Technology Self Assesment School 2.0

School 2.0/Tech Self-Assessment is NETS IV: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

Standard # 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. The video by Sir Ken Robinson titled Creativity and Schools brought up the importance of allowing children to be creative. It was once stated that children are all born artists, and the challenge is to keep them artists to make sure they do not grow out of it. This is very important to learn as a teacher of an elementary school because creativity must be incorporated in every lesson. Many students that are quiet and not engaged in lectures shine through creativity or visual projects which help their confidence and inspire their classmates.

Journal # 10: Literacy iPads Apps for Teachers

Journal # 10: Literacy iPad Apps for Teachers

Shettel, Jennifer. "Literacy iPad for Teachers." Learning and Leading with Technology. 39.6 (2012): 38-39. Print. <http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20120304?pg=40&pm=2&fs=1

Summary: As I was searching this publication I found a Language Arts section that had a variety of apps that students can use in the classroom for all levels. I focused on the apps for elementary grades because that is the level I would like to teach at. Most of them were free but some of the more involved ones were up to $4.00 which is not bad if you use it for a specific skill the student is working on, or for extra practice. An app called Build a Story allows students to create the illustrations and type of their stories. This tool of reinforcing fictional story elements such as characters, setting and the plot is useful for comprehension. Creativity is involved as well because they are creating their own visual of the story and they can compare their different visuals between their classmates. 

Another app that caught my attention was called Shake-n-Spell. This is a word game that builds fluency and flexibility in spelling, phonics, and vocabulary. You shake the device and it creates a grid of letters that you have to make words out of, similar to the game Boggle. This type of game that helps with many skills in language arts that can be made into an assignment or even practice at home. One thing that I liked about this app is that you can pick the amount of time you have to guess your words, 1, 2 or 3 minutes so it applies to all ages and all learning levels. In class today we discussed how easy it is for students to start using ipads in class. With more students being exposed to this type of technology it will only benefit them in the future of ways to practice and learn on their own in a fun way. 

Q: What are the parents reactions?

When I was growing up and technology made a huge boom in the 90's I was all over the computer and the latest technology. My parents hated the amount of time I spent on the computer but it was because it was new to them, and they grew up in a different era that was not so technologically advanced. By the time ipads make it to the majority of classrooms most parents will be pro technology because they will have grown up with them and made their children just as experienced as they are. 

Q: How could I use this in a second grade classroom?

In the second grade children are already learning how to read, comprehension, and spelling. Because they will be exposed to technology it will be beneficial to make an assignment out of these apps that they will already be familiar with. Having an app as practice will be a fun way to help students keep up with their learning as well as be useful for an assignment.

 

Journal # 6: Fostering Creativity and Innovation Through Technology

Journal # 6: Fostering Creativity and Innovation through technology

Vaidyanathan, S. (2012). Fostering creativity and innovation through technology. Learning and Leading, 39(6), 25-27. Retrieved from, http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/March-April2012.aspx

Summary: I really enjoyed this article because it focused on teaching the STEM subjects and engaging creativity at the same time using digital design programs. They are already being exposed in the home it makes sense to learn the school material at the same time! By using digital programs students are learning the material along with becoming familiarized with technology.  “Art inspires creativity, and in today’s world the computer is the tool for design and creativity,” (25). In this article it talked about how elementary students are more frequently creating images and projects on the computer and they enjoy it! This shows students that learn with technology are both relevant and exciting. Students will not be afraid to try new digital programs when they are already exposed to it at an early age. It is important for teachers to have students learn in multiple ways because every student learns differently and technology is a great way to get the best of both.

Q: Are parents for or against having their children on the computers not only at home, but now in the classroom? 

The section in the article about the parent reaction was positive. Yes students are being exposed to computers both in the home and at school. This could be considered not appropriate in the classroom setting because reading and writing cannot be present on the computer but parents have seen a positive adjustment. Students are coming home excited to do their homework and more enthusiastic than usual which creates their positive attitude towards learning. 

Q: Why are programs like this necessary? 


The important idea of this article was to use digital design to integrate art, creativity, and technology into one lesson. My elementary school was fortunate enough to have a volunteer mom come in and do art for a half day through "Adventures in Art". This was a way where students could work on their drawing skills and express themselves through an important artist or concept in school. We know how important art in the classroom is, and with a program like this, we can use the computer as part of our lesson as an alternative of doing just art for half a day. they are learning multiple things by doing them at the same time!

Journal #8: Adaptive Technology

Communication:

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) includes all forms of communication methods that are used to express thoughts, needs, wants or ideas for those with impairments in the production or comprehension of spoken or written language. 

No/Low tech tool- PECS

Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is an example of AAC that focuses as a behaivoral approach that teaches self-initiated requesting. This allows the learner to engage in symbols for desired items rather than to point to them on a communication display. The communication partner provies the requested item or activity. This helps because the student is engaging in the object to where he or she can remember the action with the word. This is a type of body kinesthetic approach that will be extremely useful for students with communication disabilities. The picture to the left is an example of the PECS communication system. The teacher has 6 symbols that can be acted out or presented that the student is acting out to better remember the word. 

High Tech Tool- e-talk Chat-GT

The Great Talking Box Company's newest product is the e-talk Chat-GT. This enables personal communication for individuals unable to use their natural voice. It is a touch screen machine where the learner can use symbols, text, sounds or pictures to create words phrases and sentences. As you can see on the picture to the right, it has clear symbols and colors that categorize nouns, verbs, or adjectives to help create the sentence the learner is trying to say. Its bright screen and size makes it easy and portable for anyone.

Accessibility:  

Input device: is any hardware equipment that can be used to provide data and control signals to a processing system such as a computer or other appliance. 

MegaBee- Hardware Option

MegaBee is a writing tablet to aid frequent communication. This device uses eye movement and blinking to select letters which are displayed on the actual screen. It is mainly used for people with brain damage, strokes, motor loss and cerebral palsy; people that have no, or little ability to speak and cannot write. For example, if the user wanted to select the letter B, it would first be selected by looking at the blue block where the letter B is located and then blinking. Then as the letter B is yellow they would press the yellow button on the bottom where they have colored buttons that corresponds with the colors inside the boxes.

As you can see the screen on the tablet they are able to use their own vocabulary to create their own set of shorthand words or phrases that can be uploaded.

Software- Windbag

Windbag is a text based communication aid program. It provides a way for people with literacy needs to store and retrieve messages. There are two main screens as you can see from the picture to the right. 

The chat window is the window on the top that allows you to speak as you type conversations. It contains a number of tools to provide your message in the way that you want. You can type or speak messages, use abbreviations, predictive typing, and it can store previous texts that you can use again. The message window to the bottom displays your phrase bank which provides an easy way to speak out in commonly used phrases.


I can not believe how many softwares, devices, and programs that are offered to people with literacy problems. Technology can make anything happen :D


Blogs I commented on:


Tara
David

Journal # 7: PLN

Journal 7: My Personal Learning Network (PLN)

Personal Learning Network is an informal learning network that consists of the people a learner interacts with that creates an environment of personal learning of the individual. You will often become familiar with the abbreviation PLN which is in most technological articles or websites. PLN is a connection of people who learn from one another where you control who you are making connections with. You want to connect with people of the same interests or professions. I have already benefited from creating my own personal network where I am able to learn and connect with people that share my interest in career. 

I started with the newly developed verb to "tweet". I joined Twitter which enabled me to create a flow of information that I am interested in that allows me to explore new educational information. I choose to follow people that had an interesting profile blog as well as educators that seemed experienced in technology. Melissa Edwards, Daniel Edwards, Linda Yollis, Elizabeth Meyer, and Alexandra Francisco were the five people I chose to follow. Melissa Edwards has previously taught fourth grade gifted students and I chose her because as a multiple subject level I will be teaching fourth grade as well as students who will have different learning abilities. Daniel Edwards, no relation to Melissa, is a techie who uses Edmodo with his students which is something that I researched in this class and feel it would be beneficial to my future students. He also is for the structure of a flipped class which is a new teaching style we learned about in the magazine Learning and Leading with Technology. Linda Yollis has been an elementary school teacher for 25 years and is committed to integrating technology in the classroom which will be helpful to learn about her insight and strategies of teaching. Elizabeth Meyer is an author and educator who is passionate about working to end gender stereotypes in schools which is very important when entering the field of education. I am interested in her views of teaching this in the classroom. Lastly, I followed Alexandra Francisco who is a teacher of English Foreign Language students at the secondary level. I tried to follow people who would be useful for me and who are all on different paths of teaching. 

Tweetchat is an awesome way to chat with people that are interested in similar topics or are looking for the newest advancements for their classroom. With tweetchat you are able to pause the conversation because information flows so fast. On Monday, April 2nd I participated in the KinderChat and the topic was "Homework Hassles". They referred to homework hassles as an issue for the parent, student and teacher and discussed different styles of homework. Teachers and parents chatted about the new technique of a flipped classroom. I was shocked that even Kindergarten classrooms are using this and it is beneficial for the students parents and teachers. I did not participate in the chat, I just watched because I would not have any experience, but was useful as I want to become an elementary school teacher. It was interesting to see the flow of information all in one place and the different experiences from the teachers themselves.

Diigo is another website that I got involved with that allowed me to bookmark sites that I want to go back to as well as see sites that other people bookmark. From our previous Diigo assignment I already created my tags that categorize what I bookmarked. I have tags that fall into my personal interest including ed422, education, cyber bullying, learning etc that will link back to the page that I bookmarked. I followed Bill Derry who is a coordinator of information and technology literacy in public schools. I am interested in his tags of integrating technology in public schools. Colleen Sheehy has nearly 1000 bookmarks and her recent ones were Educational Technology and Mobile Learning and an article that was a response to Flipped Classroom which both caught my attention. Another person I followed was Karl Fisch who is a math and language arts teacher. He had a many followers and bookmarked interesting educational topics. Bill Campbell was the fourth person I followed who also bookmarked the flipped learning. I am noticing that most people bookmarked that specific arciles because it was a response to five common criticisms. Tony Bollino most recent tags were about elementary education and how twitter is involved in the classrooms which are both something that I am interested in.

I choose to join the Educator's PLN and I watched a video of Tom Wujec who presented research about "the marshmallow problem" which is a project to create the tallest structure made from speghetti, masking tape, string and a marshmallow. It is simple but hard, and forces people to think fast and collaboratively. He found that the less successful were college graduates and the most successful were Kindergardners which was shocking. He stated that the reasoning behind the collgee graduates were they were trying to create a plan and structure and they were worried about who was doing what, almost as if they were over thinking it. The Kindergartners always started with the marshmallow which was the opposite approach and started building prototypes which was more successful. This was very interesting to me and I enjoyed this video. This type of research is the most interesting and jaw dropping because you would assume the more educated would succeed the fastest but it is in fact the opposite.

Journal # 9: How to Do More with Less

Journal 9: How to Do More with Less

Pape, Liz, Tracy Sheehan, and Colleen Worrell. "How to Do More with Less." Learning and Leading with Technology. 39.6 (2012): 18-22. Retrieved from: http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/March-April2012.asp&xgt;.

Summary: The article by Liz Page titled, How to Do More with Less, is about how schools are struggling with our budget while our government is demanding better education. Not only are our students’ classes becoming larger and less teacher-student bond, our digital age is advancing faster than our schools. The two strategies that would help our students in the classroom are blended teaching and flipped classroom instruction. The term blended teaching refers to mixing traditional face to face instruction with online learning practices. If you were to observe a blended classroom you will find students engaging in note taking or lectures as well as online assessments for example online peer editing. Flipped classroom instruction is the idea of replacing homework with classroom practice at home. This is where students are using the time at home to become familiarized with content, or a digital lesson that will be assigned the next day of class. This is designed to increase classroom communication between the students in class rather than the traditional book reading and worksheet. Discussion is just as important for the development of students as much as reading and writing. This change in educating our students is a drastic change, but in the long run more beneficial to our students. They are learning through multiple approaches to allow them to become aware of a variety of teaching styles.

Q: How is this approach working together with the decrease in money in our nations education?

As mentioned in this article our schools are receiving less support from our government spending. These changes in teaching styles are different, but no harm to our spending or our schools. We are working with software that is free and simply needs a user name and password to access. Students are more and more familiar with this because most programs on their latest technology require the same.

Q: Do you think the parent response is positive or negative to this kind of teaching style?

Once I read this article the first thing I thought was what are the parents view on the change in style of classroom structure and homework? At first I felt that parents were opposed to this because they would view the teacher as not doing their job. They are having the students do work, but having them learn on their own. This is one of the most important strategies a student could grasp at a young age, to take resources and teach themselves the material. I think parents should almost feel a relief, because their child is not coming home with pages of math, or worksheets, they are becoming familiar with a software that they will discuss in class the next day. This is way more beneficial than having the students struggle with homework they have to take home and turn in the next day.

Journal #4: If You Give a Kid a Video Camera...

Journal 4: If You Give a Kid a Video Camera...

Campbell, L. O. (2012). If you give a kid a video camera. Learning and Leading with Technology, 39(5), 30-33. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/February-2012.aspx


This article was my favorite out of the four. This is something that I will definitely use in my elementary classrooms. The article mentioned how a video camera can be used in all subjects, allowing the students to get a visual about the material. For language arts, I think it would be a great idea to use it as a pen pal with students the same age from other states, or even other countries. Students today are more and more familiar with blogging and posting, I feel they would benefit from learning how to make a video, post it, and respond to another video. This is enhancing skills such as listening, public speaking, and becoming familiar with technological forms of learning. I really liked the math scavenger hunt lesson. When I was in high school trigonometry I remember walking outside and measuring every angle I could find with my group. It would have been so much easier to have a video camera, or even a camera to help with the recording. Giving a kid a video camera is a great idea and I think it will help many lessons in the future. 

Q: Why would some teachers be opposed to using a video camera for lessons even though the article shows how effective it can be? 

Most teachers are in a completely different generation of technology then we are today. We are only advancing more and more through incorporating technology in the classroom, you cannot avoid it. Teachers need to learn more about how our students can use their every day technology. This will make their education journey more fun and they will want to use these new gadgets in their given assignments. 

Q: With a lesson such as having the students create a video for a pen pal in another country, what are they learning from using this video camera?


You assume with having the students use a video camera in the classroom it will be more of a fun assignment then an academic one. By doing this particular assignment they will be exposed to multiple learning strategies such as public speaking, working a useful piece of technology that can help them with other future schools projects and becoming familiar with posting and blogging their video. Just because they are not reading a textbook chapter does not mean they are not learning something useful. I posted a video on my prezi of clips of students who were in second grade who were filming a partner about family traditions and other interests. They seemed to have a lot of fun doing it, and they are also learning other multicultural facts of people just like them, and how lifestyles can be different. AWESOME.