November 28, 2010

This is my last blog. The latest e-mails from the ITFORUM listserve caught my attention. It was the registration for the On Demand FETC Virtual Conference and Expo, which is available until the end of January 2011. I have been listening to a couple of the presentations and am very impressed that these are free. One lecture, near and dear to my heart is "Professional Development in a Web 2.0 World" by Meg Ormiston. I have just presented on Personalized Professional Learning Network (P2LN). This term is my own original twist to the PLN that is currently a buzz word in the tech world. I have been avoiding Twitter as much as possible but she has convinced me why I need to use it for professional development. I knew many people used it but I am sold on using it. I use Twitter for those few gifted specialists who want the latest information and do not want to wait for the FoG (Friends of Gifted) e-newletter to come out. The hardest part is that Twitter is blocked at work now. I will continue to subscribe to this listerve as part of my P2LN. Thank you for requiring this listserve!There has been  a lot of information to help me grow and learn as I continue my journey in Instructional Technology!

I also want to thank you for using Camtasia and telling us about this screencasting software. I have purchased it and am using it to provide online classes for gifted specialists across the state. This program was an answer to my prayers in how to put a PowerPoint presentation on Moodle- in sections with my voice discussing those sections.

November 21, 2010

I have found the enthusiasm and the participation in the weekly discussions on the ITFORUM overwhelming. Just when I am ready to read and participate, they are moving to a new topic. The main discussion lately have revolved around the following

“Designing instruction approaches the subject domain from the vantage point of the facilitator who will "instruct," whereas designing "learning" is from the vantage point of the learner's experience. With that said, a good Instructional Designer will take both needs into account” Dallas

I think this is very important for all of us to consider as we begin our journey in the doctoral program. We must consider our audience and the learning experiences we provide. While it may be easy to design a course based on the teaching style of the facilitator, facilitators need to step out of their comfort zones to include styles of all earners in their courses. Yes, I will add that learning styles can and should be taken into consideration to help student learn to their best ability. Easily we can provide visual and audio, materials, like screenshot movies (Camtasia), group discussions and group work, and individual work or combinations of group and individual activities from which learners may choose.

November 5, 2010

I am amazed at the resources readily shared and made available to members. It can be quite overwhelming with the papers, ebooks, and web links. This is one of the most active listserves to which I belong.

I belong to several ISTE special interest groups. The Innovative Learning group asked for volunteers to review proposals for the 2011 conference. I volunteered and was selected. I had to read through five proposals and evaluate them based on the rubric provided. It took me two days to complete this online process. Several of the proposals sounded good but ISTE standards were not connected to them or the projects sounded like they were just starting. I wish I could attend this conference but I am restricted to one  out-of-state conference per year. I plan to participate with the listserves more frequently and would like to attend the free webinars provided through ISTE and the networks. Teachers can find high quality professional development from their professional organizations through listserves, webinars, and courses any time of the year and online!

October 22, 2010

This is my conference blog. One of the listserves I have joined is the Innovative Learning Technologies Community of ISTE. They have been soliciting everyone to send articles in for the newsletter. While I do not feel confident enough to do that, I did volunteer and was accepted to review proposals for the Annual ISTE conference in 2011. I have 5 proposals to evaluate online. I am excited about the topics, too. 

Speaking of conference, I am preparing for the Annual Conference of the National Association for Gifted Children. I am presenting Surfin' the Gifted Wave: Developing a Personal Online Network, or P2LN- Personalized professional Learning Network. I plan to share what the ALSDE is doing with gifted specialists and coordinators across the state, including the many webinars for gifted and general education teachers. Then I will show them what is out there for free from various organizations and how they can develop their own P2LN.

Lastly, I am preparing the gifted strand for MEGAConference. One day- morning and afternoon sessions, we will have 21st century technology hands-on activities for teachers. We did this last year and it was a huge success. We hope to take it a step further this year. I had Cassie Raulston come in to do this presentation, but this year my budget is cut even more. I plan to co-present with our Technology in Motion people and use their equipment. 

The next few weeks will be VERY busy!

October 2, 2010

I had posted to the ITFORUM discussion of "Education Nation" on 9/28/10. Everyone was adding their thoughts to what is wrong with the educational systems. Many posted ideas on money, parental involvement, policies, lack of administration, etc. I added a post about the gifted students being left behind. I have copied it to this post below. I was very disappointed that no one commented-even in a negative way. It took me three days before I added this post, because I was taking a risk by adding a controversial comment and was prepared to defend my stand. To my surprise there was no comment. I guess I am not worthy or those who read it (if they did) didn't even consider it worth their time to even comment. Is this another indication of the anti-intellectualism that pervades our society that even university professors (intellectuals) do not even consider worth talking about?

"I believe that one of the problems in our schools is that our focus is only with the low end learners, at the expense of the high end learners; throwing the baby out with the bath water. Please do not misunderstand, I am not against the teachers working with students who have not mastered the content/skills/objectives, but not when the high-end learners are left with nothing to learn. Gifted students enter school with 40-50% of the content already mastered, yet teachers make the students do the previously learned work, fostering underachievement. We must provide for ALL students.

One strategy that is strongly recommended is clustering groping (Gentry, 1999 & 2009). This is an administrative decision to reduce the number of achievement levels within a classroom from six (with varying levels within each level) to three. Teachers can have a better response to instruction, differentiating the lessons/activities/ etc. to meet the needs of all students. This is not tracking because the cluster groups can change each year and there's flexible grouping within each class.

I hope I am preaching to the choir about Gifted. Anti-intellectualism seems to be the predominant theme in the United States. Gifted students have special needs that must be met, just like disability students, in order to learn to their potential: accelerated pacing, and increased depth and complexity in their learning. Gifted students may be gifted in one domain area or in everything or be highly creative. When these students' needs are not met, they can be the worst behavior problems in schools, or just drop out of school. These students are the next professors, teachers, inventors, leaders, etc., and yet we do not provide rigorous curriculum.

Other nations are nurturing their brightest minds to help these students reach their potential. We need to do that too, and not just at the high school level with AP/IB courses. We need to start when the students are in elementary school."

September 25, 2010

September 13, 2010

ITForum was inactive for while but now the discussion on the Prof Herman van der Merwe's paper, "Mobile Learning: Why, how, what," with the author has generated a tremendous amount of traffic on the listserve.  How exciting for the group to post a paper to discuss with each other and the authors! This is a fantastic professional development opportunity. I can also relate to those students with their handheld devices searching through the e-birding guide. I have three e-birding guides on my iPhone (of course, these guides are for birds of North American and the Eastern North America.) These students were not only motivated and actively engaged in their learning by going into the field to study birds but the researchers used tools (technology) that the students love to use. These students are digital natives, although Prof. Merwe considers everyone digital aliens. I am not surprised that the students used the technology in ways other than the researchers had predicted, such as, recording the speaker, and photographing birds and speaker. Students will figure out new uses for the mobile devices, if given the chance.The quality of the student's work increased as a result of using the technology. I agree with the author that "pedagogy and not technology that makes a programme successful." The technology is just a tool, it's what we do with it and the students that makes the difference.

August 30, 2010

I joined ITFORUM on August 15, 2010. I was greatly intimidated when I realized that college professors were posting to this site. I do not feel worthy!  I did respond to a posting by Dr. Bruce Jones (8/16/10) about the free software program, "Nook Study," from Barnes and Noble. He was disappointed in the Nook, e-book reader because it doesn't allow for note-taking. I suggested Nook Study but he thought he could not access it, as a professor. I helped him through the process of registering for it and he was grateful. By helping him, I felt I did have something to contribute to the forum, albeit small, and no longer feel intimidated. Thereafter, the postings on this forum came fast and furious. I felt content to by the observer, reading the postings, as they came in and then deleting them. I look forward to new postings.