Final Reflections

I am SO glad I took the scary leap and signed up for this class.  I am so much more confident now.  I also realized that the tech guru colleagues around me don't always know everything, either!  (Though they know a lot more than I do.)  Still, it was comforting to read other peoples' blogs and see what they were trying for the first time, too.

That piece of collaboration across the blogs was very helpful.  One person might've tried something that wasn't so great, so then I chose a different path.  As a parent of a high schooler, I also really liked reading what secondary teachers are trying, and it helped me understand my daughter's assignments and tech vocabulary better.

The biggest takeaways for me in terms of using these tools at school for communication are:  the blog format for updating parents, the screencasting for explaining 24X7 how to do something (to parents, students, subs), how to embed and link, and creating a YouTube channel.  The biggest takeaway for using these tools for and with my students would be:  digital storytelling and study tools.  Just yesterday, our team was talking about the standard for students publishing their work using technology, and we showed them our Zooburst examples from class.

A huge reward was working with colleagues from my school and team, but also in seeing what others were doing in other buildings and at higher grade levels.

One challenge for a few of us was commenting on at least 3 other blogs.  We got ahead, so not many others were as far along as we were, thereby making it difficult to comment on other blogs.  Or, we just ended up commenting on one another's blogs since we'd worked on it together, but that wasn't as useful as the initial times where we cast the net wider.

My only other comment might be to reverse the order of screencasting and creating a YouTube channel.  At least I think that's what I thought at the time!

Overall, everything was put together and explained well.  Since technology changes so quickly, I'm wondering if there will be a booster class with new tools in the future?  Thank you!

Activity 10: Free Choice

At first I wanted to try Goodreads for my classroom (because I already use it for personal use), but it, along with Shelfari, have a minimum age of 13.  I wasn't interested in the social learning sites because of the age of my students, or the social bookmarking sites because I'm already deep into Pinterest.  I'm already a Twitter user and wouldn't use it for parents/students at this age level.  I'm familiar with Animoto.  I wanted something practical that I would definitely use.  I will come back to Rubistar and self-correcting google forms once I know my content area better.  (I'm switching grade levels.)

So, along with my three teammates in the Web 2.0 class, we decided to work more with Weebly.

This was fun and totally practical.  Our 3rd Grade team wanted to created an umbrella website for our grade level, with all of the homerooms, math, language arts and unit studies teachers' websites linked underneath.  We'd all used different platforms in the past for our websites, so we opted to try Weebly because of the ability to switch to a blog format on some pages.  Also, the 5th grade team at our school uses Weebly, and we'd heard that 4th was moving in that direction, so we thought consistency across the grade levels would be helpful to parents.

We also undertook the job of "selling" it to our teammates, since none of them had used Weebly in the past.  Success!  We had a team meeting yesterday, and we'd developed a skeleton framework to show them, and they were all on board.

Here is the link to our brand new website, which is still a work in progress.

Island Lake 3rd Grade Website

The buttons for linking to the MV, Island Lake and Schoolview websites are all live.  I also put a link on my Language Arts (Nelson) page for my screencast made in this class.  There is a lot more work to do and some training to do for our other teammates, but I think this will be a very useful website for parents to use when trying to locate information about their child's various teachers' classes.  The consistency across grade levels will be an advantage, and being able to share and inter-link within the website for us teachers is another plus.  As we work on this, I'm thinking we can even add a Student button, where students can go to locate educational websites, videos, etc. -- a "one-stop shop."  I do plan to do a blog format in one or more areas to update parents on what we've been covering.

Activity 9: Fitness Assessment

Scenario 1: Collaboration = Harassment?

A student is using Google Drive as a writing and collaborative tool for peer reviewing. Juan and Jeremy have used the platform instead to exchange comments that involve name-calling and racial slurs. Jeremy’s parents object when his account is suspended claiming it will negatively impact his academic progress.


Ethical issues:  This is clearly bullying and harassment, and improper use of technology.  The ethical issues reside clearly with the students involved and their behavior.  However, there is also an ethical issue with the teacher:  was an acceptable use policy explained, clearly outlined and signed?  If nothing was done along these lines by the teacher, then the parents have a legitimate concern (though not argued well -- the boys can still make academic progress).  If the teacher took these measures, then I would explain to the parents that the boys are receiving appropriate consequences for their actions.  And I would further argue that the academic objectives will still be met with paper and pencil in a more old-fashioned method despite the suspension of the boys' accounts.


Safety or well-being of anyone in jeopardy:  The bullying/harassment is the key component to be addressed by the teacher -- immediately.  Diversity sensitivity lessons and empathy training would be paramount for me to teach and reteach.


Advice, strategy, or policy recommendation to individuals or schools:   The key issue, with regard to the parents' concerns, is that students have initial lessons on Acceptable Use.  Clear consequences would need to be stated.  I would role-play various scenarios that are similar on the playground to how it would look with technology.  I would also communicate the Acceptable Use policy and consequences to parents in advance.


Real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario:  Because I taught 1st grade the last 3 years, we didn't have as many opportunities for students to get involved in these kinds of risky behaviors.  However, I did have iPads, and had one student who would try to hide and go to apps I hadn't assigned.  I had him always sitting in a place where I could see his screen; if/when he strayed, he lost the privilege the next time we used iPads.

Scenario 6: Course Management Overload

Ms. Carlson is excited to use Edmodo, a course management system similar to Moodle with her students.  Although Edmodo isn’t officially supported by the tech department like Moodle is, she is excited to use it because she finds it much more intuitive to use and she likes the interface better than Moodle.  Ms. Carlson is vigilant about the privacy settings, has informed her principal and parents of her instructional goals and objectives. Her students jump on board and post to the discussion at record numbers. Ms. Carlson is pleased to see such motivated dialogue on a novel that had previously felt like pulling teeth.  Two weeks into the unit, she receives a parent complaint. The complaint is as follows: 
     Dear Ms. Carlson, Mr. Miller, Mr. Hamilton and Ms. McIntyre,
     Although my son is a motivated and active participant in all of your classes, I am concerned that the school does not seem to have a unified course management system. He is using Moodle in Math, Edmodo in English, Schoology in Science, and Kidblog in Social Studies. Furthermore, all of these sites require different logins and passwords. As a parent, I am having a difficult time keeping this all straight and am requesting that the school discuss this issue and figure out a more streamlined approach. 
     Thank you for your consideration,  

     A supportive but confused parent

Ethical issues:  I don't see a lot of ethical issues.  I suppose going away from the district's supported platform could be considered somewhat controversial, but it's not wrong.  There could be an ethical issue with regard to the parent being a helicopter parent and not letting the student deal with the reality of a variety of sites and passwords.


Safety or well-being of anyone in jeopardy:  The biggest issue here seems to be the parent and his/her helicoptering.  Students are much more adept than adults at adapting to new platforms and technologies.  At a younger elementary age, accessing all of these platforms and remembering all of these passwords might be too taxing, but I don't see that happening in the real world.


Advice, strategy, or policy recommendation to individuals or schools:   Because of the parent's concern (and massive "To" list), the issue must be addressed.  It would probably need to be addressed at a higher level:  what is the district's policy with regard to unsupported platforms?  If they want to make clear black &  white lines about what can/cannot be used, then the district would be limiting the capabilities of teachers and backing themselves into a corner for future technological breakthroughs by imposing evaluations/wait time/studies etc.  Technology changes so rapidly that I think we don't want to set those kinds of limitations.  On the flip side, we can be proactive as a district and provide online tutorials for using these platforms.  If a teacher strays from district-supported platforms, perhaps it should be mandatory that he/she provide such a tutorial on his/her website.


Real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario:  Again, coming from 1st grade, I don't have any personal connections from school that relate to this scenario.  However, I do empathize with the parent's concern about remembering a bunch of passwords; it is hard.  At the same time, this is the world in which we live and we have to find ways to teach the students and their parents tools to manage their sites and passwords.

Assignment #8: Polling and Data Gathering

Poll Everywhere

Taking polls is easy.  Creating polls is pretty easy with Poll Everywhere.  Figuring out WHAT to poll was the tricky part!

I decided to try to ask "What are you great at?" as a poll in preparation for teaching Nurtured Heart to the staff.  This would probably be my intro, anticipating that MANY teachers would say, "Nothing...."

The disadvantage of Poll Everywhere for the free version is that it is only available for 2 weeks and a maximum of 40 responses.  Therefore, I probably would not use it for this type of forum.

I could use it for a class of 30+ students, however, perhaps as a morning meeting question.  But, as is typical in our school, we wouldn't have enough devices for everyone to efficiently log in, vote, and log off.

Google Forms
Ahhhhh, this poll format was MUCH better.  It could be because I'm already familiar with Google Apps.   I loved how I could change the format from multiple choice to open text, make it anonymous, make it pretty, etc.  I can much more easily see using this for staff (because everyone already has gmail and is familiar with it).  I think students would be able to use this type of poll easily from my blog or website.  They wouldn't need an email address to take the poll, as long as I made question #1 be the students' names.   I could see using this poll as a formative assessment or exit slip -- once again, provided I have enough devices to make that efficient.

Activity 7: Cloud Computing

I was somewhat comfortable with Google Drive and cloud computing.  I've used Dropbox in the past, so I could more easily access home documents from school and vice versa, as well as on my phone.

Most of my use of Google Drive was just reading documents others shared with me.  Now I know how to upload my own and know how to share it and allow others to comment and/or change it.  Can they do both, though?

Yellow Sort 12

Blank Yellow Sort 12

I shared a spelling sort list and accompanying blank sort that helps teach the word pattern.

The benefit of sharing these documents could be two-fold.  First of all, I would make collaboration with colleagues using the same lists quick and easy and the work could be divided.  Another way to use this would be to share the list with parents, so they can access it if the paper list gets lost, eaten by the dog, etc.  In a perfect world, no paper copy would have to be sent home at all!

I'm guessing the major con in sharing this with parents is that they would have to have Gmail.  Right?  Another con in sharing it with colleagues (if you allow them to edit) is that the integrity of the original document might be lost.

The pros would be sharing documents and workloads, and storing it in a central location (accessible at school, home, Caribou, etc.)

Study Tools

Time Toast

I was working with some colleagues who were NOT going to try making a timeline using Time Toast, so I decided to give it a whirl.  I'm no longer teaching first grade, but creating a timeline was part of our Social Studies/Unit Studies curriculum.  So worst-case scenario, I could share this with former colleagues in 1st grade.

Time Toast has a wealth of searchable timelines that might be very useful to secondary teachers.  In addition, one that I found on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., also had videos linked on the timeline (e.g., "I  Have a Dream" speech on August 28, 1963).  One concern I would have about using another user's timeline would be the integrity of the dates and information.  If someone posts it on the internet, it must be true, right?!!!  Wrong.

I decided to create a simple timeline for our school year.  I showed the start/stop dates, holidays, I-Days, etc.   I could see adding special days (Grandparents' Day, Valentines Day) and other important dates such as field trips as well. Inputting the dates and events ("add event") was simple and user-friendly.  One thing I did NOT like is the multi-day event ("add timespan"); entering it was easy, but I don't like how it appears as just a blue blip on the timeline (vs. larger bubbles for single-day events).  I also am not crazy about how the timeline items pop out when you mouse over them -- sometimes you want to see ALL of the events in a timeline in context at once.

I did try adding Halloween and added a picture of a pumpkin as well as a fun video -- check it out.  Adding both of these elements was SUPER easy.

Overal:  B+ for this tool.  I'd give it an A if I could figure out how to make a range of dates appear as more than a blip.





Quizlet

I loved LOVED this tool and would strongly consider paying $25 to have the full subscription (or go in on it with my colleagues -- Heather?  Julie? Anyone?)  I made vocabulary flash cards for a story (The Keeping Quilt) in our Houghton Mifflin reading curriculum.  I loved how you entered the word and then you could either add the definition yourself, OR choose from several already given definitions.  You could also choose a stock definition and change it slightly if need be.  Super fast!!  Then, I went to explore the study options for the cards and loved the options for reinforcing learning the words' meanings, learning their spelling, a couple of games, and a quiz.  There is even audio to hear the word pronounced.   I do wish there was a way to insert a picture for those visual learners; I didn't see that.  NO WAIT -- I just found it!!!  You can add from stock photos or upload your own.  Now I am really sold on this tool.

YouTube Channel

It's good to be back after a little vacation and fun in the sun!  This was an easy lesson to complete, once I figured out how to switch my existing You Tube channel to my home email address and then create a new YouTube channel for my school email address.

I didn't have a school-related video to upload, so I tried uploading a video of my daughter playing violin -- didn't work.  Then I tried uploading a video of my friend enjoying some pie from the Main Street Cafe in Bloomer, Wisconsin -- that didn't work.  Last, I tried updating my son's football highlight video, and that worked.  Sorry for the self promotion!

I can see using my YouTube channel for editing videos (to just use what I need vs. an entire video) and also for uploading screencasts for myself or a SUB!!!  What sub couldn't search for "logging in to TSIS" under my user name to get directions for taking attendance and lunch counts?

My next job is to figure out how to edit an existing video.

Screencasting

Initially, I was really frustrated by this, because every time I went to use the Smart Notebook Recorder, all I got was a green screen without sound upon playback.  Everyone else had no problems, so I figured it was user error.  Of course, it was.  I had downloaded the free version of Notebook and it never asked for the product key.  When I went to try a few weeks later, it warned me that my free version was about to expire and I had to enter the product key.  VOILA.  I did have to change some settings on my Mac to enable the microphone to work, but since it's a Mac, that was easy to figure out!

The huge bonus in not being able to do this assignment was that I learned how to put my screencast in YouTube today!  I wonder if these two assignments should be reversed?

I wanted to show something useful for parents and students and something I've repeatedly tried to write down in steps.  So, I opted to show how to look up books of interest at a student's Lexile range.  Here it is:

Digital Storytelling

After looking at both options, I then looked at Michael Kauls's Zooburst and Heather Martell's Storybird projects to decide which one I wanted to try first.  Since Michael's was sort of an "all about me," and that's what I did for my Prezi, I decided to look at Storybird first.  Plus, I thought it might foster writing in my classroom.

I opted for the beta version of the poetry creating tool.  I was not impressed.  Once I chose a picture, then a bunch of words popped up on either side (like the magnets you would use on your refrigerator).  I chose some words, and then clicked to get more words, and all of my original words chosen disappeared.  The words hardly went with the picture, too -- they just seemed random.  You could change the colors of the words, but whoop-de-doo.

I know I could go back and try a story instead, as Heather did, but she wasn't very impressed.  Plus, I only get four more freebies.  So I'm gonna go look at Zooburst.

I'm disappointed, because this COULD have been a great tool for elementary-aged students, even with the stock images, but it's just not user friendly and doesn't allow for much creativity.

OK, here is my ZooBurst story.  I enjoyed this medium MUCH more.  It allowed for a lot more creativity and personalization.  I think it would be a great way to get students motivated to write, structure their writing, and want to read others' writing.  I think for third grade, the students would have to mostly use the stock pictures, because copying/pasting downloaded pictures might be problematic.  But, using stock photos would be a start!!!

Prezi -- Pimp My Presentation

Well, I sadly missed the last get-together with other Island Lake friends because I was dying from the worst summer cold EVER.  It was so bad that I even skipped the final Mounds View championship baseball game!

But, I survived.... and had to forge the Prezi Path alone.  This terrified me, because I've seen Prezi presentations before and figured they had to be impossible to create.  Trust me, I explored the Animoto and Popplet options, but of course wasn't interested in paying $$ further on down the road.

So, I spent a few hours with Prezi.  I had a GREAT time!  I'm very comfortable with Powerpoint, so the left-hand slides eased my fears.  The tutorial video was great.  I must admit, too, that seeing colleagues' presentations helped me realize that I CAN do this.

I used a template, and noticed Heather's comment to carefully plan b/c adding/deleting slides isn't easy.

I did try to add a frame, but then it appeared to the left of my big-screen picture and that annoyed me.  The flow still worked with the overall presentation, but I didn't like it in the overview, so I removed it.  Then, I slid the pictures I was going to add into the name slots next to my kids' names, but couldn't make THOSE into separate pop-out frames.  So, the pictures stayed static (too small) but I'm fine with it for now.

Next,  I'd like to build one from scratch, so I can better understand how to add frames and arrows.  But for now I'm pretty pumped with all I learned.

I can see using this for venn diagrams, illustrating cause-effect, KWL charts, showing Learning Targets.... the sky would be the limit.  Mindy's comments about 13-years old for usage means it would have to be teacher created -- though students could contribute ideas.  I also see that Prezi has a free iPad/iPhone app, so I've already downloaded that and watched my presentation on my phone!

Now I'm trying to embed the Prezi and I don't think it's working.  I may have to wait for reinforcements on Tuesday!  Argh!

Activity One

Day 2.  Clearly our brains were left at school on June 6.  Heather and I are struggling through but we've had a FABULOUS mentor in Katie Greene, who is also getting a master's in ed tech while taking this class.  OK, she is teaching us this class.  We're at Panera, so at least we're having fun and eating well!

We added some gadgets so far and are next going to figure out how to imbed a video.

This is one of my favorite videos because it shows the power of one person, but it also shows how different voices can combine together with very unique qualities to create one piece.  Plus, the music is pretty dang fun!

First Blog of My Life!

My old age made me want to become a summer camper.  I try to keep up with technology, but it changes so fast and my time is so limited to learn it.  Summer is a perfect time for me to have fun and try something new, without the pressure to meet students' needs.  I'm also switching grade levels (1st to 3rd), so am excited to be able to offer more in terms of technology because of the students' advanced age/ability/exposure (I'm assuming!).

I hope to learn anything I can!  I want to know about Prezi and Schoology, because my own children use it at Mounds View.

I'm fairly comfortable with basic technology, as I worked as a technical writer for a computer department 100 years ago, and I also worked as Island Lake's technology specialist for three years.  I'm not afraid, but I do not know enough.  Because of my current position in 1st grade, I don't use a ton WITH my students, though I do have 10 ipads for them to use.  Still, they mostly use apps at this level.