In this reflection, I specifically deal with the use of mobile phones in my classroom by me-the teacher and my students. This implies that any form of smart phone that the learner are capable of buying can be used in learning. 

I have learned that classroom management procedures when using cell phone need to be used appropriately and responsibly. Students should obey the following regulations:

Upon entry and departure of class please ensure cell phones are turned off and stored in your backpack. When cell phones are being used for learning please ensure they are set to silent.

Phones should only be used for learning purposes related to classwork.

When phones are not being used for learning, place them face down on the upper right side of your desk. And when seen in the class using their cell phone inappropriately, there should be provision for peers reminding each other of proper cell phone use etiquette. The teacher has authority to command a student to take and keep the phone in the bin in the front of the room with a post-it indicating your name and class when not appropriately being used. Alternatively, students may work under the guidance of the teacher to develop a policy concerning classroom management with a plan which they should be ready to abide by and enforce.

Let students get past their excitement of new devices so that they can eventually settle and concentrate. Ensure that the students stay engaged/ setting firm due dates of assessment and scaling the assignments of students who finished first. Walk around the classroom and look at what students are doing. The more active and mobile you are, the easier it will be for you to ensure that the students are doing what is expected of them.

Treat devices as learning tools so that the perception of the devices in classroom changes. Students begin recognizing the value of their devices for research and exploring. Using phone boxes to neatly store students' devices. This will make students know that they must put everything with a screen in the box during testing or doing any other activities. Connect students with educational applications only so as to cultivate technology fluency. Students learn how to leverage applications for learning.

I have not yet explored the use of mobile phones in my class but I hope to do so if my school rule and regulations are revised. The only challenge is that of having to convince the school management to allow students to bring their mobile phones to school. Once this hurdle is jumped I would encourage the students to bring mobile phones into my class. 

"How can I 'break down the walls of my classroom' without actually having to incur great expenses or construction costs?"

"How can I 'break down the walls of my classroom' without actually having to incur great expenses or construction costs?"

The answer is very simple

·         Today students are doing so much more with technology;

·         They are emailing, texting & tweeting; Facebook can be useful or detrimental but we can use it for research & for study purposes outside school hours.

·         Use of websites or WhatsApp can connect students from all around the world.It is quite evident that restricted classrooms confine limited parameters on students’ thinking and ways of doing things.

·         We need to redesign new educational spaces in order to release new ways of thinking about learning without necessarily tearing apart the walls of the classroom.

·         The main areas of concern here are:  Setting up learning studios, grouping up students into shared learning area to be able to provide spaces capable of supporting the learners individually, in small groups, as well a whole class and in larger groups.

·         Indeed classrooms should be maintained but still go beyond the classroom walls by creating virtual technology learning spaces as a way of integrating technology in teaching and learning.

·         In Uganda, there is a full ‘University’ of technology which shall remain unnamed here which runs without buildings. Basically the teachers and students spend all their time roaming in bushes and tree shades and on the streets of that town-side, interviewing people and communities to learn what they know and then codify their findings using computer technology, which later constitute their dissertations and thesis.

·        
So, overturning the 100 years of something in education is not easy but we need to open up the education system with technology so that the new generation may not see things like people of yesterday did in their olden days.

·         Old spaces do not consider the entire spectrum of student success. They do not prepare students for a global economy.

·         The proponents of creating new physical learning spaces argue that: it promotes real student engagement and encourages ingenuity since it accommodates the principles of constructivism.

·         For instance, with increased use of computer technology in schools and increased access to learning resources like cyber technology tools and information, students are drawn deeper into a topic than ever before.

·         They can even direct their own learning.

·         To me; this can be done without necessarily altering the physical set up of the classroom.

·          With the advent of the use of technologies in modern learning spaces, teachers use projectors, interactive whiteboards, and computers like desktops, laptops, tablets, or mobile devices, digital cameras, video conferencing, sound and video playback systems, voice enhancement, Wifi, Internet access, and others which need to be attuned to the activities in the learning space for learning to be most effective.

·         On the other hand, mobile technology which is fairly affordable compared to other technology Gadgets can be adopted and used in the classroom and the students would be able to do all the above. However, in the initial stages, emphasis on the virtual learning spaces would be the most affordable more especially mobile technology like Ipads or smart phones.

·         Learning should be limitless. If the ideas around global learning are adopted, every individual on the planet can contribute towards teaching and inspire the next generation.

·          I see a future where there is a mix of educators, students, and professionals in areas of study that can easily be part of a free and open global learning environment – regardless of economic or geographical barriers. Technology enables all of this.

·         Remember; even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a step.

·          Be one in a million to initiate this technology integration move in your teaching.

END

A Reflection of lesson 7.3.4

I am in support of the use of computers in school however access to computers is not yet universal Uganda and in my school. We still use low density labs. Access to computers remains low and it is tailored to computer labs in some of our schools, although this may change as some parents can afford to buy laptops for their children.

There is a general inadequacy of awareness among my fellow teachers about the positive educational value that computer technology can add to our teaching and it is accompanied by various objections in some cases; the use of computers by my learners at school, also serves as an inhibiting factor.

Use of computers and use of modern technology in learning has not yet been institutionalized or mainstreamed within the Ugandan national teacher development systems apart from making it a unit for study as a subject. At the University level, computers and use of social media are not well integrated into teacher education programs offered by teacher-training institutions. So teachers take it as a gimmick in the school society.

However, technology is changing the way in we view learning spaces and the personal learning environment of our students because students surf the Internet, Tweet, use Facebook and come up with lots of learning material that a teacher may fail to find single handed for his learners.

I am adapting to the new ways of technology integration through the use of curation sites and use of the Internet by giving assignments to my students so that I widen their understanding of a given topic under study. 

A wiki is one the technology tools used in collaboration as members of a given group articulate topical  issues. Every member gets a chance to observe what others have contributed and he or she builds from such and an angle to understand better and internalize the concept at hand.

It some times becomes funny while collaborating because some members are too committed to the collaboration forum keep updating the wiki whereas other can choose to become quasi collaborators who virtually contribute nothing apart from editing one or two statements and then save.

In some cases, some members think that collaboration requires when all members are logged in to the internet at the same time and then use it as if it was a Watsapp chat or Facebook messenger. No! its not the case. However any body can log in any time of his convenience and then contribute his issues to a pool of issues from the majority collaborators. 

I can improve the process of collaboration with my design group in the following ways: 

Because the collaborative design is a bit complex and challenging task, and that not all members are committed, I can create a watsapp group since majority today use Android mobile phone so that issues are first written about on a different platform and then later transfer such sieved ideas to the wiki.

I can as well create a rapport by pausing simple questions and then create smaller groups, each assigned a given broken down task that is as well simple so that they get encouraged to actively involve in the collaborative exercise and with useful arguments.    

I have gained a lot from this lesson because all the generated ideas on the group wiki so far from my colleagues were educative and I could not easily come up with all of them given the task alone.

In the mean time I don't think I have anything to change from the collaboration procedure that we are following currently because it is yielding good results-contributing to my understanding of lesson 7 of 'Managing Warmware'  

The design of learning spaces is most vital in today's teaching: teachers today use all sorts of teaching techniques and tools. However, with the increased use of computers and the Internet, Teachers and their learners have been blindfolded and limited to the use of computer Desktop research in classroom or at home but not in the field or visiting the community.

The community in the above respect has been ignored-which has made learning non-beneficial to some stakeholders or the community and rote learning then comes in.

The main question however which remains hanging is that: Can this design of learning spaces permit all subjects taught to reach out to the community?! Examples can be drawn from those Arts subjects like Literature, History or the teaching of languages. 
Even though one may try to reach out to the community by "Breaking the walls", he may not adequately solve both the learners' and or community problems. 

6.9.4 Final Specific Personal Observations About Learning Through Project Based Lessons

What I have learned from lesson 6 I have learned about a project based lesson and I have found out that the most vital aspect in it is the  empowerment of the learner to do all his/her discovery work almost alone. In this respect, the teacher only unfolds the the lesson idea which is in line with the national curriculum and then guides the learners through giving them feedback. In the process of empowering the learners, it becomes clear that critical thinking is applied. On the other side, a constructionist approach to teaching becomes very easy to apply.
I have also learned that project based learning links the learners to the community in order to solve a given problem at hand. In this case, learners become vital to their community since they learn not to theoretically study and live every thing in books without applying it in the daily life. In fact even after school, the same skills obtained by the learner at school can easily be transfered to the field while at work. Project based lessons in my observation can completely wipe out the job seeking problem and instead puts in place job creators. However such a lesson requires a lot of creativity on the side of the teacher in order to wet-up the learners' appetite to research more about an unfolded topic under study by the teacher.

I have learned that the Internet is very vital in lessons which are project based. Even though the scenario to be researched about is a real problem out there in the community, learners can explore the Internet to learn more about cases like that one unfolded by the teacher. The Internet becomes a virtual laboratory where almost every thing can be found.

How what I have learned in this course might influence what I do in the classroom:
Since I have learned that a project based lesson eases my work and that it engages my learners, I will mostly use project based lessons. However from my observation, it requires a lot of time for some topics to be taught since the there are more than one step in the implementation of a project based lesson. Specifically on the side of science subjects which require a lot of observation, it goes to the whole day or more than one day to implement the lesson or to tickle the learners brain to accurately think and come up with sound solutions to a given problem at hand in the community.

The Plans that I have for implementing a project-based approach for a section of work in my curriculum.
I have a plan of lobbying my administrators at my school to fully install in our school Internet connection so that I design my lesson plans in line with the Project approach. I am planing to more often take my learners to the field so that all that is in the curriculum of Uganda is translated into what affects the community and then make my learners solve that very problem in my community.
I have plans of making my fellow teachers at my school adapt the project based approach to teaching. Although some aspects of such teaching are observed at our school in some subject and by some other teachers other than me, it is some times by accident and not by design. If they adapt to the same, I guess I will not find big resistance in its implementation.