CEP 812: Wicked Learning Project

My educational need that I was looking to meet was a way to allow for students to better understand the content that they are reading in the blended science program, particular students that are struggling readers and ESL students.

For my wicked problem of needing a good program that can read and translate text for students I actually chose 2 programs, White Smoke and Natural Reader.  I chose these two programs because together they achieve my goal and offer both free and paid versions of the software.

I chose these programs enhance any student’s learning because they offer many different options for facilitating learning of content.  These programs work with multiple types of students with multiple needs.  For students with ESL needs White Smoke provides translations for all types of text including more complicated texts that can occur in high school courses.  It also gives all students another way to proofread their work.  Natural Reader in its free edition of the program offers a basic reader that works well with many text based programs such as Microsoft Word and Adobe.

Both of these programs help supplement teaching strategies that may already be in place in a lesson.   They can enhance teaching strategies that involve reading text out loud to students.  It will allow students to have materials read to them multiple times without a teacher or para-pro that would normally read text to them.  It will also help students better analyze texts for content and for research purposes.

Overall, both of these programs enhance any student’s learning of content because they offer many different options for facilitating learning of content.  While using these programs the learner will be able to experience material on more levels because of the options that both programs provide.  It can enhance their experience by offering pronunciations of words that may be difficult and translation for ESL students they still are struggling with English.

At Union High School (where I currently teach) we get a lot of refugee students from Africa that speak French and a lot of Hispanic students that know very little English, these are the students I had in mind when trying to solve this problem.  Feel that they will benefit the most intellectually because they will be able to understand the content even if their English isn’t the greatest.  The other students I had in mind while trying to solve this problem are my struggling readers.  Science curriculums are full of new vocabulary terms and words that may look and sound “weird” to an inexperienced student.  Natural Reader can help both my ESL and struggling readers (and most of the time they are one in the same) with pronunciations.

Here is a link the screencast of the Prezi about my project.
Here is the Prezi itself.

CEP 811: Final Reflections

1.    What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?

This course has taught me a lot about the different ways that I can create lessons and resources online.  I learned a lot about ways that I can provide feedback to my students when creating an online lesson and how I can offer several different options for my students to learn content.  I really enjoyed the STAIR project because it helped me look at online lesson planning in more detail and re-evaluate many of my current lessons.

2.    How did integrating web-based technologies help you think about and evaluate uses of technology?

Integrating web-based technologies helped me think about how much i really knew about integrating technology into my lessons.  I have learned a lot about creating lessons online that I did not know before.  I spent last summer helping develop the biology Moodle curriculum for my district and came out thinking I knew it all about online lesson development.  This class has opened my eyes to what real online lesson planning is.  It helped me take a step back and look at my current lesson to see how I could improve them in the future.    

3.    How have you met your own personal goals for learning about technology integration?

I feel that I have met many of my goals for learning about technology integration through increasing my knowledge in online lesson creation, especially with the STAIR project.  The STAIR project broadened my knowledge of creating lessons in Moodle, it also raised my confidence in using the program.  Learning about MERLOT has been a great addition to my arsenal for lesson planning for my blended courses and enhancing my lessons.  I think through the introduction to MERLOT I will be able to learn more about what is being done with technology in the classroom.

4.    Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for reaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?

     My new goal is to put together more resources that I can use to add to my blended curriculum.  I want to create a wiki page for my classes next year along with a few Webquests.  I would also like to look into more ways to accommodate my special education students and ESL students.  Some plans that I have to achieve these goals is to continue my learning of education technology by working towards my masters.  I also plan on doing more of my own exploring of technologies through going to conferences (MACUL) and using MERLOT.

CEP 812: Personal Learning Plan

Through reflection upon my Personal Technology plan I have found I have made progress towards my goals but I am still learning and growing.  I have found that my confidence and abilities have grown in using technology in teh classroom but I want more than that.  I would like to gain more skills in teaching my colleagues how to use technology in their daily lessons and to help them build there confidence as well.

Here is the link to my PLP that I created using Prezi (a Web 2.0 tool that I have fallen in love with!)

CEP 812: Group Leader Project

Here is my Group Leadership project.  I had a wonderful group with varying technology skills that worked very well together to achieve our goal.

To deliver the PD tutorial we used Jing to create our screen capture and windows media to compile the screen casts.  We chose this because it seemed like the best way to demonstrate all of the aspects of Moodle we wanted to highlight.  During the development of this project I learn many new skills, like how to create more in depth lessons in Moodle and how to use Adobe conferences.  Also, I worked on my screen casting skills and working to better my recording quality.

If I were to develop another similar product again I would  create my script differently, though using Google docs helped a lot with planning and collaboration, I feel this would be a project I would complete on my own in the future.   I would also take more time to explore more options of how I could present my tutorial or ways supplement or enhance it. 

CEP 812 Wicked Problem Project: Part D - Findings and Implications

I feel that the project was implemented as planned, though I would like to see it implemented on a larger scale.  Students seemed to respond well to the project and the programs that I found for them to use.  The evidence of the success was the increase in grades on the handout they were given and the student reaction to the programs. 

If I were given another project of this type some things that I might do differently are:

·         Make more attempts to get more people in district on board with trying new ideas

·         Take more time on with student feedback and staff feed back to improve my solution.

·         Try to have multiple teachers at my school trying the solution instead just in my classroom.

The lessons that were learned while working to complete this project are:

·         To allow plenty of time for learning new programs and to be flexible.  It is important plan for all levels of learners.

·         To not underestimate students ability to teach each other and themselves.

·         Listen to student comments and feedback to make your solution better.

I will look into implementing this project on a larger scale and have more teachers involved to see if they feel the programs are effective to enhance learning and teaching strategies.  I would also like to give more time for implementation so students can have more time with the programs so they can be more comfortable with commenting on the effectiveness of the programs.

CEP 812 Wicked Problem Project: Part C - Implementation

This post is about the implementation of the solution for my Wicked Problem.  I have recorded a podcast about the surprises, unexpected bumps in the road, and the things that went well.  This podcast allowed me to go back and reflect on the solution to see if there is anything that I would change and encouraged me to explore more programs that could solve my Wicked Problem of needing a good reader program and translation program for my students.

Click here for my podcast.

CEP 812 Wicked Problem Project: Part B

For my wicked problem of needing a good program that can read and translate text for students I actually chose 2 programs, White Smoke and Natural Reader.  I chose these two programs because together they achieve my goal and offer both free and paid versions of the software.

White smoke is the translation program.  It comes in a free version (though there is a version for purchase) where students can:

·         Copy and paste text into a text box and it has the options to translate the text into English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish

·         Use the writer program for checking their own written work (which can be used just not for the ESL kids, but all other students for proof reading purposes).  This function also integrates itself into Microsoft Word while the student is working (though it is a bit redundant of what  Microsoft word already offers).

·         It also has a dictionary function that searches key words in a dictionary, thesaurus, and on Wikipedia.
Click here for an screen capture of White Smoke that includes explainations of each aspect of the program.

Natural Reader is the text reader program.  It comes in a free version (though there is a version for purchase) where students can:

·         Copy and paste text into the reader to have it read to them in English

·         Use the Floating Bar .  This can be brought to the front of a document and the student can highlight what they want read to them.

·         An mp3 can be made of the document be read

Here is a link to the Natural Readers website that has several different videos that demo the possible uses of the program.

Overall, both of these programs enhance any student’s learning because they offer many different options for facilitating learning of content.  These programs work with multiple types of students with multiple needs.  For students with ESL needs White Smoke provides translations for all types of text including more complicated texts that can occur in high school courses.  It also gives all students another way to proofread their work.  Natural Reader in its free edition of the program offers a basic reader that works well with many text based programs such as Microsoft Word and Adobe.

While using these programs the learner will be able to experience material on more levels because of the options that both programs provide.  It can enhance their experience by offering pronunciations of words that may be difficult and translation for ESL students they still are struggling with English.  

***Both of these programs help supplement teaching strategies that may already be in place in a lesson.   They can enhance teaching strategies that involve reading text out loud to students.  It will allow students to have materials read to them multiple times without a teacher or para-pro that would normally read text to them.  It will also help students better analyze texts for content and for research purposes.

In science we focus on a teaching strategy that we call CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning).  Students are asked fairly regularly to analyze text for claims (opinions and statements) that are well thought out and have evidence that directly connects to the claim (the reasoning).  Having a program that translates or reads the text can allow for better understanding and lets students to be able to process ideas more completely.  This is a skill that students will be able to apply outside of school.

It can also help teachers with giving students clear expectations (DL. IFL).  No matter how “clear” a teacher may think their expectations are, if the students do not understand because of language barriers or a lack of reading skills there is no way to reach the students.  Natural reader gives both teachers and students a way to translate the expectations to meet ESL needs.  Natural Reader allows for both ESL and struggling readers to hear the expectations multiple times without the teacher having to repeat them.

Natural Reader can help ESL students with their English skills because the more they hear the word with the written word the better they understand the language.  It can also help those students with pronunciation skills.  White Smoke can help ESL students because it can give them a context for learning English and it can serve as a way to compare English to their native language (which can help with learning a new language).

At Union High School (where I currently teach) we get a lot of refugee students from Africa that speak French and a lot of Hispanic students that know very little English, these are the students I had in mind when trying to solve this problem.  Feel that they will benefit the most intellectually because they will be able to understand the content even if their English isn’t the greatest.  The other students I had in mind while trying to solve this problem are my struggling readers.  Science curriculums are full of new vocabulary terms and words that may look and sound “weird” to an inexperienced student.  Natural Reader can help both my ESL and struggling readers (and most of the time they are one in the same) with pronunciations.