Carter's Adventures in Educational Technology

In my grad school journey, I learned many new things and a few of those I get to revisit regularly. One of those topics was the growth mindset. I was first introduced to Carol Dweck's (2006) book on the growth mindset back in January when we were asked to develop a plan for how we would share the growth mindset with others. Here is my website on Growth Mindset that I created back in January that includes my plan. I've made some changes to this site since it originally held the slide deck and the references only. Recently I have added more information about the growth mindset with more of my personal thoughts and opinions.  Another topic I learned more about is creating a significant learning environment for my learners. We discussed how technology has changed the way people learn and interact with each other while learning. Thomas and Brown (2011) introduced me to the term collective when referring to my online community of educators. We all contribute to the groups' ...

As I continue to develop my innovation plan on blended learning to create personalized professional development, I had an opportunity to explore the Backwards Design in Wiggins and McTighe's book, Understanding by Design  to design a unit within my plan. I had already used  Fink's 3 column table to design the course therefore I knew my goals for the course.  UbD has you start with your standards and the ISTE Standards for Educators was where I looked to begin. I found the perfect standard that reflected the main purpose of my plan: Educators design authentic, learner-driven activities and environments that recognize and accommodate learner variability(5). It fit perfectly! It allowed for blended learning, student choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities, and personalized learning.  Next, I worked on the understandings and essential questions I wanted my learners to pursue. From these understandings, I derived the skills and conc...

Using Backwards Design For my innovation project, I have to develop a course design using Fink's (n.d.) guide in order to create significant learning to be used for my blended learning of professional development of technology integration. At first, I was intimidated to write a whole course guide but then I fell back on my curriculum writing experience. The two are not so different, both start with you thinking of your end goal and then you work backward to determine the skills needed to get you there. Siedleck, n.d. I started by developing a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) for my learners; educators that I was assisting to integrate technology into their classroom. I asked myself what did I want them to remember and be able to do 2 - 3 years after they completed my course. My BHAG is that l earners will create a blended learning environment for their classroom which provides their learners Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic learning opportunities ( COV...

To Do Is To Learn Venosdale, 2012       I believe that you have to experience something to really learn; think about when you were a kid and you were told “don't touch the stove, it's hot.” You never truly believe them until you touch the stove and experience the pain for yourself, I know because I was the one touching the stove.        Learning is a very active thing, you're making connections, reflecting on personal experience, and talking to people about it. You work to connect the newly acquired knowledge to prior knowledge so that it has context and meaning to you. M yself as a Learner       I  like to learn about things relevant to myself and applicable in my life. I learn best when I’m actively engaged real life applications. I don't learn very well in lecture-only atmospheres, my mind tends to drift if my hands are not engaged, therefore I learn best by doing. I also need to have a passion for the topic...

Here's my reflection on A New Culture of Learning  by Thomas and Brown.  The three principals from A New Culture of Learning: - The internet has the most up-to-date information for learners. - Peer-to-peer learning is most natural for learners. - Collaboration happens in a collective of learners. Application within my  Innovation Plan : - Online resources for teachers to reference. - Working within the collective to build understanding. Resources ChangSchool. (2015, Dec 14). Dr Tony Bates on Building Effective Learning Environments. [Video File]. Retrieved from URL https://youtu.be/3xD_sLNGurA Harapnuik, D. (2015, May 8). Creating Significant Learning Environments (CSLE). [Video FIle]. Retrieved from URL https://youtu.be/eZ-c7rz7eT4   TEDx Talks. (2012, Sep 12). A New Culture of Learning, Douglas Thomas at TEDxUFM. [Video File]. Retrieved from URL https://youtu.be/lM80GXlyX0U   Thomas, D., & Brown, J. (2011). A new culture ...

How crazy am I? 26 Kids, 26 Passions, 2 Teachers, and 1 Lab Every summer my school district hosts the Know Your Impact  conference. Three days of breakout sessions covering a different pillar each day. On the 3rd day we have a student spotlight "expo" where each campus has a group of students displaying the technology that they have used the past year. It is made up of GT (Gifted and Talented) students, Makerspace projects, STEM classes, and CTE (Career Technology Education) students. This becomes a bit of a competition between the elementary campuses and this year I was asked to help out with the GT program on a large technology based unit for one of the campuses I work with. I jumped at the chance to try out a personal project I learned about last summer called Genius Hour. I wanted to try it but I am no longer in the classroom on a daily basis so I drove right in! First 3 Meetings Our GT program grew over spring break, our numbers swelled from 8 to 26! This meant ...

It helps if we are thinking of the same thing when we hear the word innovation. My favorite explanation is from George Couros (2015), he defines innovation as “a way of thinking that creates something new and better.” He believes that “innovation can come from either “invention” (something totally new) or “iteration” (a change of something that already exists), but if it does not meet the idea of “new and better,” it is not innovative… It is a way of considering concepts, processes, and potential outcomes; it is not a thing, task, or even technology. Technology can be crucial in the development of innovative organizations, but innovation is less about tools like computers, tablets, social media, and the Internet, and more about how we use those things.” (p 19-20) Technology alone is not disruptive either, How it is used determines if it’s disruptive or not. Disruptive can be thought as transforming something to where a large number of people that did not have access to it and ...

While I was working at my desk this morning a teacher friend of mine came in concerned that Wordle  would not work on her computer. She also was worried that Tagxedo wouldn't work either. So I started investigating. First we had a problem with the Java Plug-in, then one said they wanted Silverlight... (What is Silverlight btw?) Firefox wouldn't work, my trusty Chrome wouldn't work, I cringed as I opened Edge and it wouldn't work either. What to do? She really wanted a way to get her struggling students that have had small group session after session, pull outs, and tutorials to have something fun to do. I figured, let's see what Google has for us. I searched "word clouds". Ding ding ding, we have a winner! Word Clouds ,  This this app is awesome!    https://www.wordclouds.com/ What does it do? Word Clouds allows you to import a document, PDF, TXT file, a web page or you can past text into it. Then it will perform a word count and make the wo...

To me e-portfolio was a buzzword that I heard at summer conferences as ways for students to showcase their work. I knew the general concept behind them, but I never thought that I would use one as an adult. Now that I am a student, I think of them in a new light. What are they? E-portfolios are a form of a digital scrapbook that tell the learner's story. It is a way for students to have a voice in the demonstration of their learning beyond a report card. I use the e-portfolio to keep a record of my learning, training sessions I've conducted, and my accomplishments throughout my career. It's a way of showcasing all I know and can do. I look forward to continuing to develop my own e-portfolio and I will encourage my students to develop one of their own. My struggles with the blog portion of the e-portfolio I was never really one to journal or do much writing in my younger years; I'd start with buying a cute notebook and I would record my musing through the day ...