Jingwei Viola Liu
Digital Citizenship Indicator A
Indicator A: Ensure equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources to meet the needs of all learners.
Artifact:
Exploring Online Tools to Meet Different Learners’ Needs:
History of Ancient China Course (Commonsense Edu)
Chinese Zodiac Animals Course (iPad Nearpod)
Movie Music Analysis Course (Interactive iBook)
Artifact & Course Description:
Course Title
GILT 631 Instructional Technology
Course Description
This course emphasized the leading teacher program (LTP) as a way to develop computer skills and instructional technology competencies to be a successful teacher. The focus was on preparing content-specific classroom applications, and developing effective technology-based instructional lessons.
Project Description
Three artifacts were developed as online curricula aimed at meeting different learners’ needs.
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Chinese Zodiac Animals: This is a real-time synchronous course to be taken on the iPad by using Nearpod app to teach students and is aimed at grades kindergarten to 6th grade.
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The History of Ancient China: This course is a lesson plan for an online unit that can be integrated into a kindergarten to twelfth grade classroom. It recommends different apps to use that would be appropriate for the information.
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Movie Music Analysis iBook: This provides plans for an interactive book designed for iPad iBook. A prototype was deployed on the iPad. The interactive book includes multi-media and different modes of interaction, such as completing quizzes, playing music, accessing links, and playing videos.
Reflection
This course gave me knowledge on many important aspects, like how to make learning time effective, how to develop engaging learning content and materials, how to create practical learning experiences, and how to deploy a collaborative learning platform. The most attractive component of this course for me was that it introduced many interesting and innovative apps and websites that can be used in the development of educational technology, and especially how to use it to engage students and flip the classroom setting.
According to Grant, personalized learning is specifically tailored to each student. It takes into account the student’s strengths, needs, and interests in educational delivery while maintaining the highest standards possible. Online tools might be particularly useful in this regard, because using analytics and decision-support, the online experience of learning is easy to personalize.
Developing and deploying online tools that meet diverse learning needs can ensure that access to education is more equitable. By creating both synchronous and asynchronous online learning environments, different digital tools can be used to create resources to meet the needs of different learners. Incorporating audio and video as well as interaction into online courses also works to meet different learners needs with digital tools and resources. Bringing online courses on new subjects to learners can give them access to education on more topics.
References
Grant, P., & Basye, D. (2014). Personalized learning: A guide for engaging students with technology. International Society for Technology in Education.