Readings on "Educational Technology and Visual Learning"

     Visual imagery in the classroom allows for students to become, as Roswell says, more "self-directed" in their learning. What I think she means is that images in the classroom allow a student to drawn their own unique connections rather than only the connections offered by the teacher to the group. "Images are suspended in webs of meanings, and one reason that they are valuable is that it is possible to trace threads of meaning from elements in the images that can be used in the curriculum" (Roswell, et al. 3). Constant lectures and outlines dull the excitement of classroom learning. Visual literacy is needed to both gain new insights into old ideas and keep the well-worn subjects of a classroom fresh.

     Perhaps more importantly, visual learning turns out to be a great starting place for learners encountering an entirely new subject area. The article we read about visual learning with autistic learners was especially thought-provoking: the very order of the day and daily activities was spelled out so clearly in only a handful of visual reminders/cues. It seems that the autistic learner can be seen as a baseline for many types of learners; that is, complex ideas can first be understood by grasping the basic and fundamental parts of the ideas. This means visual aides are most helpful in fostering that initial understanding. For example, no English class reading Camus's The Stranger will grasp its significance immediately. But, through the use of basic visual aides, a student can see each part of       Camus's idea come together, from existentialism to personal responsibility to the notion of rebellion.  

I think the most important lesson to be garnered from this section visual literacy is that visual aides are exactly (and only) what they profess to be--aides to the classroom experience. The greatest objection to the use of visual literacy in the classroom is that forces the teacher to dumb down the content of the lesson; catering to the attention span of the student body, while not worrying about whether the pertinent information has taken seed. "The content classroom," writes Flint and Brozo, "reflects the idea that no content area can be understood in isolation from other content areas..." (2). Herein lies the inherent advantage in visual learning, that it forces the reader to make connections outside of the image itself. Only lazy teachers and apathetic students would settle for viewing Picasso's Guernica and addressing it tritely as a "really cool painting". There is history behind it! Visual aides are not a crutch for the classroom, but rather a method of extension.

 

Readings for "The Internet and Professional Development"

       Choosing a career in education is (to the surprise of no one) an especially challenging career field. This is so not only because an educator must establish a respectful and diligent learning environment, but also because the strategies and technologies used in teaching alter with such rapidity that education would rival the medical field in a contest of how fast information becomes outdated.
      I was particularly inspired by something mentioned in the Huber article. A small section was dedicated to dispelling the myth that "having a good plan" excuses an educator from falling short of their expectations. As Huber puts it, "learning organizations...often develop such rigid plans that it leaves no room to address emerging issues" (2). I have spent several years as a tutor in math, history and English, and know from first-hand experience that whatever plan worked for one student is almost guaranteed to be somewhat inapplicable to the next student. I think one of the marks of an outstanding educator is not that they necessarily know the solution to every problem, but rather that they entertain new ideas and solutions should the standard one become obsolete. Of course no teacher can solve every discrepancy in a class! Yet it is no badge of honor for a teacher to stick to a single solution, either because it is comfortable to refer to or as an excuse not to learn anything new in the field.
       Not only new methods of teaching, but the implementation and codification of new teaching methods are needed to ensure educational success. I was particularly inspired by the short blurb in Darling-Hammond and Richardson's article titled "The New Paradigm". This short little story detailed how teachers in a struggling urban school attended a seminar in which  coaches "introduced curriculum and teaching strategies and data analysis techniques during professional development meetings..." (6). Prior planning and understanding of the new guidelines were essential in this situation. I think too often the view of a student body towards a teacher--i.e. that the teacher stands alone agaisnt a group of learners--becomes adopted by the teachers themselves. And suddenly all the teachers are afraid to ask for help on everything from lesson plans to grading techniques. Professional development prevents teachers from feeling as though they are alone in creating and maintaining a lesson plan.

 

Readings for "Education Technology and Assessment/Rubrics"

       Of course, the largest problem facing a teacher in the digital age was pointed out time and again in these articles--namely, how does a teacher fairly grade such a wide range of options? The idea of a digital portfolio becomes appealing in such a situation, because it allows for many modes of educational expression, and also has the benefit of providing the teacher with a record of progress that student makes in a subject.
       What I found most interesting was the description of a "blueprint" as an assessment tool, which was detailed in the article titled "Evaluating Student Projects". Especially in the case of film or other multimedia projects, this method of evaluation avoids much of the confusion that stems from individuals or groups designing their own presentation. The only drawback is that a blueprint may lack a very solid rating or grading scale. This is where, I believe, rubrics would make their appearance.
        I am still getting used to the difference between holistic and analytic rubrics, and I know they are separated by important distinctions. For holisitc rubrics (as was said in "Designing Scoring Rubrics for Your Classroom"), it seems that there is often no definitive answer to a proposed question. Also, some mistakes in the process can be tolerated as long as the final product is of high quality. Analytic rubrics, on the other hand, are best used when there is a concise and quantifiable answer to the proposed question. I never considered the difference between rubrics before, and I now see how important this is. I am planning on being an english teacher, so I believe I will be relying on holisitc rubrics more often than analytic rubrics. I say this because literature and literary criticism are constantly subject to revaluation; as we learn more about particular authors, novels and their development, our understanding of the great works of literature also alters. If I were to assign a project--perhaps one that concerns the book The Giver and the morality of euthanasia--it would be unfair of me to say one answer is correct and one is wrong. An holistic rubric gives me the opportunity to entertain all viewpoints as long as they are presented clearly and with purpose.
       As far as rubrics are conerned, the most helpful piece of advice came from Reeves and Stanford in "Rubrics in the Classroom: Assessments for Students and Teachers". In this article they write that "before beginning development of a rubric, the teacher should clearly visualize what is expected from the written project, product or process" (2). By working backwards in this way, it is easier for both the teacher and the students to get a grasp of how each component of the product is evaluated, how the final product will be graded, and how one can see that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I think group projects in particualr can benefit from this style of evaluation/grading. It would quite an academic experience for students to see how all their individual labors coalesce into a coherent, and possibly novel, approach to a subject.