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: