6- wikis & productivity tools

The school website that I looked at was Elms Elementary School and it included class pages from prekindergarten all the way to fifth grade. All of the class pages had calendars posted, announcements about school events (fundraising, PTA, ect.), and basic contact information for the teacher including their name, room number, grade, email, and subjects that they teach. For the younger grades the pages had the spelling words listed, and different announcements regarding homework and events going on at the school. One class page for a 5^th grade math class had a symbaloo with lots of different websites, the page also had a list of resources for the students. I was surprised that the class pages had so much information that people can see publicly. I was most surprised that the teachers contact information was so detailed, even including their classroom number.

When I become a teacher I will try to use technology, and more specifically productivity tools, often to more effectively and efficiently accomplish my professional responsibilities. Productivity tools make everyday tasks that teachers are responsible for, including planning, documenting lessons, grading, record keeping, and communication, much easier and more effective. Some specific tools that I plan on using in my classroom are diigo (social bookmarking tool), Microsoft word, google calendar, and email. Putting things in digital form has the huge benefit of being able to share with others, including other teachers, students, and even parents. So using technology doesn’t just benefit the teacher, but can benefit many others because things in digital form can be easily shared.

I learned a lot from working on the last assignment, Web Evaluation Wiki. I have never had any experience with wikis prior to this assignment, so I acquired the skill of mastering how to create a wiki and what it’s all about. It was fairly easy to navigate the website, and I figured it out quickly. It was nice that it wasn’t too complicated, but I was also a little disappointed that it was very plain. In the past when making my blog, website, or even a newsletter, I like to use lots of color and background themes. This site didn’t really have any formatting tools. The most stressful part of this assignment was working as a group, because two people in my group went out of town for the weekend so we weren’t able to work out a time for all of us to meet. I felt like it would have been less stressful for me to just do it on my own, especially since we didn’t have a lot of class time to work on it as a group. The skills and experience that I have gained from making my own wiki are applicable to my future career as a teacher because wikis are a wonderful tool to use in the classroom.

5- Web 2.0 Tools, & Concept Map

It’s disappointing that Web 2.0 tools are no longer an option in classrooms due to ELA standards, because I believe that some of these tools could be very useful in the classroom. As mentioned in the podcast, Web 2.0 tools provide interaction for students and include social networking, blogs, wikis, twitter and YouTube. YouTube can be very useful in the classroom to look up relevant videos to share with the students. When I took Holocaust my senior year in high school, my teacher would use many different videos from YouTube and it helped me better understand the material since I am a visual learner. Blogs are another tool that would be useful in the classroom because they allow students to display their work for others to see. It gives more value to the students work because instead of just turning it in for a grade, they can display it for an audience to see. Diigo is another awesome tool for the classroom that allows students to share resources, collectively take notes, ask teachers direct questions on particular articles, and carry out conversations with each other.

So if these Web 2.0 tools are so great, what’s holding us back from using them? Student safety is a major concern with using Web 2.0 tools. However there are solutions like the class using a shared account, teachers reviewing the sites before class, and even using password protected sites

There is also equipment needed to be able to effectively use these tools. Of course the basic components of a computer are needed, like the monitor, system unit containing the CPU and RAM, storage with an optical drive, hard disk drive, and USB port for Flash Drive, keyboard, and mouse. Getting internet shouldn’t be a problem because almost all schools have their own server. For most Web 2.0 tools, everything mentioned above should suffice since all you need is a working computer and internet access. However, to be able to show the class YouTube videos, that requires a projector and speakers.

Remind 101 is a great web 2.0 tool that I would consider using when I become a teacher. I first heard of this tool as a high school student, and lots of my teachers used it in their classroom. As a freshman in college, I thought that I would never have another class that incorporated remind 101 because college courses are supposed to be more independent, and centered on self-learning. Sure enough my English professor first semester used remind 101, and it really shouldn’t have surprised me because it is such a neat tool.

One of Remind 101’s slogans is “safe, simple, and free,” and those three things are very true. Remind 101 is a free application that allows teachers to communicate with their students, and parents instantaneously. It’s like an app that allows teachers to text with the students and parents, without giving one another cell phone numbers or private information. The teacher sets up a class, receiving a class code. The teacher tells the students and/or parents the class code, so they can text a number with the specified class code. Once the student/parent texts the code then they will be set up to be a part of the class. Teachers can send out information or reminders through text message, without knowing any students phone numbers, and the students won’t know the teachers phone number. This is a great tool for communication because in today’s society, most people keep their phone at their fingertips, and texting is a huge means of communication. It’s a fast, simple way to get information to your students or parents right away, while keeping all personal information private.

I didn’t feel very prepared for the Concept Mapping assignment. I have never been able to learn by mapping things out in that way, so creating one was a challenge for me. I think it would have helped if the website was working in class last week, and we got the chance to learn how to work the website. I had difficulty logging into my account and then once I finally did I couldn’t figure out how to make the concept map. I ended up just making one in a Microsoft Word document, and then having my partner help figure out how to replicate the word document into the website. The good thing about this assignment is that since it was challenging for me, and I learned a lot about concept mapping, which will be very useful once I become a teacher. Even though I personally don’t learn well from looking at concept maps, I know that at least some of my students will, so it will be important to know how to create an effective concept map that is easy to follow and understand.

#4- Exploring the limitless education tools online

Standard MAFS.2.G.1: Reason with shapes and their attributes.

http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_169_g_1_t_2.html?open.instructions

This site has public access, and would be a perfect tool to use in the classroom to learn this particular standard. This is a virtual manipulative that lets the students create their own patterns by recognizing the differences between shapes. As mentioned in chapter 8, this tool falls into the category of content-specific software. This is a math software, and more specifically a geometry virtual manipulative. I would allow the class to individually go on the site to participate, and I would need to make sure that the computers used have the latest version of Java software to be able to access the site.

                                                                                                           

Throughout middle and high school, I have been assigned tons of research based papers. When researching I have always utilized google, and it is by far my favorite search engine. If I was looking for something very particular I would use google scholar and the advanced search tools. When I wasn’t using google scholar, I would still only use the web pages ending in .edu, or .org to make sure that my source was reliable. This was actually mentioned in the podcast, that it’s important to evaluate to URL, and domain. The podcast also mentioned the acronym ABCDT (author, bias, content, design, and technical elements) to help evaluate the sites when researching. I found this very interesting because most of the time I don’t consider all of those things. While some of my methods were mentioned in the podcast, I learned about new ones to evaluate websites even more thoroughly.

I was surprised how almost every search, what I was looking for was within the first few results. I was expecting it to take a lot more work, and that I was going to have to really search for the things listed. I have searched the web many times, so I don’t feel that I learned any particular skills through this assignment in that regard, however I did learn more about the standards by figuring out which one applied to each web search.

I have created a couple of my own web hunt challenges for you to try out:

-           -  Find a different math manipulative involving shapes

-           -  Find a website that explores Richard Nixon’s career as President

#3- Third time the charm?

I feel most prepared to meet standards RL.7 and RI.7. Both of these standards are “consuming tech standards” and I feel like I have enough knowledge about incorporating technology into literature and informational text to adequately meet these standards. The standard that I feel I need more preparation for is W/WHST.6 which includes using technology to produce and publish writing.

Based on Chapter 9, I would like to use several technology software/applications that I read about in my classroom. I will most definitely be using email on a regular basis to communicate with my students’ parents. During class I will incorporate resources for research and discovery, like search engines (Google), mashups (Google Earth), and multimedia (videos, graphics, audio). When using these tools it will be important for me to remind students how to correctly use other people’s work without copyrighting or plagiarizing. I will also need to keep digital citizenship concepts in mind, and make sure that I am using these tools in an appropriate way that furthers my students learning experience. The age range that I hope to teach is 7-8, so some internet resources like discussion groups and chats would not be appropriate for me to use with students of this age. With this being said, I can use discussion groups with other teachers. This can be very beneficial to have this communication to share ideas and opinions with other people in my profession.

I loved working on the Newsletter Design assignment and learned a lot through the process. I loved that we had the freedom to be creative and design the kind of newsletter that we wanted, as long as it followed the rubric. The things that I learned from this assignment are very important for my future career, because as an elementary teacher I will be sending out weekly newsletters to my students parents. It took me a lot of trial and error to format the newsletter with columns. Eventually I figured it all out, and gained a lot more knowledge about putting columns in word documents. The thing that I didn’t particularly like about the assignment is that it had to pertain to a particular grade and age. I understand that completing the assignment in this way is practical since a newsletter does concern one grade level, but it was difficult for me because I haven’t gotten into my major yet and ended up spending a lot of time researching what kind of information would be age appropriate to include. I’m still working on my newsletter, but below is what I have gotten done thus far.