Blog #5 Visual Reflection

See a larger version of this infographic here!

METC 2014!

The METC was amazing and exciting! More than anything, I want to share the great resources, technology tools, and tips I collected during the following break-out session presentations:

Discovery Education & Student Engagement: The presenter for this session was someone who worked for Discovery Education and not necessarily a teacher currently in the field. Regardless, he did not advertise the “product”, but rather demonstrated the components of the site. Before coming to this session, I used Discovery Learning for streaming videos which relate to the curriculum content. Using this site, a class could read and watch videos about current events, take part in virtual webinars, and gain background knowledge with different media types. The most useful of the components was the ability to search content to “view, listen, and teach” by specific grade level Common Core State Standards.

BYOD & Google Drive: The biggest take away from the BYOD portion of this presentation was that teachers must manage the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiative as they would with any other activity in the classroom. Teachers must have a plan for the use of devices, define and enforce clear expectations (use visuals), be consistent with consequences, trust students with their devices, and communicate to parents the way in which devices are used. Finally, teachers can use Google drive to store student work, allow students to edit each other’s’ pieces, and grade assignments from home. Teachers can also use Padlet, The Answer Pad, and Socrative with Google Drive to assess student learning.

iPads: More Than Just Apps: The presenters shared their presentation concerning this topic (http://goo.gl/3f5S0r). The SAMR model will help teachers decide which kind of apps to use frequently in class. In summary, teachers should use “R” of “SAMR” often which stands for “Redefinition”. Redefinition means that students use apps to synthesize, evaluate, and create to activate critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. The presentation was categorized into lists of apps for substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition.

Using Technology in the Math Classroom: I thought that this presentation would be very beneficial. I quickly realized that the presenter had prepared to focus on pre-calculus and calculus teaching. I did not leave the session because I thought I could use the same tools to create lessons/activities for elementary school students. Aside from the talk of functions and polynomials, I found that the site Math Type could be used to create practice and assessments with adequate equations. I found that students can create graphs using Desmos, Wolfamalpha, and TI-SMARTView. Finally, I learned that teachers can create math tutorials using Jing to voice over steps and video-recoding  while using OneNote to write out steps.

Playing with Presentations: I leanred about VoiceThread, Pow Toons, Trading Cards, SlideShare, Present.me, Zoho Presentation, Google Presentations, and  Animoto. These presentations can be shared or stored online, edited by a collaborative group of students, and graded from any place.

I hope you enjoy these sites and technology tools like I did! There are so many that it is difficult to choose which to explore in depth and use in the classroom – happy teacher-teching! 

Twitter Chat

I participated in the “Missouri Education” chat (#moedchat) and the “Web 2.0 Tools in Education” chat (#web20tools). First, I tried to participate in the “iPads in the Classroom” chat (#ipadchat), but the conversation was not consistent even though I joined at the scheduled day and time. At first, I felt disconnected because there were many different subjects going on at once. I learned to narrow in on a few subjects and respond to specific tweets to build a rapport with people in the chat. I was using Hootsuite and added a stream for the chats. During the first chat, I did not have a stream open for “mentions” and did not realize people were “mentioning” or talking straight to me. I found many valuable resources others shared such as lesson examples and free materials for teaching internet safety. I finally became part of the flow and learned to view resources, share related resources, mention others, and retweet. I was a much better “chatter” during my second chat. During the second chat, I was able to talk with my current classmates and another teacher from another state. The really neat thing about the “Web 2.0 Tools in education” chat was that I not only learned about the tools, but if they actually worked as theorized in real classes. Most textbooks do not have accounts of teachers incorporating tools in their classroom discusses the positive and negative things about each web 2.0 tool. This chat was much more fast-paced, so I feel like I learned much in a short period of time!  I learned through the “Missouri Education” that one of my high school teachers (Kerri Skeeters) was going to be at the METC. We connected, began to follow each other on Twitter, and planned to meet up at the METC next week! I also connected with a person who is presenting at the METC and began to follow one another on Twitter. I think the most challenging part was leaving the chat because I wanted to stay and make connections (I had other things to do!). 

Blog #4 - Social-Networking

I have joined Pinterest and Google+, but I had no idea that these social networking sites had helpful sites dedicated to education! I rarely ever used these sights and always thought, “What is the big deal?”, but now I know what all the commotion is about! I found this resource on Pinterest called, “TheSpEd Teacher’s Must-Have IEP Kit” on Pinterest after searching “I.E.P”. Sometimes, I have several students with different Individualized Education Plans with many different goals. I feel it to be very beneficial to have a summary, goals, and information about these students organized in a manageable form. The I.E.P. documents are very lengthy and wordy, so I feel having the most important parts highlighted will help me be mindful about the student’s goals while planning lessons or interventions. Instead of having to create an outline, I would just download this resource from Pinterest, print the organizer, fill it out based on the I.E.P., and keep in a place I would look often. I also found this goal sheet called, “My I.E.P. Goal”. This goal sheet is actually a bar graph allowing students to keep track of their reading fluency. Currently, I progress monitor four students on an online reading program called AimsWeb to track the progress of their reading fluency and accuracy over the course of the year. I give these four students weekly passages to read and reread at home. I am going to print out this resource and send it home, so the students can keep track of their progress they make at home!

In Google+, I did not know that there were “communities” to join. I thought of Google+ strictly as a socializing site, but it can be used for professional development as well. I found this community called, “Special Education” and joined it which is like following a group or person on Twitter. I know that some of my students require help with learning social skills. The first resource on the Special Education community site was a webpage titled, “MySocially Speaking App for iPad”. As a general educator, I know only basic information about teaching special areas such as social skills. I would to reflect and foster social skills learning the general education setting too. Finally, I found this slide show called, “Hand-Painted Wall Murals”. The brief article talks about how the arts can affect student behavior. For students who require calming methods, I though this may be beneficial. It also helped me think of how we could best repaint/transform the library into the Learning Commons! I could spend all day on these social-networking sites because there is such a wealth knowledge being shared every minute! 

Blog #3 - A Networked Classroom

I believe there are many advantages of a networked classroom. Today, I attended the Classroom Instruction that Works (2012) professional development. The presenter, Howard Pitler (@Hpitler) repeated a phrase I had heard for the first time this morning – “none of us is as smart as all of us”. After the professional development session today, I went home and read chapter 3 of Personal Learning Networks (2011) and it was stated on page 62. The phrase was also highlighted in the lecture, so I stopped to think about what that phrase meant in an educational setting.  Students gain more insight they could have without networking with curriculum resource sites, audiences or experts afar, and peers afar. Networking allows students to collaborate, problem-solve, and make connections to the real-world. The disadvantages that come with a networked classroom are the same disadvantages students could face at home which consist of cyber-bullying, internet safety issues, etc. (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011, p. 75). I would rather the students run into  these issues at school, so the students can learn a systematic, ethical way to go about these issues and then apply the ways at home.   This site called, “Not My Kid” addresses these potential issues and offers parents a peace of mind when they think about online tools used in school. http://notmykid.org/internet-safety/

To slow transition my classroom into a networked classroom, I may start with simpler, free online tools to connect with the parents. Teachers could use blogs, eNews, Remind101, and Twitter to send updates about upcoming classroom and school events. Later, the teacher could give this “classroom news” job to a student and then take on something more involved. In the text, the authors state that it starts with the teacher and they should start with simpler tools (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011, p. 81). It was overwhelming when I tried to wrap my brain around all the possibilities of Twitter use in the classroom and the Twitter vocabulary, search engines, protocol, and more. If I start slow, I am sure my efforts will reflect quality and not quantity.

I think a networked classroom would benefit diverse learners, especially students who visit resource rooms throughout the day such as ESOL, gifted, and Sped resource rooms. These special area teachers can often be out of the grade level loop despite PLC efforts and collaboration days, so a basic information/resource sharing site such as Twitter could easily inform them. Students who are pulled out often may feel they are not learning the same material, so a disconnect from the classroom could develop. The disconnected feeling could affect peer interaction on a daily basis. Diverse students may need extra motivation to meet learning objectives and networking with experts in the field can be one way to make this happen. The article, “Service Learning in Special Education” emphasizes the power of real-world connections. http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/service-learning/special-education/

Find me on Twitter! - @kdcotner

Blog Post #2 - Web 2.0 Chpt. 2 & Twitter

My first reaction from the outside of the Twitter world was that it was like many other social media sites, but I was wrong after reading more about it. I think the usernames, followers, mentions, Twitter clients, and hashtags make the system far more complicated than I first assumed. I find it somewhat strange that Twitter promotes quick concise information, but there are extra steps people must take to shorten URLs to make sure they have enough room to write about the URL they are sharing (Solomon & Schrum, 2010, p. 34). Twitter clients seem like content aggregators to me, so I was curious of the reason why people using Twitter do not like to use the actual Twitter site on their computer. I had two worries when beginning the Twitter journey: 1.) Who to follow and 2.) What to “Tweet” about. First, the Twitter4Teachers wiki was very helpful to help find other educators interested in similar technologies (I was incredible impressed when I found out this wiki was created by Gina Hartman!). Also, I found this directory for educators on Twitter.  Secondly, I am still having trouble thinking of something relevant and interesting to tweet on Twitter. I thought the best way to know what to tweet was to think about which groups you would like to be a part of or follow. I found a website that lists popular educational Twittergroups to help me decide what to tweet and when. I hope to use Twitter to reflect what is happening in our classroom in the future. Students could even be in charge of Tweeting each week instead of the teacher. There are many possibilities for Twitter in an elementary school classroom!

Blog Post #1 - PLN's Chapter 1 & 2

I thought the format of the two texts, Personal Learning Network and Web 2.0 How-to for Educators, was unique and beneficial for an educator. After reading the first two chapters of Personal Learning Network, I realized that the chapter addresses a specific topic concerning PLN’s as well as examples of how to get started. The goal of creating a PLN is to connect people with common interests through the use of technology. The author mentions different PLN sites such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. It was highly interesting that the authors described how to use an RSS reader to connect to Diigo pages per topic (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011, p. 49). Adding many different PLN’s to one RSS allows you to cater the news to yourself! In the other text, the authors highlight the sic C’s of 21^st century learning era which include creativity, collaboration, communication, connections, and critical-thinking (Solomon & Schrum, 2010, p. 21). We are able to incorporate these important pieces in each lesson with the use of blogs or editable web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, or interactive whiteboards. Interactive whiteboards are spaces on the web where media can be shared and edited in real-time. Tuzzit is a new interactive whiteboard which allows you to connect to Twitter, Facebook, etc. Students can collaborate on an assignment of tutor each other from home. There is a fee account – try it to see if you could use this type of technology in your classroom!