EDTECH 542 - Reflection on Designing Integrated Curriculum

Option 1: Designing Integrated Curriculum At some point you may consider including other disciplines in your project (if you haven't already). Watch the video below on Designing Integrated Curriculum and reflect on the benefits of interdisciplinary projects and the challenges in implementing them. How might you go about making this a reality in your school?

Watching this video was very inspiring. What these teachers are doing is something I hope takes place in our school. Nothing in our students’ lives happen in isolation, why should it in school? These interdisciplinary learning opportunities offer the ultimate in real life content integration and critical thinking. One area we see more of this happening is in STEM (or STEAM) instruction. Integrating math with science and technology seems like a natural fit, and very applicable in real life. It also makes sense to add ELA and history into the mix.

As a teacher I can see the benefit of working with a team. Often teachers work in isolation, as I did as the only 7th grade social studies teacher at our school. The opportunity to team-teach a combined ELA/social studies block was both invigorating and challenging, and it better replicated what happens in the business world. We planned, implemented, and revised instruction as necessary. We used a webquest model, integrating collaboration and technology into the students’ day. I’m not sure the students would have had as enriching an experience if either one of us tried to do it on our own.

The challenges hinted at in the video can’t be ignored. As one teacher said, you have to work harder and smarter, especially on the front end. Personalities have to be complementary, and teachers have to handle their share of the planning, implementation and other work load. Teachers have to be open to criticism (hopefully delivered appropriately). Administration has to be supportive; open to scheduling changes this type of instruction may cause. They also have to be open to providing planning time for teachers.  Parents and students need to be included in the conversations, as they too are important stakeholders in the program.

Digital Inequality

Here is my Digital Inequality VoiceThread.



The main takeaway from this study was the vast difference in access for people in MANY different situations. Just in the US alone, there is significant inequality regarding access to the internet (aka access to knowledge). It gets much more profound in 3rd world areas, particularly on the African continent. It was interesting to see the rise of cell phone access, as that may be a 'way out' for those where local telephone lines are non existent.

Finally, I found it very interesting, while studying the National Education Technology Plan, how far off my school and my district (private) are in certain areas of growth. We have significant work to do, and this report helped me understand that. The focus of my VoiceThread is on 3 particular elements of the NETP plan. The area to concentrate on for our school at this time is with "Teacher Preparedness and Connectivity." I think an important goal for my teachers is to learn more about, and ultimately embrace and use, the vast community of other educators out there with knowledge, ideas, tips, best practices, and so on.

We have the infrastructure in place at my school (St. Leo's), and we certainly have the commitment to edtech here as well. Teachers need to be given the time, training and tools to become more proficient in their craft, and technology resources (Twitter, Pinterest, and the like) in social media can help them significantly. Again, the ultimate goal needs to be how to best impact student learning, and I believe that more exposure to 'centers of excellence' and other people with 'answers' is one important way our teachers can impact that learning.

This was an interesting assignment, and brought many very difficult to solve, yet critical, issues to the forefront. I'm hopeful that my plans can positively impact some of the issues, at least at my school.

It was also enjoyable to use VoiceThread. I use it with students in my class on occasion, and it was nice to dust off those skills again. I was a little perplexed by some issues I had connecting my (new) microphone, but once I figured out how to configure the computer, it was all good.

EDTECH Challenges

I chose as my edtech challenge Item 1, the continued rise in importance of digital literacy across all disciplines. I'm responsible for building the overall edtech strategy at my school, and digital literacy clearly continues to be an important area requiring significant attention. I teach 7th grade Social Studies, and so I have seen first hand the struggles some students have had, from using appropriate search terms through being able to critically analyze a website for validity. They still have issues understanding "ownership" of the information (e.g., written, photos, video) as well. Students still tend to Google an item (without much thoughtful time spent on organizing potential search terms), and use the first or second item in the Google list (as I noted in the video).

We found Common Sense Media, a website with a significant amount of resources on a wide variety of "Digital Citizenship" topics, and this fall will start the 3rd year of its use.It is steadily becoming part of the culture of our school, but it is a long process. Common Sense Media (CSM) includes a large amount of lessons associated with the analysis and evaluation of digital media, and so is an excellent tool for our teachers to use. There are age-based curriculum maps, and more lessons than any teacher really has time to complete. From the curriculum maps, a small team of teacher at my school developed, by grade, what we deemed the most important areas to be taught - the series of lessons that must be done by end of year. Since CSM covers much more than digital literacy, the curriculum is intended to last the full year. Depending upon the grade, there are anywhere from four to ten lessons to be taught.  Here is an example of one of the 6-8 grade lessons on Identifying High-Quality Sites.

The teachers at the school conceptually buy in completely to the need for students to grow their digital literacy. For instance, our 5th grade teacher ran an "experiment" with the students at the start of the last year, asking them to do basic research on Sitting Bull. It was obvious, based upon the research done, and the results, that the students need significant coaching to develop their skills. All teachers understand the importance for students to 'get' the concepts of digital literacy.

We also recognize this is an interdisciplinary issue, and so, for our middle school in particular, we have broken up the lessons by teacher/subject, so all get to work with the students on some aspect of Digital Citizenship. In one way or the other, MANY of the lessons do touch upon, or directly address, digital literacy. For instance, a  majority of the lessons in 4th and 5th grades are focused on media, how to evaluate it, understanding copyright and intellectual property ownership, and so on. Here's a link to our K-8 Curriculum, based upon CSM"s overall lessons and curriculum map.

In summary:

1. Digital literacy is a cornerstone of the skills our students must master to be successful in our digital world. This is a life skill, not just an academic need.
2. Our school recognized that need, and uses Common Sense Media as our primary resource for materials to train our students.
3. We have a curriculum which has been used for 2 years, to help students understand all aspects of digital literacy and citizenship. 
4. The teachers do understand the need for students to gain these skills, and this year, I anticipate an ongoing continuation of the curriculum to help students. All the teachers at the school have now been through the program once or twice, and so the comfort level should be high.

Here is my video that represents some of the main issues, and the approach two teachers took to address them. Enjoy!

Searching for Goodness by gtognetti on GoAnimate