Blog Post 13

I learned a lot of things in EDM 310 that will help me be an incredible teacher in the 21st century. Being technologically literate does not come easy, but it is worth the time and occasional frustration. I always wanted to be a teacher who implemented technology in the classroom and now I have some knowledge of how to do it effectively. Blogging and podcasting were things I had heard of, but not anything I had thought about using with students. Now I know I will be using both in my future classroom. Blogging is a great way for students to reflect on and internalize learning.

There are so many great, free online tools available that I never knew about. Google Docs, Screentoaster, Timetoast, and Evernote are instruments I will be using a lot for myself and with students. Having an online place to create and access your presentations and other documents is a wonderful way to work. Thanks Google! I had always been afraid to post anything on You Tube, but now that I have been forced to, it is not so scary anymore. I think I will make some videos just for fun and post them now. I look forward to having students create videos and see how creative they are with them. I really like the Smart Boards, too. No matter what anyone says, they are great tools and if you are lucky enough to have one in your classroom you should be utilizing it to the fullest extent.

One thing I realize though is you are never totally technologically literate. There are varying degrees of this type of literacy. Things change so fast and there is so much information available at our fingertips it seems impossible to keep up with. That is why I like my PLN so much. I am going to try to incorporate Twitter. in my life as well. Sharing ideas and information with others is the only way to stay on top of what is going on in education and technology. With people all over the world collaborating to make learning more relevant and exciting the future of education seems very bright to me.

There are many things I would tell someone who was getting ready to take EDM 310. First and foremost, keep on top of your assignments. Make sure your blogs are posted on time and if there are any assignments you can finish early, do it. Be creative. Jamie Lynn told me she pretends she’s a kid when she is trying to tap into her creative side and that helped me. Also, when you are doing your blog assignments, keep a word document open to jot down notes. Some of the videos you watch are pretty long and you will not remember everything you wanted to say in your blog post unless you take notes. Use pictures for your blog posts. Try to be creative when choosing them and do not forget your “alt” and “title” tags! Check the class blog everyday. There are often assignment changes and you never know when they are coming so be flexible. But most importantly, have fun. The class is enriching and what you learn in it will make you a better teacher so enjoy it!

My PLN 2

I have added a lot of sites to my PLN. I also started using symbaloo.com to keep track of the sites. I originally started with Google Reader and then I tried netvibes.com. I thought I might like it better, but went back to symbaloo.com pretty quickly. What format you use is just a personal choice based on what works best for you. I really like the way I can keep up with regular websites, blogs, and RSS feeds on the same page with symbaloo.com.

These are what I have on my PLN so far, but I plan to keep expanding it:

Education News

Suite 101

Concepts to Classroom: A Series of Workshops

Curriki.org

The Tech Literate Teacher Wiki

WiseWomen.org

LD Online

CriticalThinking.org

The Assistive Technology Blog

The Special Education Law Blog

Brian Crosby’s Learning is Messy Blog

Caren Carrillo’s Teacher Blog

EDM 310 Class Blog

The Schools of Tomorrow and the Tech Literate Teacher

The Thinking Chick

Wendy Drexler’s Teach Web

Alana Carpenter’s Blog

Mellisa Jones’ Blog

Concepts to Classroom: A Series of Workshops

Curriki.org

The Tech Literate Teacher Wiki

WiseWomen.org

LD Online

CriticalThinking.org

I also have my iGoogle, YouTube, and Facebook accounts on my PLN along with some other sites like Weather.com and Mapquest.

Comments4Teachers 2

For my second Comments for Teachers assignment, I read 3 blog posts by Caren Carillo. She is a history teacher who implements technology in her classroom through videos, podcasts, and blogging. The following are links to the posts I commented on, a little about each one, and my comments.

Classroom Management: Commercial Breaks and Attention Spans

This post tells how Ms. Carillo schedules her class period. It is a great example of how to keep the students from getting bored with the class.

My comment:

Hi Ms. Carrillo,

I have been assigned to read a few of your posts for Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. I appreciate the great advice for structuring a class period you provide here. As a future teacher, I want to learn all I can about how successful teachers do things and incorporate those tactics in my classroom. I also watched the multiple intelligences video and think it is terrific!

You can visit our EDM 310 class blog here and my personal class blog here.

Thermometer or Thermostat?

This post talks about teachers being either thermometers or thermostats. The quote I am referring to by Dr. Ginott is,

“I have come to the frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or hear. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, a child humanized or dehumanized.”

My comment:

Ms. Carillo,

I really love the quote by Dr. Haim Ginott you included here. I will also keep a copy of it available for when I have my own classroom. Teachers should definitely strive to be thermostats! Thanks for the inspiration!

You can visit our EDM 310 class blog here and my personal class blog here.

Assessing Gate Students

This post describes what Ms. Carrillo learned from a recent research article explaining how teachers can identify gifted students in their classrooms.

My comment:

Ms. Carrillo,

I appreciate you posting this article and your comments about what you learned from it. In the teacher education program they are trying to incorporate making sure we know what to look for to find students with learning disabilities, but knowing how to find gifted students is not emphasized as much. There may be fewer students who qualify for GATE, but we should make sure those who do are being identified.

I agree that providing specific criteria to teachers will help identify more students who are gifted. I also like that you pointed out students labeled as GATE may not need differentiated instruction for all subjects. We need to find what areas they need it for and not just assume they will need accelerated instruction for all subjects. I think a lot of teachers believe a student is either gifted or not, but it makes more sense they could be gifted in some areas and not in others.

I am commenting as part of an assignment for Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. Click here to visit our class blog or here to visit my personal class blog.

Final Summative Project

For this project I worked with my classmates, Alana Carpenter and James Mark Marshall. We wanted to find some useful ways to use glogster.com. I chose to create an interactive document to provide to potential employers along with my regular cover letter, resume, and reference list so they can see work examples. This will be easier for them to access than having to search through a blog, although I give them my blog link in case they want to see further examples. For a better view of this glog click here.

Check out Alana's blog and Mark's blog to see their creations.

Comments4Kids 4

I visited the blog by the Pt. England Scribes of Room 11. They had taken a field trip to Cornwall Park where they climbed to the summit of Maungakiekie and down into a crater. There are a lot of pictures from their trip and they look like they are having a wonderful time in the photos, which can be viewed above. You can visit the blog post here.

Just a hint: If you try to embed from photobucket.com like I did above, it has the same error we encountered in timeoast.com, where it does not close the embed tag so you have to manually close the embed tag.

Teach Someone Video

This video was created in iMovie HD because it was the only way I could use the video made from my camera. I thought the program was not as user friendly as iMovie, but maybe it is because I had never used it before. The transitions cut off parts of the clips I was using and It took longer than my iMovie project to download to YouTube.

Television Survey Results

Blog Post 12: Mr. McClung's Reflection & ISTE Videos

Mr. McClung’s What I Learned This Year (#2)

Mr. McClung reflected on his second year of teaching in this blog post. It is linked here. He wrote a very candid and honest post about how he had trouble with his new grade level and subject requirements as well as some administrators. Often we think when we become teachers, everything will revolve around our classroom but there are many more variables involved. He makes a good point about changing his techniques to allow for the more independent nature of older students. Even though we take our Human Growth and Development class early, we should not forget how important it is to teach on a level that will benefit our students. He talks about learning to let our students guide us in his reflection post about his first year of teaching and he seems to have put that realization to work in his new situation. Dealing with the expectations of administration can be a difficult part of teaching, especially if there are personality clashes. We have to be diplomats as well as teachers. I love his advice about finding a “school mom” and I am sure it helped him deal with the administrator issues he encountered. His advice about not being a control freak goes along with what he wrote after his first year of teaching about not expecting all lessons to be perfect. A good teacher is a flexible teacher. I also appreciated that he brought up the scope and sequence aspect of teaching. You have to be prepared to make the state standards fit into your school year, but since you have to be flexible you need to be well organized before you go in on the first day. Of course, you also have to know that your scope and sequence will be a “living” document that will have to change, but it will still keep you on track. It is similar to our continuously changing EDM 310 Instruction Manual. The road may change a little, but you understand your destination and how long you have to get there.

4 ISTE Videos

I enjoyed the videos I watched from this series because I am interested in good ways to teach students mathematical concepts. I subscribed to the fablab4teachers series and added it to my PLN so I can stay on top of this excellent reference.

Video 1: M-Cubed: ISTE Presentation (1:58)

From this video, I learned a noisy classroom can be a productive classroom. I sort of knew that already, but this is a good example of it.

Video 2:Robert Berry-Base 10 Rods and Division Part 1 (3:26)

I learned how to teach division with a multiplication mat from this video. It’s a great hands-on activity to help kids understand division.

Video 3: Robert Berry: Base 10 Rods and Division Part 2 (6:15)

From this video I learned how to use the multiplication mat for division with larger numbers and the low stress algorithm, which can help students get a better understanding of the concept of division.

Video 4: The Classroom Fabrication Laboratory (FabLab) (2:39)

Watching this video helped me understand what the students were doing in the M-Cubed video (#1). I did not really understand the software program very well until I saw this one. I learned from this video that the FabLab program helps students internalize understanding of complicated mathematical concepts.

Comments4Teachers 1

I was assigned to read blog posts by Daneah Galloway on her blog The Thinking Chick: Pondering by the Pool. She works as a school counselor in Bangkok, Thailand and is enrolled in a certificate program there. Her posts involve how technology has changed our lives, as well as those of our students.

My responses to her last three posts have not been approved through mediation yet so I have provided them here:

Magic Wand (5/6/10)

Hello Mrs. Galloway! My name is Rebecca Classic and I am following your blog as part of my EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. I am getting a second bachelor’s degree in Collaborative Education, 6-12. You can check out our class blog at EDM 310 Class Blog and my personal class blog at Rebecca Classic’s Blog

I also find myself nostalgic on occasion for my old technology. I even still hold onto some things for no reason at all. I continue to keep my landline, for instance. I worry that my cell phone won’t be charged and I will need the phone for an emergency so we waste $20 a month keeping it hooked up even though my husband continually tries to talk me into dropping it. I hold onto my videocassette tapes, also. When I bought a new DVD player last year, I had to get one with a VCR player in it. I actually watched one of my old videos the other day, even though I could have rented the movie on DVD at the library for $1 and viewed it with a better picture. It seems silly, but I just cannot quite let go. Just to age myself a little, let me tell you that I have a videocassette my friends and I recorded during the last few days of our senior year in high school and I had it converted to VHS from Beta a few years after we recorded it. Beta! Isn’t that funny! I guess I’m not the only one because, out of curiosity, I looked on E-bay and there are old Beta players for sale there. Change is hard for us old folks (I’m only 41, but it seems like by technology standards that makes me old).

I looked at the post, ”21Things That Will Be Obsolete in Education by 2020” and I have to agree that it is a little ambitious. Education definitely moves too slowly for all classrooms to look like that in 10 years. So many schools are without good technology resources so it would be impossible to carry off this vision. It is really interesting that the author feels the SAT test will become obsolete when, at least here in the United States, we have more standardized testing than ever before. Testing is too profitable to let go of its hold on our education system anytime soon. I enjoyed your post and look forward to reading more!

The Hole (5/6/10)

Hello Mrs. Galloway! I am still following your blog as part of my EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. You can check out our class blog at EDM 310 Class Blog and my personal class blog at Rebecca Classic’s Blog

I love your story about how technology allowed you to purchase and remodel your new home from so far away. It is amazing how technology has changed the way we do things. It sounds like you have a lot of support and it is great they are also technologically literate! I look forward to hearing how it all turned out.

Murky Waters (4/27/10)

Hello again Mrs. Galloway! I am still following your blog as part of my EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. You can check out our class blog at EDM 310 Class Blog and my personal class blog at Rebecca Classic’s Blog

Copyright is such a difficult issue. It is especially hard to explain what the rules are to children because the laws have not quite caught up to the rapid developments in technology. And then there are problems concerning the difficulty in passing international laws. It is great you are discussing it with your students and helping them become responsible digital citizens. This will be an important task for all teachers now that we live in the age of collaboration.

Blog Post 11: Little Kids...Big Potential Video (4:56) and Skype Session with Ms. Cassidy and EDM 310

Ms. Cassidy has done a terrific job implementing technology with her first grade students. The video she posted showing how well her students perform using technology is excellent. It is amazing that she started doing so 10 years ago and it is wonderful that she has had the support of administrators and parents. Having the students maintain blogs is a great way to improve their writing skills and gives them incentive to do a good job because they know other people are going to see it. Since they only do it once or twice a week it is not necessary for every student to have computer access all the time. They can just schedule time in the computer lab when they blog. Having the students make only positive comments on each other’s blogs is a good way to teach them tack. I love they way her students get input from people around the world by using wiki’s to learn about traditions and rituals. Skype is also a great way to get information from experts. I did wonder where they got funding to have so many Nintendo DS’s. She talks about some federal funding, which is wonderful. Getting funding is a problem for many schools, but writing grants and making requests to local businesses can help.

I would like to implement all of Ms. Cassidy’s techniques in my future classroom. One thing that would help me do so is having access to a good technology coordinator like she has at her school. I would also need approval from my district and administrators to send forms home with students pointing out that we will post student work and try to keep the student’s identity unknown. Ms. Cassidy’s advice of having students only use their first name and not using it when posting pictures is a good way to keep their identities secret. As she points out, blogging is a great way for parents to get to see student work when it is convenient for them and shows how their writing is progressing. One problem that could come up is if a parent does not want their child to post on the Internet. In that case, I would explain the benefits to the parent and ask them to follow some of the other student blogs for a few weeks so they can get a better understanding of what we are doing. I agree with Ms. Cassidy that we have to change because the world has changed and we are handicapping our students and ourselves if we are not taking advantage of the collaborative opportunities available online. You can check out her Skype session with an EDM 310 class last semester here.

Comments4Kids 3

I was assigned a post written by Mr. McClung about an award ceremony he held for his students. He gave awards for various non-academic behaviors because he wanted to make sure his students who were not overachievers got some recognition. I agree with him that all students need some appreciation for the unique things they bring to the learning environment and they will probably always remember it. He included pictures of them with their awards and they seem so happy. I used to do something similar with my classes and for some it was the first time they had ever received any type of recognition. I think this is an important piece of the puzzle when trying to motivate students and get them to love learning. You can check out his post here.

Blog Post 10: PLE and Two Questions Videos

Welcome To My PLE

In this video a 7th grader gives a tour of her Personal Learning Environment (PLE). It is quite impressive. She has a lot of things on her PLE that I do not have on my Personal Learning Network (PLN). I like the way hers is organized on http://www.symbaloo.com/ Symbaloo. I signed up with the site after watching the video, but I have not figured out how to use it yet. I like the way she has her school sites and her personal sites organized there in the same place and I would like to do the same. That way, you can start your digital experience in the same place no matter what you need to do and if you come across something good for school while you are browsing for personal items, you can easily put it there for later. She also has sites like http://www.evernote.com/ Evernote bookmarked there, which is a great idea. I love that site, but I have not gotten in the habit of using it yet. I know it will be helpful to both my personal and educational needs. This student did a great job with the screencast and organizing her PLE. I need to put some time into organizing my PLN, but if a 7th grader can learn how to do it I should be able to also!

Two Questions That Can Change Your Life: by Dan Pink

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

This video gets you thinking about what you hope to accomplish in your life. It asks you to answer the question, “What’s my sentence?” What is my absolute goal in life? For a long time, my goal has been to help students appreciate themselves and the value of learning. So, I believe my sentence (for now) is, “She helped students learn their strengths and weaknesses, improve upon both, and become lifelong learners.” That is my mission in life. I do not need fame or money. I just want to know that I made some people’s lives better by helping them appreciate themselves, each other, and the value of knowledge.

The other question Mr. Pink wants us to answer each night before we go to sleep is, “Was I better today than yesterday?” I think this is great advice because it keeps us focused on our ultimate goals. Everyone makes mistakes in life, but we can keep improving as much as possible and it will help make the world a better place in the end. There is no greater goal than that. I will try to incorporate these ideas in my life. In fact, I think I will by Dan Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us because in it he offers some great ideas about motivation we can use in our classrooms.

Blog Post 9: Morgan Bayda and ALEX

Morgan Bayda’s Post On Dan Brown’s Video

I agree with a lot of what Ms. Bayda says in her post about the video by Dan Brown entitled, “An Open Letter to Educators.” However, some of my experiences have been a little different. I never felt cheated by the university system as Ms. Bayda did because I learn well through lecture. I loved listening to my history professor’s lectures and they often told me things that were not in the books. Many times in class I learned little known stories that would be difficult to find through research because of the vast amount of information available on some subjects. But, I am aware that not everyone appreciates this type of learning experience. I also love collaborative and hands-on learning, though. And I know it is important to give all students lessons in a variety of ways so their individual learning style is addressed.

I often hear people complain they had to buy books they never read for their college classes, but I have not found that to be true in any of my classes (and I’ve taken quite a few). However, I am one of those people who love books and I never sell them back at the end of the semester. I actually use them for reference. I know. I’m a geek. Once I had another teacher tell me when he saw the library in my classroom, “You know they have all that on DVD now.” I know. But I love books!

I do think all classes can be enhanced by collaborative activities and in the classes I have taken in the past from history professors with unbelievable high standards it took the form of study groups. We did learn a lot from each other just from discussing the material and it was one of my favorite early college experiences. Don’t get me wrong though. I 100% agree with Dan Brown that institutional education has to adapt to the current revolution of “liberated” information. And, it is the “best thing to ever happen to society.” I always loved Einstein’s quote, “Never memorize what you can look up in books.” And now we have so much information available at our fingertips there is really little reason to memorize all the facts we are taught in school. But somebody better tell the standardized test makers and pushers that because institutionalized education is currently in a tug of war match with the people who want to cut programs to make room for more test preparation and those of us who want to teach creative, student-centered lessons.




ALEX

ALEX stands for the Alabama Learning Exchange. It is a website put together by the Alabama Department of Education that contains creative lesson plans posted by teachers. It is searchable by subject area and includes web and other technology resources. The lesson plans have icons showing if and how they relate to current Alabama standardized testing practices. They also show which Alabama state educational standard they meet. It provides a section for teachers outlining information on professional learning opportunities including technology tutorials. There is also a wonderful library of student created podcasts/videocasts on the site, which are also aligned with the state standards. Another terrific feature on the site is a professional learning community called ALEXville with several courses for professional development. It is a well-organized site with a wealth of resources for Alabama’s teachers to help them bring their classrooms to the 21st century.

I would love to have a tool like ALEX available to me when I am teaching again. Proving that your lessons meet state standards can be a time-consuming and overwhelming thing for new teachers. This site gives teachers everything they need to show they are providing learning activities that address the required standards. The professional development courses on the site are also helpful if you forget exactly how to use a technology tool. And, the podcast/videocast examples are helpful for teachers trying to implement this type of technology in their classes for the first time. I would use this site a lot if I was going to be teaching in Alabama when I finish my Collaborative Education certification. In fact, I may use it wherever I end up!

Assignment 9 - Audacity Discussion: What constitutes a technology literate teacher?

Featuring Alana Carpenter, Rebecca Classic, and James "Mark" Marshall

SMART Board Collaborative Lesson

A lesson on counting featuring Rebecca Classic, Alana Carpenter, and James "Mark" Marshall along with our wonderful student, Kyla.