This Is Not A Blog: My 21st Century Classroom

SECTION I: INTRODUCTION

Hi there! My name is Ben Robson. I'm a student at Edinboro University in the Secondary Education Program. This is my first year in the program and at Edinboro, but not my first year in college; I'm old enough to be a senior, but I'm a transfer student and, well, we all know how that goes. I plan to become a history teacher, and for the purposes of this page, we will assume that I'm teaching at Baldwin High School, my own alma mater, partly because I'd like to, and partly because I'm familiar with the demographics/specifics. This blog and page were created for my Technology for Teaching and Learning class (SEDU 183). In the following video, I explain some of my thoughts and opinions with regards to technology in the classroom:

SECTION II: MY CLASSROOM

Part A: Demographics

This page deals with a hypothetical classroom, of which I am the teacher. As I've previously indicated, this classroom would be located in the Baldwin High School, of the Baldwin-Whitehall School District in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. According to a New York Times data report, the district ranks 24th in diversity out of 60 districts in Allegheny County. As of 2006, when the most recent data was collected, there were 4,181 students enrolled in Baldwin-Whitehall schools. Approximately 90% of students are white, 9% are black, 2% are Asian, and 1% are Hispanic. At the time of data collection, only three students in the district identified as Native American. In the past decade, there has been a substantial influx of immigrants and refugees from the Balkan region, including countries like Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia.

Data from PublicSchoolsK12.com indicates that Baldwin High School's particular demographics are much the same as the district on the whole - 90% white students, 8% black, 2% Asian and 1% Hispanic. The school's 1483 students and 92 full-time teachers create a student-to-teacher ratio of 16.3:1, which is slightly higher than Allegheny County's average of 13:1.

For the purposes of this page, we will assume that I am teaching an 10th grade World Cultures class, and that the class's makeup provides a direct microcosm of the high school's total demographic numbers regarding diversity. However, we will also assume that the number of students in the class is greater than the school's total average, because World Cultures falls on the standard path of the core curriculum (it is neither an advanced placement class nor a remedial class) and therefore, the class would cover a student population segment close to the middle of the bell curve. We will say there are 30 students in the class. From here, we can extrapolate that 27 of the students are white, 2 are black, and 1 is Asian. Due to a lack of demographic data on gender at Baldwin, we will proceed under the assumption that 15 students are male and 15 are female.

Information from The National Center For Education Statistics suggests that about 3 percent of students in the Baldwin-Whitehall district are English Language Learners. Though the bulk of that bloc is likely concentrated in the district's elementary and middle schools, it is still quite possible that there could be an ELL student in my World Cultures class. Therefore, we will assume that there is one ELL student in the class. In addition, 13% of students in the district have IEPs, or Individualized Education Plans. Such plans could apply to students in Special Ed, those with physical disabilities, or Gifted and Talented students. In keeping with this, we will say that there is one Gifted and Talented student in the class, and another student who is severely visually impaired.

Part B: Setting

I would choose to arrange my classroom into a Socratic Circle style; that is, the students' seats would be arranged in a circular pattern around the room with my own desk as part of the circle in the front of the room. As is thoroughly explained in this essay by English teacher Matt Copeland, the Socratic circle arrangement is beneficial for classroom material that focuses on questions moreso than answers. The study of World Cultures, and by proxy, history, is a science rife with interpretation, comparison, and intellectual analysis. Such endeavors primarily revolve around the process of critical thinking. It is important that the seating arrangement and conduct of the class reflect the need to treat history and culture as living entities rather than pools of flat data or unchanging constants as might be found in math.

This pictorial representation is not indicative of the total number of seats or students in the class;

limitations of the free floor-planning technology I used impeded my ability to create a full-scale

diagram of the classroom. However, the general Socratic Circle is accurately depicted.

By seating students in a circle, the invisible wall between teacher and student as generated by a traditional lecture seating/instructional style is greatly diminished. Students face one another as well as the teacher, and no seating position is inherently superior or inferior to another because there are no tiers. Such an arrangement prevents shy students from hiding behind others in discussions and also impedes more active, talkative students from using physical proximity to dominate in-class discussions. Not only are students drawn to become better critical thinkers and readers, they are also coerced into confidence when speaking. These tertiary advantages enhance the value of the Socratic seating arrangement.

In the above image, you can see that there is also a large television screen in the lower left corner. The depiction is not meant to specifically represent a television, but rather was intended to indicate any technology that could be used to display images or video in the class. Ideally, I would have a Smart Board hooked up to a computer, or some such device capable of playing DVD video. It would be a screen large enough for the class to view unobstructed. Also in the lower left of the room, there is a laptop cart. In addition, three storage shelves in the upper right, upper left, and lower left corners of the class, providing relatively easy access to physical classroom materials regardless of where students are seated in the circle. Finally, there are two large windows on the left side of the room, designed to let in natural light, which has been shown to provide academic benefits to students.

Part C: Integrations

In the following section, I will identify, explain, and justify several technologies from which I feel my classroom would benefit.

1.) GOOGLE DRIVE. Using Google's handy Drive system, students could easily share information with me outside the classroom. I could require students to complete assignments via Google Drive, eliminating a portion of the need for paper assignments and increasing student accountability ("My dog ate the homework" doesn't cut it when your homework is fully online). I could help them proofread or revise assignments by editing the docs in which they've submitted them. Google Drive would enable me to provide feedback to students in real-time when class was not in session, were we both to use it to edit a document at the same time. In addition, students could work in groups on assignments by sharing them with one another via Google Drive. As such, Drive provides a means for student collaboration with others to share and create knowledge as well as enabling students and teachers to connect outside the classroom.

2.) A Classroom Blog Network. Using a blog network, I could create a system by which students can share their work with others and me. Self-reflection assignments and short essays about history and culture seem like prime candidates for blog content; by reading other students' responses and weighing them against their own, students could gain insight and critical perspectives on important topics in World Cultures. Tools like Blogger can help students easily set up individual blogs and join a classroom-wide learning community. I, too would be able to participate by providing my own blog page as a hub for students' blogs and use the blog to share instructions/examples. I could even create incentives for student success centered around the blog; for instance, I might select the 5 student posts which I feel showed the best level of effort and "feature" them as links on my own blog for bonus points. This technology would prove very helpful in supporting the publishing of student and teacher work.

3.) Teaching Channel. For my own purposes as a classroom leader, Teaching Channel provides a treasure trove of educational resources. Their vast archives of lesson plans, analysis of educational techniques and styles, detailed videos teachers in action, and informed critical viewpoints on challenges in education would be of great benefit to me. By connecting with this highly-regarded network of educators, I could stay informed on the latest research about education strategies and see concepts at work in the classroom before trying them for myself. By watching their videos, I could sort out what sorts of lessons and ideas would work in favor of my class and which might not fit my circumstances, reducing the chance that I would "blow" a series of lessons by presenting them in a non-constructive way. Teaching Channel connects the classroom with a network of experts around the world.

4.) A Smart Board and Laptops. Smart Boards, essentially, are the logical evolution of the chalkboard, shaped by the environment of the information age. However, they also encompass and expand upon the roles of several other traditional classroom instruments. They can serve as interactive writing surfaces where text an images can be drawn and erased digitally or be connected to computers for text editing and video display. By coalescing the purposes of the overhead projector, chalkboard, whiteboard, and digital video device, SmartBoards can become a central focus point for the use of technology in the classroom. Students themselves could interact with the Smart Board by connecting it to a laptop computer as provided by the school. Laptops, or even tablets, for classroom use can greatly enhance a student's access to information in class, allowing them to perform research tasks and access the full bevy of online resources without having to leave class and go to a computer lab. I would also seek to implement some elements of Flipped Learning as well - the laptops could help to move "homework"-like activities into class, where I could provide direct guidance to students as they worked to complete their assignments. In this way, the Smart Board and laptops would help to connect teachers and students inside the classroom.

SECTION III: ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

As I mentioned in the Demographics section of this page, one student in my class is visually impaired. His impairment is severe enough that he would be considered functionally blind; that is to say, the amount of vision he can use is not sufficient for performing most tasks and he instead relies on auditory and tactile sensory information to deal with his surroundings. We will call this student Scott.

Scott's visual impairment requires the use of assistive technology, since, for the most part, he cannot visually interact with the classroom. One technology I could use to assist Scott would be a braille computer interface. If I were to type text versions of visual materials that I planned to use in the classroom, a computer with a braille interface could translate the text to braille and send the resulting information to an outboard device (known as a "refreshable braille display"), whereupon Scott could read it. Also, I could procure a computer with braille buttons that he could use. Such a device allows for braille input and output.

Another technological adaptation that would assist Scott is the use of a text-to-speech device or program, such as the popular Kurzweil 1000 Text-To-Speech software.. This would provide another means by which Scott could interact with material that would otherwise be too visual.

SECTION IV: PERSONAL REFLECTION

During this past semester in SEDU 183, I learned a great deal about technology's value in the classroom of today. I used and read about many different technological resources and their potential to improve the learning environment for students as well as to bolster my own capabilities as a teacher. As I stated in my "This I Believe" video, I believe it is every educator's duty to use technology as an extension of our abilities to teach rather than as a crutch to justify lazy classroom conduct. The resources I have mentioned in this page all allow for such use, and if I am presented with the opportunity to implement them in a real classroom in my future, I would gladly do so.

iMovie project file for my video. It took forever!

The creation of this project was a work-intensive, challenging process. I strove to create the best blog page I could given the requirements, and in some cases I feel I went above and the written rubric because I hold the subject matter in high regard. My video presentation took me several days of writing and revising, and the editing process took several hours as well. I tried to tastefully incorporate images and hyperlinks into the page in a way that seemed natural and non-distracting (I even used several of the images as hyperlinks themselves). I carefully made sure that my writing was of professional quality and would reflect well on my serious desire to immerse myself in the science and art of education.

If I could change one thing about the way I went about this project, I would have started it earlier and taken more time to establish myself as a key part of the project. The bulk of my work was spent explaining the classroom itself, but I feel that if I had given myself more time I could have gone into more detail about how my philosophies of education mesh with the technology and classroom environment. I also wish I had thought to use my 1080i camera to record that short clip of myself at the end of the video instead of my fuzzy Macbook camera, but that's a minor nitpick. Overall, I am quite proud of my finished "21st Century Classroom" page, and I hope you enjoyed reading it!

SECTION V: FEEDBACK