Article SummariesShauna Sanders

FRIT 8530Summer 2010

Bell, M. A. (2010). What kids know (and don’t know) about technology. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 17(1), 39-42.

Professional Practice Article

Summary:The author of the article wanted to find out if her beliefs and experiences of what

students know and don’t know when it comes to technology were similar to other’s beliefs. So, the author conducted a survey using surveymonkey and found that many other educators have had the same kinds of experiences with what students do not know when it comes to technology. According to the survey and the author agrees, many students do not completely understand how to conduct a true search on the Internet for information. There were many common errors found among students’ behaviors in using search engines, like typing words directly in the address box and bouncing from one article to the next without finding out if the article is useful or not.

There are also strong concerns about the safety of students when using the Internet. Many young people are willing to try anything and not afraid of anything, many times overlooking their safety. The author of the article goes on to suggest that we as educators need to continue promoting awareness of areas that students need better instruction for both the students and the teachers. She also suggests that there is a greater need to educate our educators on proper ways of teaching safety to students. Many times, educators are also in the dark when it comes to knowing how to be safe on the Internet.

Critical Evaluation:One of my goals for next year as the media specialist is to help our staff and

students become more familiar with online tools that are available to us for free. However, in order for our students and teachers to effectively use these resources there is going to be a strong need for teaching them how to safely use the Internet for their protection. This article really touched on how the Digital natives, the children we are currently teaching, are quick to try anything without even properly knowing how to use it. However, this can present quite a few problems if they are unaware of or careless about how to protect their identity and themselves in general when using the Internet. I am going to need to further investigate how to incorporate this aspect into my lessons for next year, for both students and teachers.

Another key part of this article is that not only students use search engines ineffectively, but so do teachers sometimes. I have also seen on many occasions the print happy teachers who print an article because the title sounds good and have no idea that it is multiple pages long. Everyone needs to take the time to fully understand how to locate useful information on the Internet by using appropriate search methods. Again, I am going to need to research some good examples and strategies to share with my teachers and students on proper search techniques for the Internet.

Curwood, J. S. (2009). Education 2.0, The case for interactive whiteboards. Instructor, May/June, 29-34.

Theory-into-practice Article

Summary:This article focused on the need for interactive whiteboards (IWB) in classrooms

and provided how-to’s, effects on classrooms, and transforming instruction. According to Cathleen A. Norris, a professor of learning technologies at the University of North Texas, “…under the right conditions, they [interactive whiteboards] can help promote student engagement and foster content area learning in a constructivist, learner-centered classroom.” The article provides several first hand experiences of how the IWB effected specific classrooms and teachers’ instruction within their classroom.

One of the benefits of using interactive whiteboards in the classroom mentioned in the article dealt with increasing differentiation. Many times the students with disabilities that have to be pulled out for instruction are typically removed during classroom computer time. However, the IWB works well with both lower level learners and higher-level learners. The article concludes with several ways of actually using the interactive whiteboard in the classroom for teachers to try.

Critical Evaluation:Our elementary school currently has 4 smartboards available for check out among

22 classrooms. Unfortunately, this ratio does not allow our teachers sufficient amounts of time to really become familiar with using the device. Especially after reading this article, I see the importance of purchasing more of these in order for our teachers to have time to learn how to effectively use them.

The end of the article included a quote from an Illinois teacher named Melissa Gosche. She said, “In the end, we need to remember that this is a tool-and how we teach is just as important as what we teach.” This is so true and applicable to where our school is right now technology-wise. We have purchased many new technology devices and tools to use within our classrooms, but I’m afraid that we are not imbedding enough time or providing enough support for our teachers to effectively learn how to use them. This article focused on how this particular tool is good for a learner centered classroom, but unless we can help our teachers know how to effectively include this tool, it will just be another device in a teacher centered classroom.

Ferriter, W. M. (2010). Why teachers should try twitter. EducationalLeadership, 67(5), 73-74.

Professional Practice Article

Summary: This article was written by a 6th grade language arts and social studies teacher who consistently contributes to Educational Leadership in the Digitally Speaking section. The article focuses on how Twitter can be used to not only assist teachers in professional development, but also help teachers to better understand the importance of providing differentiated instruction for their students.

He explains that Twitter allows one to follow short messages that are directly related to a specific area of expertise or interest. The online tool can become a quick way to share resources and provide support to colleagues with similar interests. The author goes on to compare his learning with the learning of students in that he is excited about learning because with Twitter, it’s customized and motivational, which is differentiated learning. Critical Evaluation:

One part of my job as a media specialist that I would like to work on next year is sharing my learning of new Web 2.0 tools with my staff. This article has convinced me to become a Twitter user so that I can learn the benefits related to being an educator and in turn share them with my colleagues this fall. I’ve always thought of Twitter as a social network for friends and family, but not really for educators. However, after reading this article, I realize that reading these short (140 character maximum) messages related to what I’m interested in is going to be more feasible for busy teachers than reading an entire article on the topic.

Differentiated learning is something that we as educators hear about all the time, but I agree with Ferriter in this article when he confesses that he had never really experienced differentiation as a learner. Teachers tend to attend

workshops that are designed for everyone on the same level and topic. However, I look forward to using Twitter and other similar web resources that will allow me to experience differentiated instruction on a topic of my choice.

Huber, C. (2010). Professional Learning 2.0. Educational Leadership, 67(8), 41-46.

Professional Practice Article

Summary:Many schools today are still sharing professional learning the old fashioned,

ineffective ways that are described in the first page of this article. The article goes on to list three false assumptions in regards to professional learning sharing models that are currently in place in many schools. The assumptions are that passing information on is enough for learning to take place, insight must come from outside the school and that simply planning is learning. However, C. Huber, the author of this article, happens to be a principal who has led her school in an updated method of sharing professional learning within her school.

Huber says that in order to update sharing of professional development, three structures need to be in place. Access to information must be shared. Schools must look from within the school for insight and learning time must be protected. This particular school in New York used a moodle to provide feedback on lesson plans, created a link on the moodle for Twitter, and included a weekly newsletter on the moodle as opposed to multiple daily emails. They also used forums for discussions on specific topics related to different issues that arose during the school year. The teachers participated in a monthly wiki related to their learning from using these web 2.0 tools and even created individual blogs linked to the moodle. With these new web 2.0 sharing tools, the teachers no longer needed to travel all over for staff development. They simply participated in ongoing professional learning from their own classrooms.

Critical Evaluation:This particular article has really motivated me as a media specialist to think about

how my school can better our professional learning experiences in the future. When the article describes the three sharing techniques that most schools utilize for professional learning, I realized that our school desperately needs an update since all three scenarios were quite familiar. One part of the article that I really appreciated was the chart that included the definitions of the different web 2.0 tools. It’s hard sometime to put into words what each tool is, but this chart provides thorough definitions.

According to the article, upgrading professional learning to web 2.o technologies could potentially help schools create structures for meaningful and sustained learning. Many times teachers will attend a workshop or listen to a colleague share something learned at a workshop, but there will be no follow up or an in-depth look at how to implement the learning into the teaching. Through wikis and nings, teachers would be able to stay in touch and up to date with previous learning. The best part of this article, however, is that the principal writing it has already spearheaded the learning for the rest of us. She has already shared much of the legwork in updating a school’s professional learning.

Molen, K. (2009). Wee wikis: implementing the use of wikis with elementary students. Library Media Connection, 27(4), 57-58.

Professional Practice Article

Summary:The author of this article is a media specialist in an elementary school in Virginia

and actually implemented the use of wikis with her fifth and sixth graders. She set the wiki up and taught lessons with the students on how to properly use a wiki during their library time each week. They had discussions and lessons on their acceptable use policy and her expectations for them when using the wiki, whether at school or at home.

The wiki was used as a way to introduce a new web 2.0 tool to the students, but also help them focus on social studies and literacy standards through an online booktalk. As a result of implementing a wiki with these students, she heard more comments than usual about not being able to wait until the next week to come back to the library.

Critical Evaluation:My goal next year as an elementary school media specialist is not only to teach

my teachers how to use some of these newer web 2.0 tools, but also our students. This article showed a wiki in action with students and was a great lesson on a few points that I will need to think about before using any online tool with students. For example, I have not anticipated students being able to instant message, which was one of the unforeseen issues she had to address with some of the students.

Another idea to think about with using the web as an extension of something learned in the classroom or as a collaborative tool, is that students have to be given time to work on these tasks within the school day. Many of our students don’t even have a computer at home, much less access to the Internet. Overall, this article would be a good, short example of how to incorporate web 2.0 tools into teaching. As any new idea is

implemented, there will just about always be unforeseen issues that will need to be addressed. However, this article provides good foundation to at least get started with wikis.

Murcia, K. (2010). Multi-modal representations in primary science: what’s offered by interactive whiteboard technology. Teaching Science, 56(1), 23-29.

Research Article

Summary:This article focused on elementary school uses of the interactive whiteboard

technology with science lessons in Australia. The research conducted did not include the typical control and experimental groups, but was more of an exploratory research. There were six school teachers who were observed and recorded for six months on how teachers and students used the interactive whiteboards for representing science concepts. The research data consisted of semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and interactive notebooks produced by the teachers.

Throughout the article, there are examples of the activities that were used by the teachers with the interactive boards and a short description/explanation underneath with the teachers’ thoughts in the interactive notebook. The conclusions drawn from this exploratory research proved that the interactive whiteboards can assist teachers in producing and engaging students with multi-modal representations in science, which is what is needed to effectively help students to learn science.

Critical Evaluation:One of the key components of this research article that stuck with me is on page

24, when Warwich and Kershner are quoted stating that, “the tool [interactive whiteboards] has been observed complementing traditional teacher-led, whole class learning, where the IWB is simply used as a surface for writing notes or projecting images.” As a media specialist, I feel that it is going to be my job next year to really help teachers learn how to effectively use these boards to provide our students with an appropriate learning experience. These tools are neat to use, but unless educators learn

how to use them to engage students and enhance their learning, then they are just glorified chalkboards.

In order for teachers to learn and improve in their teaching, it’s important to reflect on their actions and results. In this research, the teachers kept an interactive notebook documenting parts of their lessons that worked and didn’t work for them immediately. Many times teachers have plans to document what needs to be changed after presenting a lesson, but either forget or never have time to actually put anything into writing. This idea of having notebooks immediately available seems like something I need to share with teachers next year at my school.

Riddle, J. (2010). Podcasting in the classroom: a sound success. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 17(1), 23-26.

Professional Practice Article

Summary:The article begins with providing background information about podcasting, it’s

origins and the history of the iPod. The iPod, which led to the creation of podcasting, was first introduced in 2001 by Apple Computer. Since then, universities, individual teachers and finally students have learned how to podcast. This article shares the many success stories of podcasting in the classroom from Duke University to Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska to Germany. The author of the article includes quite a few links of examples of students podcasting from Germany and an elementary school who developed their own Radio WillowWeb of their students and teachers podcasting.

Critical Evaluation:Podcasting has been one of those online resource tools that I have kind of avoided

for the last few years, mainly because of my lack of understanding of what a podcast is and how to create one. However, I feel like this article has cleared up some misconceptions that I had about podcasting. It now makes perfectly good sense that the word podcasting is a mix of “iPod” and “broadcast”. Not only did this article explain the definition and history of podcasting, but it also provided some great links for me to use for myself and for my school next year.

With my goal of introducing a new web 2.0 tool twice a month next year, this article has convinced me to add podcasting to my tool list. One example that I plan to use with promoting podcasting next year is going to be for 2nd language learners. The story about Sebastian, the teacher in Germany, will hopefully motivate our ELL teachers

to include some podcasting with our English Language Learners. This past year, we had 10 non-English speakers who would have definitely been able to benefit from using podcasting to practice their speaking of the English language. I look forward to improving my own understanding of podcasts this summer so I can thoroughly motivate our teachers to try it next year.

Shriner, M., Clark, D. A., Nail, M., Schlee, B. M., & Libler, R. (2010). Social studies instruction: changing teacher confidence in classrooms enhanced by technology. The Social Studies, 101(2), 37-45.

Research Article

Summary:Many teachers in grades K-12 appear to have a lack in confidence when it comes

to teaching social studies, according to the authors of this article. They examined several pre-service teachers and in-service teachers who were still not comfortable with teaching socials studies, with or without technology assistance. The research conducted was part of a teacher development project in Indiana and consisted of three workshops offered to the participating teachers. The workshops were using virtual field trips to enhance service learning, using various resources and approaches to social studies instruction and resources and approaches to teaching a new class in the state on geography and history of the world.

There were teachers from the elementary, middle and high school levels that participated in the workshops and all began by taking a pretest of their confidence levels on each of the workshop titles. The workshops not only presented new material to the teachers on how to use the new technologies and websites, but also included items directly related to what they would be teaching. For example, in the virtual field trips workshop, one group of elementary teachers created a PowerPoint of a virtual field trip of the surrounding community, which happens to be one of their standards.

After the workshops were complete, the teachers than took a post-test of their confidence levels based on how much knowledge they gained from having taken the class. The teachers not only gained confidence, but also took back completed technology oriented lessons that could be used immediately in the classroom.

Critical Evaluation:This article not only discusses new technologies and resources available to

teachers, but it also talks about how comfortable or uncomfortable teachers are with using these new technologies. I know there are some fantastic teachers who would be stressed to the max if they knew they had to incorporate virtual field trips into their teaching. Many teachers today were not taught in this manner and using websites and new technologies is requiring them to step out of their comfort zones. However, after reading about the very specific topics that Indiana used for their workshops, it seems for feasible and doable within our district as well.

In our district in the past, we have been more than willing to share new websites that may be applicable to our lessons, but we may not have had the time to really sit down and see how the website could be used within our lesson effectively. Just simply showing a website to students does not guarantee any learning is going to take place. I think this next year, we need to focus on more standard specific workshops that actually shows our teachers not only how to use a new web resource, but also gives them examples and allows them to create during the workshop itself. That way, the teacher is given time to consider how to implement what they just created for their instruction.