Week Five Reflection

As much as I thought I would like the online photo sharing tools that we were to experiment with this week, I was a bit disappointed. I think the actual tools are great for certain things, but my concerns about the tools far outweigh the pros that I have. First of all, I can see so many ways that these could be used in the classroom. In a foreign language classroom, especially in a school that offers some study abroad options or that has student exchange students, this would be a great way for students to get to learn culture. Pictures of other countries, the food, celebrations, housing, schools...that would all be very useful, especially if it were coming from a peer who had visted there. I can also see it being used in culture projects when students create presentations about other countries and include pictures. Group members would be able to share photos easily. As I stated earlier though, even with all of these cool ideas I am thinking about, I wonder how a teacher would have time to monitor this. It seems that we really could have tons of accounts to tons of technology tools to use in the classroom, but we only have so much time in a day. A teacher may see up to 120 students a day. If he or she is using these tools for each class, and therefore each student, that is a TON of different accounts to monitor. I would love to be able to use this tool in a project, but I just don't see how it would be realistic to keep track of. With students being able to tag and comment and with some online sharing programs even upload to Facebook, it doesn't seem like it would work in a classroom (especially in a high school classroom). There is already enough that goes on with Facebook and pictures with high schoolers, I don't think I really want to give them another option. So, in general, I think the tool is a good tool for some certain things, but overall, I cannot really see myself using this often. It could be because I haven't tried it and had the experience to see how it could work, or it could be that my initial thoughts are right. I guess I will have to see when I actually get a chance to use it.

As far as Chapter Two goes, I do agree with the ADDIE model for the most part. I remember in my undergrad creating lesson plan after lesson plan that followed a model similar to this. At the time, I did not appreciate the sequence and the design of the model. After watching how lesson plans played out with actual students, I have learned that this is really how it works. Revision of lesson plans is so important and necessary in order to become an effective teacher. Evaluation is a major part of the revision process. Did the plan work? Was it effective? How did the students respond? What was my workload during the lesson? All of these things will be analyzed before the lesson plan is revised and re-designed, which is exactly what the ADDIE model demonstrates. The ADDIE model focuses on revision a lot and I think so do most effective teachers. Learning centered and goal oriented along with meaningful performance, outcomes, and teamwork are all mentioned in the chapter (p13) as being necessary in Instructional Design. These all should naturally be present in our lesson plans when we write them. If they are not, then to me, it is not a good lesson plan. Is it hard sometimes to write lesson plans that include such detail and thought? Yes, of course. To me, when you are trying to implement a lesson plan that has all of the above thought out already, the actual lesson will be much more effective and the teacher will be much more confident when teaching. If a lesson plan does not include these things, the lesson will not be as effective, may seem incomplete, or may be even hard to teach because the core goals or objectives are not there.