Looking back over my blog posts for this class, the biggest change I see is that I am just more willing to jump in and try out a new tool. Some of the the resources that I completed in this class were tools that I had heard of before and were interested in, but I was not sure exactly what to do or when I did attempt it, it was not turning out the way that I wanted so I just wouldn't use it. Having the opportunity, and expectation, to produce something every week forced me to let go of apprehension and perfection and just create.
The four main ISTE standards for educators that I saw reflected in my posts were learner, designer, facilitator, and analyst. Learner is reflected in what I discussed above. This new willingness to just jump in and try something new, even if the end result is not perfect. It is a good example to students that learning is a process and that process can look messy and incomplete at times. Second is a designer. I think this one is best demonstrated with my Week 4 blog which was creating an interactive notebook on Google slides.
In my blog, I created the title page and the first few pages (slides) for students to fill in, but I wrote that, when put into practice, these pages would begin to have less on them and become more of a general template until students could take a blank page and turn it into whatever they needed for the assignment. Even the fully done pages could be customized to the student. This creates a situation where students are given scaffolding to get to a point where they take control of the product of their learning that they are putting out. Third is the facilitator. I think my Week 5 Adobe Spark video is a great example of this. I actually ended up using it in another class as a part of a 2 week unit that I am building. It is an example of the type of product that can be produced from an open-ended creative assignment to demonstrate knowledge of taxonomic levels. But, because it was not created for that exact assignment, it also does not line up perfectly to the rubric for that assignment so it can be used for students to see how grading will work and they would have the chance to grade that video. Fourth, is the analyst. For teaching to be effective, there has to be usable feedback and that is generally data driven. So, in quite a few of the tools, one of the main things that I was looking for is that I get usable data from their use. Playposit and Kahoot both gave me information on which questions students missed and Kahoot ranked students on ho scored best so it is easy to see which students are understanding the material and which students need more help. Probably the best tool that I used in this class to get instant and easily understood data is Google Forms. Prior to this, I had obviously heard of Google Forms, but before this I had not used them. Since trying it in this class, I have created probably four Google Form assessments for other classes and I love the format for the data from them.
In regards to the student ISTE standards, when I read through them, I identified three that I felt were reflected well in assignments that I created for this class: empowered learner, creative communicator, and innovative designer. For the first and the third, I feel that the interactive notebook that I developed is a good demonstration of them. The format of the notebook where there are periodic entries that are designed to be more open for the students to have more of a chance to create more with less instruction than before. This gives them the opportunity to explore the best ways to create something that meets their needs for the assignment (innovative designer). The result is a portfolio of student work and achievement so students can see their improvement and see if they have been successful at meeting goals that have been laid out (empowered learner). The video assignments that I created over the semester, Adobe Spark and Flipgrid, are some examples of making a space for students to practice their communication skills and figure out the best ways for express themselves, which meets the creative communicator goal. At the same time, in doing this, I also recognize that I need to consider ways to engage the other 4 standards and what tools could be adapted to meet those standards in the classroom. The journey of learning is never done.
The four main ISTE standards for educators that I saw reflected in my posts were learner, designer, facilitator, and analyst. Learner is reflected in what I discussed above. This new willingness to just jump in and try something new, even if the end result is not perfect. It is a good example to students that learning is a process and that process can look messy and incomplete at times. Second is a designer. I think this one is best demonstrated with my Week 4 blog which was creating an interactive notebook on Google slides.
The journey of learning is never truly finished. I enjoyed reading your reflection and recollection of how each of the assignments challenged you and helped you grow. I can see why you chose learner, designer, facilitator and analyst. These speak to both the art and science of teaching and the standards you chose from the student standards. You have identified the ways in which you empowered learners to be creative and innovative in their journey as well.
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