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.

Video

This was an awful experience. I loved making a digital story but I run a mac os x operating system and the rest of my class runs pc and Microsoft. Nothing works right!!!!!!!! I finally after 8 hours of frustration got a very minimal video done and now I can;t even load it anywhere because it's not compatible. It shouldn't take 8 hours for one small assignment. I did my best and now I can't even show what I did. I found that imovie for mac was very hard to use, slow to load, and now it is not compatible to load onto my class site, my PWS, or this blog. I am actually pretty proud of what I finally accomplished. Does anyone know how to load these things :( Guess what...as I wrote and was ready to give up.....I gave it one last try and walla.....it is not working! UGH!!!!!!!!

Class meeting

Technology can be very frustrating yet very interesting at the same time. This week in class we learned about voicethreads and had to follow at voicethread developed by our instructor about collaboration and the image of PIGS. at first it was different! I wasn't sure what i was doing and my professor made it part group part individual.....very different then what I have ever been used to. This was a great way to get children involved with following directions and creating a technological lesson that they will be engaged in and will want to do. When students get really involved and learn mmore about voicethreads they can then begin to develop them for themselves and present to class on a given topic with research. It beats writing a research paper with nothing to go with it.

Check out this video for voicethread

More Highlights

SO reflecting on some very serious content in the class can be insightful and difficult...
ISD allows for teachers to develop and design lessons and in conjunction also allows them to reflrect on what the outcomes are, if it worked and so on. The teacher then can either make the ncessary adjustments or keep it the same for the next year and is also able to collect data to prove the effectiveness of the lesson.
There is also set levels that should be followed in oerder to maximize the full potential of the design.

4 models: with the four models they can be classified into two groups...... direct and indirect instruction. Direct meaning teacher driven and indirect meaning teacher guided but more inquiry based learning, where the student drives the learning.

I think that the direct instructional or Behavioral Model is more widely used, moreso than the others because learning can be more controlled with large classrooms, more content can becovered, and the teacher has most of the control. In a special education setting it is the easier form of instruction, as the teacher models, the students do with the teacher and then the student tries on there own and the teacher guides. The other models allow for a more inquiry or search based instruction where the student is given a directive and has to guide themselves, come up with an outcome and practice the outcome. Kind of in the realm of scienctific inquiry.

Dr. S Blogg

By the definition of blogg I have to say that this one tops the cake. Dr. S has outdone herself once again. The use of videos, pictures and the ability to see everyone elses blogg is great. I am still trying to figure out how to load a picture that I want ot use...I am guessing that I cannot coy and past anything on this blogg, I have to save then load...UGH...oh well. I'll give it a try.

Her blogg was also very easy to follow and very interactive....yes Dr. S I get the hint.....I will do the same :)

excel and the cross word

So I have been trying to load a snapshot of my crossword that I have made on excel and the one that I made on edhelper.com only to have a screen pop up telling me I am doing something wrong and that the file cannot be uploaded or copied. UGH!! Sometimes technology doesn't always work the way we want it to.

Vocabulary for Curriculum
Using excel would be a fun way for students to learn their curriculum. As long as they had a teacher modeled lesson until they mastered working on their own. I however took several hours trying to figure it out even with using a You Tube video helping me out. There is something that has to be said for having a person teaching you or modeling for you in person. I do have to say that the excel was difficult at first for me to get going. It's frustrating when you have never done something before. Once I Began to get the idea it got easier, but I do have to say that the edhelper site made it much easier to develop and quicker. I have to say it is nice to know that I as a teacher have the ability to save time and develop a cross word quickly, but also, I have learned how to help my students learn and be active in their learning process. All thanks to Dr. S and this course.

SLIDEROCKET

This new site that our professor has had us check out is pretty neat. Sliderocket is a great site and I cannot wait have mote time to really get into the uses. From what I have been able to use I find that it is easy to use and has many tools for creating some great slides and posting them for others to view. So check it out and give it a try.

technology in the classroom

So I have been reading about all this technology in the classroom and how text books of the future are going to be on the computer and virtually take over traditional text books. Okay the idea sounds great but how can school districts assume that all children and households have a computer. Is this going to be a new requirement for parents to have to supply a computer for their child to attend school? What about the parents that cannot afford a computer?

I'm sure then the next answer will be, well then that student can stay after school and use the computers in the library, well sometimes children cannot stay after. I am not at all saying that this is a bad idea, but all factors need to be addressed and understood. Assumptions cannot be made if we are to make sure students are successful.

Group Projects

This week my group has been working on what constructivism is all about. Well it is a philosophical approach to how people learn, basing our learning on our prior experiences. I have learned that with this approach there is not state assessments to testing, children are assessed by critiquing themselves and by guidance from the teacher. Instead of the students learning rote facts they are learning concepts that can be used in their environment. Pretty neat!!!

Check out our information on constructivism.

2.0 tools

Okay, so I have been overwhelmed by the vast amount of 2.0 web tools and have tried so many. Thanks to my professor I am on information overload. In a way it is a great think she did and one the downslope I feel frazzled. I never knew there were so many different areas on the web. I guess you could say that I am one of those comfort people tht stay within the realm of what we know and never leave that comfort zone. Well now I have been forced to push forward through mega bites after mega bites. Some day I will have enough time to try them all.....I do thank you Dr. S for giving me the insight to see beyond my world and into a world filled with information that is not found in one location. By the way I love DOGPILE, better than google. Check it out!

Group 1 presentation

well....it was a nail biting moment, but even though the technical difficulties were there it went well. It seemed as if everyone was getting information and using it. We even sparked some debates with what we were talking about. Debates are good...it gets people to think and stand by what they believe in. We may have even helped some educators with teaching web safety, ethics, and technology in the classroom. If you go to slideshare.com you can view our PPT and let us know what you think. Well done group one...you guys were awesome!!!!! ;)