Buy it, Use it, Break it, Fix it . . . Technologic

I think that technology in the classroom is inevitable.  It will always be there so we should try to work with it.  However there is a time and place for everything.  I will not be one of those teachers who tries to make every lesson a smart lesson just so the kids will think I'm fun.  If the technology lends itself to the lesson then awesome, if not maybe we can use the technology in another subject that day.  I do believe that I will be creating special projects that work through technology, but at the same time I will not be limiting the class to technology use.  It will need to be fair to everyone, and sometimes families just do not have the resources to keep up with today’s changing times.

I think that being raised on technology has made me more apt to try and implement it into my classroom.  It is a fun thing that I wish I had in class growing up.  I remember going to computer class once a week and being so bored because I had the same math game at home and had beaten it twice.  Now though, there are so many different (inexpensive) things that the students can use to improve their skills. 

I think it is also important to remember that technology in the classroom does not just need to be in the hands of the student.  The teacher can also use technology as a way of planning, record keeping, and creating.  The quizzes and test can be less intimidating with clip art, and lesson plans can follow the same format because you have created a template.  Also there are websites such as Powerschool that allow the teacher to keep and online grade book and attendance record- it’s sort of like blackboard for the elementary level.

I plan on keeping my Diigo up to date because it is an amazing tool for anyone to use, not just teachers.   I have also fallen in love with stumble upon it which is a randomizer that links to Diigo and facebook so it is constantly giving me new and interesting sites I would have never found.

1 portfolio, 2 portfolio, red portfolio, blue portfolio

10. Locate 1 good and 1 bad example of electronic portfolios on the Internet. Post these as links in a blog entry. Tell me your justification for choosing each.

http://depts.washington.edu/ctltstaf/example_portfolios/munchak/index.html
This is an amazing online portfolio. It goes in depth into everything, yet all of the main point are highlighted and focused so that someone could still skim it for the key points. This is an all inclusive portfolio. It includes lesson plans, copies of student work, and even transcripts of conversations he had with students.

I skimmed most of the documents on this site and everything is well written, to the point, and clean. He doesn't go off on tangents or just add fluff to make it seem like more it is all very good.

http://depts.washington.edu/ctltstaf/example_portfolios/poch/index.html
This one is alright but compared to the other it is just lacking and very jumbled.  I couldn't find a truly horrible education example, but this one just feels off to me. And it's not just because it is a secondary portfolio. The lessons seem to be a bit choppy and it seems very unprofessional. The pictures are out of focus and things are photocopied with shadows. To me it seems that this one was put together last minute without any help.

Where the other one linked out in many places so as to keep everything separate, each time i bring up a new page it is just blocks of texts. There is very little formatting and even less links. It makes the whole site seem unprofessional and unattractive.

Copy That Copycat?

As we discussed in class, some copyright laws are very subjective and some are very clear. What law that we learned about in class surprised you the most? Why? Do you have any specific examples of teachers who have violated copyright law (don't use names)? Is it your responsibility as a teacher to teach students respect for copyright? Do you think teachers should have to pay attention to copyright? Will you model copyright ethics when you are a teacher? How?

I think the fact that all of the laws are so grey surprised me the most. The fact that I could resell cds for a profit yet couldn’t burn a cd from iTunes was also very shocking. This way if I buy a physical cd I can let my friend buy it off my for a dollar he can upload it and then I can buy it back with the same dollar. That is legal but burning a cd is not. It is the same thing yet the laws are different.

Teachers that I have had and teachers that I have worked with have all violated the copyright laws. At home teachers have photocopied whole workbooks for students because they have been discontinued or we can’t afford to buy a whole set. I believe that it is our job as teachers to show our students how to live a proper lifestyle and that includes following all of the laws.

I think that the rules for teachers should be slightly different. Using materials for educational purposes can make the situation muddled. For example if the teacher blows up a single copy of a book to make the text larger for a student with impaired vision- that should be allowed. Or to have the teacher write problems on the board for students to answer that should be okay as well. But the teachers should not be allowed to photocopy and distribute anything they want.

I plan to do my best to model the correct copyright ethics as a teacher. I won’t lie and say I will be perfect I’m sure that I will slip up because I don’t know the entire law or because it is something that my students truly need. I will show this by not photocopying dittos especially when they have the not intended for copy logo on them (this has happened to me before). I will instead hand write my own ditto sheets by using the copyrighted ons as an example. I will also be sure to cover copyright in my English unit, and social science unit (patents and inventors).

Smartboard, more like rightboard

Interactive whiteboards are becoming more common in the classrooms. How do you feel they enhance teaching and learning? Was the technology difficult for you to learn to use? What are the pros and cons to having one installed in your classroom? Think of some lesson plans you wrote in the past. How would you incorporate the Smartboard when teaching that content?

Whiteboards are becoming a key tool in the classroom I enjoy working with them very much. They definitely help keep the students focused on the lesson. The whiteboards also allow the students to be much more active and participate in the lesson. The students become more involved and take an active role in their learning- this can help build the students understanding and confidence when it comes to a new concept. The whiteboards are very easy to learn because they can work with existing programs such as powerpoint or youtube. The whiteboard itself is basically a dry erase board but the marker never runs out of ink. The whiteboard is usually pretty easy to work, the only problem might be that you need to either download the smart notebook software, or your internet isn’t working.

Having a whiteboard in the class is great because it allows the students to become involved, it allows the students to expand their ideas on the lesson, it allows the students to try new things, and it helps to build real world connections. But at the same time the lessons taught without the smartboard will need to be comparable to the smartboard lessons which could mean extra planning for the teacher. There also runs the risk of having the smartboard broken in the classroom. Some teachers also only use the smartboard as a game/distraction which may be a downfall to some lessons.

The previous lesson/content areas would be fun to include the smartboard in. For art the students could match/identify artists to paintings or do actual drawing on the board. For music the students could compose and then play the music back. They could also help create their own music video. For math the students could learn fractions by dividing and building wholes. For history there are maps and matching activities. For language arts there is dice to help build words, and also there are different pages to have students write on the lines on the smartboard. For science there are ways to incorporate different images, microscopes and movies.

PSA and Video project

1. Scenario: You decide to incorporate a digital video project in your classroom. What is the content area/project/age level? What are the preparations you will have to do prior to beginning this project? What are some of the challenges? Be specific - think like a teacher in the public school system and make a checklist and timeline of the project from beginning to end - starting with prep work and ending with the final project.

Write this up as an informal lesson plan. You don't have to use the lesson plan format. Just post in your blog as a few paragraphs and bullet lists. I should have a good idea of what the project is all about.

I plan on teaching upper elementary- fourth or fifth grade- let’s say fifth for this project. I would plan on having my students use this project as:
• An English lesson
• To explore idioms
• Fifth grade lesson
The students will be broken into groups of about 3 and they will have to create short clips explaining their idiom. The first 20 seconds or so should be a literal translation of the idiom, and the next 20 seconds or so should act out what the idiom really means.

Day 1:
The students will explore what an idiom is. They will brainstorm for idioms as a class. At the end of class the teacher will introduce the idea of the project for the next class.
• What is an idiom?
o An idiom is a combination of words that has a meaning that is different from the meanings of the individual words themselves.
o It can have a literal meaning in one situation and a different idiomatic meaning in another situation. It is a phrase which does not always follow the normal rules of meaning and grammar.
 To sit on the fence can literally mean that one is sitting on a fence. I sat on the fence and watched the game.
 However, the idiomatic meaning of to sit on the fence is that one is not making a clear choice regarding some issue. The politician sat on the fence and would not give his opinion about the tax issue.
• Most idioms are unique and fixed in their grammatical structure. The expression to sit on the fence cannot become to sit on a fence or to sit on the fences.
• However, there are many changes that can be made to an idiom. Some of these changes result in a change in the grammatical structure that would generally be considered to be wrong.
o To be broken literally means that something is broken. The lamp is broken so I cannot easily read my book.
o To be broke is grammatically incorrect but it has the idiomatic meaning of to have no money. I am broke and I cannot go to a movie tonight.
Day 2:
• The students will be broken into groups by drawing their idiom phrase out of a hat.
• The students will need to move to sit in their groups and start to story board what they will be doing for their video.
• The students will be given a sheet of paper with 4 blanks (2 for literal and 2 for the situational meaning).
• The students should draw what they plan on acting out in each scene.
• The students should not say their idiom in the literal translation. This way the class will need to guess the idiom.
• After the group finishes the story board they will present it to the teacher for approval.

Day 3:
• The students will finish up their story boards and start to shoot their video.
• The teacher will give a quick presentation on how to use the video camera-
o Stop/Start button
o Rewind/FF
o Wide/Tight
o Playback
o The teacher should make sure that all tapes are rewound to the beginning.
• The students will go off in their own groups to quickly shoot their two scenes.

Day 4:
• The students will finish shooting their scenes today.
• The teacher will call groups up one at a time to pull the video onto the computer.
• The teacher will show the students their project first.
• At this time if the teacher has the correct software she could do some slight editing.
Day 5:
• The students will present their videos to the class.
• The students will play their literal clip first and then have classmates try and guess what their idiom is.
• After several guesses they will play the second clip which will include the idiom being verbally spoke n while the scene is acted out.

Challenges:
This project could be a problem if your school district does not have the correct equipment. It would also be challenging to do if students need more time than given because some student might not be able to meet outside of class. To remedy this the teacher should offer the students extra time at recess to work on their project if they feel that their group needs it. Also it may be hard because you really need to trust your students to send them off out of sight to with equipment. You would also need to get parent permission to take video and permission from the principal to have students roaming the hallways without a teacher.

My PSA

Teacher got skills

1. Reflect on the software skills you learned and the project you created. Was it beneficial to take the time to learn these skills? Which do you think will be the most beneficial to you? How will they help you in the teaching profession?

I believe that learning how to use inspiration correctly was very helpful. That is going to save me a lot of time creating maps, webs, and study guides. Also using publisher was interesting this time through. The last time I used it I had to create a newsletter from scratch and it was not as fun as going through this time. The tables tool in word is something that I have used countless times, but never like this. I don’t know if Diigo is considered software but I also think that that program has changed my life! I think that maybe the best tool I learned about was the making a fill in the blank form. Having the pre-made document ready to go and just clicking tab and then typing is going to be amazing. When I had my template saved it was a lot of clicking highlighting and pasting; but now I can just tab and it is done.

The new skills I have learned are going to cut done on my prep time so that I have more time to focus on the students. Also the new skills are going to allow me to create new handouts and lessons that will take my students in new directions that they may not have gone before. Also, these skills are going to help keep the parents more involved in the going ons of my classroom.

You're the inspiration

1. Is Inspiration something you would invest in for your classroom? List some ideas in your content areas where you could incorporate it.
Personally I think that I could come to like Inspiration very much. I think that it could be used for language arts as a story organizer/web. The students could use it to plan out their story elements ahead of time. Or in math the students could use pre-made mini webs to solve word problems, for example each branch could have a different question to help them solve the problem (ie how many did we start with, what function (+,-, x) are we using, how many do we have at the end). Inspiration could also be used in history or science to show progress or a timeline.
The class could also use inspiration to create word walls at the beginning of each new unit to show what they already know about the subject at hand. I know that I have personally created word walls/graffiti walls at the beginning of a new class and it has help tremendously. But I believe that inspiration could make it quicker and easier to do.

2. What are your favorite web resources we covered in class? Which do you think you would use the most? Why and how? Be specific.
I like the word cloud creator. I thought it was a fun and quick way to get everyone thinking. It was also very easy so that anyone could do it. I also stand by the fact that I love Diigo, the social bookmarking site. I would use it as previously mentioned as a way to stay in touch with parents. I think that it is a great tool to use to keep the family involved. It also give the students a steady base connection with the class. Now a days there are so many children who have baby sitters, stay with a relative after school, or come from a split home; with a social bookmarking site the child will never accidently leave homework at someone else’s house and it will also never be lost. Even if the child were to forget a study aid they could just check Diigo and find the material online. I also like social bookmarking for the older students as an honesty check in. They can show the progress they are making on different projects and it also lists all of their sources so they cannot plagiarize.
If I was teacher to a slightly older crowd I would say that blogger would be the best, but I believe that second graders may have a bit of trouble using blogger at home, especially if their parents are like mine and have no idea what a blog is yet alone how to make one work.

Social Bookmarking

1. Does Social Bookmarking have an application in your classroom? What are some ways it could benefit you and your students? Could it have helped you in the past? Can it help you now as an Albright Student...how? Be specific in answering all questions.
I personally believe that social bookmarking is an excellent addition to the classroom. Because I am leaning towards a younger classroom age I initially thought that it could be used as a way to involve parents or guardians of the students. A site such a Diigo or delicious would allow the parents who can’t make it in during school time to still be a part of their child’s education and still be very hands on. The social bookmarking could include a teacher’s blog of the potential schedule for the upcoming week or the big accomplishments from the week before.
The students would benefit from the fact that their guardian now knows what is going on in the classroom. The students could also benefit from the extra practice the various websites could supply. Sometimes students are afraid to ask for extra practice/help, but if the teacher were to upload links to extra practice then the child could try and work out the problem on their own. The students also know where to find information for their projects and papers. It makes my job of grading easier because I know that the information that they are using is correct.
Also if my students were doing any kind of research on their own I would want them to create an account and create a separate list for the assignment. This way I would have an immediate copy of their sources. I would be able to fact check and check for plagiarism at top speed. It would be a handy tool for the teacher as well as the student in this case.
Social bookmarking would have been amazing in high school! All of my English classes would type out websites on how to format MLA but the links never worked right. This way the entire class could have the resources at their fingertips. I would have been so happy to have the websites already typed out for me. Also I have had my computer crash several times since I bought it (like twice) but it feels like a million times when you lose all of your information. If I would have used a diigo type site before I could have saved all of websites and all of my sources on a diigo list.
Using Diigo now as an Albright student will be helpful. As a psych co-concentrator I am always researching one thing or another so now I can keep all of my files and sites organized. I can also use diigo as a way to sort out different educational resources for myself or for the future for my classroom.

Blogs in the Classroom

1. Give some specific ideas of how you could incorporate blogs into your classroom. What are the benefits and challenges to using this technology in your classroom? List some.
To use blogging in the classroom would be a wonderful change for the students. It would give them a chance to express themselves in creative new ways that they might not get to use elsewhere. I believe that the most common subject to use a computer with would be English/language arts. The children could each have their own blog and start a book discussion. They could all answer questions about a certain a book and then comment and compare answers with each other. Or in language arts the children could respond to the teacher’s blog of short story prompts. From there the children could critique each others’ work. For science the children could blog the progress of a project. For example I know that every third grade class does a seed project where they cultivate plants from the very beginning. This would be an excellent project to blog about. For history the students could keep a blog about the different characters that are discussed in class. Each night the children could go home and do a journal entry as the person we discussed that day. And finally for math the children could use blogging as a money journal. They could use the blog as a ledger for how much they have spent. They could also use the blog as an application journal; they would take the information used in that days class and explain how they would apply it to the real world.
The benefits of blogging are infinite. Children who blog in the classroom will learn how to use a computer and the internet in a way that could help them with their future career. They are also learning proper internet manners, something that there is no class for in the public school system. The children are also learning how to interact with one another without the teacher’s direct influence. As funny as that sounds the children are improving their people skills.
Blogging does face a few challenges though. Even in today’s high tech world there are still households that do not have a computer set up, and even if the family has a computer they might not have an internet connection. In addition some families are very strict and do not allow their children to be on the internet without their permission. Although these children could continue the project as a regular journal it would not be the same.

2. Why is it important to evaluate websites before using them in the classroom or in research? Do you think most people understand and apply these evaluation techniques? How would you incorporate them into your classroom and student projects? What ways could you teach students evaluation techniques?
A teacher needs to check any source before it is passed on to her students, and this includes web sources. It is important to evaluate an website used for educational reasons because you do not want to use the wrong information. As a teacher you do not want to teach your students wrong, and as a student you do not want to lose points for have incorrect information. I believe that the common person does not know how to evaluate a website correctly. Most people just go to the google and type in their search which can lead to some pretty interesting results. People also rely heavily on the first website they check, but if they are unsure of an answer the rule of thumb I was taught was to check 3 sites to see if they agree.
To teach students the evaluation techniques I would show the different incorrect information from the internet. I would show that things that are obviously wrong like author miscredits or science processes that are completely wrong. I would show them websites based off of what we are learning in class, that way they can compare the information. To teach kids the basic evaluation tools I would pick a different topic each day over the course of a week and go in depth at the beginning of the lesson and then at the end of the week I would have an entire lesson dedicated to a review. I would explain the importance of current information, the different website endings (edu, com, net, org, gov, ect.), talk about finding the author and who the author is, and in addition I would talk about where the site got its information from.

Test run

Practice makes perfect . . .

Words to ponder . . .

"our story is not a file of photographs... our story is of moments when even slow motion moved too fast for the shutter of the camera. our story is how still we stand, but how fast"

“Think for a moment what paper means to people. How ubiquitous it is in everyday life . . . A material of paradoxes, it can be used and abused in a thousand ways and still be the same under its skin. It is the embodiment of man’s achievement, yet it is as transient and as flimsy as tissue . . . In its strengths and weaknesses, faults and flaws, it is intensely human . . .” The Sense of Paper

"I'll conjure something, a picture that haunts you. But, trying to put words to pictures; sometimes I just don't want to hear myself. Or maybe, maybe I've said all I have needed to say." --Mike Kuchar