Summary

Coming into this course, I wasn't sure what to expect. I know myself to be a digital native, and most of everything I've ran into in terms of technology has been easy for me to master. One of the main takeaways I've realized from this class, however, is that just because you know how to use technology well and can learn it easily, doesn't mean you can use it in your teaching. Implementing technology takes knowing what's out there, collaborating to learn, and designing curriculum around those technologies that creates deep learning, not something that is just a replacement.

Moving through the modules, I learned about Deep Learning, and how to use technology to help my students achieve that. I also learned that, while most of my students will be Digital Natives like me, they'll also need to know the guidelines and rules of the internet, and how to represent themselves on social media professionally. Designing curriculum for them won't be as simple, as technology is constantly evolving and so are the schools and school districts we will be in.

This class has gave me a lasting impression of how technology should be implemented in my future classroom, and the easiest way for me to go about doing it. Using broad standards like the ISTE Standards for Educators, I can gauge how I need to keep my students empowered and learning, while also using the other tools from this class to use technology to reach those goals. I think I'll also be able to implement what I've learned from this COVID-19 pandemic, and what other educators will certainly have thoughts on, to amplify the way we teach students through an online basis.

Module 7 - Educator as Learner

Learning Your Best Way of Teaching, Including Tech Teaching

1. Professional Learning Communities - Also sometimes called Professional Learning Teams, are groups of teachers coming together to collaborate and learn from each other. While it's fairly new, the internet makes it easier for educators to connect and use those connections to aid in their teaching.
2. Tools such as Twitter or creating blogs are great ways to create online PLCs. There are also such things as Personal Learning Networks, which are usually set up my teachers themselves, while PLCs and PLYs are set up my schools or school districts.
3. "Even without connecting to other educators, there are many ways for educators to make the Web a valuable partner in increasing skills and in improving practice. The trick is knowing where to go for quality resources so that time is not wasted wading through volumes of search results or evaluating the credibility of the sources."
4. Lots of wonderful sources exits, including:
1. Youtube
2. ISTE
3. Edudemic
4. TeachThought
5. Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything
5. Along with using these online resources, you can also make the web work for you by using curation tools - ways to search collections and create bookmarks of good ideas and activities.
6. While some teachers get professional development through their school district, others have to look outward to help them learn new skills, particularly in the realm of technology.
7. Some online professional learning options:
1. Apple Teacher
2. Google Certified Educator Training Center
3. ACSD
4. PBS TeacherLine
5. Teachers First
8. You can also improve your own teaching not just by collaborating or learning from others, but also by following and doing your own research. While some may believe in learning styles, some research into the matter can find that Dembo & Howard (2007) found that they are almost a myth.
9. No matter how your school may help its teachers progress professionally, and no matter how the school may me set up technologically, you can know that you'll be prepared to tackle anything that comes at you as an educator.

Module 6 - Designing for Deep Learning

Designing Learning with Technology in Mind

1. The ISTE Designer Standard addresses ways Educators can "design authentic, learner-driven activities and environments that recognize and accommodate learner variability" in its Designer Standard. Educators: 
1. Use technology to create, adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs.
2. Design authentic learning activities that align with content area standards and use digital tools and resources to maximize active, deep learning.
3. Explore and apply instructional design principles to create innovative digital learning environments that engage and support learning.
2. The Backward Design Approach - setting the final goal for the learning, and building curriculum from that backwards, creating learning activities that work towards that goal.
3. Checking for evidence of learning can help guide students and educators on the right path to their goals. You can use Assessment Plans to formulate how to reach those outcomes.
4. There are also many different kinds of assessments, including:
1. Formative Assessment - assessment during learning, to help guide the process
2. Summative Assessment - assessment after the fact, to help gauge the entire unit
5. After deciding the final goal and how you will assess the students in their completion of that goal, it comes time to decide what activities and tasks will help the student reach those goals.
6. "When planning the activities, consider: 
1. What will be taught and how should it be taught to help learners meet the performance goals?
2. What sequence of activity best suits the desired results?
3. What activities will help making the learning experience engaging and effective, given the goals and needed evidence?
4. What learning events and instruction will help learners acquire the targeted knowledge and skills, make meaning of important ideas and transfer their learning to new situations?"
7. Grant & McTighe recommend using a "WHERETO" approach:
1. Where are We HEaded
2. Hook and Engage
3. Equip for Success with Experiences
4. Reflect, Revisit, Revise, and Rethink
5. Express Understandings and Self-evaluate
6. Tailor
7. Organizing Learning Experiences to Foster Understanding
8. Technology can fit into these processes in many ways, including using the technology to enhance your curriculum-building, and also as learning tools for your student's activities.
9. Keeping these technological tools in mind when designing, assessing, and creating activities can help you enhance your student's learning, but it's good to keep in mind not all technology will help in every situation and simulation.

Module 5 - Facilitating Digital Age Learning

Technological Thinking and Technological Learning

1. While technology can be a great resource to help aid in a student's education, using it incorrectly, or using it when the classroom culture doesn't support it, will never be helpful.
2. You can empower classroom culture in many ways, including:
1. Voice and Choice
2. Promote Trust and Collaboration
3. Foster a Growth Mindset
4. Encourage Risk-Taking
5. Let Students Follow Their Passion
6. Be a Tour Guide, Not a Gatekeeper
3. "CT is a set of critical thinking skills that when used to solve a problem, mirror the processes a computer would use. It relies on algorithms and patterns that can be replicated by computers. "
4. CT can be used in classrooms easily, and it doesn't require technology. It helps students break problems into smaller pieces that they can handle, and can help them in the long run by learning a new learning skill.
5. Design Thinking is another type of problem-solving skill for your students, which involves students designing something to solve a problem.
6. The key principles of Design Thinking are as follows:
1. Divergent Thinking
2. User-Centered
3. Collaborative
4. Integrated Thinking
5. Experimental
7. While Design Thinking doesn't require any technology, it still has implementations with technology in the classroom.
8. "Creative thinking involves generating new ideas, often where there is not one correct answer. Creativity requires individuals to think outside of the box, in directions different from that which might be expected, and it urges individuals to look at what already exists relative to a concept while generating novel ideas. "
9. This Creative thinking can be helpful to students by helping them formulate and create new ideas, to imagine, to take risks, and be curious.
10. Scaffolding, another learning experience, includes giving students the tools and strategies to support higher thinking then they normally could reach without it.

Module 4 - From Digital Citizen to Digital Leader

A New Kind of Citizenship

1. Digital Native - a person born and brought up in the age of technology, who is more familiar with the Internet and the digital age.
2. While most students educators are serving today are these Natives, it is becoming apparent that our students do not have the skills they need to function in this digital world.
3. Many schools create programs to help their students learn digital etiquette, and also limit some students to certain websites and programs. Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) also help limit students and guide their conduct on the web.
4. Digital Citizenship - having acceptable and useful online behavior, void of plagiarism and inappropriate behavior. "Just as we teach our students expectations for behavior and safety in the classroom, the playground, the cafeteria and the school halls, we need to do the same for our digital activities."
5. Anything you do online leaves a Digital Footprint, a trail of personal information and search history that the internet stores. Keeping students informed on what the internet keeps helps them be better Digital Citizens.
6. Students also need to be aware of copyrights and creative credits, to make sure they know not all information is readily available to them, and so they don't violate them in the process.
7. Cyberbullying is also something that students should be informed of - how cyberbullying works, why it can be even more detrimental than regular in-person bullying, and how to combat it.
8. Something that teachers and online educators have to be mindful of, as well as their students, is making sure that we all have a professional online presence, including social media. This is part of our digital footprint, and we have to make sure that what we post or do online doesn't jeopardize future opportunities.
9. Digital Citizenship should be part of a students curriculum from kindergarten on, to make sure that students can go into the new technological world with the skills they need to be successful.