EDU 522 Spring 2017 discussion

Students,
Create a Shelfari (connected to Amazon and merged with Goodreads) account and indicate that your books have been selected in this discussion board for other students to view.

There were so many books to choose from. I found a website that recommended 8 technology books all teachers should read to help me narrow down my search! https://www.fractuslearning.com/2013/...

Jody wrote: "There were so many books to choose from. I found a website that recommended 8 technology books all teachers should read to help me narrow down my search! https://www.fractuslearning.com/2013/......"

This is great, Jody! Thanks!

Thank you, Jody! I found a couple of the books from the website you recommended very interesting, but I ended up choosing Natural Learning for a Connected World: Education, Technology, and the Human Brain by Renate N. Caine, Geoffrey Caine.

The books I found that I would like to read are:
The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined
Khan, Salman

Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools
Horn, Michael B.

Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies
Pacansky-brock, Michelle

Learning Online: What Research Tells Us about Whether, When and How
Means, Barbara

Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies: The New Biology
Rimmer, Matthew

I am currently reading Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day by Jonathon Bergmann and Aaron Sams

Hi Everyone,

Find and choose an Emerging Technology Book to read that is of interest to you. You will write a book/lit review of this book you read. It will be due the final week of class. Make sure you add a picture of yourself and connect with the class. Finally, load the four tech books onto your account. List the one you plan to read for your review as “reading now” and the rest as “plan to read”. If you have any questions on your book let me know.

I have decided to read "Emerging Technologies & Physical Education.
I want to find out what others are using and how they are implementing in class.
Jan

Reading Out of Our Minds by Ken Robinson. I wanted to read this to learn how he thinks education must change. His videos left me with a lot of questions. First two chapters set the stage for the needed change. The book is very readable.

After our course where we actually had to attempt a flipped classroom, I've since become intrigued. I'm starting with a simple introductory book - The Flipped Classroom - A Teacher's Complete Guide: Theory, Implementation, and Advice. After I finish that, I want to start on Jonathan Bergmann's flipped classroom books. Especially the one specifically designed for Math!

I also just finished Jennifer Serravalo's Reading Strategies book and am still reading Lucy Calkins for both Reader's and Writer's Workshop.

Hi everyone, nice to connect with all of you here on goodreads. For the assignment I've decided to read "3D Printing Made Simple for Education" by Brian Bobbitt. I'm hoping that by reading this book I will be able to gain some more insight on 3D printing and how I could properly implement it in my class.

Jody wrote: "There were so many books to choose from. I found a website that recommended 8 technology books all teachers should read to help me narrow down my search! https://www.fractuslearning.com/2013/......"

Thank you Jody!

Tracey wrote: "The books I found that I would like to read are:
The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined
Khan, Salman

Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools
Horn, Michael B.

Best Practic..."

I have read Khan's book and found it thought provoking. It is one of the reasons I chose to pursue this Masters degree.

I am currently reading "Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day" in order to be able to give my students more support.

For my book choice to start off with, I am reading "Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day". We had a short discussion in a Previous class and I'm thinking about giving this a shot. It's going to take some careful and detailed planning, and planning in advance. I've also got 3D Printing loaded and hope to gain enough knowledge to get started with this in my classroom.

I've been reading "Disrupting Class". It's so relevant to what our education is today. In the Introduction, it talks about various factors which contributes to under-performing schools, but never one single factor that is definitively the cause for a student to fail. Students' motivation, either intrinsically or extrinsically, plays an essential role in a student's success. It reminded me of the book Drive by Pink. I've still got lots to read before I come to the end of the book. There're books about the Flipped Classroom which I also want to read and hope to be able to right after this course ends.

I have selected my books! I am reading "The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution" to learn more about how emerging technology occurs, and how I might become a leader in the future of emerging education. In addition, I'm excited to learn about what made some of the best innovators tick, and hopefully pass on some of this experience to my students.

I selected Public Engagement and emerging technologies. I am interested how emerging tech affect us as the society and how much jurisdictional control should be placed on technology. I am excited to into the concepts and feeling that leaders in sociology have on this issue and if they have any ideas for culturally balancing the system.

I read "Disrupting Class" by Christensen, Johnson & Horn. I did not like this book. They propose that we can fix education by having students learn in computer modules at their own pace. Well we all know that there is not a fix all to teaching.

I read " It is Now Possible-Emerging Technologies & Physical Education" It was an informative book about different ways to use technology in P.E. classes. I believe that there are so many ways to use technology to enhance our classes. It can really be a great motivator for those students who need a little more encouragement.
A lot of examples of apps and software to use. It would have been nice to see some actual projects that students had done. The most interesting part was that I already have some of the apps I use and others that I hadn't really thought about using in class. The biggest part is to get our students moving. If using technology is the tool to motivate then so be it. What is important to remember is that technology is a tool not a replacement. We are in a new way of teaching and learning, if we embrace it we can use it to our advantage. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a good source of different apps to use for exercise and in class.

The Flipped Classroom by Dr. K Plunkett is a very informative; short read that covers every topic needed to begin utilizing the Flipped Classroom Method. This book discusses the basic principles of the flipped classroom in a concise format. It includes the things you'll need to get started and the main ideas a teacher should be thinking about as they implement them. The book has a great layout for beginning to flip your classroom.

This would be an excellent guide for a beginner when it comes to a flipped classroom. I also recommend it to those that are new to the flipped classroom and are considering it’s implementation. If you’re ready to dive right in or want to flip a specific subject area, then I would have to recommend reading one of the flipped classroom books by Jonathan Bergmann. Also, if you are looking for specific technology learning, this is not where you should look, though it may point you to a few resources that are easily found online.


I was unaware of what a quick read this book was – just 31 pages! This can definitely be read in one day. The Flipped Classroom is a quick five-chapter book. The first chapter consists of the origins of flipped classroom – how the flipped classroom came to be - and it’s fundamentals. Chapter two dives into how the flipped classroom affects different types of students and the risks and challenges that are associated with these different types of students. Chapter three was the most informative and usual of the five chapters with flipping the classroom. This chapter gave step-by-step instructions on how to create a video. Things it included when creating your video was lighting, screen capture, software, and lecturing. Chapter three also taught you how to use free online tools, such as quizzes, to make sure students are watching the videos and learning from them. The one thing this chapter lacked were technology resources to create your flipped classroom with. Chapter four discussed activities and ways to keep student engagement and chapter five wrapped up with book nicely with a short summary.

I highly recommend this book for those that have a very busy schedule and can’t commit a lot of time to reading. I also recommend this book for those on the fence with the flipped classroom, not wanting to invest a lot of money into a book. This book is free for kindle unlimited and .99 on kindle. Those that are brand new to the flipped classroom would benefit from this book as well.

“Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative”
By Sir Ken Robinson

Most teachers have seen or at least heard about Sir Ken Robinson and his TED talks. His Ted talks are estimated to be seen by over three hundred fifty million people and from my personal experience it is shared at quite a few teacher professional development sessions. Professor of Arts Education at University of Warwick for twelve years and is now professor emeritus. He led the United Kingdom commission Creativity, Education and the Economy. He works with government agencies and fortune five hundred companies. His Biography and blog can be found at http://sirkenrobinson.com/.

I choose this book to read for one reason. I wondered what he thought we should do to change education from the creativity killer it has become to a creativity teacher (Ken Robinson Ted talk in 2006). The text is easy to read and very informative. As stated in Sir Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds learning to be creative people think creativity is a rare talent and only special people are talented (Out of our minds, 2011). He then says that we need to rethink creativity, how we teach, and what we teach. He states that we are “ facing the revolution” of technology and change.We need to confront the change before not after it comes. We need to train people now for things that didn’t exist before.

Now that he has defined creativity he defines the “trouble with education” (Out of Our Minds, 2011). He gives a good overview of the past and present of education. He intends to show that education as we know it now is an artifact of the industrial revolution and it needs to change for the information age.

The present state of education according Sir Ken Robinson is that we concentrate on science and language as the sign of intelligence. He says that there are different types of intelligence and that schools only cater to one. Even what we teach is taught without creativity of teaching and learning. Wed must also know ourselves in order to become more creativity.

If like me you see his video and think to yourself or discuss with others it’s implications this book will give you insight into what must be done to fix education. Focusing on any one way of learning or stem is not going to fix education. You cannot just teach dance without the other disciplines because that is a single focus. You cannot take one school that is working and make all schools just like that one it just will not work. You must focus on the whole individual taken in the context of culture, community, and everything that affects the individual. Schools that do these things succeed.

The book for me at least read very easy the five chapters, Chapters six through eight are a little harder to get through because it seems like to has already convinced you of the correctness of his thought. The rest of the book is good in describing creative leaders transforming education. I would recommend this book to anyone who has seen his YouTube videos and what's to get the real story and not just someone's interpretation of the video.

“The Future of Higher Education-How Emerging Technologies Will Change Education Forever”

This book is written by Lasse Rouhiainen. He is an international authority on video marketing and social media. He is a speaker and trainer for business schools and universities. He discusses technology and how it will benefit education.

His book titled “The Future of Higher Education-How Emerging Technologies Will Change Education Forever.” he breaks it down into four chapters.
Chapter 1: E-Learning and Online Best Practices
Chapter 2: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Education
Chapter 3: Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Education
Chapter 4: Future Skills in Education

Chapter one talks about the best practice of a flipped classroom. It discussed how it is important to make sure content is available to view on mobile phones as well. It also talked about using videos as your main form of content. With your videos we need to keep short and to the point, include a question to give the students to think about, Pace your videos well, record multiple videos in a single session, create movement within content, use a combination of tools within your video, host videos professionally (youtube, Vimeo), add secondary materials, and allow for student feedback. It also discusses using quizzes effectively, knowing your learning platform, communicating through email effectively, measure engagement levels, and enhancing presentations with visual tools.

Chapter two talks about Artificial intelligence and using robotics for education. This chapter was about how robotics will help as tutors as well as specialize learning assistants.

Chapter three discusses how virtual reality and augmented reality will affect education in the future. It discusses make 360 degree photos and how to use in the classroom.

Chapter four was the most interesting to me as it discussed the future skillls in education. It discussed some things we were learning about in our masters program. It talked about 3-D printing and Adapting to new technology. It also talked about thinking which was of interest to me.

I recommend this book if you are trying to learn about upcoming technology or brush upon technology you already know.

Flip Your Classroom by Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann is a beginning through mastery look at a new concept of how to present teaching content to your classroom. Through lessons being presented in pre-recorded video, whether through links in a class website or posted to YouTube the instructional method for teaching students has changed. The idea of standing in front of the class lecturing ideas and content through Direct Instruction and having the students do further practice at home for homework is being “flipped”. Students now watch the lesson at home and do the practice/homework in class, therefore the roles seem to be somewhat reversed.

Sams and Bergmann point out several key advantages by pre-recording a well-practiced lesson. Instruction distractions are cut out as well as “bird walking” with irrelevant information. Students are able to repeat the instructional video as many times as needed for clarification, allowing students of all levels to work to proficiency, including those who are absent. Project-based learning teachers will find “flipping the classroom” is a good bridge for them towards Direct Instruction, giving students direct instructional content, but still allowing them to direct their own learning.

Referencing several case studies of different classroom scenarios, Sams and Bergmann show readers how “flipping the classroom” would change the outlook of the three students whose cases were followed. Sams and Bergmann found that students who participated in a “flipped classroom” were more likely to be on a level playing field who would otherwise have been left disadvantaged, frustrated, and with less content knowledge and retention. By teaching students through “flipping the classroom” “you’re speaking their language, making them responsible for their own work, and allowing them to learn at their own pace”. (Sams and Bergmann, 2012)

In Flip Your Classroom Sams and Bergmann’s writing gets right to the point with very little inert content. It is chalked full of information which is helpful for the very beginner to a teacher looking to fine-tune their “flipping” methods. Their book is short, but contains relevant information through case studies from other teachers as well as their own experiences as secondary level teachers. The authors are clear in pointing out that though they have practiced their methods for “flipping the classroom” over several years they do not stake claim to being the originators of the idea. They credit other teachers from which they built their methods upon. Sams and Bergmann also point out that “flipping the classroom is not the end-all, fix-all for education”. (Sams and Bergmann, 2012) There is still a place for Direct Instruction in which “flipping your classroom” or other methods may not be best.

Both Sams and Bergmann are classroom teachers at the secondary level who started off like most of us veteran teachers teaching through Direct Instruction. Through their own critique of the effectiveness of their instructional methods, they created a plan to change the results of students’ lack of content acquisition due to learning rates and styles. The authors are not just teachers with knowledge of “flipping” a classroom, but have first hand experience. Sams and Bergmann began “flipping” their classrooms and saw great results. Due to their own experiences with this strategy, Sams and Bergmann first began promoting it among colleagues and were then travelling nationally providing professional development to teachers. Their next step would be publishing a book for all teachers to access this strategy not just those who are privileged enough to go through one of their workshops.

I have been curious about flipped classrooms, and looking for a kind of “how to” book, so when I spotted Flip Your Classroom:Reach Every Student Every Day by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams I jumped at the chance to read it, and I was not disappointed! This book provides a great overview of what flipped classrooms are, what flipped mastery is, why you should consider flipping, and flipping implementation guide in a svelte 111 page package. Both Bergmann and Sams were chemistry classroom teachers who were looking for a better way to reach their students. They developed a model for flipping that was very successful. In fact, they have both received the Presidential Excellence for Math and Science. Bergmann has moved on to acting as the lead technology facilitator for Joseph Sears School in Kenilworth Illinois while Sams remains in his chemistry classroom in Woodland Park, Colorado.
This book was written as a quick and useful guide to flipping your classroom. The authors mention that they kept it short on purpose to allow a busy teacher to read it over the course of one weekend. Do not think though that short means incomplete. This book is jam packed with research on the flipped model, quotes from teachers using the flipped model and perhaps most importantly a guide to implementing the model in your own classroom. One of my favorite themes running through this book is the idea that our students need to take responsibility for their own learning. The flipped model provides them the opportunity to do just that. Jennifer Douglass is quoted in the book as saying, “I can’t force someone to learn - they have to accept that responsibility for themselves. This method allows them to clearly see that - and gives them a structured environment that ensures success.” (2012) This is just one of the many ways flipping benefits students. Other benefits include increasing teacher - student interaction, allowing for authentic differentiation of instruction, establishing stronger ties between students and teachers, increased opportunities for student - student interaction as well as changing the way teachers interact with parents. The flipped model has led to a great number of parents watching the flipped lessons with their children, learning right along with them. This may be one of the most powerful things about flipping the classroom - education is never more powerful than when we can get entire families engaged in the process.
Another thing I appreciated about this book is the author’s candidness as to the changes teachers need to expect as they flip their classrooms. It is very different from a traditional classroom, and that can take some getting used to. Teachers need to be content experts, and must be willing to relinquish control to their students. Particularly in a flipped mastery classroom, students may well be working of different things within the same classroom. It can appear to be chaotic, but what is truly magical is that all students will be authentically engaged in learning. One of my favorite subsection title is , “The (flipped) mastery model makes learning the center of the classroom”. In my opinion, that is what education should be. The teacher should not be (and indeed is not) the all-knowing disseminator of knowledge, regulating who can learn what in a specific amount of time. Education should be focused on each learner, learning as much as they can at a pace that is appropriate for where they are in their educational journey.
There is so much great content in this book that I cannot put it all into one short book report. I encourage all teachers to read this book. In fact I plan to share it with some of my colleagues in hopes that we can get together and filp our classrooms for the good of our students.

Book Report
Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
The authors point out in the Introduction of the book that the purpose of the book is to explain why and how students are not intrinsically motivated to be in school and learn (p.9). Throughout the book the authors use some business models to explain what’s happening in today’s schools and how the schooling experience could be improved. One of the authors, Clayton M. Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, coined the term “Disruptive Innovation”, which is a new way of doing things that creates a new market, and after a while upends the status quo, impacting society significantly. In the world of education, which in many ways has been unchanged since the Industrial Revolution, distance learning and online education are beginning to disrupt the traditional model of instruction.
The book addresses issues educators have been facing for decades. In a class with students of various learning needs, how do we reach out to every single one of them? Not every student is wired to learn the way the teacher is teaching. We teach the way that we think students learn predominantly despite our understanding of their various intelligence types. Differentiated instruction is difficult in today’s classroom. The authors propose that the computer-based and student-centric learning is the solution to the problem. They argue that technology has been used in the classroom, but student performance is stagnant in that the technology is used as a tool and has not fundamentally changed how we teach and how students learn. In Chapter 3, the authors argue that “schools use computers as a tool and a topic, not as a primary instructional mechanism that helps student learn in ways that are customized to their type of intelligence (p.81).” They further point out that “Teachers have implemented computers in the most commonsense way—to sustain their existing practices and pedagogies rather than to displace them (p.84).”
A future classroom that the authors describe is essentially an embodiment of student-centric learning, in which, with the computer being used to deliver the content, not as a tool, students move onto the next level of learning only after they master what they are working on. The authors envision a future classroom for learning Mandarin grammar which exemplifies student-centric learning (p.105). However, creating computer-based and student-centric learning is complicated and costly. I remember having read an article in Time Magazine a few years ago about a web-based math program which would allow a student to learn math concepts at her own pace. If the student is struggling with a certain concept, the program would lead her to lower level learning where she could work on and practice until she masters before the program leads her back to the concept she initially was struggling on. Additionally, any teacher of the student could easily track the student’s learning curve and understanding where the student is at no matter which school she goes as long as the teacher has an access to the program. A program like that fits into the description of what the authors describe as a future classroom. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard or read anything about the program since.
According to the authors, “blended-online course means that 30 to 80 percent of instruction is delivered on the Internet. We suspect … that the vast majority of online learning enrollments will in fact be in brick-and-mortar environments to some degree and will not be pure distance learning instances (p.115).” Blended learning will be our future education in ten years, as I predicted earlier in this course. The authors criticize the schools for standardizing student learning and not helping students to feel successful. “… because this system is designed to categorize students as excellent, average, and below average, it causes most students not to feel successful as they learn (p. 175).” I couldn’t agree more with the authors on the significance of providing an intrinsically motivating experience for students to help them succeed. Instead of high stake testing, constant minor assessments along with timely feedback and support before moving onto the next body of materials, will help our students to feel successful. Online student-centric learning is designed to achieve it. However, the customized software is complicated and costly to build. The authors foresee in disruption the platforms that teachers and even students can use to develop tutorial-like content, and “Facilitated networks … will be the business models of distribution (p.133).” The Flipped Classroom approach is not mentioned in the book, which was published in 2008. Khan Academy was founded in 2007. I believe the Flipped Classroom would be an integral part of future education.
In addition to the complication and high cost of implementing computer-based and student-centric learning, the authors argue that one of the obstacles to disrupting class is that both the policymakers and districts may not agree upon what and how to change the way we teach and students learn. The authors believe that autonomous and heavyweight teams are needed to achieve “architectural innovation in schools (p.232).” In the end, in order to have better learning, state and districts are the ones that are to create the environments which would motivate both teachers and students to do their best to get better learning results (p.236).

Without any business background, I can’t say what the authors of Disrupting Class have recommended to fix the American education would definitely work in every aspect, but, as an educator, I do believe we have the mission to create a learning environment where students are intrinsically motivated to learn and strive for excellence. And I would recommend the book to teachers.