K-12 Educational Technology by Sarah L. Lowey

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Blended Learning in the K-12 Classroom

Blended Learning: A combination of online and face-to-face instruction to help personalize the learning experience.

Powerful!

What are your thoughts as you watch this?

I can say, without a doubt, that it made me reflect on my own actions, as well as the actions of my friends, students, and family.

A Quick Introduction to the Clear Touch Interactive 6000 Series Panels

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Virtual Reality in Education: A Review

Educational VR Review

As a history teacher, I am incredibly interested in the VR experience for learners. Every history teacher strives to provide the first person perspective when trying to teach events in true historical context. Now with the VR, students can have a more authentic first-person experience. I personally see the tremendous learning value of being able to put a learner into the actual culture, location, space, and time of a people. To me, this takes the experience and engages all of the senses in ways that words in a book, or film clips cannot possibly do. While doing research for this project, I came across some great sites and a multitude of apps available for education. Since I am an avid Discovery user, both as an educator and as a private consumer, I came across Discoveryvr.com. Discovery’s VR experience offers several ways to watch, including Mobile Device options, VR headsets, and 360 Video (http://www.discoveryvr.com/). I also need to mention that this site offers information on the Google Cardboard, the much more economical solution for those interested. It would seem this tool is still very new, and there are limited videos and experiences targeted specifically for education. Since I do not have a VR headset, I watched the Civil War 360 videos in a browser. I must admit the entire time I was watching them, I wondered what it would be like to experience with a VR headset. It really is difficult to provide an actual critique or review on these products without the full experience. However, I will say that I will be keeping an eye on DiscoveryVR and am intrigued where they will go with this. One can access more education-specific information on this tool at the following link: http://discoveryeducation.com/DiscoveryNow/vr.cfm.

VR Review Non-Educational Industry

While perusing other Virtual Reality experiences that were not necessarily developed specifically for the education industry, I came across a TIME virtual experience that has been created about Pearl Harbor. This VR experience is only available on Viveport, which one must have an active subscription to use (Rothman, 2016). However, I can see value in adapting this experience for education and using it as an additional tool to bring history alive for students. Reading through the reviews of this experience, it seems to garner mixed emotions. Some enjoyed the experience, while others were disappointed in the experience. Because I do not have access to the required VR headset for this experience, I can only go by the screen shots, article, and existing reviews about this VR experience on Pearl Harbor. I still believe there is value in exploring this further and that if schools or classrooms already have access to this technology, it may be worth investigating this and other VR experiences from TIME.

Conclusion

When it comes to this type of immersive technology, the user expects an ‘out-of-this-world’ experience. Because of this, I think developers may have a difficult time finding that happy medium between consumer expectations and meaningful experiences. We also have to ensure that the VR and AR experiences offer quality learning. I think that this may be where the challenge lies within the industry. Relying on both programmers and educators to come together to create an authentic VR/AR experience that truly enhances learning. When we look at taking VR experiences not necessarily created for K-12 students and the K-12 classroom, we have to be cautious as to the actual intended learning goal and outcome, and that the tool is actually in alignment with that goal. If the user is going to engage with objects and material in a VR experience, what is it that we want the student walking away with? When we start utilizing these powerful tools in the classroom, they must be embedded in pedagogy and curriculum. Giving a hand-selected group of teachers the ability to explore and use the various AR/VR tools available and share their lessons, ideas, and recommendations would be a great way for districts to begin this process.

References

DiscoveryVR: http://www.discoveryvr.com/

Rothman, L. (2016). The History Behind the Remembering Pearl Harbor Virtual Reality Experience. Retrieved from http://time.com/4577616/remembering-pearl-harbor-history/

Sunday, October 1, 2017

BLOGGER FOR THE K-12 CLASSROOM!

Considering using a Blog in your K-12 classroom? Take a look at this informational video for ways in which you can use this powerful tool to promote social communication and learning!

Considering an LMS for your K-12 School or Classroom?

As part of a research project for my M.Ed course of study in Instructional Design and Technology, I looked into 3 LMS platforms that can be utilized in K-12.

View the video below for more information!

Using Standards to Guide Instructional Design

Having standards by which we create lessons helps us to ensure that we are creating and curating quality learning experiences—offline and online. The ISTE standards were created to help our students thrive in a technology infused, globally connected world. The standards give educators a framework to re-think the teaching and learning as they set out to create life-long learners. Standards set the bar for everything we do, whether in education, or in our business. We have standards (or guidelines) for our jobs, and we have expectations when we engage others in business. ISTE standards help us embrace technology and its role in education. Although they were created for K-12, I personally think we should be applying them at all levels of education and in the workforce. Why stop when they graduate high school? ISTE standards can help us define the learning in higher education institutions around a global set of standards and when we think about applying them in the workforce, imagine the possibilities! How many jobs are remote or home-based? How many people are working on remote teams from all around the world? To me, it just makes sense to take these standards beyond K-12 and apply them to create a world in which we all can learn how to be responsible digital citizens as we connect with people from around the world.

SCORM basically tells e-learning software programmers how they can write their programming code so that it can interact easily with other e-learning software. In other words, if I create a course (or course content) using SCORM compliant software, that content can be shared in any LMS. As an Instructional Designer, I do not have to apply SCORM, but I do have to know that it is how learning content is “packaged” to be used across LMS systems.

When it comes to best practices for technology enhanced learning, we could list several effective strategies tied to learning theory and standards. I choose to focus on instruction, or the experience. My thought is if we focus on what instruction should look like when we utilize technology, then we can create experiences that are not necessarily technology-centric, but educational goal oriented. The key is to look at these intended outcomes from a technology standpoint:

· Students explore

· Instruction is interactive

· Students perform authentic multidisciplinary work

· Students work collaboratively

· Teacher is the facilitator (Williamson & Redish, 2009)

When we look at the above list, and we think of ways in which we can engage our students using technology, students can be given an opportunity to explore online, via a google search, for example. Interactive instruction can be readily available through simulations, games, and multimedia content. We always encourage collaboration with our students, and discussion boards, blogs, and social media are great tools to help our students learn how to collaborate outside of the classroom, as well as in. And of course, our teacher as a facilitator is one we’ve heard for a while. When we utilize technology to help our students learn new concepts, explore, and collaborate, we are inherently put in a more guide or facilitator role. These practices are taken from “ISTE’s Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards” and provide a solid foundation for us to start thinking about ways in which we can utilize a variety of technologies to create engaging learning experiences.