Technology!

Technology!

yeah!

Hi

Hi

Wallwisher

Just decided to check out wall wisher from last class. I think it is a really cool tool. I want to experiment if anyone happens to read this. I want you to try and put a sticky on my wall and even see if you can edit on my wall. Just wondering if you need an account to do so. So go ahead and try. Let me know on the wall or on a comment how it went. I was having a little trouble with connection. I think this would be a great tool for classrooms to message on. Well here is the link and good luck! http://www.wallwisher.com/rebuild/1kC76H88A5

Diigo vs Evernote

So I started to play around with Diigo the other day and really like the feature on how you can follow other groups and people to have access to their links. I thought this was really cool, however at first I was having a hard time figuring out how to bookmark my own pages. Finally I realized how, you need to download the Diigo toolbar of easy access to this. I think the toolbar has some really great applications such as the read later, highlighter, and capture. However, I felt it was similar to Evernote in this case. So I started to ponder which would be better to use. Diigo does allow you to share easier with others then Evernote, but Evernote allows you to e-mail and tweet to it. It seems that using both applications would be almost like double dipping, but I think I may use Evernote as a personal note taking devise and then when I am ready to share links I can send them to Diigo. I am not sure how this strategy would work and I would like to hear how others feel about the two tools and in which direction I should head.

Little Bird Tales Vs Story Jumper

I just finished creating a Story Jumper! The Great Outback. I enjoyed making this story because it felt like writing a real book. However, there was not a lot of room for creativity. You had scenes and props to choose to put in your story, but no drawing was allowed. This is where it varied from Little Bird Tales. Little Bird Tales also allowed you to record voice, which Story Jumper does not. Story Jumper, however looks more like a book. The pages move instead of Little Bird Tales where it plays in a movie format. Story Jumper also allows you to publish your books for a cost, but you can print the pages also. This seemed to be the greatest benefit of Story Jumper, being able to print the book afterward. Neither site allows for downloading of the stories or embed codes. They can only be viewed online through a link. After using both tools I would recommend Little Bird Tales before Story Jumper because it is more interactive and creative. However, Story Jumper will make great little books and you are able to set up a class right in the program which is very convenient for a lab setting. Therefore, even though I personally like Little Bird Tales I would recommend Story Jumper for certain scenarios.

Web 2.0 Assessments Reflection

I really enjoyed listening to the assessment podcast on Web 2.0 and visual learners in the digital age. As I was listening I was find myself nodding, "yes" ,"yes" , "agree".  The first thing that was discussed was the expectations that teachers think that by assigning a technology project students will be able to do it without difficulty, however this is not always the case. Therefore, it is important that teachers do the assignment before hand first. One in order to show them a good example, but two to see what kinds of issues may come up along the way that you can prep the students for. I think this is a great way to model work to students. People often ask how we are going to teach students to produce quality work, the easy answer is to model it. I thought this was a great topic and is definitely often not addressed by teachers.
I thought it was also interesting the discussion about visual learning and assessment in today's age. I agree that digital learning is often collaborative and therefore doing group technology projects are teaching students the collaborative skills they will need in the work force. This topic also got me thinking about how visual stimulating students are in classrooms today. I am starting to wonder when text will disappear and learning and assessment is only visual and kinesthetic.  Teaching itself has changed. There is less remote learning and more process learning. It is more of the how to think rather than memorization. I agreed with the podcast speakers that there still needs to be a balance between the two.
The other piece of this podcast that really sparked my interest was the discussion about instructional support to faculty and teachers. That this is needed especially with technology integration. This is because it can help bridge the gap between faculty and students in their levels of technology. It is also important because it allows teachers a support system to contact to try new ideas or learn new technologies. However, the last speaker made an excellent point about how the instructional support person needs to be an expert in pedagogy, not content, because technology is always changing. The teachers and faculty need someone that understands the learning process and how to integrate technology into it in this changing world. And I couldn't agree more.

Yammer

I received the invitation to Yammer and noticed initially that it looked like a Facebook style interface. As I continued to explore I noticed that it seemed to be a great use of announcements where the general wall (or news feed) was a place to leave comments, questions, and even polls. This seemed to be the main feature and the fact that you can have your own networks. Therefore, I think this would be a great use of announcements for a classroom or business where all users have the same e-mail domain. It seems like it would be a great place to leave notes for students, teachers, or members of a business. I think that it would help to eliminate the use of all staff e-mails and reminders. This way peoples e-mail would not be overflowed by announcements and reminders. Staff could instead log in to Yammer to see what is happening. I would suggest it is an application that would be open throughout the work day. I believe this is the best use of Yammer, almost like a closed message bored. However, I would love to hear about any other suggestions that someone my have.

YouTube Adventure!

Craig and I have put together quite an interesting Math Video! It is definitely interactive with lots of different videos with all sorts of links. At first it seemed really complicated, but in the end it was quite easy! I am amazed at all the stuff that YouTube has to offer to add to you videos. I had no idea! I will be sure to show these tools to anyone I know that is looking to make videos and publish them. So Easy! If you want help I will be happy to give a quick demo.


Now without further ado...  Parallelograms with Sheil and Benware

Ed Chat

Last nights Ed Chat was a fun experience for me. I decided to not only read, but also participate and I am glad I did. I find it interesting the others opinions and how different their schools can be. I find ed chat to also be a great way to meet educators that are willing to share and collaborate even though most of the discussion last night was about teachers that do not collaborate. Then I started to wonder how people are viewing my posts. I realized after I started to post, that these educators have no idea about my past experience of teaching, they are only focused on what I am saying. I think this is great because I am not worried that they are judging my comments because of my age or lack of years teaching. Once I came to this conclusion I felt more open to discussing my true opinions without worry about how I would be judged. I think I am going to really enjoy using ed chat to discuss teaching philosophy and reform. Can't wait for the next one!

Evernote

A while back now I downloaded Evernote on my computer because I was curious about it. It was during my sign up that I learned that Evernote was connected to twitter, which I really liked. However, it wasn't until I watch a tutorial on Evernote that I realized its true potential. You can use Evernote to send tweets, e-mails, files, and sounds to one place. I didn't realize this at first and it is a great idea. I am going to use Evernote as a digital binder type to keep things I find interesting, but don't have the time to explore right then. Almost like a tucked away folder. That way when I have time to experiment and explore I just go to one place, my Evernote, and look through all the great stuff. Stuff that I either got from e-mail, twitter, or friends. Not to mention it is even web based so I can access it anywhere if I have time. What a great resource to keep everything in one place and you can organize it once you check it out. I can't wait to start using Evernote this way.

Blogging with Math Students

I just started a classroom blog with my Algebra students. We have only done it this week, but I am very excited about the process and goal. I am having one student at the end of each class write a summary about what we completed for the day. They then have to write what was collected that day in class and what was for homework. I have decided to do this blog with these students because I find that they often do not internalize what we are learning and what is being asked of them. I thought by completing this blog that they would have to think about what we did today, not just things we do, but concepts we learned or talked about. This is very important for these students because they also need practice writing about math. I also like the blog because I have linked it to my website so that parents can be informed about what is happening on a day to day basis. So far I plan on giving a lot of help the first time the students are blogging. After that I am hoping they will take off on their own and be able to write about the class and really think about the math lesson that was presented. This is my biggest goal and I will hopefully have a better understanding if that is being achieved in about a month or so. Wish me luck! and the students!

Twitter and Ed Chat

I have been following numerous technology names on Twitter and I am loving it. Twitter has become a huge resource center for me. I am following people that not only like to communicate about education, but also like to share. I have found numerous links to tools and resources that I can use in my classroom and also share with other teachers to use in there's. I am very excited about twitter and the potential it has. However, there are times when I find twitter overwhelming. Some people that I follow tweet A LOT! I find this frustrating because it makes some of their material seem less valuable because it is done so often. I would prefer that they wait and tweet about something really exciting. This way you know it is something good. I tend to skim over the obsessive tweeters because I don't think that their stuff is as valuable. I do find things here and there, but they are not the ones that I look at as closely as others. I also participated in the edchat about 2 weeks ago. O boy! This was an amazing experience. It was overwhelming at first because it was hard to keep up, but the amount of information and discussion that was happening was awesome. I was so happy to see educators discussing change and their opinions about it. I did not feel the need to respond because I did not feel I had a valuable opinion worth sharing. I hope that as I participate more that I will feel confident sharing my thoughts on the issue. As much as I loved the idea of edchat and educators speaking of change one thing did get to me. I feel that this is the first step to making change, talking about it, however when will we get to the next step, actually doing it. Will this just happen one day? or do we need to have an uprising of educators and politicians to make this change? I am not sure the answer to this and it is what I ponder often. How I would love to see education reform, but how? when? Edchat got me thinking about these things and I will continue to follow in order to continue thinking...

Solar System Projects! Awesome!

I spent today working with Voice Thread with a third grade classroom. I would say that about 1/3 of the students were able to handle voice thread on their own and the others used the assistance of myself and the other teacher. I was so proud of this. The students wrote great facts about the solar system and the planet they chose and then recorded their voice. It was amazing to see how this project benefited all the children. Not only did the good readers excel, but the students that struggled were able to listen to their voice and practice saying their words correctly. The students were so excited for their projects and worked so well. I was happy to see the outcome! I have really enjoyed working with these students for the past week. However, I must say that we had a few technological issues with Voice Thread. I believe it may have been because too many students were accessing it at the same time, however we started doing it in stations calling students up one at a time for our assistance. This worked really well and I was even able to watch one student record his sentence, listen to it back, realize it didn't sound correctly and fix his grammar. What a learning experience!! Today was a great day and I would love to work on tech projects everyday with a classroom like this, such a rewarding experience. Check out one of the voice threads from a student that did this completely by themselves:

Working at an Elementary

I have now worked at an elementary school for 3 whole days as an IT role and I love it! I have found that it is a lot of fun working with teachers, giving them ideas, and helping them through their daily struggles with technology. I have worked closely with 2 teachers. One of these teachers I have started a Voice Thread project with and it is coming out great. There were 2 finished projects today and we listened to them as a class. I was so proud of the third graders, they did a great job. However, this would have been a difficult project without an extra set of hands (me) to help. This is why I enjoyed it. My sole role was to support the teacher and students in this project and it worked great. I am not sure if I would recommend this teacher to do this project alone because it has to be done in her classroom since the school does not have a lab. This is more difficult for her because of all the other obstacles that are happening day by day. However, this just reminds me of how necessary it is for a school to have a technology integrator. This school is without one and I sometimes think that I would love to take over that role. Today was such a great day. Students were learning and showing off their work and it was incredible.  I cannot wait to see how the rest of the projects come out.

Penguin Story Finally a Success

If you read my last post you would notice that I was frustrated because I couldn't write my penguin story in StoryBird, however I have found a different tool that will allow me to write exactly what I want and it's even better!!  Its called Little Bird Tales http://littlebirdtales.com/tales/sendTale/story_id/1084/ . This is better because it allows you to upload any pictures you want for the story or you can draw them using the paint tool that is embedded into the program. Then you can type your story into the picture. This isn't even the best part, you can also record your voice! So I have decided that I am going to do a little research and then finish my story about Penguins. I am going to draw all of my pictures using the paint, type the story under the pictures and then record myself reading the story. I will share this with the first and second grade teacher I am working with. My hope that she will want to create a story with her class allowing each student or groups of students to make a page in the story.

This tool is awesome, however I do not think it is always free. I was able to sign up for a free version, but I am not sure how long it lasts I wasn't able to check this out. Nevertheless, I am so happy that I found a way to write a penguin story with my one sentences, my own painted pictures, and my own recorded voice. YEAH!

Story Bird

After hearing about StoryBird this weekend at MESPA, I was excited to try it out. My initial hope was to be able to write a story about Penguins for a first and second grade classroom that was going to discuss Antarctica. However, I found some difficulties. I believe that StoryBird was intended to have people write stories give certain artwork, not vise versa. For example you can not choose an artist and get all sorts of penguin pictures. Instead you choose an artist and have to use those pictures. This caused my greatest issues. I was not able to generate pictures for the story I wanted to tell, but rather was asked to write a story given a number of pictures. No doubt StoryBird seems like a great tool for creative writing, however it was not serving the purpose I wished it to. I wonder if any others had this issue or if I was just lost in my effort to create my penguin story.

Baltimore Habitat For Humanity

Baltimore Habitat For Humanity

Baltimore Habitat For Humanity

Baltimore Habitat For Humanity

Blogging with MESPA

This is my first blog post ever!! I am so excited to share links and ideas for projects that I am finding! Look for further posts soon!! :)