My ICP Project Reflection

Wow, it has been one long run with this one. But check it out (ICP)and learn about an online tool that can help educators in their classroom. I learned from this project that I had so much more information in my head than I had before I took the technology course. I learned that there are so many tools out there on the web beside the Google.com site. As an educator I have learned to truly develop a curriculum that not only can be used for science but I can develop it for all curriculum and across grade levels. The ever last questions of what do i do when i have two grade levels in one class can now be done on line and many of your lessons can be developed for each grade level and they can work on it at the same time and be evaluated as well. I loved using Quia as I could individualize each level depending on my students needs. It was worth the effort of looking for it.

There is nothing that I would do differently. The assignment was worth the sweat and tears. It is amazing when so frustrated, yet never giving up, the feeling of accomplishment when through. I loved the softwear and will promote it within my own district to use.

Final Classes

What a year it has been. There have been so many strategies and skills I have learned from this class. It has been extremely overwhelming yet liberating as well. So many things I have learned I can apply as an educator, now I need the technology to go with it. I really have been excited about using the idea of setting up a class web page with a wiki attached and allow my students to help develop it. I know now that student sjust want to feel involved and what a way to get them involved. Many already have the technology basics and now that I have a more in-depth look into using technology I can take them even further. It's just difficult trying to get a school district on board.

This professor I have had I have worked with before in other classes. I have found that she gives this insight of never give up and never take no for an answer, find a way to make it work. So, I have now began the journey of looking into grant writing to get technology based products for my class and others. Now I have no excuses to have a technology based classroom. Thank you Dr. S for pushing me. :)

Classroom Newletter

1) Why is communication important between teachers and parents, or between the colleagues? Communication is extremely important between parents and teachers and colleagues. A lack of communication can cause misunderstandings that can lead to issues within the work place or with parents and students. Many times, keeping good communication between parents and teachers can help improve students progress within the classroom and help alleviate situations in which students tell parents one thing when in fact that may not be the case. It also lets parents know what thier child is doing in the classroom and what any upcoming events may be coming.

2) In what way will you communicate with your students’ parents/ or colleagues? Right now I communicate using e-mail for privacy, bi-weekly newsletters, and home books for those parents that do not have a computer. When communicating with my colleagues I mostly e-mail.

3) What new communications software applications would be fun to try to communicate with parents/colleagues? I would like to get parents to use wikis, or plurks. I also feel that blogging can also be a fun way to communicate, yet there would need to be a way to communicate privately so certain information and privacy laws are not violated. But I do feel that getting parents involved and excited about communicating with thier teacher their child will follow suit.

4) What software did you use? Share your experience with it. Well I currently use a mac and have a program already installed in my computer for newsletters. The templates are already there and very user friendly. All I have to do is click on which one I want and then add the information. It is under microsoft word for macs. When developing the newletter I just added in any information I wanted to be added. I could easily put in pictures and change fonts and colors.

5) What would you do differently if you did a Class/School/District Newsletter again? I would do nothing differently. I really enjoyed this and found it easy to use. I feel that instead of bi-weekly do a monthly one as they can be timme consuming, especially when one is communicating with parents daily.

Mind Map

For this group project we had to develop some kind of graph to show how we have been connecting to the learning standards based on the internet. One of our group members came up with a great idea of using a min mapping tools to display this information to the class on our wiki site. In reviewing what all my group members have added to the site I feel we have done so much work and have connected all over the place in regards to the standards and each other. Check out our mind map.

Creating quizzes

Well, one thing about being a teacher is that you have to create quizzes and usually they are the plain, boring, same old, same old. Not anymore!!!!! My professor has shown me that creating quizzes and making them more invoved or user friendly is the way of the future. I loved creating this quiz and it actually grades in for me and I can have a student that has been absent take it from home. This is ingenious. I cannot wait to share this with my teachers at my school. I am so excited. Check out what I came up with for the first time, and I'm not even a technology person. Students are more engaged and it will diminish testing anxiety. It is the way of the future, and "makes teaching smarter not harder," (I heard that in an in-service I attended). Cancer Quiz

Engrade Usage

Wow. I am using an inte-grade pro program at my school that my district paid for. It is not user friendly, not like this site. I found that I can add assignments, give a description of what I would like to have done, and add for what day they are due. I also really liked the ability to mark when an assignment is not turned in and the fact that parents and student can themselves go online and look this information up. It saves me time as a teacher from having to take a phone call, look back in my lesson plans and then try to explain to parents what their student has been missing. It also keep track of when a student is absent so I do not mark the assignment missing when in actuallity the student was absent.

It also keeps information clear, concise, and neat. I can even use this for when a student needs to recheck what they have to do for an asignment as they may have forgot.

This would be very useful for all classroom teachers and it doesn't cost the district anything. Also, parents would like the ability to be able to chech grades before the all impending report card comes out and they find out their child is not doing very well. They can also check to see if their child is handing in homework. Check it out....Engrade

I can also add a grade book for each subject or class, and I can leave comments for each student.

Assignments 1 to 3 of 3
Student	ID	Grade	Per	Hyperbole	personification/alliteration	Simile/metaphors	Add New Assignment
Devin Blue	7893	0	0%			M
Collin Ferrel	1236	100	100%			100
Cody Garigan	5678	0	0%			M
Tom Houseman	9012	100	100%			100
Aaliya Jamest	3456	0	0%			M
Tony Jasper	1234	80	80%			80
Nick Penn	7890	100	100%			100
Jose Smith	8937	0	0%			M
Average / Points Possible				/ 25	/ 100	47.5 / 100

This will also average the grades for me and I can allow fo rthe lowest grade to be dropped for me. What a time saving grade book. I can determine how much home works, quizzes, or tests are going to be weighted. It's awesome. I dont really have any reason to not use this. I almost want to use this through out my school year and then when grades are due just copy and past them. This works so much easier. Thanks Dr. S, you have saved me so many headaches!!!!!:)

Voicethread

For class we needed to create a digital story and I chose voice thread to do this. Last week I was to use a movie on line source to do the same thing. Unfortunately, I have a mac and was unable to create a digital story. When I did finally use imovie for mac I was then unable to load it anywhere, even on YouTube.

When using voicethread for my digital story I was trying to extend my lesson on imagery with my students. This was my first time using voice thread and I found it to be fun. I still have yet to learn how to load this to my HW (home work link). I also was trying to play some music in the background but was unsuccessful. With practice I think I can get it. I would like to use this in my classroom for my students to create digital stories in groups.

I also loved the quiz on collaborative VS coopertive in our on line class. This was very interactive and it showed me what I needed to re-learn and what I did know. It was fun and was much better than taking a paper and pencil test or quiz.