Blog Reflection #5 - My Aha's!

I have to admit that taking this ETEC 524 is beyond my expectation. I have learned both the theory and the practice in using technology to meet my objectives.
Aha#1 - Concept map is the visual presentation that helps me to create the meaning of the ideas clearly.
Aha#2 - Educational technology philosophy is the main reflection that plays as the commitment in educational career. I say that it is the contract that I would love to follow. Teacher is the person who will affiliate learners to achieve their goals with various methods. I really appreciated with the philosophy I have written.
Aha#3 - Wiki space is the powerful way that I will use to communicate what I have in mind with the learners who sometimes coping with difficulty in the course. This allows each other to become co-workers. The access to the Wiki allow democracy to exercise in education.
Aha#4 - E-portfolio is the paperless solution in education. I find that e-portfolio will help me to keep the students' works systematically. Also, blogger can be the place to keep assignment neatly.
Aha#5 - Technology project is the showcase that I can combine different tools in the lesson plan. As an English teacher in the future, it is enjoyable to keep up with technology to motivate learning language with entertainment and engagement.

Week 5:

Multimodal Essay

https://sites.google.com/site/sunchaietec524/social-studies

This project will be teaching English with technology. Learner will create multimodal essay which combines the essay writing in the traditional way and the multimedia such as sound, images, and video to enhance the meaning of the idea.

Week4: Blog Reflection

Interview with Sunshine on the Net Generation

Interviewer: Hi, Sunshine! you have got a really cool name. Is this you real name?

Sunshine: Well, actually my first name goes by S-u-n-c-h-a-i but it can be pronounced like Sunshine in English, so I kind of like it this way. Ha..ha. I am a person who was born in the GenerationX around the 70s.

Interviewer: Tell me about you literacy, are you more comfortable composing documents online than longhand?

Sunshine: When I write most of the text, I feel more comfortable typing on the keyboard because of my writing can be rearranged as much as I can. Sometimes, the backspace key encourages me to type what I really or not really intend to write.

Interviewer: Have you turned your "remembering" (phone numbers, meetings, and so on) over to a technology device?

Sunshine: Umm..I am not sure that I am totally techno person. Totally, I do remembering phone numbers over the phone by asking a person to send a missed call and keep it in the phonebook, I mean the cellphone's book not the paper one. It would be sad if I lost the cellphone someday because I have never backed up somewhere else at all. Oh, keeping appointment and important dates I still use the post-it note sticking on the refrigerator like the traditional way.

Interviewer: Let talk about meetings, do you do meeting over the laptop or PDA?

Sunshine: I don't think I have gone so far to that stage. When I have a meeting with the classmates, we usually set up the appointment over the e-mail and send to each other to meet in person at the school or library. Most of the activity that can be called a meeting is usually done in e-College when I take the online course. Each week the instructor will set up the discussion board to have students response to the topic of the week. I like to communicate this way because it more like chunks of speech like we are talking. You know what, I usually like to compose the response in e-college like the essay because I still see it as writing for academic.


Interviewer: Are you constantly connected? Is the Internet always on whether you are at home or work? Is your cell phone always with you?

Sunshine: I would have to admit that I am a net addict. This is the bad habit that sometimes ruins my life and time. I am trying to get rid of it. No, I should say "try to manage the online time" would be more appropriate. Most of my online time is the bedtime when my wife and children cannot disturb the concentration. Facebook is now my most connected and addicted net activity. Whenever I come back home, the first web I will access is Facebook.com. Luckily that I haven't got iPhone yet, otherwise I would be more than this. I still use the T-mobile refill cellphone in order to limit the cost on phone bill not more than $20/month because I am a student without job, every dollar has to be limited.

Interviewer: How many different activities can you effectively engage in at one time?

Sunshine: Let's see... when I read a paper book I hardly concentrate alone on more than 15 minutes and I like to write, highlight, and draw picture from what I am reading in the same time. On the electronic reading, I spend less than 5 minutes on a single page and like to click around to read different page. The ability of hypertext allows me to extend the interest on a certain thing. When I browse the net, I usually open pages in a new tab to keep on previous pages and new pages altogether on the same window and switch them around. When I read, I will have other other noises turned off such as TV, radio, and children. I am not like other people who are multitasking.


Interviewer: Do you play video or computer games?
Sunshine: Nope! I am not a big fan of any video games but I sometime play some, like Solitaire or Zuma. It was long time ago when I play them.

Interviewer: Thank you so much for you time. I hope you will do good in studying in America.
Sunshine: With my pleasure, thank you for having me.

Week 3: Blog Reflection

Assessment for learning is the effective strategy to see how a student have learned so far. The portfolio in details and with specific learning information is the ground to develop the progress toward learning goal. From ten research-based principles of Assessment for Learning (AFL), I found that the most related tenant to me is "AFL develop learners' capacity for self-assessment so that they can become reflective and self-managing". There are some reasons I would like to support as the following:

• Stories telling: As Paulson & Paulson (1991) pointed out, story tell about what the learners know about things, themselves, and audiences. It is the collection of the knowledge and meaning of the worldview around them. They perceive what is meaningful and interpret accordingly. Schon (1988) suggests that a learner should develop the habit of recording the stories so that they can be the narrative description of learning logs. I also agree that stories can be any tales that happened in the life of a person. It is not necessary to meet the requirement of the program, but rather relevant to the goal in some aspects.
• Assessment: The portfolio plays an important role as the evidences of the learning outcomes. It is not only a static evidence from what has completed, but will also predicted that direction to the future learning. Assessment in my meaning, is not only the decision to judge whether the learners would pass/fail, instead it is the indication of the accomplishment of individual one.
• Self-reflective: I believe that every learner has different learning curve. The portfolio allows learner to express the way his/her learning is. It represents the voice of each person in learning style.

In order to employ portfolio into my learning development and assessment, I see that e-portfolio in the form of blog can record what I have learned as the evidence. It allows me to create the personal stories of my learning goal as a graduate student. As I am now on the final stage after the required coursework, then will be on for the comprehensive examination in Fall semester, it is necessary to keep reading journal and thoughts provoking concepts and ideas related to the research topic in the systematic pattern. Most of the time, reading becomes confusing because of I try to interpret every single idea rather than the overall concept. This is communicative problem of a bilingual speaker whose mind switches in two languages. What I like more on e-portfolio as the assessment tool is the way I can include different media into the project. The mentors can see how I have developed the ideas and give feedback appropriately.

Reflective #2

Collaboration on the Web
This week activity on Wiki, I have found that it is beneficial to educators and students to work together on the same platform rather than the individual pages. I created http://englishteaching4thai.wikispaces.com/ to be the experiment project helping Thai teachers who teach English in sharing ideas for the language class. I would like this website to be the initial portal website to bring together the resources from the Internet. In addition, I have adapted it to be bilingual version because it will show the locality of the website; as it says 'think global, act local'. In the next phrase, I will try to invite English teacher colleagues in Thailand to join this Wiki and help to create the collaboration with each other.

Another advance tool that I found it helpful in education is GoogleReader. I was fascinating to see how the blogs I am following have be changing over the time. It organizes the pages in chronological pattern which indicates the development of the information. This also helps me how to manage what to read over the Internet. Every time I have found the relevant information for my research interest, I usually bookmark it on my computer browser. But whenever I work on different computer at the library, I cannot retrieve my favorites from home. In contrast, with Google Reader, my favorites are portable over the Internet access.

Networking in Delicious helps me to find relevant tags to my interest. I have found that there are many more people who share the same interest on their networks. I use the key words to define some of my research interest such as Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) , Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). The tags results make it convenient to me to pull the group of websites together.

MAPping Information
This activity helps me to realize the creditability of the information on the Internet. The domain of the web sites such as .edu, .com .net indicates the type of creators of the websites. This criteria suggests the creditability at the face value. I tried to work on All About Explorers on the webquest activity and found that the activity of helpful to teach information literacy for my future students, especially in reading activity. But to do the formal research, I would not suggest students to rely on the online information since it lack of creditability and the fluid nature of the information.

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Reflective #1

Reading response to Alan November's Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning


November has made several interesting observations about how technology increases its impact on learning culture. The first point is the validity of information. Since the information on the Internet is easily accessed online from several sources, it tends to be valid because the more occurrences of information is the reliability could be. Internet information can be created quickly as people can type any thing and publish globally in a seconds. It lacks of gatekeeper to validate how the information is trustful but its authoritative feature can make it look reliable.

The second point is about video in the classroom. For the over-concern parents, I would understand how much they care about their kids. How can children grow up mature in the real world, if they parent always keep their eyes over them? Kids may grow up like animals in the cage if school adopts this method claiming for security reason. Having video broadcast from the children classroom may end up with unnecessary check by parents all day long. Let's think about Facebook that many people addict to. Is it necessary to know every minor information and telling your personal activity every hour?

Third point is telling stories. I do agree in the collective information if the professional share what they have invented from the study. Research inquiries produce rich information which is valuable investigating. It may not entertaining to read and write research, but in knowledge development it is necessary.

The next point in the forth is technology plan. Each organization has the plan to invest on technology to enhance the efficiency of the works. What we need to think about is making the decision together but not leaving all responsibility and power in the hand of the administrator who hold the money. When I worked in Thailand in 2004-2008, the technology and equipment were purchased by the president who from the purchasing committees from the department heads under his team. Teacher who actually used the would know and learn about their tools after had been purchased. I would like to suggest the procurement committee to include the actual people and user to make the decision together.

This fifth point on automating VS informating is the most important aspect I would like to deliberate. Higher education is rushing online because of the coverage it can makes globally and large number of students can also be offered. It looks like the colonization happening in education system which students seems to be the products from the same standard model. If the system can make teach faster and create students as much similar as it can be, this could be the standard that institution can make. However, I would like to add that students needs to know how to use technology to make them learn as the other can learn previously. They need the learning process that makes their knowledge created in their thoughts.

The final point is collegiality which makes teacher be able to learn collectively from each other and the student. Learning in the team enhances the mutual understanding from different point of view in dealing with the problematic situation. Learning organization is the best term that we need to thin about in adopting technology into the educational system.

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Educational Technology Philosophy

Educational Technology Philosophy

Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. .. We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education.
(Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile, On Philosophy of Education)

From the above quotation, Rousseau states that education plays as the aid to complete men by providing them with strength in critical thinking which would finally allows the cultivation in their lives. I am strongly believe that education serves a purpose in creating the human mind to be able to comprehend what is happened in the world around them. Moreover, education provides the value recognition to us. For instance, one can be able to make the life meaningful by knowing the ways to interpret meanings in a certain language. In addition, education can also be the assistant to many ones to communicate their ideas to the world.

Roles of learners and teachers are various by their responsibilities. The learners are not limited to the ignorance which limits their ability to learn. Every person deserves the chances in education. I would like to assert that people can learn and become improved from receiving the opportunities to learn. The learning experiences are able to create under the guidance of the teachers and they also be the ones who know what to achieved from learning. Then learners would know what to do in their ways. The methods in pragmatism approach provide effective learning outcomes. As the teachers encourage the learners to involve with the process of education discovery, the values of education needed to keep in mind as the objectives for learning process. In addition, technology assists education by providing learners with assistance to expose to the chances. As the teacher who looks practice as the contribution to learning outcomes, I would manage the environment to be equipped with possibilities for learners to do their own experiments. My students are not judged with absolute achievement, but they will be provided the resources that allow them to reach the goals in their ways as much as learners prefer. The teachers represent as the facilitators who assist them to experiment with the learning.

Based on the problem which each learner needs to cope with, the pragmatism-based teacher should consider this as the primary requirement to develop the teaching plan. Technology would be the aid to fulfill the weakness of the learners. Teachers who consider the problems of the students would find it challenging to develop the personal strategy in solving individual problems. It is important to teacher to assess the background knowledge of the learners to be able to put the right method in teaching. A large number of technologies in education have been developed everyday which makes us necessary to keep pace with them in order to be able to select suitable choice to the classroom situation. For example, different compatibility of file types from Microsoft Word and iMac sometimes cause difficulty in displaying the files or the different plug-in programs to view video media files are only workable in each file type. These uncompatibility problems seem to be the issues in education because the different file types from different students could causes technical problem in viewing the submission. Web 2.0 application such as GoogleDoc web application could solve the problem for teachers who receive the unrecognized file types to their computers because the Internet is the common platform that everyone uses and those files can universally run on GoogleDoc. In addition, file sharing is another example issue of how technology facilitates education. Many teachers need to distribute documents to the students. Most of the times, files are attached with the e-mail sending to students to download. This way has commonly done in many courses for many years. The innovative web application such as Scribd.com could assist the learning process with ease by adding instant displaying feature to the document before downloading the files. It also be able to work with popular social networking website such as Facebook.com. The teachers and students can collaboratively work with each other online in real time and creating learning experience in the active way.

Education technology philosophy in my belief is on the basis of pragmatism which encourages learners to explore learning opportunities in their real life situation. Students need to provide the chances to experiment with anything around them to fine the best solution. The more they practice from trying new ways in learning is the more experience they will be able to deal with their problem in the future.