Standard III Model digital age work and learning
Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.
- Demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations
- Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation
- Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital age media and formats
- Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources
Reflection
The third standard for teachers is the ability of modeling digital age work and learning. Teachers can master new tools to apply in instruction and transfer learning experience to new tools. They also need to communicate with peers, students, parents and others to collaborate in promoting student learning.
The first artifact I selected for the standard is the tutorial for MindManager. MindManage is a tool for concept mapping. It is similar to Kidspiration. However, Kidspiration is appropriate for kids. The artifact shows the fluency in the mastery of technology and the transfer of current knowledge and skills to new technologies. I have already mastered some tools of concept mapping, such as inspiration, text2mindmap, Kidspiration, etc. Although MindManager is a new tool, I can use my experience to learn the tool. I designed the tutorial of MindManager for MECA 2015 and directed the workshop with Dr. Wang. With the experience of learning technologies, I am not afraid of any new tools. The experience can transfer the learning skills to the new learning process. When I designed the tutorial, it was December 2014. However, when I wanted to direct the training, it is February 2015. The new version of MindManager is coming. I needed to adjust some functions of the tools. The used experience also helps me a lot. The fluency experience of mastery technology can help learn new technologies.
The second artifact I selected is the tutorial for Schoology. Schoology is an online free Learning Management System. When signing in the online system, users have different entrances for their different characters. For instructor, it can help create a new course, manage the course and implement the course. The communication functions can help promote the effect of online learning. For students, they need the course access code their instructors give to them to enter certain course. There is also the entrance for parents. For parents, they also need the code their children’s instructor gives to them. The tool can integrate students, their parents into the learning system to cooperate to complete the whole instruction. The system can help teachers collaborate with students, peers, parents and others using digital tools to support student success and innovation. When I designed the tutorial, I used many tools, such as Camtasia Studio and Recorder and Word to design text and video formats tutorials. I firstly logged in the system as an instructor to create a course in the system and then invited my peers to join in the course. I also logged in as a student and the student’s parent to test the system. The learning experience helps me simulate the authentic learning environment to collaborate many characters in the instruction. It is helpful for my future course designing and design for collaboration with peers, students and their parents.
The third artifact I selected for the standard is the tutorial for Managing Email Accounts with Foxmail. Technology helps us communicate with others anytime and anywhere through instant messaging software, emails with a personal computer or mobile devices. Email is one of the prevalent communication tools. Therefore, one person may have several email accounts for different usages. Foxmail can help us manage our emails accounts without going to the email websites to check each of our emails. The tools for emails can realize the standard of communicating with others using digital age media. Every student may have an email account for learning. They may also have another account for other purposes. To manage all the accounts in Foxmail, users can switch to different account in the tool and don’t need to the account web sites. The tools can also save emails in users’ own computers. The function can help check some important emails without the connection to the Internet in emergency circumstances. When I designed the tutorial, I used screenshot function of QQ to have the correct images for each of the functions of Foxmail. I designed a presentation via PowerPoint and also text format via Word.
Future learning goals
The ability of
modeling digital age work and learning will be a basic foundation for my
further instruction. With the development of technology, more and more learning
system with complex technologies supported will come. It is vital to use the
experience I accumulated when I was a student to master new technologies. For
more and more online training and courses, the communication tools for
instructor, students, their parents, and others in asynchronous and synchronous
ways will also be a great part for the whole instructional design. New
information, ideas and resources should be conveyed to them through these
communication tools. In the future, I will focus on the new communication tools
and test them for better application in different learning environments.
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