firsthand experience, and the basic human impulse to create. It offers the potential to make classrooms more child-centered: relevant and more sensitive to each child's remarkable capacity for intensity"

Challenging students to make something provides a vast number of educational benefits. While it doesn't have to be technology based, I see the potential that technology provides for creating as part of the learning process, and why I see the maker movement as part of my vision for education.


RESOURCES
This TED talk discusses the notion of maker spaces.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uIXJclJE2Y

This is an incredible presentation created by a group of fellow classmates for EDEL 545. It is full of information and resources
http://hernbergm.wix.com/maker-movement

A site for creating stories, games and animations
http://scratch.mit.edu/

An app where students can create their own levelled video games
http://projectpixelpress.com/



Blended Learning

The best of both worlds
With the increasing access to technology, the idea of creating a classroom where the learning happens across both the physical classroom and its digital spaces is really appealing. Ideally, it allows students to access work at their own pace, allowing for more autonomy and individualization of learning for all students in the classroom. When used properly, I see huge potential for blended classroom environments.

What is blended learning? The authors of the Te@chthought blog share this explanation of blended learning from Education Elements, who explain that "successful blended learning occurs when technology and teaching inform each other: material becomes dynamic when it reaches students of varying learning styles. In other words, hybrid classrooms on the Internet can reach and engage students in a truly customizable way" (The definition of blended learning, para. 2, 2013)

There are many different ways that teachers can create blended learning spaces. Agosto et al. (2013) write that "blogs provide a 'middle space' between online and traditional classroom settings, making them useful tools to assess course-level blended educational delivery (103). Other possibilities include creating classroom websites, using Google Classroom, Moodle or Edmodo.

A blended classroom provides the perfect space to engage students in participatory reading and remixing of texts as described in Jenkins & Kelley (2013). Since working and learning in an online environment will be natural to students in a blended classroom, projects of these nature should create valuable learning opportunities to students.

RESOURCES

Youtube videos on blended learning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD8AUfGsCKg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xMqJmMcME0
Photo by Joybot

Safe online practices

Teaching students to be reflective of their  digital footprints
As students engage in online activities both at school and at home, it will be essential for teachers to ensure that they are making students aware that their online activities can have long-term consequences. Teaching students to be cognizant of their digital footprint is necessary if teachers plan on using online tools in their classrooms successfully, and is an important part of the future of education.

Boyd (2014) writes that "Developing wisdom requires active learning. Teens acquire many technical skills through extensive experimentation with social media and curiosity driven exploration" (loc. 3208). This means that our students will learn digital safety through actually utilizing the technologies and various forms of social media

In the classroom, social media should be integrated and used appropriately to help students learn about their digital footprint in an authentic and meaningful way. I believe that teachers need to also educate themselves, and then in turn help create safe digital citizens.

RESOURCES

This fantastic site was created by a fellow group of classmates for EDEL 545. It contains information and resources on digital citizenship

http://digitalcitizenshipgroup8.weebly.com

This video explains to students what a digital footprint is in good language for elementary students

http://youtu.be/4P_gj3oRn8s

This youtube video highlights how easy it is to find traces of your digital activities. This would be worthwhile to show students, although it is slightly corny.

http://www.teachthought.com/technology/dangers-social-media-teens/

Digitally Literate

21st century leaners that are
As we continue to increase the amount of time students are spending interacting with digital media and technology, it is essential that we are ensuring that students are becoming digitally literate. These skills don't necessarily come naturally to students, although this is a common assumption. In the future of education, this will need to be a priority for teachers.

The Aspen Institute Task Force on Learning on the Internet writes that digital literacy is "the fluency in the use and security of digital tools and searchable networks. This literacy includes the ability to use them safely and effectively for learning, collaborating, and producing" (2014, p. 72).

They also outlined several competencies of digital literacy, which include:
**Accessing-finding and using technology tools skillfully and sharing appropriate and relevant information with others.
**Analyzing & Evaluating- using critical thinking to analyze the quality, credibility and point of view of information
**Creating- creating content that demonstrates an awareness of the audience and purpose
**Reflecting- on communication behaviour and conduct
**Acting- sharing knowledge and solving problems both individually and collaboratively
(p. 74).

It is important that teachers know what it means to be digitally literate and provide students with opportunities to learn these key skills. As educators, it is our responsibility to make them competent and intellectual users if we are expecting them to use digital tools and technologies meaningfully in our classrooms.
Photo by seanmcgrath

Unplugging

Importance of Balance
Although technology is an important teaching and learning tool, educators must also remember that it is important to find balance.

In his book, Carr presents the idea that the internet is causing people to become shallow thinkers, who are unable to “think deeply or creatively” (2010, p. 115), who lack concentration (2010, p. 2), and who require information to be delivered to them “in short, disjointed, often overlapping bursts- the faster, the better (2010, p. 5). Whether one fully believes his arguments or not, it is hard to disagree with the idea of taking time away from devices, where students get a chance to "unplug".

Carr also presents the notion that it is important to spend time outside, in nature. He explains to the reader that, '"In sum' concluded the researchers, 'simple and brief interactions with nature can produce marked increases in cognitive control'" (loc. 3589). Teachers should try to provide students with chances to leave the classroom and get outside.

As education goes forward, I see this being a crucial consideration for teachers.
Photo by spiritokko

Authentic Learning

Writing for authentic audiences
Gone are the days where students write solely for their teacher to read and assess their work. Students today have the opportunity to use technology to post their work online for a wider audience to read. This authentic audience can be engaging, motivational, and provide a meaningful context for writing for students.

Nancy Blair (2012), wrote an article about how educators need to create a new vision for the role of technology in the classroom, where she talks about authentic audiences. She said that "By using technological resources to establish authentic audiences for student work, we tell students that their work is worth seeing, worth reading, and worth doing" . She also writes about how technology can provide students with a GLOBAL audience (Nancy Blair, 2012).

Boksz (2014), in an article on virtual collaboration, outlined that, "Writing for an authentic audience did wonders for the students’ writing. They were more careful and concerned about their words"

Chen & Brown (2012) conducted research on the role writing for authentic audiences played in helping ESL learners with their English. They wrote that, "the authenticity of the tasks increased student interest in writing because the audience abstraction associated with more traditional assignments was removed. They were able to see their work as purposeful and began developing meaningful identities as writers" (p.445)

All of these examples detail why I feel that writing for real audiences needs to be a priority in our classrooms going forward. Students will find a new purpose for their writing. There are many platforms for students to share their writing with a more global audience, including blogs, twitter, classroom sites, sharing google docs, posting to forums and discussions, along with countless other ways.

Collaborative & Global Learners

Breaking the boundaries of the classroom walls
In our global society, there is an increased significance being placed on the ability to work collaboratively with others. New technologies are expanding these opportunities in the classroom, allowing teachers and students to collaborate with people from across the globe. Various online programs allow students to collaborate not only with classroom peers, but students and experts around the world. Teachers should be providing students with opportunities to collaborate and extend their learning beyond the walls of their classroom. In the future of education, I don't see learning being confined by physical barriers.

Agosto, Copeland & Zach (2013) discuss some of the benefits of collaboration in the classroom. In their article they relay how collaboration leads to increases in academic achievement, retention, and attitudes in students (p. 95). They also note that, "Providing exposure to social technologies does not in itself ensure collaboration and community building. Not only must appropriate technologies be selected, they must be integrated into the teaching/learning environment...in ways that support the desired student behaviors and learning outcomes" (Agosto et al., 2013,p. 105)

Alberta Education released their framework for student learning in 2011, and within this framework they list competencies for 21st century learners. Two of these competencies include "collaboration and leadership" and "social responsibility and cultural, global and environmental awareness" (Alberta Education, 2011, p. 4-5).
As the province works towards reworking the curriculum, these skills will be fundamentally important for 21st century students.
Photo by /\ \/\/ /\

Teachers

Are important too
All of the previous slides detail amazing ideas with the potential to revolutionize education as we know it. However, change won't be possible without teachers who are willing to get on board and join the journey. This will mean schools and administrators will have to support teachers who don't feel comfortable with the tools or skills that are necessary to teach using these techniques. It will also be important to ensure that professional development teaches not only how to use the tools, but how to use them to teach the curriculum.

Storz & Hoffman (2013) touch on this point. From their research, they discovered that teachers require professional development that is focused on integrating the technology into their instruction, with less of a focus on actually learning how to use the tools themselves (Storz & Hoffman, 2013, p. 13).

Mote, Kafai & Burke (2013-14) wrote an article about using online competitions and collaboration to inspire engagement. Near the end of their piece, they made a crucial point, saying that, "Administrators and technology leaders must also provide opportunities for teachers to gain the skills to become even more successful through individualized professional development and common planning time" (Mote et al. 2013-14, p.20).

Their comments touch on an important fact: Administrators need to be on board for teachers to be able to change their practice, and it needs to be a school wide push.

Professional Development

Geared towards teacher's needs
In order for my vision to be realized, professional development (PD) needs to change. Below are a few alternatives to traditional PD that will transform educators into 21st century learners themselves.

Playdates-
Educators created the idea of this alternative PD format. Reich quotes Sockalosky & Magiera (2013) who explain that "The concept is to invite educators from around the area to join together on one day, sit in a room for a few hours and dig more deeply into these tools. We will collaborate with one another to explore functionality, application in our learning environments and experiment. There are no presenters in the room, no experts and no agenda. Simply time to play, tinker, and explore" (Reich, 2013, What is PLAYDATE2013).

This is the Playdate website. There are so many resources posted on the site for educators to explore.
https://sites.google.com/site/playdatechicago13/home


A.J. Juliana writes about gamifying professional development for teachers . He discusses how he is collaborating with another educator to flip their district PD, and also make it game based using missions, badges and a leaderboard. He said that, "This idea of flipped PD, learning pathways, badges, and leader boards are going to be completely new to most of the people in our schools", but he hoped that people would be willing to try it out. The link to the article is below:

http://ajjuliani.com/gamify-professional-development-school/

Staci Stanfield (2013/14) writes that for schools hoping to include new technologies, there are several things that schools can do. The first involves paring tech-savvy teachers with those who are less tech-savvy during staff training to build a support system amongst teachers at the school. The second is creating a school blog where teachers can share their technology experiences with other teachers at the school. Third, schools need to create a climate where innovation is valued and encouraged, and failure is seen as a learning opportunity. (p.34-35).

Educators are going to have to take initiative to become connected educators- using Twitter, blogs and other social media to find and share resources and knowledge, any time and any place. We want our students to be active participants in shaping their learning, and so it is important that as educators we practice what we preach.

Professional learning communities- teachers are going to need to look outside the walls of the classroom and the school and become global educators. This means creating learning communities that extend beyond the barriers of our school.

At the end of the day, the standard model of professional development isn't going to be effective if we want technology integration to be fully realized in our schools. Different approaches are going to need to be taken. If teachers are willing to act as agents of change, I am certain that many key points of my vision will come to fruition.
Photo by stefanweihs

Implications

No vision comes without sacrifice
As education continues to transform, there needs to be systematic changes to the way we view the role of education. We need to see the classroom with the student at the centre, driving their own learning. It is not going to be easy to convince teachers who are reluctant to embrace technology to change their practice. Hopefully, the evidence available on the benefits of technology and digital media will help change their perspective, and encourage them to take on the challenge.

Many of my ideas require the presence of technology, such as computers, iPads, laptops etc. All of this costs money. I am aware that some of my ideas will not be able to be realized by all teachers because of technology restraints they may have due to budgets etc. These teachers will have to turn to other strategies such as "Bring your own device". No two classrooms are the same, and so I realize that my vision needs to be flexible as well.

At the end of the day, teaching and learning requires a balance. While I love technology and all of the incredible learning it creates in the classroom, I worry about teachers taking it overboard, and forgetting about the curriculum they are required to teach. Harris & Hofer (2011) suggest that there needs to be a focus on not only enhancing technological knowledge, but also pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge. As we move forward towards our goal of creating 21st century learners, I think that this is critically important to remember. We want to enhance students' learning, not detract from it.

Educators who want to see these changes are going to have to take initiative at their schools and become leaders. They will have to be willing to commit time, energy & resources to helping their colleagues learn these new 21st century skills and transform their practice. Also, they will have to work collaboratively with their administration. There will be technical issues to resolve with the computer technicians at the schools, network issues, parental concerns, and many more obstacles to face and overcome. However, I truly believe that the sacrifices are worth the reward, and that our students will thank us for providing them with a meaningful education.
Photo by chrismar

Reflection
&
References

Below is the link to my reflection for this assignment

http://goo.gl/UGmbqM

This is a full list of my references and resources from this presentation

http://goo.gl/JEd42U


Why this Project?

This Project was completed for EDEL 545 in the summer of 2014, and it was our Vision for the Future.

*It challenged me to think about where I think education is heading, and how I, as an educator can prepare myself and students for this future
*It made me reflect on the ever changing nature of education, and how as educators, we need to look towards the future if we want our students to be successful once they leave the classroom. We need to grow, change and adapt our practices.
Photo by Mrs4duh

My Future Professional Learning Goals

To continue the quest for knowledge and understanding to help me be the best educator I can be. To use the skills and resources I have acquired from my program and continue to apply them to my daily practice. To use research and evidence to back up my pedagogical choices.
Photo by Mylla

Questions I am Considering

Now that I have reached the end of my Program
*How can I share my knowledge with colleagues and continue to push education forward in my school
*Where do I go from here? Where will my educational journey take me now that my masters is completed?
*How can I continue to learn and grow as a professional outside of a formal classroom setting?

My Professional Practice

How has it changed as a result of my program?
*Research based decisions
*Realize the importance of curriculum and pedagogy in quality education
*Focus more on inquiry and meaningful learning for students
*Challenge myself to back up my choices
*Realize the value of collaboration and professional networks. Will continue to
Photo by Nanagyei

Thank-you!

Photo by Jeremy Brooks

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