EdTech 521

I know I have mentioned this many times in my assignments, but I am a SAHM, so I have to tweak everything I do to make it work for my circumstances. However, I have gathered many ideas through this course of ways to help my children with their projects and assignments. Conversely, they have helped me many times with my assignments when I wasn’t sure how to use the technology prescribed in an assignment. So, it’s been a win-win!

As a family, we strive to teach digital citizenship to all our children-four boys, ages 21, 16, 14, and 7. This is a reoccurring topic in our home. We often struggle to balance time on digital devices with real “people” time. As parents, we must set the example for technology usage. We have times when devices are not allowed, for the sanity of us all. We all need breaks from screen time! We need to get outside and enjoy this beautiful world.

As a mom, I was thinking it would be fun to make a Clarify-It or Haiku Deck for my kids to teach them a skill, create a Prezi message for them to watch when I am out of town, or record a special experience in my life that they may not know about using digital storytelling. This class has given me a variety of tools to use to accomplish these ideas. I know I am always “reminding” them about things they need to do, so maybe a new method of presenting the reminder or teaching would get their attention. Not only that, but with any of these methods, it forces me to be concise and orderly in my instruction, no rambling! Or, I could teach my kids how to use these technologies and have them create something meaningful or useful for our family! That sounds like a good summer learning project! We do struggle with our Internet reliability since we are very rural, but we do the best we can.

For me, the three most powerful principles that I will incorporate into my future teaching, whether it be online or in person, are the modality principle, the coherence principle and the segmenting and pre-training principle. With the knowledge of what we have read, learned, and applied, I see good things in the future of educational technology.

Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-Learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Link

This was the hardest project for me to complete in Ed Tech 513! I could not figure out a topic or a method to provide the worked example screencast. I wanted to use my tablet so I could write on it and talk to my son at the same time. I wanted him to be able to write on the screen as well. In the end, I chose something very simple. I used the notes app on my Samsung tablet and recoded the teaching with an app called DU recorder. It was free on the Google Play Store. Since it came highly recommended and did everything I needed it to do, I gave it a try. It was fairly easy for me to use. I did several test videos to get comfortable with it before creating my lesson.

I decided part of my problem was focusing on too broad of a topic. Instead of trying to teach my son multiplication in a few minutes, I narrowed the topic to teaching him the commutative property of multiplication. He already knew how it worked, but he didn’t know that’s what it was called. It was fun to create this video with him! He is a willing learner and participant. (My family supports me so patiently in the Ed Tech program.)

Here is the text for my screencast:

Me to my son: Do you know about the commutative property of multiplication?

Son: No.

Me: You recently told me that 4 times 5 is the same as 5 times 4, 20. That is the commutative property of multiplication. When you reverse the numbers being multiplied the answer is the same.

Me: Let’s try these problems I have written on the screen. What is the answer to 10 X 2?

Son: 20

Me: What is the answer to 2 X 10?

Son: 20

Me: They are the same! Isn’t that cool! Let’s try another one. I will write it, you fill in the answers. (Write 6 x 3 and 3 X 6 on the screen.) Will you please write the answers to these two questions. (Son writes 18.) Very good! That is correct!

Me: Can you write two equations with the same numbers?

Son writes 9 x 2 and 2 x 9.

Me: What is the answer for 9 x 2?

Son: 18

Me: What is the answer for 2 x 9?

Son: 18

Me: Well done! You are really getting the hang of this commutative property! Can you say that big word?

Son: pronounces commutative property

Me: Thanks for your help with my homework!

Son: You are welcome!

Project #7 Google Slides Presentation

Posted on April 15, 2017 by shauramiller

After reading and reviewing, Chapter 11 of E-Learning and the Science of Instruction, I composed the following Google slides presentation. There is great value in using worked examples in teaching and training. I can also see how they would be useful in our family as I teach our children how to do jobs in our home. They see me doing them, but I don’t always take the time to explain what I am doing and why. Or sometimes I just expect them to go do a job without any training, then I wonder why there are tears and frustration!

Creating this presentation helped me solidify what a worked example is and why it helps with near and far transfer. We want to help students do more that just go through the motions of solving a problem, we want them to be able to apply what they have learned, in any situation, and do it in the real world! That is success!

If I had more time, I would play around more with the templates on Google Slides. I tend to be pretty basic in my presentations, with few graphics. I want to follow the multimedia principle and use text with graphics when it is appropriate. I don’t want to put a picture on every slide just because it seems empty. I like open white space so my brain can breathe and process what is on each slide.