2.1: Content Standards & Student Technology Standards:
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Artifact
Engaged Learning (EL) Project Reflection The EL Project was created as a final assessment for ITEC 7400: 21st Century Teaching & Learning, the first Instructional Technology course in the specialist program. The EL project is designed using student technology standards to meet the Indicators of Engaged Learning (Williamson, 2013) and the higher levels of the Levels of Technology Integration (LoTi) scale (Moersch, 1995). With peer and professor collaboration and support, I created the EL Project unit plan as demonstrative of my developing ability to engage learners in technology-enhanced learning experiences. During this unit plan project, students practice researching and information literacy by exploring the film industry; they practice creativity and innovation by generating solutions to problems they identify in selected films and developing improved film scenes based on their critical research and my modeling and facilitation. One goal of the project is for students to communicate and collaborate textually, verbally, and visually in small groups, with their whole class, and with the entire student body using technology tools. In order to accomplish the project, students must be mindful of their digital citizenship, as assessed via monitoring of digital discussion contributions and appropriate source citation, and they must use Internet research engines, video and image editing tools, and their choice of collaboration mediums effectively. This project was developed to befit the 9th grade Common Core Georgia Performance Standards for English Language Arts (Barge, 2012). To master these student content standards, students practice character analysis and authorial choice analysis, produce clear and coherent explanatory texts, use technology to support their collaborative writing, and use researched film industry information to collaborate on the presentation of improved scenes from Blockbuster films that let down their audiences. The project provides a model designed for ease of adaptation and use by other teachers. The weekly goals are delineated and, while providing for individualized scaffolding and flexible usage of class and homework time, provide enough structure for teachers and students to feel simultaneously comfortable with their knowledge development and critically active and productive. The plans are this easy to follow and provide week-by-week guidelines as well as tool preparation tips. Also included in a segregated list of technology tools integral to the project; these include desktop computers and school, online collaboration mediums, collaborative word processor tools, video and image editing software, video production and publishing tools, and social networking tools. During the creation of this artifact and after, I learned that my initial sense that tech-integration requires intense intricacy was misguided and predicated upon my own misconceptions about the limits of available technology tools. The unit plan, at first, was overreaching, and collaborative feedback from peers and the professor helped me to narrow and focus the unit into a plan easy to follow by other educators and by students completing the project. While this project has not yet been tested with students, it is fully ready for implementation and can be assessed by collecting pre- and post-test data as well as pre- and post-unit course engagement data to determine its impact on students' perspectives toward the English language Arts curriculum. This data, presented to colleagues and administrators, would then prove significant to the strategic English Language Arts planning for subsequent school years. References Barge, J.D. (2012). 9th-10th grade English Language Arts Common Core Georgia Performance Standards (ELA CCGPS). Georgia Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.georgiastandards.org/Common-Core/Common%20Core%20 Frameworks/CCGPS_ELA_9-10_Standards.pdf. Moersch, C. (1995). Levels of technology implementation (LoTi): A framework for measuring classroom technology use. Leading & Learning with Technology, 23(3), 40-42. Williamson, J. (2013). Indicators of instruction for engagement, empowerment, and deep understanding, retention, and transfer of knowledge. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1BhCHaU. |