Standards and Visual Learning

What standard are you using as a target of focus this semester?
How can you link visual learning with digital imagery and Inspiration to this standard?

Standard as a Target of Focus
The way in which I want to focus my work in Educational Technology class does not exactly fit with any single standard that I have read thus far. For my area of concentration – Adult TESOL - I have looked at a variety of standards in order to determine a target of focus this semester. In my quest to find the perfect standard, I have reviewed the Connecticut K-12 Content Standards for Language Arts, World Languages and Social Studies, the Connecticut Department of Education’s English Language Learner (ELL) Framework and the CASAS Basic Skills Content Standards, the latter being recommended for use in Adult Education programs in Connecticut.

The CASAS Standards contain specific skills, such as “interpret contractions” or “interpret complex sentence structure.” However, I believe these standards are too narrow for what I am trying to accomplish in this class. On the other hand, the ELL Framework provides a way to think globally about K-12 TESOL education which does not fit my vision either. It contains three goals which are subdivided by content standards. For example, Goal 2 for ELL students is to “use English to read and write in all academic settings including language arts, math, science and social studies” and is subdivided by three Content Standards. Standard 2-2 is: “use English to read and write in academic settings. As helpful as these are, I think these goals and standards are too broad for my purposes.

Therefore, I have turned to the K-12 Standards for English/Language Arts for inspiration. I have chosen, “Producing Texts Content Standard 2: Students will produce written, oral and visual texts to express, develop and substantiate ideas and experiences,” as being the closest to my vision for the use of technology in the context of Adult TESOL Education. My plan is to explore how I can use technology in the classroom in order to provide, what Stephen Krashen calls, “comprehensible input” for my students so that they can meet this standard. I believe that if I can supply students with enough comprehensible input, in part through the use of technology, then they will increase their language production and create all kinds of texts. Consequently, using technology as a tool to inspire students requires that this semester I focus on my command of technology rather than on the students use and knowledge of it.

Visual Learning, Digital Imagery and Inspiration
As a visual learner, the use of digital imagery and the program Inspiration is appealing and I know that the all learners in my class will benefit if I utilize these tools in the classroom. However, I expect to have extremely limited access to technology in the classrooms in which I plan to teach and my students will have even less. In order for this Educational Technology course to be meaningful to me, I must take into account this challenge of working in an environment of scarce technological resources.

Nevertheless, I believe that it is possible to use digital imagery and Inspiration effectively in the Adult TESOL classroom to support language production with visual learning. For example, besides the obvious of employing digital pictures to illustrate a story, to build vocabulary or to explain a concept, I can also use it as a prompt for storytelling by asking students to describe the contents of a photo or to pretend they are in it. Sometimes a visual stimulus is more inspiring than a verbal one and therefore, the presentation of images in the classroom could result in the production of more language. I have learned that with the program Photoshop Elements, I can manipulate a digital image to say what I want it to say and to fit the lesson and outcome that I am trying to achieve, making digital imagery an even more effective tool.

With respect to Inspiration, it has potential for brainstorming, showing students how ideas connect, as well as for outlining. All of these activities will help the students “express, develop and substantiate their ideas and experiences” in various kinds of texts as required by the standard I have chosen but in a fresh and exciting way, translating the visual to the verbal. By using Inspiration to create a concept map to summarize an article, I have discovered firsthand that this program lives up to its name and is a powerful tool for inspiring student language production.

References
https://www.casas.org/home/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.showContent&MapID=1720
http://www.ctcurriculum.org/list_standards.asp?taskid=&dis=LA&grade=4&disname=English%2FLanguage+Arts&gradename=Grades+K-4
http://www.ctcurriculum.org/list_standards.asp?taskid=&dis=LA&grade=4&disname=English%2FLanguage+Arts&gradename=Grades+K-4

Inspiration Concept Map - Universal Design for Learning

Inspiration Concept Map – Universal Design for Learning
This concept map is based upon chapters 3 and 4 from the “Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age” portion of the Cast Website and reflects the main points that I have derived from them. The concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) originates with architectural changes made to buildings in order to enhance accessibility, an idea that was later applied to the field of education which resulted in classrooms filled with students with diverse learning needs. UDL draws upon neuroscience and media in order to create differentiated instruction and curricula that when combined and applied, create choices of materials, content, tools, contexts and supports to enhance student learning, resulting in meaningful progress made by an empowered student. Increased understanding of the functioning of three neural networks in the brain (recognition, strategy and affect) united with certain characteristics of digital media that are especially applicable to education (versatility, transformability, capacity to be marked and capacity to be networked) creates flexibility in presentation, expression and apprenticeship and engagement – the three underlying principles of UDL. Goals, material, methods and assessment contribute to differentiated instruction while accessibility and appropriateness are hallmarks of UDL curricula. Thus, implementation of the UDL framework enhances learning for all students because it is flexible and can adjust to the learning needs of each student.
http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter3_9.cfm

Photoshop Image

Piggy’s Demise
This digital image is based upon a scene in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies when Piggy is killed by a boulder set loose by one of the other boys as the rest of the group watches. The background /base image used was a photographic tableau created by my group in class 1 to illustrate this scene. In the original version of our photograph, a wastebasket was used for the boulder, one student pretended to be Piggy by lying on the floor and two other students pretended to be members of the group who were responsible for Piggy’s death. In this manipulated version, a real boulder is included along with a piggybank face for Piggy and fly faces for the members of the group.

Reading Responses

The excellent article entitled “eTIPs – Educational Technology Integration and Implementation Principles” by Sara Dexter gave me a better understanding of the role of technology in the classroom. First and foremost, the concept of educational technology as NOT possessing “inherent instructional value” (57), in and of itself, helped me to put the whole field of educational technology into perspective. The article suggests that it is the teacher who creates the value of technology in the classroom by the way he or she “designs” (57) the activities that use it and before planning, the teacher must first consider the “learning outcomes” (58) desired. Maintaining this perspective in the future will keep me on track by reminding me that technology in the classroom is only a tool and not an outcome in and of itself. Furthermore, a focus on outcomes - what I want my students to learn by using technology - will keep me from losing myself in an abyss of technology and overly complicating the lessons I teach that utilize it. This article suggests that technology adds value when it makes something new “possible” or “viable” (58). Since my area of concentration is TESOL for adults, I am thinking about ways in which I can use technology to increase comprehensible input for my students since according to some language acquisition researchers, for example Krashen, delivering adequate and appropriate input is the key to effective second language teaching. I believe that if I can find a way to use technology to increase comprehensible input in my classroom, the outcome will be the generation of increased language by my students.

Despite the fact that the article, “Teddy Bears Go Blogging,” by Brenda Sherry was written with younger students in mind, it has inspired me with some ideas that I can use with my adult TESOL students. After our first MD 400 - Ed Tech class, I have been considering the creation of a class blog that could be accessed not only by students in my class but also by TESOL students in other classes, administrators and even students’ families. This article shows me that it really might be feasible to do so and that a class blog would be an opportunity for TESOL students to generate more language while exposing them to technology in a fun and useful way. In addition, I learned that it would be possible to edit / reject comments or postings before publishing them and that there is an audio feature, too. The latter might be an easy way to insure that students who do not have access to technology at home can participate in the blog by recording something in the classroom that I post for them later. Lastly, I can see that the positive results of creating two-way communication among the students and the increased motivation exhibited by the young students in the Teddy Bear Project would easily transfer to my adult students and would improve both their language production and technology skills.

“Who Are Today’s Learners?” an article by Christine Greenhow motivates me to do some research on adult TESOL students. I realize that just like Greenhow’s teachers in her Ed Tech courses, I have made assumptions about my students’ use of technology which may or may not be correct. This article demonstrates the value of constructing a survey based upon the suggested questions included in the article in order to try to understand my students’ attitudes toward technology, their knowledge of and experience with it. Armed with this research, I could craft effective ways to use technology in the classroom that would truly address the students’ needs. This article provides a link to the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s survey which I have downloaded and read. I believe that I can adapt many of its questions to an adult education environment. Finally, I appreciate the reminder that good teachers “tap into, reinforce, build on, and extend” student knowledge and experience, which is an approach that can be applied to all classrooms and lesson planning.