The MAET Experience: A Continuation of Success
By Marc Compton
February 21st 2011
February 21st 2011
The Big Pig Picture
The TPACK model Professors Matthew Koehler and Punya Mishra
Two years ago I set out to determine a Master’s program that could interest me on a personal level while still preparing me for future ambitions. Most importantly I wanted to find a program that would provide me the abilities to improve the education that my students earn while attending Rochester High School. Even though I have been successful in achieving many of the objectives that I had hoped to reach in the MAET program, there have been a plethora of new ideas and techniques that have improved my classroom instruction beyond what I could have envisioned. The program has also equipped me to help the development of my colleague’s classroom instruction. During the program much of what I had already believed about teaching was reaffirmed such as developing skills with content simultaneously, known to me now as the TPACK model. This TPACK model has positively influenced me to design lessons that more clearly develop students’ skills and content knowledge. Despite confirming much of my teaching experience the program challenged me to accept widespread online education as a cost effective reality for the future.
Team TPACK
Perhaps the most influential idea I have learned about during the MAET program is the TPACK model in classes CEP 820, 822, & 815. I had always taken an approach to my class where I paired content with a variety of skills. The experience with the TPACK model has given me further clarification on how I can improve my ability to infuse technology not only with content but pedagogy as well. The model has essentially defined the main ideas that I must use as a checklist while composing new effective lessons. Currently the model is being used in my U.S. History class as a unit framework. At Rochester High School I am embarking on a semester long development of skills in Microsoft MovieMaker. There are a number of lessons spread out through the course of the semester that scaffold the skills necessary to use MovieMaker along with different pieces of the U.S. curriculum. The students started with the basics of MovieMaker such as importing pictures, assembling them on a time line, and publishing the video. As the semester moves on we will learn how to add transitions, embed sound files, and even make recordings of our voices to pair with the imagery. As pointed out in the TPACK reading piece, we are living in “exponential times” that are drifting toward the internet as being one of the cornerstones of civilization. Due to this development we must adjust our methods so that our students can be prepared for the unknown journey ahead. In this case the unit long plan will give students a deeper idea of the content because they must use technology skills to construct a piece of work that reflects the course content. It is my hope to not only continue using this model for a general class framework but to also introduce this idea to my colleagues as well. It has been a challenge to help assist my colleagues in feeling comfortable with something they have not done before. It is a risk but everyone in the U.S. History department has bought into the idea. It will be sometime until this model is adopted on a widespread basis because most teachers at this point lack the technical capabilities to learn the necessary technologies. Also districts lack the time and resources to help cultivate these abilities amongst their staff. Despite the hurdles ahead, the framework will become a more common mainstay in education, preparing students with a much more enriching experience giving way to a higher skill set and content knowledge.
Online Secondary Education: Becoming a necessary future
Another major idea that was hit on in every course ranging from CEP 820, Teaching K-12 online to CEP 800, Learning in School and Other Settings, had to do with using online education on a widespread basis in secondary schools. In these classes we learned how to develop an online course using best practice education research from individuals such as Gardner (multiple intelligences), Karen Worth (using prior knowledge), and Linda Levsnik (students learn by doing not memorizing). To deliver the courses we used course management systems such as Moodle or Blackboard. Due to the rise of cheap online credit recovery programs such as E-20/20 the knowledge learned in these courses will prove very useful in the future improvement to online education. Also with the cost cuts to education, districts will be forced to streamline the delivery of instruction to students. One path some districts may adopt is to reduce brick and mortar costs by having students take their courses online. Personally I am still skeptical to this idea because I believe that schools serve a bigger purpose than just teaching students academic skills and content. Schools are a center of a community that establish an identity and give people much needed face to face social interaction. Despite this very valuable function that I do not believe can be replaced by a digital medium, education institutions will be forced to adopt the online model in order to deliver 21st century instruction at a cheaper price. I am a little more confident that this education can be delivered in an effective manner due to a number of experiences developed in these courses. Throughout the program we have effectively used programs such as Googledocs, Voicethread, Wikispaces, or Windows Live and social networks such as Facebook to synthesize the in-person education experience. During CEP 800 Googledocs was used to gather information from students and organize assignment due dates. Additionally the site was used to produce and share information with instructors. During CEP 820, I worked in a group that used the digital medium to collaborate on group projects. We used Wikispaces and Weebly to publish research and Googledocs to construct presentations. In regards to my own teaching at this point, these classes have had a major impact on how I use course management systems in my current classroom setting. Currently I use Moodle as a digital version of my classroom. I learned how set up course content in an organized fashion. This organized setup allows for students to become more at ease with accessing course information. Also these classes taught me how to effectively implement the system to tie all of my specific classroom lessons with the vast resources of the internet. For example in my AP World History course I use embedded Googleforms in Moodle as a means to gather feedback from student. Additionally sites such as Wikispaces have been tied into the Moodle site to act as an online collaboration space for students. In my U.S. History class I can post video clips or embed Googlevideos found online so that students can watch scenes that might have been missed during school hours. With all of these experiences I have become a bit more confident in this new digital education experience for secondary education. I am still very hesitant about educating a lot of high school students in this environment but I have become a little more open to the idea due to my experience with multitude of free online programs that ease the communication burden. However teenagers need a mentor that works with their parents to establish the values necessary for success, the internet with all of its information cannot do this.
Assessing Software
The most practical skill that I pulled from the MAET is software analysis. This skill is very valuable because it reaches beyond education specific applications. Prior to the program I had a perception that the best software for education was expensive software designed with education in mind. From the outset of the program in CEP 810, Teaching for Understanding with Computers, I learned that most of the best programs for education are in fact free programs. The Brabec article, read in CEP 810, as well as the education innovation analysis assignment each did a great job influencing my philosophy with educational software. Brabec discusses how software designed with a wide range of capabilities is often a better purchase because it is not limited to the use from one specific subject area. Districts can get more ‘bang’ for their buck with purchases such as these. For example, Microsoft Word or PowerPoint can be helpful software that aids in student learning because the programs reach beyond just their simple word processing or presentation capabilities. They can be made to embed imagery or construct mindmaps that a program such as Inspiration can offer. Essentially the purchaser gets a multi-tasker with Word compared to Inspiration that just performs one specific task. The most powerful idea that I learned in this program is that in the future software consumers should be wary of spending a lot of money on expensive programs that become quickly outdated with the rapid speed of software development. Moving forward, cash strapped districts should not put their eggs into one basket. Instead they should purchase subscriptions to web programs such as Voicethread, Wikispaces, Prezi, or Weebly. Even better districts can use free web software applications such as Googledocs, Blogger, or Netvibes. This web software has a number positive attributes that outweighs any potential negative concerns. First of all these programs are consistently updated with improvements so students and districts are always using the most recent program. Also many of these programs require the internet, web browsers, and the ‘cloud’ to store student work. No longer do the students need to purchase and install their own software at home. If students have a computer with a web browser and internet they can access their work at home to complete assignments as homework. Another great emerging development from these free web programs has to do with collaboration. A great skill that is transferrable into any profession throughout life, real-time collaboration has become a standard that all of these programs have implemented. This allows for students to work together to constructively develop solutions to problems or compose work together. As referenced earlier, the cloud is another great advantage to these programs. Students can access their work from anywhere in the world since it is stored in this online cloud. Moving forward schools are left with an awesome cheap option to keep up with the rapid pace of software development. The exposure to these programs has given me an opportunity to creatively think up educational activities that implement these powerful platforms. Even more importantly the program has equipped me with the skills to learn, access, and analyze the practical uses of these programs, which are abilities that reach far beyond just the classroom.
Continuing the Journey
At the center of everything that I do is my students. This goal has been the continuity for me throughout the MAET program. With the tools I have been equipped with such as the TPACK model, teaching students online, and assessing educational value of technology I believe that I have reached closer to my ultimate goal to prepare students to face the challenges of the future. Now that my formal schooling is coming to a close I look forward to using the resources and skills obtained in the MAET program to continue serving students by improving their education experience.