First Reflective Essay
My understanding of research is basically an investigation to establish facts about some topic. I teach AP Statistics at my high school, and a big part of that course is looking at research and trying to draw conclusions from it. I hope that my background in reading statistics and understanding them will help in my understanding of future technological research.
I definitely try to incorporate technology into my everyday lessons, but as our society becomes more and more advanced, it can become overwhelming to constantly keep up with the upgrades of new software, and the innovative new programs that emerge so frequently. Many of these resources would make learning in my classrooms more fun and interactive, but learning the software and getting to a point where I feel 100% comfortable will all aspects can be time consuming and daunting. As a result, I shy away from some technologies because I feel I may not have the time to learn them thoroughly enough.
In this class, I would like to learn how to more efficiently go through educational technology research and be able to find which programs and software will be best for me to invest my time and effort in. The last thing I want to do is buy-in to a new technology and then find out that its use doesn't increase student learning that much. It's improtant to me to know how the student learning experience is impacted when experimenting with a new program and whether it is worthwhile to use or not.
I would also like to learn how to find reliable research. I know you mentioned using the CCSU library but that is something I have never done before. Even with the internet, how do you know what is reliable and what is not. Are there sources or websites that can be used and trusted for research on a regular basis? These questions and I'm sure others will arise I hope to answer throughout this course.
Second Reflective Essay
This course proved to be a great resource for my AP Statistics course. Many of the studies we looked at used most of the important statistical tools and terminology in their findings so that I could use them as examples in my course. I was really able to understand the findings of these studies at a different level than most because I knew all the terminology and I could see how reliable the results were through the p-values and confidence intervals provided. We do a unit in my class on statistical deception, and how researchers skew results to prove their hypotheses. I didn't come across any blatant violations in our studies, but I did see minor things such as small sample sizes being applied to larger populations.
I came into this class hoping to more efficiently go through educational technology research and find which programs work best for me. Not only was I exposed to new technologies that I never though I would implement in my classroom, but I also learned how my statistical background could be used to further filter which programs would be most worthy of my time based on research. I was most impressed with WebQuests and the ability for students to learn more independently through guided "journeys" through the internet. I hope to use this tool more often in my classroom this year. I've already begun tweaking a WebQuest a former colleague previously used, and I used it as the basis of my inquiry plan.
When I first came into this class, I didn't have a good idea of where to look for research. I never once utilized the online catalog that CCSU provides, and not I find myself using it more often. I also discovered the Google Scholar site for journals and research articles from all over the world on many topics that impact the resources I would like to utilize in my classroom. I guess I always knew I could use the internet, but I didn't know what search engines would be the most reliable and this class helped me find the way.
The most significant thing I learned from this course is that technology is forever evolving and changing the landscape of education. The hard part as educators is being able to sort through these innovative new programs and discover whether they are true assets that can be used for years to come, or are they just fads that will fade into the background. This class has helped me look for indicators as to which technologies have the substance and value to help my students become better learners, and that is why I chose this program at CCSU in the first place.
