Course Requirements
EDUC 439/639: Teaching With Technology
This course is a practicum in which educators and future teachers learn how to implement researched-based practices for teaching with technology across their respective content areas. Course content is framed by the TPACK model of technology integration. Participants learn to guide instructional planning by formulating learning goals, matching pedagogical approaches to goals, identifying appropriate activities and assessment strategies, and choosing technology tools that most effectively support content. Participants demonstrate growth in their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) by creating weekly projects in the domains of blogging, tweeting, concept mapping, and flipping the classroom, respectively.
In the sidebar is a list of the specific assignments and how much they count toward your grade in the course. Detailed explanations of these assignments appear below.
Assignment #1: Blogging
Your first assignment in this course is to create a WordPress blog in which you will keep note of things you have learned in this course and reflect on how they impact your thinking about how to teach with technology. We are blessed that blogging is so easy to do because it makes thinking visible and thereby enables teachers and students to see each other’s thinking and reflect upon it. As you learned from reading the first chapter of How People Learn, thinking about thinking is called metacognition, which is a powerful way to learn because it helps you become a better thinker. To create your blog, follow the steps in the blogging module. Make your first post discuss the following required elements:
- Reflect on the benefits you believe technology might offer educators and students. Refer to readings you did in the concepts module as appropriate.
- Reflect on any drawbacks you believe technology might create for educators, students or the classroom environment.
- Include specific examples to outside sources and include hyperlinks to these sources for your readers. Note: It is fine to use readings from the concepts module.
- Choose one technology you think may be useful to teachers, and explain how this technology can and should be used as well as the benefits it may afford students and teachers.
- You thoughtfully responded to all four of the required prompts in your blog.
- You included at least 3 links to reputable outside resources.
- Your blog is aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate, and includes a title, photograph of yourself, and one or more other thematic images.
- You have accurately assessed yourself using detailed reasoning based on the rubric provided.
Assignment #2: Tweeting
As you learn in the tweeting module, Twitter is a powerful tool for creating a Professional Learning Network (PLN). Using your WordPress blog, create a new blog post to report and reflect on what you learned when you created your Twitter PLN. Your blog post should comprise the following required elements:
- Identify and share at least 3 links to reliable online resources related to teaching with Twitter or using Twitter as a PLN.
- List at least 5 twitter accounts you decided to follow in creating your PLN, such as @edutopia, @ascd, @isteconnects.
- Tweet a brief introduction (Name, major, concentration area or career path, current term) and list five influencers that you have followed and hashtag it #UD439639. Take a screenshot of your tweet and paste it into your blog. Don't forget to follow me :) @FredHofstetter
- Discuss how you might integrate Twitter in your future classroom and the ways in which students could benefit from such integration.
- You thoughtfully responded to all four of the required prompts in your blog.
- You included at least 3 links to reputable outside resources.
- You listed at least 5 twitter accounts you followed in creating your PLN.
- You provided a screenshot of the tweet in which you introduced yourself hashtagged #UD439639.
- You have accurately assessed yourself using detailed reasoning based on the rubric provided.
Assignment #3: Concept Mapping
As you work through the concept mapping module, you will use Popplet to create a concept map on the topic of your flipped classroom final project. Using your word processor, create a document in which you write up the idea you have for your final project. At an appropriate spot in this document, paste a copy of your Popplet concept map. (To export an image of your map, use Popplet's Export->jpeg feature). As described in the concept mapping module, be sure to consider the following questions in making your response:
- What is the learning goal? What standards does it address? (CCS, NGSS, DE)
- Will students come to the same conclusions when completing the lesson (convergent) or their own conclusions (divergent)?
- Will students need to rely on few prior experiences or more prior experiences to understand the lesson?
- Does the lesson focus on surface comprehension or deeper, complex comprehension?
- Is the lesson very structured or less structured?
- Describe the resources required for this learning experience.
- Describe the activity types used in the lesson.
- Describe the assessment strategies used in this lesson.
- How did using Popplet help you define the learning goals and organize your pedagogical sequencing in this lesson?
- The narrative writeup explains your flipped classroom final project's learning goal and states the standards it addresses.
- Your Popplet contains a logically coherent mapping of the concepts your topic comprises.
- The narrative writeup explains how you will assess the extent to which students achieve your learning goal.
- The writeup reflects on the usefulness of Popplet in helping you plan your flipped classroom video's instructional sequencing.
Assignment #4: Flipped Classroom Project
Your final project in this course is to submit a flipped classroom video lesson. When producing your video, you have total freedom in deciding which tools you want to use. You may either create a video of your presentation using your phone, iPad, or other recording device as if you were teaching a lesson in person, or you can do a Khan Academy kind of voice over video for your presentation. It is your choice. In producing your video, you can use any presentation tools you like, such as PowerPoint, Prezi, Google Slides, Canva, and Nearpod. Freely available screencasting software is available at Screencastify and Screencast-o-matic. You can also use video editing software such as iMovie, YouTube, or Camtasia. Your presentation must include uploaded or embedded media in the form of images or animations that add to your presentation. Remember that this is a microlesson: Total length of the video should range between two to three minutes. To submit this assignment, create a new entry in your WordPress blog. Embed your video, give your blog post a title, and write a brief introduction explaining its purpose. After you test the video to make sure it plays correctly from your blog, answer this assignment by submitting the HTTP address of your blog entry. As before, be sure to study the rubric whereby your flipped classroom project will be assessed. The flipped classroom rubric comprises the following elements:
- The presentation uses good screen design and embeds multimedia objects as appropriate, such as images, animations, and video.
- Content is clearly conveyed according to the concept map informing the video's design.
- The video adheres to the length requirement of 2-3 minutes.
Assignment #5: Project Review Gallery
This is a graded discussion in which students review each other's flipped classroom videos. This assignment has two parts. First, you post the HTTP address of your flipped classroom video. Be sure to test the link and make sure it works before submitting it here. After you post your own video, review at least two other presentations and leave comments that can take the form of (a) warm comments: aspects of the presentation you like and why; and/or (b) cool comments: aspects of the presentation that could be improved, accompanied by specific suggestions for improving those aspects the presentation. Remember to study the rubric whereby your project review gallery postings will be assessed. The project review rubric comprises the following elements:
- The posted URL brings up the proper blog page and the video plays when the user chooses it in the blog.
- You respond to at least two other student postings whose videos you have chosen to review.
- In each response you either (1) explain why you like elements you review positively (warm comments), and/or (2) you suggest how to improve elements you find wanting (cool comments).
Assignment #6: Course Evaluation
Your last assignment in this course is to evaluate it. During the last couple weeks of the course, you will receive email at your udel.edu email address instructing you when the evaluation period begins and ends. You must log on to the course evaluation system within this window of time. The Web address of the course evaluation system is www.udel.edu/course-evals. After you complete the course evaluation, your instructor will give you credit for completing it. The responses you give are completely anonymous. While your instructor will be able to see the ratings and comments, it is impossible for your instructor to identify the person who gave a certain rating or made a given comment. Once you complete the evaluation, your grade on this assignment will be an automatic A.
