Mobile Technologies

What do professional development days look like within your teaching environment? 

Finding time for professional development (PD) during the school year is a major challenge for teachers, who are already balancing teaching, lesson planning, grading, and communication with parents and colleagues. Attending PD often requires securing a substitute and preparing lesson plans in advance, adding extra hurdles. Yet ongoing PD is critical for educators to stay current with instructional strategies, technology, and legal and safety requirements. Mobile technologies offer a flexible solution, making professional learning more accessible and easier to fit into busy schedules.

When evaluating the need for PD to be sharing via mobile technologies, I worked with colleagues to develop this plan shared below.  

Mobile Technologies Training Implementation Plan for Everest Elementary School

1. Purpose - Provide staff an opportunity to learn about the expected new curricula to be implemented, along with maintaining adherence to safety and legal protocols. 

2. Goals - 

a. Increase accessibility and consistency of professional development for teachers. 

b. Strengthen the implementation of new teaching strategies through continuous, real time support.

3. Mobile Technology and Ethical Dilemmas - Personal cell phones will be used.  Ethical dilemmas to consider are comfortability of using one's own cell phone for privacy and cost related issues.

4. Implementation Steps - 

a. Selection of a user-friendly platform

b. Collaboration among teachers, administrators, and instructional coach to develop engaging micro-learing videos, step by step guides and "just in time" refreshing lessons.

c. Upon content development completion, access will be shared with all staff along with instructions and expectations.

d. Engagement data, completion rates and teacher feedback will be collected and evaluated.

5. Obtaining Approval - A formal proposal will be presented to the school board and teacher's union explaining why this training is beneficial along with outlining the legalities that need to be followed.

Have you ever developed or experienced a training plan that includes mobile technologies?  If so, what did that process look like for you and your colleagues?

Immersive Learning in the Elementary Science Classroom

Have you used immersive learning like virtual reality or augmented reality in your classroom?  What experiences have you had with VR/AR in your personal life?

Elementary science students can use immersive technology to deepen their understanding of scientific concepts. They might explore the inner workings of a plant, use augmented reality to simulate and manipulate weather patterns, or participate in an ecosystem rescue mission to study habitats, food chains, and environmental balance.

A few of the platforms that can be used for immersive learning are explained below.

Unity is a development platform for creating 2D and 3D multiplatform games and interactive experiences

Delightex edu is a web based application used to design, animate, and spark interest in numerous concepts including scientific concepts

Merge Cube is a printable paper cube that lets students hold digital 3D objects using augmented reality technology, enabling an engaging way to interact with the digital world

In the video link below I expanded on one of these immersive learning experiences in greater detail where first grade students will go on a biology adventure inside a plant to help them better understand how all the plant parts work together. 

Please click on this link to view the video in its entirety.  

To view the Best Practices Checklist referenced in the video in more detail, please see below.

Plan to Expand my Personal Learning Network

 

As I was evaluating my current PLN I quickly realized I do not have many specific connections with the science and STEM communities.  Therefore I researched a variety of science and STEM options and found two blogs and one TED Talk as ways to expand my PLN. 

The National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) posts information weekly on their blog.  This information varies from effective teaching strategies to current trends in science education.  This blog will be helpful for me to spend 30 minutes reading weekly to discover and implement fresh science lesson ideas as well as exploring fresh classroom management suggestions.  This blog will also help me keep up to date with information shared at the National Science Teacher Association's National Conference.  

SAM Labs offers a monthly blog post with information specific to coding and ways to connect coding to specific science, STEM and technology standards.  These blog posts will help me learn how coding skills can help students with future global careers.  Spending one hour, every three months reading and interacting on this blog will help me gain insight into coding as a career and how to incorporate this into my classroom for students to experience.  I also plan to share the information learned with my science counterparts during our monthly meetings.  

AI is rapidly changing the way we all gain and gather information.  Therefore the final organization I would like to include in my PLN is TERC.  TERC offers TED Talks, that they title TECH Talks specifically about the field of AI and how this can be used effectively in education and careers.  By listening to these TECH Talks not only will I understand more about AI, but I can use this knowledge to effectively, responsibly, and ethically use AI in my classroom and everyday life.

Are any of these organizations of interest to you in your personal learning journey?  What resources have you found to be effective?  

Microlearning as a Workplace Training Experience

As explained by Mery (2022), a microlearning activity should offer a full learning cycle by presenting essential content, guiding learners through this content, allowing time for practice, and including opportunities for feedback or reflection. Microlearning focuses on a specific topic, requires brief effort, and demands minimal time. When considering a topic for a workplace microlearning module, Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures immediately came to mind. These Kagan strategies not only give educators a solid framework for managing classrooms, but also boost learner engagement. A wide range of engagement structures and cooperative learning techniques are available, and they can be adapted to different subjects and student age groups.

The workplace training experience I created completes a full cycle of learning.  Participants begin by listening to a brief video presentation sharing essential content related to the Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures.  The learners are then guided through this content by learning about three specific Kagan strategies.  To end this microlearning experience, learners are given an assignment of composing a brief micro video explaining how they would connect a Kagan strategy to a lesson within their classrooms.  This allows participants to share their knowledge and understanding while reflecting on what they learned in this microlearning activity.

Please click on this link to view the training plan and agenda for this microlearning activity.

References

Kagan Publishing (2025). What is Kagan. Kagan. https://www.kaganonline.com/what_is_kagan/

Mery, Y. (2022). Chapter 2: A case for microlearning. Library Technology Reports, 58(5), 10–13.

Zhang, J., & West, R. E. (2020). Designing microlearning instruction for professional development through a compentency based approach. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 64(2), 310-318. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-019-00449-4

How can blogging be incorporated into the elementary science learning environment to expand the knowledge and skills of learners?

Blogging can be incorporated into the learning environment to expand the knowledge and skills of learners in multiple ways.  When thinking about elementary science students in particular, blogging can help build collaboration and feedback skills, as well as encourage communication and vocabulary development.

One of the advantages of incorporating blogging into the elementary science environment is the opportunity blogging offers when building collaboration and feedback skills.  As explained by Abdul and Tasir (2020), for communication purposes, students used blogs to gather insights and ideas from their peers' posts.  They also shared their own thoughts and emotions through blogging, which increased their enjoyment of the activity.  Often there is not enough time in one science class period for each student to share his thoughts and feelings.  When completing a blog to share their experiences within the science classroom or findings from an experiment, students not only have more time, but students who may be uncomfortable sharing their thoughts and observations verbally in front of the entire class have an opportunity to share.  This allows other students to read, better understand, and comment on each others' thoughts.  Students enjoy learning from others more when they are comfortable sharing their own thoughts and emotions in a unthreatening environment.  Blogging offers this opportunity.

Blogging not only helps students connect and support one another, but blogging also encourages communication and vocabulary development.  As mentioned by Parry and Hracs (2020), as students write about shared experiences, they practice expressing their ideas clearly and learn new words from reading others' posts.  These interactive exchanges build confidence in communicating and language skills.

    

Blogging in elementary science lets students share their ideas in a comfortable environment.  Blogging also encourages collaboration and feedback.  Through these activities, students develop stronger communication, vocabulary, and engagement skills.

References

Abdul Kadir, N.I., & Tasir, Z. (2020). Students' perceptions and information-sharing patterns in learning authoring system course through blogging. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 15(19), 187-199. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v15i19.10950

Parry, J., & Jracs, B. J. (2020). From leisure to labour: towards a typology of the motivations, structures and experiences of work-related blogging. New Technology, Work & Employment, 35(3), 314-335. https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12179