Running Head: FORMAL REFLECTION ONE

Formal Reflection one

Hadeel Alshammri
EDT-7800- ICT in Education
Maggie Veres
Wright State University

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2
Summary

Digital learning technologies can enable students to grasp concepts more quickly. This is
what the author is trying to explain in his article Clearing the Confusion between Technology
Rich and Innovative Poor: Six Questions, by Alan November the founder of November
Learning. November talks about the value of the digital learning environment in a school through
answering these six important questions:
1. Did the assignment build capacity for critical thinking on the web?

2. Did the assignment develop new lines of inquiry?

3. Are there opportunities for students to make their thinking visible?

4. Are there opportunities to broaden the perspective of the conversation with

authentic audiences from around the world?

5. Is there an opportunity for students to create a contribution (purposeful work)?

6. Does the assignment demo best in the world examples of content and skill?

In the first Question Did the assignment build capacity for critical thinking on the web?
November is asking the teachers to be aware of the research skills that lead to a higher quality
comparative search. As a result, the students will look carefully on their web assignments by
choosing the right sources and evaluate the reliability of sources.

The second Question is Did the assignment develop new lines of inquiry? When the
teacher gives the students an assignment that contains some questions and asks them to do some

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search on the Internet looking for the answers. Students, surely, will find the answer very
quickly. But what if the teacher comes with the creative, innovative and even impossible
questions? That will encourage and teach the students to look deeply into the information and
ask a creative and innovation question. Teachers need to improve their questions from asking the
frequent questions to create new questions that surprise their students, question students would
never expect.

Are there opportunities for students to make their thinking visible? This is the third
question. (November, 2015) States, We now have tools that can reveal what students are
thinking. Research shows that one of the most important skills to improve student achievement is
to teach them to self assess their work. This is what November encourages teachers to teach the
students, in order to make students` thinking visible to their teachers. When the students learn
how to self-assess their work, that will let the teachers understand what their students trying to
say or do through the assignments.

These days, many teachers have a website with forums for their students to share their
ideas, questions, or work which is really helpful for the students to be engaged when they home.
Even though, there are numerous blogs and websites around the world that could be helpful to
the students to share their work and ideas with them. When the teachers encourage their students
to broaden their work and knowledge with other audience that will give them the opportunity to
receive feedback on their work and get a great experience from others. This is what November`s
answer to the Fourth question.
For the five questions, the author mentions a great example of a colleague in Istanbul
has her Geometry students designing the Geometry curriculum for blind students by visiting a

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local center for the blind and working with the students, After the students finished their work
in the local center, some of them extend their work while the other came back the next year. This
example gives a clear view that students need to feel and agree with the purpose of their work.
In Conclusion of this article, November asks his last question. Does the assignment
demo best in the world examples of content and skill? Most of the schools have the access to
the Internet, which the teachers can get the advantage of that by showing the students some
examples such as, videos or sites, of best in the world across the curriculum. This step could
often motivate, inspire and challenge the students to work harder.
Reflection
It is an important for every teacher and school leader to discuss these six questions each
school year. We really need to add the six questions to our curriculum planning process, in order
to get the advantage of the digital learning environment that teacher and school leader doing their
best to improve it. However, this list of questions was developed to help educators be clear about
the value of a digital learning in the schools. I particularly like the first questions as the author
states, because most students and teachers are unaware of the mistakes they do when searching.
(Clark, 2013) States, In an age of information abundance learning to effectively search is one of
the most important skills most teachers are NOT teaching. They assume students know how to
conduct a search, and set them free on the Internet to find information. They assume that students
have the skills to critically think their way through the searching and the web. On other words,
we do a lot of searching on the Internet, but we still need to learn the right skills of searching on
the Internet, so we can, after that, assess our work if it is right or not. Furthermore, (Chaika,
2000) says, "Publishing student writing encourages the reluctant writer, strengthens kids' self-

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confidence." Not just writing but also all their work. When students publishing their work to a
global audience that motivates them to do more with high quality because they know others will
see their work.

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References

Chaika, G. (2000, Augest 09). Educational World Connecting Educators To what

Works. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from Encourage Student Writing -Publish

on

the

Web!:

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech042.shtml
Clark, H. (2013, October 16). Do Your Students Know How To Search? Retrieved
January 25, 2016, from Edudemic Connecting Education & Technology:
http://www.edudemic.com/student-search-skills/
November, A. (2015, January 12). November Learning. Retrieved January 25, 2016,
from Clearing the Confusion between Technology Rich and Innovative Poor:
Six

Questions

http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-

educators/teaching-and-learning-articles/clearing-confusion-technology-richinnovative-poor-six-questions/