Where am I now in my project?

What are my thoughts? Where am I now?

I have decided to make a Webquest for this project. I am glad that I still have a Quest Garden account because it easily guides you when making Webquests.

Here is my introduction for the students.
You have a mission! You are working at the Imagination Zoo in Atlanta, Georgia. There are animals waiting for homes in the zoo. It will be your job to classify animals into mammals, reptiles, amphibians, aves (birds), and fish, and find separate habitats for the animals so they can live harmoniously in the zoo.

Here is a rough lesson plan.
The learning goals of this lesson will be:
1. Students will gain basic knowledge to name the animals.
2. Students will learn differences of each category such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, aves (birds), and fish.
3. Students will learn to place animals into the right categories.
4. Students will work within a group to make an animal zoo book and presentation.

Teacher will show animal pictures and real animal videos to deliver the concept of animal classification. Students will focus on animals’ skin, fur, and reproduction style. Then, students will work with groups of three people to classify animal pictures from the basket to the animal zoo book. After your animal zoo adventure, each team will make a group presentation in front of the class, and will be asked to give feedback to other groups.

The diagram Dr. Moore has shown to the class explains well on how this individual project is supposed to be.

PBL, Backwards Design, ISTE, and LoTi should intertwine together to make a successful 7500 Project.

I am still struggling with LoTi level 4 for my age group.

LoTi, My project, and ME

LoTi stands for Levels of Teaching Innovation. It was first developed in 1994 to measure the usage of technology in the classroom. It is divided into levels 0 to 6.

LoTi 0 – Non-use
LoTi 1 – Awareness
LoTi 2 – Exploration
LoTi 3 – Infusion
LoTi 4a – Integration: Mechanical
LoTi 4b – Integration: Routine
LoTi 5 – Exploration
LoTi 6 - Refinement

When I took the LoTi survey last week, my results were between the 30s and 50s, low-level to mid-level ranges. That sounds about right.

Most of my webpage examples seem to be Level 2 - Exploration. Since my target audiences are K-2nd grades, my focus is on content understanding in a teacher-centered learning environment. The class briefly talked about the limitation of using technology in lower grades. In the next couple of weeks, my job is to figure out a way to move up one LoTi level of the individual project. I want to discover a way to enhance process skills and inductive thinking skills in my project. It would be even better if I can use some kind of collaboration work in the project.

During the group discussion, I had a difficult time communicating with the group members. Although I have two years of school working experience, I did not work as a classroom teacher, and that was four years ago. Also, I am not very familiar with the education system in the US because I did not grow up in the States. I am learning something new in every class, but I feel bad for not contributing more during the group discussion.

I want to be a little more courageous and come out of my comfort zone in technology usage-wise and personality-wise.

Initial Project Ideas

This is the first blog I am creating ever. I am excited to be part of the booming blogging community and I hope I can somewhat provide education content for other users to read.
My focus on this blog will be EDIT 7500, implementing technology in a K-12 learning environment.

This week’s class assignment was to find 10 web pages that will help me design and develop an integration project. I plan to do my project on teaching K-2nd grade students on how to classify animals such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, aves (birds), and fish.

In a traditional classroom, a teacher would lecture in front of the classroom, and explain different types of animals by showing some pictures. However, in this integration project, I want to design a lesson by using videos, interactive games, and maybe webquests.

While I was looking for 10 web pages, I was impressed by all the amazing technology resources out there for FREE. Technology can motivate learners to learn more than just visually these days. I hope to do more research on this topic as the semester goes, and hope to design a project that can be used in a real classroom setting.