A New Start...

I've titled this post "A New Start..." because I truly believe this is not the end of the course, but the beginning of me incorporating more technology into my everyday classroom environment. In this blog I am going to discuss the 21st Century Learning course, how it was beneficial to me, and what I will take from the course to use in my own classroom. I will answer three questions throughout the blog.

What did you learn?

What will you use and why?

How will it meet the needs of your learners?

As a teacher I should always push myself to learn new techniques and strategies to help my students succeed. Taking this class was a great step for me to learn different ways that I can incorporate technology into my classroom. The first thing that I learned in this class is that no matter how good I think I am with technology, there is always something new out there that I could be learning about. I learned a lot of new techniques and got a lot of great ideas of how I can incorporate technology into my everyday lessons. I want to highlight three tools that I really feel that I can use on a daily basis. These three tools are google docs, wiffiti and voki.

I'm not going to re-post my technology survey that I created, but I really do feel like I can use google docs to create surveys easily and have my students provide me information in a simple format that doesn't require pen and paper. The fact that all of the data is organized in a spreadsheet is fantastic, and will truly help cut down on the amount of time I spend tracking my work and let me focus more on being more creative in my teaching. I know that I will definitely create a google doc that will let me take attendance and keep track of the data in an efficient manner. I love the organization that google docs will help my students have. I haven't figured out how I would like to set up an account, whether I would give everyone one password for a pre-created account, or whether I would set up an account with each student. This would definitely be something that I would need to discuss with my school principal before taking action. I would love for my students to be able to collaborate and create projects using google docs. It would no longer be one student's responsibility to maintain a part of the project because the project could be saved online.

I love this video that I found on TeacherTube. This is a teacher who has evaluated his teaching and found a solution that would help him be a better teacher, and help his students learn more effectively. He incorporates a couple of different forms of technology that we have discussed in this class. I think he is a great example of learning how we can use technology to help us in the classroom. Please take a minute to watch his video about why google docs has replaced powerpoint in his classroom. He focuses on how he is interested in content, not fancy buttons and options that are available in powerpoint. While I think there are many creative options in powerpoint, I agree that google docs will be very useful in helping my students create presentations in the classroom.




I know that there is a lot of controversy over cell phones and whether they should be allowed in schools or not. I completely see the argument of schools that students should not have their phones because they become a distraction in the learning environment, but there is a lot to be said for the benefits of using cell phones in school. My students all have cell phones, even the students who get free lunch and don't have cars at home have cell phones. It's become a staple that I can count on, a lot more than I can count on computer or internet access. I've learned through this course that there are ways to incorporate the use of cell phones into the classroom that can help students become more actively engaged and display their true academic abilities. President Obama is pushing to have technology be a 24/7 learning tool for students, and experts, teachers and even some school districts are beginning to agree that cell phones might be a great option for learning. Through this course I learned that there are many different ways that you can incorporate cell phones in the classroom and one of my favorites is wiffiti. I love the idea that students can text in ideas, questions and answers anonymously. This tool would be so fantastic for my students because it would help them share their answers, but also help them build self esteem by sharing their ideas without "outing" them to their friends. Please take a look at this link to check out some of the ways that you could be using wiffiti in your classroom! I think that I would use this during any lesson. It could easily be incorporated as a way to gather students opinions or questions while a lesson is going on. It could even be an incentive for students because they could have a special wiffiti board of "off task talk topics" that we could talk about for five minutes at the end of class to wind down before they transition, if it is earned by on task behavior during the rest of class. This is a way to get students interested in the classroom without promising them food!





The last tool that I would like to talk about is voki. Rather than typing what I've learned, how I'll use it and why it meets the needs of my learners, I've decided to create a voki that answers each question! This is a really great tool, and I definitely think it could be incorporated in any classroom.

1.What did you learn about Voki?



2. How will you use Voki in the classroom?


3. How will Voki meet the needs of your learners?




I just want to say thank you gentlemen for sharing your knowledge with us. This has been a really great class. I have learned far more than I ever thought I would and I know that I will actually use these things in my classroom. I appreciate the time and energy that went into this course and look forward to taking more in the future.

Social Media & Using Google Docs

What is Social Media? This website gives 50 different people's definition of what social media is. Feel free to read through and get your own idea of social media. For my blog, my purpose, I am going to say that social media is the sharing, communication, and collaboration of ideas through technology to create projects and share creatively. I think there are a lot of positives and negative to using social media in the classroom, and I think the bottom line is that students need to be taught proper social media etiquette, and if we don't teach them as their teachers, who will? I do not think that my students should be my friend on Facebook, but they probably spend a lot more time on Facebook than they do looking at the agenda. I think if I set up a private Facebook account and used it only for school purposes, then taught students how Facebook can be a learning tool, it might be appropriate to use in the classroom. I like using the twitter option when I create a wiffiti to share in my classroom because you can keep the posts g-rated, and you can see what other people are saying about a topic that you are discussing in the classroom. I am not a big twitter fan, I do have an account, but I rarely use it, and I don't think this is something that I would implement in my classroom. There are many great ideas, but you don't need to use every one of them. I like the idea of skyping with other schools in different locations. I think it would be great for my students, who rarely leave Cleveland, to interact with students in a different location. It could be a whole cultural lesson built into a technology lesson tied into the regular curriculum. I think I would be more likely to use skype in the classroom if I used it more outside of school first. I like discovering with my students, but I feel more comfortable having a base understanding before I present something in the classroom.

I feel like I say this frequently, possibly after every new lesson, but I LOVE google docs! I do NOT have microsoft office on my computer. I constantly struggle with trying to create documents and convert them to a format that others will be able to access, without losing the details that I work hard to create. I can see myself using google docs frequently in my everyday teaching. It would be amazing to pull up a venn diagram from google docs and use the Promethean Board in any class. With a smartboard in the classroom, my students could take notes on the board, and then I could save the notes and print a copy for each student. This would be fantastic for my students because they often don't want to take notes in class, and then quickly lose the notes they do take. If I had notes that they completed, but I could save on the computer, it would help them have materials to study from when their tests come up.

The survey below is something that I could definitely use with my students throughout the year. At the beginning of the year I could use this to find out what access my students have to technology at home. I could continually assess my students access to technology, and also tweak the survey to see how my students' attitude about technology changes after using it to enhance their learning.




I could also use this to help my students learn to question, create surveys, and poll their classmates. The spreadsheet would be a fantastic to help them gather data, and then learn to display it in a graph or chart.

I love the tip that was given in this lesson about taking attendance. I spend so much of my time writing down exactly what times I was with what students in each class. If I simply take attendance online at the beginning of class I can use the spreadsheet as documentation of service for my students. Overall, I think that the collaboration and organization that go along with using google docs is fantastic, and would definitely be beneficial in the classroom.

Interactive Tools

This blog post is going to cover a variety of topics including motivational posters and wiffitti. I am hoping that I can give a brief explanation of my opinion of both of these things, what I might use them for in my classroom, and how they can help my students as digital learners.

How many great quotes are there that you think, "I wish my students could learn this"? I think this motivator website is fantastic. The idea that I could take a picture of my students, give them a focus topic, and then share a meaningful quote with them is fantastic. I can see this being a great incentive in the classroom. Have a reading contest, a math competition, or a spelling bee and the winner gets to keep the motivational poster with the class picture (who needs a yearbook??) or better yet, have the students create motivational posters with images that they find online or take themselves and hold a competition where students create and vote on a motivational topic. In a lesson about mood, tone, author's message, or any other reading staple, you could have your students show how different people can have a different mental image of what you are learning about. I love that the kids can change the color and text, and personalize this completely. If I had access to a color printer, this would definitely be something that I would use on a monthly basis. I might even consider purchasing the high resolution version of something that I make.

How wonderful would it be, as a teacher, if I could take a student's strength or interest and create a motivational poster showing that I care and want them to succeed? All of this to get the message across to never give up! What is shown in this one minute video posted below is what I would hope my students could learn from motivational posters. Never Give Up!




Another tool that I think would be fantastic to use in the classroom is wiffiti. I taught a summer school lesson with students who did not want to be in the classroom. All of their friends were outside, at the pool, at amusement parks, or chatting with people online, and these kids were stuck in school. The lesson that I taught them had to do with cell phones in the classroom. I engaged them by asking, "Who thinks it would be more fun to text these answers to the screen than to write them on a paper??". We had a great discussion about cell phones, why they aren't allowed in schools, how they could be used in schools, and what some of the caveats of allowing them in school would be. One of the biggest benefits to using something like wiffiti, in my opinion, is the anonymity. I teach 7th and 8th graders, and none of them want to put themselves out there academically to be made fun of by classmates. If I could get kids to text in their answers with an unidentifiable username, or even to ask questions during a lesson or while reading a book in class, that would be fantastic! So many of my students find it to be a chore to write down their thoughts on a piece of paper, so they write limited answers and get poor grades as a result. However, I know the same students are sending hundreds of texts a day, and probably thousands in a week! If I can make it feel like they aren't working, but elicit the same information out of them, that would once again be fantastic.

All of this being said, there are definitely concerns attached to allowing students to use their phones in the classroom. While the majority of students would appropriately text questions and answers, there would be the minority who would not participate, but text others during academic time. There also isn't the ability to specifically pinpoint who said what on the wall without knowing each studhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifents assigned username. This could easily be remedied with a little work on the part of the teacher. There should also be rules set forth by the teacher and discussed with the students. This allows the teacher and students to be on the same page about what the expectations and limitations of using wiffiti in the classroom.

Here is a video that I watched for another course, that I think speaks directly to what I am talking about.

Texting in School

Graduation!

I am feeling sentimental and my 8th graders graduated on Friday. I have created a Voki and Wordle displaying some graduation wishes.

Here is my first attempt at a voki. I don't have a microphone on my computer, but I tried to play around with the prerecorded voices. Congratulations 8th graders!



I like the idea of creating vokis with the students in my classroom. I think it would be great for presentations if a student was too shy to present their information in front of their peers, they could write out what they want to say and record it. This would be a great way to accommodate some of the anxiety my students face. I also think the voki could be a good way for my students to study for quizzes and tests. They could record important information that will be on their tests and then play it back at home while they study and complete homework assignments. Another way that I think I could use the voki in the classroom is to help students understand different character traits of characters in our reading book. Students could create a voki based on the character descriptions in the book, choose a voice, and write something they think the character would say. This is an engaging way that I could get my students to demonstrate knowledge of a story, without answering questions on a worksheet.

I found the video below on TeacherTube. It is a perfect example of how I think I could boost my students' self confidence. If I can teach my small group of students to use voki, I can then collaborate with the general education teachers and have my students teach a mini lesson to their classrooms. I believe this would be a great way for my students to increase their self confidence and feel that they can contribute to the general education classroom.



Here is my wordle. I copied the lyrics from the Vitmain C song "Graduation" and created a wordle. I think this could be a good tool for students to find the main idea of a text, or a most popular word used within a text. When students are using a website to learn about a certain topic, they can create a word cloud using the information they have learned about the topic. I think it is a great graphic that the students would really enjoy. I definitely enjoyed using tagxedo the most, but I was saddened by the fact that I could not embed it in my blog in a way that would allow the words to continue to "move". I guess technology isn't perfect!

The Networked Teacher

This post will discuss who my learners are, what my teaching approach is, and the skills that I am teaching/would like to incorporate in my classroom.

I am a special education teacher. My students require differentiated instruction to learn the same thing as their classmates. Many of my students have been lied to and told they were just like everyone else. I refuse to do that. My students are different. They learn differently, they succeed differently, and if I don't help them realize that, they will never be comfortable utilizing the strategies that I teach them, because they are different! My students spend a lot of time playing video games, and they are great at it. My students also spend a lot of time wandering around outside with their friends. They are not the most privileged kids, they do have technology but they definitely don't realize how much technology can do for them. When assignments are given in class, my students struggle greatly because they don't have basic computer skills. They don't know how to google for information, they have a game site that they frequently use, but if that is blocked they get frustrated because they don't know where else to turn. I feel like even though my students are considered "digital natives" they haven't had anyone teach them the language. I want to continually expand my vocabulary/knowledge to keep up with what my students are learning, but also take the time to help them fully understand what technology can do for them.

I want my students to advocate for themselves. I want my students to know how to problem solve, hypothesize and use technology to help them succeed. I am planning out the 2011-2012 school year and I am trying to find the best ways to use technology in my classroom. I have an iPad that I use frequently in the classroom. I have math games that the students play during their free time, and I have a flash card app that the students use in class to study vocabulary. At first, I began inputting all of the vocab words and definitions. It was so time consuming for me. Now I give the iPad to my students and have them enter the words and definitions in class while their other classmates are writing them with pencil and paper. The students learn the information, and feel cool because they get to use an iPad in class. I am hoping that I will get to use technology more frequently in the upcoming school year. I am even considering making a blog page for my students to use. It might be difficult for them to catch on to it at first, so I am planning to use an incentive based on them commenting/using the blog to their benefit.

This is repetitive of what I have said, but I am hoping to help my students learn to use technology more through this course. I was recently giving a scantron test and one of my students saw the Jing "sun" at the top of my screen and inquired what it was. It was great to use that as an incentive for them to get their test done, and then show them how cool technology can make learning. I also want my students to feel comfortable e-mailing me, I would like to set up a facebook page for my students to communicate with me, and I want my students to set up appointments online with me, so we can both know when I am available to meet with them.

My students struggle to use my iPad.....I wish that they were this handy (and had the resources) to use technology like this all of the time! I think this is a perfect example of how great technology can be when used properly. It also opens up the issue of how to we dialogue with our students about proper technology use....but we'll save that for another post!!

Quicksand!

This post isn't about anything we've covered in class this quarter, but I wanted to show you some of the cool things we can do on this blog. I can add a link to another website that might be useful in giving you more information on whatever topic we are covering. I can also add in videos that relate to what we have been doing.

Let's learn about quicksand! First of all, what is quicksand?

Now let's watch this video!

Let the Learning Begin!

Good morning students! Today is a great day for learning because we are going to connect over the computer. This blog is a place for you to learn, ask questions and get information. I hope to be able to put useful things up for you to succeed in all of your classes.