Final Project

Technology Integration Plan (25% of course grade)[download scoring rubric] 

Submission Deadline: Monday, May 6, 5:00pm EST 

Essential Reading: Rethinking Technology in Schools (Chapter 5) & 4 Steps to Standards Integration [PDF download] 

This final project is a culminating activity that builds on all of the previous interactivities in this module. It asks you to integrate the technological knowledge and pedagogical skills you have developed this semester across your co-requisite courses. You will work with a lesson plan you have already worked with in CURR 310 (Inclusion module) or CURR 312 (English Language Learners module). Beyond the adaptations that you already made to that lesson plan, your task now is to infuse technology in ways that are not just supportive, but transformative as well. In other words, you're not simply "adding on" technology, but you are enriching and transforming the ways in which students learn (and you teach) through the careful selection and intentional uses of specific technologies. 

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The products you will submit for this final assignment are a technology integration matrix (using Google Spreadsheets) and a 750-word blog entry that provides a rationale and "narrates" your technology integration matrix. Your blog entry will include your embedded Google Spreadsheet. The 750-word narrative "counts" as your online participation for the last week of the semester.

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To orientate yourself to this final assignment, it will help you to read the article, 4 Steps to Standards Integration. It illustrates the process that you will follow to create your own technology integration matrix. The article also provides an illustrated example of a 3-columned matrix (the format of which should look familiar to you from the previous interactivities). Here is the process you should follow. Again, it should look familiar to you. If it does not, then go back and review the assigned readings: 

Step 1: Identify your Educational Goal 

Identify from your lesson plan a general content-specific goal and state it at the top of your Google Spreadsheet (as a heading). A goal is not the same as a lesson title, so you may have to adjust your title for it to reflect the overarching goal of the lesson. Here's a helpful recipe: 

"Increasing student understanding of [fill in the blank with your content goal]." 

Step 2: Define your Goal through Content Standards 

Next, select specific NJCCCS standards and/or indicators that operationally define your educational goal. Those standards and indicators do not have to be comprehensive; neither do they have to be presented in any particular order or configuration. Your chosen standards should be listed in the first column on the left of your matrix—as you will have students accomplish them. For the purpose of this assignment, technology is NOT an educational goal. However, AFTER you select your supporting technologies for your content standards (Part III), you should identify the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS-S) that you are (in)directly supporting and list those in the appropriate places alongside the NJCCCS/Common Core in the first column. At minimum, you should use the NJCCCS/Common Core in your subject area AND the National Educational Technology Standards for Students as your content for Column 1.

Step 3: Identify Teaching Strategies. These should NOT be confused with specific technologies (which belong in column 3 and should be thought of AFTER your pedagogy). This second column consists of the specific and intentional pedagogical structures you employ with your students to facilitate their achievement of the curriculum standards. As you know, some pedagogical strategies are teacher-centered (i.e., lecture, demonstration, explanation) and some are much more student-centered and active (i.e., group discussion, student presentation, research/inquiry, written examination, homework) and some are in between (i.e, large group discussion, question and answer, guided practice). There are many more examples than those I’ve listed. The point is to think of diverse strategies when it comes to your pedagogy: What activities will lead students to achieve the desired standards? Note: You can find examples of student learning activities that corresponds to the NETS-S for your grade level here.

For the Strategies column in your matrix/spreadsheet, you should: 

• Employ a variety of strategies that not exclusively teacher-centered; Label each strategy either with a “T” (primarily teacher-centered), “S” (primarily student-centered) or “T/S” if it is both. 
• Do not confuse technology with pedagogy. There should be no specific devices, objects or things mentioned in the teaching Strategies column; 
• Identify with an “A” those strategies that are linked to formal assessments. 

Step 4: Choose Supporting Technologies.

Refer to the Technology Inventory your group compiled for Interactivity #3 to select the most appropriate and pedagogically innovative technologies that best support your chosen strategies (in column 2). Select specific media and technology resources that will directly support each of your teaching strategies. To get some ideas of how other teachers are using various technologies to transform their teaching, view this Edutopia video.
 
Note that you do NOT have to be proficient in the technologies you select. "Dream big" and expect that some professional development will be required on your part in order to successfully enact this curriculum. You should privilege the transformative potential of the technologies to innovate the ways in which students learn. At the same time, your choices should be limited to the technologies that your group compiled for Interactivity #3. 

Step 5: Align the 3 Columns to Complete Your Matrix 

Essentially, each row of your matrix should resemble an equation:

Selected technologies (Column 3) + Identified teaching strategies (Column 2) = Achievement of Standard (Column 1)

If each row in your spreadsheet does not "add up," that means your technology is superfluous or that  your teaching strategy is not supporting your curriculum standard. Your matrix is complete when each row “adds up” logically from right to left. If your rows don't "add up,"  or align in purpose and support then you need to make adjustments. Your challenge is in how to create each row (chronologically? by project phase? media literacy cycle?)


Your matrix might look something like this (this is just one example—yours might look slightly different):

(click to enlarge)

Step 6: Embed Your Matrix and Post Your Narrative 

Once you have completed your matrix, you should embed it within a blog post and include a 750-word narrative that explains your matrix in detail (row by row). Consult the assessment rubric for details on what you should include and how your project will be assessed.