Educational Technology Websites - EDUC 639 Wk 4

 

Educational Technology Websites - EDUC 639 Wk 3

 

EDUC 639: Security of Student Data

 

Security of Student Data 

The terms data privacy and data security sound synonymous, but they are not. Data privacy is an ‘umbrella term’ that covers many aspects of this issue. Largely it is made up of state and federal laws, and the expectation of the privacy of individuals. Those expectations might be, but not limited to, no unauthorized access, use, loss, or destruction of data. This may seem simple, but when you start thinking about where companies and municipalities, school districts store their data and who they pay to manage it, it can get quite complicated. How do you legislate “The Cloud”? (SPI Briefing Room, 2015) Where are these databases actually stored? Are they in your city, state, or (even) country?

This has been a growing issue for school districts around the world for some time. However, under the conditions that learning has been happening the last year or so of the global COVID-19 pandemic, this issue has blown up to almost a crisis level in many school districts. Matthew Ketchum, director of EdTech, Modesto City Schools, has some great advice for educators. He suggests that we remain ever mindful as we continue to add new technology apps, tools, and programs to our repertoires. Seek out our local and federal state laws for guidance, making certain that vendors have a clear, accessible, privacy policy to avoid the possibility that student data could be sold. (Dyknow, 2020)

Tools to help check student privacy compliance:

Common Sense Education’s privacy evaluation tool.

iKeepSafe Badging System for vendors.

Student Data Privacy Alliance CA & Nationwide Database

Code of Virginia § 22.1-20.2. Student data security.

 

References

Dyknow. (2020, September 3). A Crash Course on Student Data Privacy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4CjhqieFns

SPI Briefing Room. (2015, July 20). Data Privacy vs. Data Security [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frFVppv2Q8k

EDUC 639: Fostering Digital Citizenship in our Students

 

Blog: Fostering Digital Citizenship in our Students                                                  EDUC 639

Digital citizenship is a hot topic in education today. As educators, how can we teach and/or encourage our students to responsibly participate in and contribute to the digital world? The ISTE Educator standard 3b suggests that we “establish a learning culture that promotes curiosity and critical examination of online resources and fosters digital literacy and media fluency”. Okay, that sounds great, but how exactly do we accomplish that? One very vital way to begin to establish this learning culture that fosters digital literacy and media fluency is to get our students’ parents on board as collaborative allies.

Empowering parents with the support they need to understand the importance of digital citizenship will also foster literacy and fluency. Keeping up with their student’s apps and social media can be overwhelming to parents and teachers alike. That is why it is important to become each other’s allies and we can all grow our digital citizenship together as we teach our students how to do the same.

Keegan Korf had some wonderful suggestions in this TEDxOmaha video. 

·                    Listen
·         Educate Ourselves (Parents and Teachers)
·         Seek out resources available to manage digital literacy
·         Investigate digital laws with your child(ren)/students, for example Sexting Laws
·         Explore social media your child(ren)/students are using to better help them navigate those waters more responsibly
·         Set screen time limits, such as charging all devices in parent/guardian’s room at night after 10pm.

References

ISTE Standards for Educators. (n.d.). https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators

TEDxTalks. (2017, November 14). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztgSr42CSEI

EDUC 639 Blog: Digital Rights

 

How do we guard our privacy in this digital age? It is a common misconception that “we” (Americans? Humankind?) have the inalienable right to our privacy. Is this a basic human right? Is it due to the 4^th amendment (search and seizure)? The answer is a definitive, “No.” Privacy is a concept that is protected only by legal fiction. With each advance in new technology our concept of privacy has been and continues to be eroded. In a TEDx talk in 2016, Nicholas Martino said that “If we can not protect ourselves we can not be ourselves.” (TEDx Talks, 2016)

            Five years after the fact, I’m wondering what this speaker would have to say about our new virtual and hybrid classroom environments that have evolved this past year since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020? Many questions go unanswered even today as we are screaming up on the end of the 2020-2021 school year. Is it legal (or ethical) to live-stream a classroom? Is remote learning itself legal? Must cameras be “on” for virtual learning?

            I don’t have all the answers to these questions, but I can share with you some of the disadvantages of virtual learning. When we do not require cameras to be on in the virtual classroom we are attempting to protect student privacy, but we are also giving them license to walk away and disengage from the learning content being taught. Many students lay their heads down on the table, lay down in bed, or on the couch intending to ‘listen’ and fall asleep. With cameras off, there is nearly zero connection between students or between teachers and students. No eye contact, and certainly no non-verbal behavioral cues.  

            It has been my practice to ask for cameras to be on to take attendance, and then I encourage them to stay on so that we stay engaged in our learning together. I do not require the camera to stay on, mostly because that is not a hill I’m ‘willing to die on’. Pick your battles, but encourage that visual interaction!

Resources

TEDx Talks. (2016, January 21). Privacy in the Digital Age | Nicholas Martino | TEDxFSCJ [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuhifEL5VsU

EDUC 639 - Blog: The Importance of Teaching Media Fluency/Literacy

Promoting Media Fluency in the Classroom

        We all can recognize the fact that the number of hours most of humankind spends a day in front of media of some sort has skyrocketed in the last decade, the amount of time our children and youth spend, even more so. I can not imagine how those numbers have multiplied over the last year since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The face of our work and school lives has transformed this past year into something we could not have imagined just 12 months ago. What we have found is that we are no longer merely consumers of media but producers as well. In order to continue to excel in our work and school lives, humankind has a deep need to become fluent in all avenues of media literacy. “Today we need to be able to communicate as effectively with graphical and multi-media formats as we do with words and text. Media fluency helps us to develop these abilities.” (Wabisabi Learning, 2016)

            As educators, we have a weighty burden to not only provide media literacy education for our students, but in many cases, we must bridge that gap for ourselves first! Becoming media literate means we must teach students to “apply critical thinking to media message and” “use media to create their own messages”. This is “a key 21st-century skill. Media Literacy is critical to” students’ future educational endeavors and their “future participation in the civic and economic life of our democracy”. ("What is media literacy?", 2014)

            Media fluency demands critical listening skills, the ability to analyze, verbalize and verify information, separating facts from opinions. We need to be fluent also in the ‘wrappers’ the information reaches us in, the specific medium utilized. Acquiring next the skills to respond or communicate using that media’s form, flow, and align it correctly for the audience at hand. Becoming media literate means we have the ability to interpret the media message (wrappers and all), evaluate the impacts of those messages on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and then be able to produce our own media thoughtfully and diligently. ("What is media literacy?", 2014)

            Becoming media fluent or literate is imperative for students as they approach their future educational and civic endeavors, it will empower them to engage in a global media environment. “Today’s messages come in many forms and literacy can no longer refer simply to the ability to read and write.” ("What is media literacy?", 2014)

(Media Literacy Now, 2017)

References

Media Literacy Now. (2017, January 17). What is Media Literacy? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIaRw5R6Da4

Wabisabi Learning. (2016, February 16). Media Fluency [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myYUGyAjqII

What is media literacy? (2014, January 28). Media Literacy Now. https://medialiteracynow.org/what-is-media-literacy/

            

 

EDUC 639 Wk. 3 - Blog: Learning Culture

 

One thing that remains constant in this world of ours is change. Hand in hand with this truth of humankind is that when it comes to change, we always struggle against it. We go long stretches of time and we get comfortable and complacent with how we live, work, or worship. Then something big comes along, like a world-wide pandemic, and we all must learn to approach our lives work differently to survive.

In the past, we have been known to take a very one-dimensional approach to learning ‘from’ technological sources. We cannot simply read excerpts or watch video clips and answer multiple-choice questions to demonstrate authentic learning. This ‘learning’ is only in our short-term memory long enough to pass the quiz. Learning ‘with’ technology perpetrates a much different outcome. One where people can use technology as a cognitive tool and complete authentic tasks with the learned skills and solve problems that occur in real-world scenarios. (Carr-Chellman & Rowland, 2017)

Nigel Paine reminded us this week in our video content, that no matter where we work it is far better to establish a learning culture within our workplace, rather than to take that one-dimensional approach of the read/watch + multiple-choice quiz to demonstrate learning or knowledge. This approach might be appropriate for formative assessments to inform instruction, but not summative assessments where we need to see knowledge and skills demonstrated authentically. Paine describes learning culture as managing change and transformation, that can take insight from an outside source and quickly incorporate it into policy, and quickly acting on it. This produces workers who feel confident in their growing skill sets, and therefore, more competent. Paine implies that having confidence in your ability to execute your duties then creates an ongoing culture of competency as your working skills improve and increase.  (Paine, 2019)

Resources

Carr-Chellman, A. A., & Rowland, G. (2017). Issues in Technology, Learning, and Instructional Design. Routledge.

Paine, N. (2019). What is a Learning Culture?
. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn9AAw3vcXs.

The Social Responsibility of Educators as They Guide Young Learners

 

The Social Responsibility of Educators as They Guide Young Learners

Educators at every level have the weighty responsibility of designing and executing learning for students with very wide arrays of personal variables. Not only must educators consider students' individual learning challenges and needs, and linguistic/cultural differences, but also remain sensitive to variables such as sexual identity, race, socio-economic status, and variances in familial lifestyles. How these variables are addressed in the educational environment affects a student’s academic development and shapes their future identities as citizens. “How can we successfully teach and reach all students, from all backgrounds, while fostering a desire for increased social responsibility and awareness within them?” (Gangone, 2019, pg. 1)

Clearly, we live in a time of unprecedented insensitivity to many social-difference-related issues even though the United States has been working through many of these same issues for generations. There is a deep desire within the education community to grow up new generations of Americans who can cope with their own social responsibilities and support others while they do the same. The development of basic social skills early in life may be the key to the social changes many of us are desperate for. Enveloping lessons on cooperation, communication, conflict management, and role-playing perspective-taking (Berman, 1990) into the general curriculum at every level of education could be an excellent start. Learners of every kind need these valuable tools in their coping skills repertoire.

Resources

Berman, S. (1990). Educating for Social Responsibility. Educational Leadership, November, 75–80. http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_199011_berman.pdf

Gutierrez, A. (2020, February 12). Educators and Social Responsibility: What This Means to Informed Citizenry. American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). https://aacte.org/2019/08/educators-and-social-responsibility-what-this-means-to-informed-citizenry/

EDUC 630 - Technology Trends Infographic

 

EDUC 630 Web-Based Assessment Assignment - Following Isabel on Instagram (Chains)

 

EDUC 630 VDB Week 7: Assistive Technology

 

Discussion Board Week 7: Assistive Technology                                       EDUC 630

Roblyer & Hughes (2019) discuss considering opportunities to teach online.  I teach developmental reading to a small group of ninth-grade special education students. During remote learning this school year under the pandemic conditions of COVID-19, I had to devise a way to read a book with my students and do activities and answer questions without being able to physically put a book into their hands. Choosing a book that we had classroom copies of, I went out to Amazon and purchased the Kindle and the Audible versions of this book. All of our students have a division-issued Chromebook that they use to access our learning management system and zoom classroom links, and if necessary, each student is provided a portable hotspot for Wi-Fi. Each class meeting, I would share my screen where I was displaying the text of the reading as large as I could, and we would read along as we listened to the Audible version read to us. We would move through chapter by chapter, prereading the chapter comprehension questions, reading the chapter together, and then discussing the answers to the comprehension questions for that segment of the story. I am certain that my attempts at providing equitable access for all of my students to these resources had a positive impact on their reading fluency and comprehension, despite the pandemic climate we still find ourselves in.

References

Roblyer & Hughes (2019) Integrating educational technology into teaching. New York, NY: Pearson.

EDUC 630 Technology Lesson Demonstration - Traci Best

 

EDUC 630 VDB Week 5: Gaming

https://thedreamoftheking.blogspot.com/2021/02/educ-630-vdb-week-5-gaming.html 

VDB Wk 5: Gaming                                                                                     EDUC 630

            Utilizing gamification in the classroom has definite advantages and disadvantages. Gaming can be used in many ways such as to connect to prior knowledge at the beginning of a whole group lesson or facilitate group review of a lesson or a whole unit of study. In these types of applications gaming activities can be not just fun but motivating because students often enjoy competing with each other. The nature of this collaborative application also encourages interactivity and offers immediate feedback for correcting wrong answers.         

There are challenges though to using gaming in the classroom. Not just any game is going to necessarily be a good fit for a lesson. Roblyer and Hughes (2019) remind us that the objectives or purposes of some games may not align with the learning goals and objectives for our lessons. Also, it is always possible that students may start to lose the purpose for which they are gaming and be more focused on the competitive fun’ aspects as opposed to keeping the focus on learning and be tempted to get too rowdy and out of control.

Personally, in my classroom, I like to keep control of gaming activities by utilizing things I know are going to be teacher-directed such as a Kahoot game. I recently used this app to run through a 47-question unit review for my English 9 class. It was a fun way to cover the material that will be on the unit test, fix any misconceptions the students have about the material and expose my students to test wording prior to the actual exam. This bolsters confidence in test-taking and eases testing anxiety. It also allows the students to practice test-taking strategies.

Gaming is probably not going to be appropriate for testing itself, or graded work, particularly in the virtual school environment. Often internet connections are interrupted, and students may make mistakes in responses that would be difficult or impossible to change in that format rather than a traditional written test. Additionally, gaming-based testing might be ill-advised due to the possibility of programs being vulnerable to hacking for the purpose of cheating.

Resource

Roblyer & Hughes (2019) Integrating educational technology into teaching. New York, NY: Pearson.

EDUC 630 Professional Development Presentation - The Value of Profesional Organizations

 

Transcript: Professional Development Presentation EDUC 630

1.    Hello.  My name is Traci Best.  This is my Professional Development presentation for EDUC 630 at Liberty University. 

2.    Why is PD important, and why should you join a professional organization? 

a.     Educational development & continuing education is necessary for certifications and other required credentials 

b.    Awareness of the newest research and development in your field. 

c.     Vehicle to demonstrate your developing skills, to  make new professional connections, and pave the way for future job advancement. (Frederiksen, 2016) 

3.    International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE.org) is a professional association for educators.

o   Home to a passionate community of global educators who believe in the power of technology to transform teaching and learning, accelerate innovation and solve tough problems in education.

o   ISTE inspires the creation of solutions and connections that improve opportunities for all learners by delivering: practical guidance, evidence-based professional learning, virtual networks, thought-provoking events and the ISTE Standards.

(ISTE.org, 2021) 

ISTE Publishing – Books

ISTE publishes books by teachers for teachers to help each other put themselves at the forefront of knowledge and best practices in educational technology. (ISTE.org, 2021)

This is an example of a book I purchased recently to add to my professional toolbox for special learners who struggle to connect with subject content in meaningful ways. (Carter, 2019)

4.    ISTE Publishing – Peer Reviewed Journals

“The Journal of Research on Technology in Education (JRTE) publishes articles that report on original research, project descriptions/evaluations, syntheses of the literature, assessments of the state of the art, and theoretical or conceptual positions that relate to the field of educational technology in teaching and learning and inform P-16 school-based practice” (ISTE.org, 2021). 

5.    “The ISTE Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education (JDLTE) is a refereed journal published in partnership with the ISTE Professional Learning Network for Teacher Educators. JDLTE provides access to the growing body of research addressing the use of digital technologies in teacher education. Articles highlight contemporary trends and effective, creative and innovative uses of digital technologies that prepare preservice, in-service and teacher educators for teaching in technology-rich learning environments. JDLTE digital issues are published quarterly (ISTE.org, 2021)”. 

6.    ISTE Publishing Blog utilizes a YouTube channel to deliver ideas, content & resources for leading-edge educators every month, deliverable by monthly round-up email or simply by subscribing to the ISTE channel. (ISTE.org, 2021) 

7.    ISTE – EdTech Conference 2020 was November 28^th – December 1^st, 2020 in Anaheim, California. There were thirteen speakers this year presenting a wide variety of topics. I’d like to share with you a couple talks that interest me:

9. Dr. Desiree Alexander of Educator Alexander Consulting, LLC presented Digital Equity and the Innovation Inequity Paradox: Unintended Consequences and Future Planning. 

10. Sophia Mendoza of Los Angeles Unified School District is presenting Leading with Equity and the ISTE Education Lead Standards for educators, pre-k through 12.

“Explore how PK-12 instructional leaders leverage the ISTE Standards for Education Leaders with the lens of equity and citizenship advocacy to ensure that all students of color have skilled educators who strategically use technology to meet student learning needs.”

“Technology can fuel innovation, foster creativity and create engaging learning environments. At its worst, though, poor educational technology and instruction can punish our poorest and most vulnerable students. Explore the relationship between innovation and inequity and examine inequity challenges that are arising amid ongoing innovation. (ISTE.org, 2021)

 

 

VDB 2: EDUC 630 - Traci Best

VDB #2: Data Collection & Analysis                     EDUC 630

Collecting data and analyzing it to inform instruction is a pretty basic principle of the modern classroom. One very rudimentary example of that would be to assign an exit ticket activity at the end of a lesson. Students would be required to identify key elements of the lesson objective and state them briefly in either an electronic app-based program or with something as simple as a post-it note or index card and pencil. Teachers could then use the information to direct their lesson planning and make decisions such as whether a whole-group review was required, or maybe follow-up with a small group of students to review before the next lesson. The information from the lesson exit ticket could also be used to connect to previous learning at the beginning of the next lesson.

Roblyer & Hughes (2019) suggests that students might collect and analyze data from science experiments to test hypotheses or generate box and whisker plots to visually display data distributions.

Resource

Roblyer & Hughes (2019) Integrating educational technology into teaching. New York, NY: Pearson. 

 

EDUC - 630: Video Discussion Board #1

 

Video Discussion Board 1                                                                                        EDUC 630

 

            An effective teacher balances the demands of standards-based curriculum and the individual needs of each student by employing technology in ways to:

·         Time-manage

·         Vary instruction, assessment, and learning artifacts

·         Organize collection and analysis of student data (Roblyer & Hughes, 2019)

Several tools we have at our disposal to help us comply with both the demands of standards-based curriculum and the needs of individual students are hardware-based technologies, such as:

·         Wireless network – to access the internet

·         Laptop or desktop computers - for administration, teachers and students

·         Hand-held technology – cell phones, tablets, or e-books

·         Display technology – used in whole class or large group instruction from a computer

Other tools are software-based such as productivity software that allows “teachers and students (to) plan, develop materials, communicate, collaborate, and keep records. These might include word processing, spreadsheet, databases, and email programs as well as a variety of other materials generators and data collection/analysis, graphics, and research and reference tools.” (Roblyer & Hughes, 2019, pg. 8)

          A technology-based best practice that I have repeatedly employed in my lessons is audio-assisted reading. Although it is found by some to be redundant a drain on cognitive load, and completely unnecessary (Jonassen, 2008) I have found that in the light of learners with disabilities and/or special needs it is very valuable. Whether you are working with English language learners, struggling readers, or emerging readers audio-assisted reading can increase comprehension, fluency, and sight word recognition (Stevens, et al., 2017).

References

Jonassen, D., Spector, M. J., Driscoll, M., Merrill, M.D., van Merrienboer, J., & Driscoll M.P. (2008) Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology: A Project of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Roblyer & Hughes (2019) Integrating educational technology into teaching. New York, NY: Pearson.

Stevens, E.A., Walker, M.A., and Vaughn, S. (2017) The Effects of Reading Fluency Interventions on the Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension Performance of Elementary Students With Learning Disabilities: A Synthesis of the Research from 2001 to 2014. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 50(5) 576–590, DOI: 10.1177/0022219416638028