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![]() What have I learned in this class One of the greatest lessons that I have learned from this course is that technology can be integrated into traditional classroom teaching in many meaningful ways. Many classroom technologies can be used without making drastic shifts in lesson planning. There are so many technologies that have been developed with classroom instruction in mind. The addition of technology use in the classroom aids in teaching diverse students. Technology can make differentiated instruction easier to achieve. Ultimately, implementing technology in classroom instruction is imperative to educating the 21st century student. The following is a list of tools and technologies that were used in ITD 645. I will discuss what the tool is, how I personally like the tool, how helpful it is to instruction, and if I plan on using it in my own teaching. Tools Google Suite (Google Form, Google Slides, and Google Docs) Google Suite is a web based service that is similar to Microsoft Office. It has many integrated collaboration features like real-time simultaneous group editing. This feature is great for group projects since it allows multiple students to work on the same presentation or document at the same time on their own computer, tablet, or phone. I personally am a huge fan of the Google Suite. I use it for all of my own processing, quizzes and tests, and presentation creation. I really like that I can access all of my files from any computer with an internet connection. Podcast A podcast is a digital voice recording that students can access both in school or at home. Podcasts are a great way to deliver content and explanation of concepts. This is a great tool to use if a teacher is using a flipped classroom design. I personally listen to a lot of podcasts, however I do not use them very often in my own teaching. I do sometimes make recordings of myself reading text aloud and posting it in Google Classroom for students that have difficulty reading or students who would rather listen than read the information. As I make the shift to teaching a new subject matter, mathematics, I will have to do some research and see how practical it is to incorporate this technology into my teaching. I feel that this technology is very good for Social Studies, ELA, and Science classes. Movie Story A movie story is the use of images, still or motion, to draw the attention of the student while verbally delivering content through an audio recording. There are many great resources for creating Movie Stories. I personally use iMovie on my MacBook, but Windows Movie Maker also works well. This tool is a great way to teach students who learn through different modalities. Whether a movie story is used in whole group or individual instruction, it is a great tool for delivering content and engaging students. This is a tool that I plan on utilizing more in my own instruction. I think that it could be very useful in demonstrating word problems and breaking down different ways to conceptualize the information contained within word problems. EDpuzzle EDpuzzle is a video clip editor that allows educators to embed questions within the video. The online service also has data collection features that show if the videos are being viewed and how well students are performing on the embedded assessments. This was a new tool for more and one that I fell in love with. I really think that EDpuzzle will be a great addition to my teaching. Anytime that I am showing a video, I can create formative assessments to assist in my students’ understanding of the material being presented. Blog & Forum This is a great tool for students to post weekly reflections on classwork, readings, problems in the course, etc. By allowing students the venue to reflect and respond to reflections, it allows students to organize their own thoughts about the coursework and assist other students who demonstrate gaps in their understanding. While having weekly reflections can be burdensome simply by having the weekly time due date, I really enjoy doing reflections. The use of Weebly.com for creating a blog roll has worked well for this technology. I am not sure how I would implement this into a math class though. I feel this is very well suited for classes with readings. It is not impossible to use it in a math class, however, it may be difficult to justify having students to write reflections in a math class to administrators. I believe many would be adverse to the idea of grading students on a writing component. Rubistar Rubistar is an online rubric creator. It has one feature that makes it really useful for educators, it has self generating fields based on input categories. This makes creating a rubric for a project or assignment very easy and quick. When teaching Social Studies, I used rubrics often. They were time consuming to create, however, Rubistar makes this a breeze. This is a product that I will be using in the future. Quizizz Quizizz is an online content review tool. The instructor can make a set or series of questions that students will then work through. There are other similar online programs like Quizzlet and Kahoot, but Quizizz has a few distinguishing features. Its most notable feature is that it allows students to work through items at their own pace. This takes away the impulsive answers, of platforms like Kahoot, and requires the student to thoughtfully progress through the set. After seeing Quizizz is action I plan to use this in my own teaching. I think it will help students that have anxiety issues with only having 20 seconds to answer a complicated question. Quizizz focuses on correct responses, which is what should be measured rather than speed. Thinglink Thinglink is a simple concept map design that allows the teacher to embed website or video links over the concept map. Students then can hover over the map and select different links to fully explore the concept. The media that is embedded can be externally linked or integrated through Thinklin’s internal database of sources. This is a tool that I would have demo more before I used it in one of my math classes. I personally like the tool if I were teaching a Social Studies class. It would be a great way to introduce a new unit or lesson concept. Scoopit Scoopit is a web based scrolling news feed that is curated by the instructor. This tool allows the instructor to tag or scoop websites and display the linked information in an appealing visual demonstration. When planning a unit, it would be a very useful tool to use to organize all of the articles, videos, and websites that could be used to teach the unit. Then it could be refined to smaller topics. I really like the layout of Scoopit and its visual components. I will be looking to see how I can implement this into my class. Padlet Padlet is an online bulletin board that allows an instructor to curate a board and also allows for multiple editors so that students could also assist in the board creation. I think this is a very useful tool to map out a topic with students. Articles, videos, blogs, and websites can be linked to create a mind map that is visually appealing and very interactive. Students can then use the platform to view information at home or in class. I like that Padlet offers several different ways to view the information on its page. This would also be a great tool for planning a unit or a lesson. I feel that it is something that could be easily integrated into a class structure and will aid in student collaboration. My strong and weak points I really do not feel that learning a new technology is a very difficult thing for me to do. I really enjoy technology and showing others how to use the technology. I am constantly asked to show a colleague how to operate a feature of Google Apps or research a particular technology. My weak point would be that I am very much a creature of habit. Once I find something that works great, I have a tendency to only want to use that one program or feature. Future learning goals In the future I want to continue looking for tools that will encourage student learning and make teaching a streamlined process. To accomplish this I plan to continue researching technologies and be reflective and open to changing the technologies that I use in class. To do this I have subscribed to several education technology newsletters, blogs, and vlogs. This will keep new trends in my purview. I also want to do a better job of creating and leading professional developments to demonstrate how other teachers can use these tools in their own classrooms to increase student achievement.
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![]() Question #3: Consider your level of educational technology literacy as you complete this course. How competent do you believe you are in order to teach in a technology-rich environment? What other opportunities would you search for to become even more proficient in the use of technology in the classroom? As I finish ITD 645 I feel confident in my level of technological literacy. I have always been somewhat of a techie. I have quickly begun integrating new technologies into my classrooms. Many of the technology pieces I use have been focused on making teaching easier for me. However, during the course of this class I have found many new technology pieces that will be beneficial for my students, aiding them in a richer depth of learning. I have fallen in love with Quizizz, GimKit, Edpuzzle, Padlet, and one new technology not from the class, Poll Everywhere. These new additions to my teaching will help students with brainstorming, having focused content delivery, and also help me with formative assessments during lessons. I feel that these additions with help me to be the most effective teacher I can, as well as drawing students into purposeful, relevant, instruction. To help keep up with changing technologies and also find new technologies that could be implemented in teaching, I would suggest following a few newsletters, blogs, and video blogs. First, EdSurge has a great news section for educational technologies for PK-12. This site has new content and technology reviews posted regularly. Also, Edutopia has great articles and newsletters that aid in proper tech use and new technologies. Second, find a good blogger that offers tech resources. A few that I like are EdTech RoundUp and Steve Hargadon. They both frequently write technology posts and with worthwhile content. Lastly, find a few vloggers that you can follow that will keep you up to date on emerging technologies. If you need help with Google Classroom, follow Alice Keeler. Keeler has created many great tutorials and helps for Google Classroom and always demos new features. Another great vlog to follow is friEd Technology by Amy Mayer. ![]() Question #2: There is a fine line between students’ right to express themselves (freedom of speech) and the requirement that educators must protect all students from inappropriate commentary and invasion of privacy. How will you handle balancing your student’s right to express and the requirement that they behave as good digital citizens when using technology in school? Give examples. Background I am a huge proponent of free speech. The freedom to speak one's mind and conviction is a cornerstone of Libertine Principles and a part of the founding ethos of American Society. I firmly believe that people should be allowed to speak boldly. The freedom of speech is a two edged sword though. It can be a great tool that allows one to know the true nature of the individual. It is a window into the very soul of people. I feel this is important for our public discourse as well as education in general. However, there is another side to free speech: an ugly side. Today, many struggle with the concept of free speech itself. If people are totally free to say anything they feel, what stops them from saying truly evil things? What stops people from being racist, intolerant, or bigoted? This is a very big issue today, especially with digital speech. The digital platform amplifies free speech to a colossal magnitude. People are less likely to filter themselves when they post. Sometimes they post statements out of ignorance or possibly even hate. Should this be allowed in an educational sphere? I personally believe that the educational atmosphere should give students the most freedom to express themselves as possible. This allows the educator to truly know the depth of knowledge of content matter and even learn the thought processes of their students. Inevitably though, students will say things on digital platforms that are intolerant or harmful to other students. If this happens here are a few suggestions: Show Grace My personal development as an educator, even more basely as a human, has taken a long time. I have held a variety of viewpoints in the past. Some viewpoints that were ignorant, viewpoints that were acceptable but wrong, and viewpoints that were harmful to myself and others. It has taken years of mentorship to develop me into the person I am today. Today, I am a very tolerant person. Not that I agree with views or lifestyles of everyone I talk to, however, I value them as a peer and a fellow citizen. I have had many times where I was personally pulled aside and shown grace by teachers, parents, friends, and coworkers. In these moments I learned to see my own views for what they were. Students need to be able to make mistakes. It is my role as an educator to show grace and help develop students into great citizens. Be Vigilant My first year of using Google Classroom was fraught with errors. No one at my school was using this LMS and I had no idea how to fine tune the settings to best suite my class. Google Classroom has a integrated social media component that lets students post to a news feed. I was made aware before class one day that several students were posting inappropriate things on the feed. It was at this point that I realized that I had to become more vigilant or more oppressive. I could easily turn off all communication through the site. Turning off the lines of communication though limits students' access to me. I had a two week long project with a Monday due date. There was one student that had some confusion about a part of the assignment. They could have asked on Friday, but they either forgot or had not even encountered their question yet. I got a notification at 10:30 pm and was able to answer my student's question, guiding them to success. This small freedom, gave them the ability to achieve. For this reason I made it a daily practice to peruse the news feed. Yes, some students posted inappropriate things. They had their posts deleted, their account voice muted, and some strong mentorship lol. This is a small change that helped so many of my students. Have a Plan It is a given that there will be inappropriate use of free speech each year. It is important to decide what steps you will take before the situation arises. One of the greatest tools that I use is an arm of the PBIS program called Social-Emotional Learning. I frequently have students write reflections or fill out a reflections form that I issue them for behavioral reasons. Having students write about their behavior makes them more thoughtful about how it impacts them and others. It also gives them time to process their actions and gives them an option on how to rectify their behavior. Here are links to the forms that I use: Behavior Reflection Sheet and Behavior Reflection Issued Form. These two forms are my go to. One is a student reflection and the other is a tracking form that I personally use. It lets me see who has been issued a form and also allows me check if they have turned it back in. Also, I read their reflection and rate the integrity of the writing. I have received reflections that missed their purpose. Week 7 Group Reflection
This week was another very easy week for our group dynamic. I really feel that we have found a great rhythm and system for getting our group work done. This week we had solid communication early on. We delegated assignments and made a plan for getting everything accomplished. It was another smooth week. I worked on the Rubistar assignment this week. I have made many rubrics for class assignments over the past two years. Generally, a good rubric takes a lot of time to create. The Rubistar program was great for quickly creating a rubric using a list of generic grading fields. The site was a little cumbersome and quirky to operate at first, but I managed and was able to create a detailed rubric using the system. Saving the file was awkward. The site renders the file into an antiquated Excel format that has issued opening in MS Excel. I uploaded the file to Google Drive and Google Sheets had no ability to open as it was intended. I believe that a PDF format is the way to go if you chose to use Rubistar. Quizizz vs. Kahoot One of the greatest differences I discovered with Quizizz is that students are not pressured for time. Allowing students to complete the assignment on their own timing allows the student to demonstrate competency of a standard on their own terms. A non-competitive student, who would normally give up in a Kahoot, is allowed to finish the Quizizz at their own pace. This helps to increase proficiency as well as the depth of knowledge. Project 10 Rubistar Rubric - Your Ideal Colony PowerPoint Project Quizizz Project 11 Thinglink Scoopit ![]() Question #3: Select the five distance-learning technologies that you would prefer to use if you were teaching a distance-education or blended course. Reflect on your teaching style and your students’ learning styles and how each of the selected technologies would be received, depending on the students’ learning styles. (Two students can answer this question) My Top Five As an educator there are a few criterion that are musts for a technology that I use in-class or for distance learning. The first is that the tech needs to be free. The second is that it needs to be easy. The final thing is that the technology needs to be easily applied to both in-class instruction and distance learning. The following list was created with these three criterion in mind.
I feel that these technologies integrate well within my teaching style. I have always used a lot of technology in my classroom. I currently use Google Classroom as my LMS. This allows students to know when assignments are due, as well as have access to all my course materials 24 hours a day. Note might get lost, but there is another set waiting to be printed on Classroom. I also have used Khan Academy a great deal for their articles as a supplement to the textbook and class lectures. Khan Academy fully integrates with Google Classroom and makes for easy assignment transfer between the platforms. I imagine that I will use Loom a lot more this year than I have in the past. I usually use Loom to teach make-up lessons that students request. I teach the lecture portion of the class using the picture-in-picture function on Loom, and then post the URL link for the student(s) in Google Classroom. New additions to my teaching tech repertoire for this year will be Poll Everywhere and Edpuzzle. During the coursework for ITD 645 I discovered Poll Everywhere and was able to use it to create a Slides presentation with integrated formative assessments. I plan on using this feature nearly every day this upcoming year. Currently I will be teaching some students on campus and some online simultaneously. Poll Everywhere will allow me to pull online students into the classroom experience by allowing them to interact in the class in real time. Additionally, Edpuzzle will allow me to create supplemental videos that contain that similar formative assessment piece. I feel the two technologies will improve both the in-class experience, as well as the distance learning experience. Group Reflection for Week 6 This week flowed really smoothly like last week. Early in the week, Melissa scheduled a Microsoft Teams meeting where we discussed the group projects for the week, as well as the weekly blog questions. We discussed our group member's strengths and weaknesses pertaining to the week's agenda, and then we split up the assignments based on our strengths. This week I worked on creating an Edpuzzle video for the group and also contributed to the resources page on our group's website. The week was very productive, stress free, and I learned a great new technology that I want to use in my class this next year. Week 6 Projects Project 6 Movie Story - Life in the New England Colonies Project 7 Edpuzzle Video - Life in Colonial America - Access Code: girehke Project 8 Course Site - The 13 Colonies Project 9 Padlet - 13 Colonies ![]() Question #2: Many are concerned about the use of social media in school. Describe your views of the pros and cons of using social media. How will you use this tool in your classroom and what are your greatest concerns in doing so? Social Media Use in School Statistics from Pew Research state that as much as 90% of children ages 13-17 use a social media platform and 71% use multiple platforms. A 2018 study found that 85% of students 13-17 use YouTube. 72% of students use Instagram and 69% use Snapchat. It is clear that a majority of the students we teach are daily using social media platforms. It has become a normal part of their lives. The real question, however, is should this platform be integrated into their educational experiences as well? The following is a 2013 list of Pros and Cons from teacherthought.com. The goal of this blog is to see if the pros and cons, which are now over seven years old, have become dated and need to be revised, or if they are still prescient for today's educators. The Pros 1. Engaged Students are More Successful 2. Social Media Teaches Important Life Lessons 3. It's 'Real World' Engagement is a top priority for teachers. If a student is engaged in the lesson they will retain what is taught at a deeper level. Social Media connects the classroom to the world around the school. Current events, trends, and ideas can easily be incorporated into the classroom. Also, many students perceive Social Media as the real world. It is what they are most familiar with, and honestly, the most stable and uniform part of life for students nationwide. One of my favorite class projects is to create a low-tech Social Media thread or profile. Students are much more engaged in creating a Facebook or Instagram profile of a historical figure than writing a biography. Both exercises are performing the same tasks, however, many students engage in the social media project while they abhor the biography. The Cons 1. The Internet Is a New Medium For Bullying 2. Social Media Can Be a Time Suck 3. The Internet Is a Dangerous Place The Cons for using social media are strangely prescient for adults as well as students. Social media is a haven for trolls and bullies. As an adult, I have a hard time managing my time and usage of social media. I know that students have more difficulty putting their phones down. Countless hours have been wasted scrolling through news feeds and camera rolls. Also, there seems to be a limitless amount of phishing scams that are pushed on social media. As I scroll through Facebook, I see numerous people everyday claiming to have been "hacked." The truth is that they are clicking unsecure links on social media that gives their information to a third party phishing organization. Adults and students fall prey to these information attacks on a daily basis. This does not even touch on the more criminal sectors of the internet like under-age pornography and sex trafficking that specifically targets teenagers across the United States. For classroom use it is important to use a neutral platform. I really like using the news stream in Google Classroom. Students can post questions, comments, photos, etc. At the beginning of the year students must be taught social media etiquette for the class use of social media. Also, the teacher should set rigid expectations regarding the class' social media page. The teacher must also constantly monitor the feed to ensure that the online class environment is being kept a safe and neutral space for learning. It is time consuming, but the benefits of having students connected to the teacher in a professional capacity throughout the evenings and weekends has been a big help for my own classroom. I am always happy to answer weekend questions about an assignment. That real, or quicktime, feedback is necessary for student success. Project 2-5 Reflection This week our group projects seemed to run very smoothly. We meet early in the week to discuss each project and our team members personal strengths, weaknesses, and choices on the week's assignments. We also set a time frame to have all of our rough drafts done so that our group members could view, make edits, and sign off on the assignments. We really hit our stride this week. I personally worked on two of the assignments this week. Amelia and I teamed up, mostly Amelia, on the project 2 assignment. We started with a general framework of the lesson and I inserted comments and suggested activities. I also worked on the project 4 assignment creating a Google Slides presentation and a reading assignment using Google Docs. Melissa assisted me with this assignment. One thing that I have yet to utilize in my own classes is the Poll Everywhere Add-on for Google Slides. This tool is an amazing formative assessment tool. It allows the instructor to add questions that can be answered in real time by the student within the Google Slide presentation. The answers can be submitted via and website or text messaging. The classes results are then displayed instantaneously. I used two of the features (Poll Everywhere has many more) within our group presentation. I started the presentation with asking students to type a one word response to what the word "Southern" brings to mind. Poll Everywhere then turns the results into a word wall that can be discussed as an attention grabber. I also had two other formative assessment multiple choice style questions in the presentation. I really like the functionality of this Google Slide add-on and plan on using it in this upcoming school year. My district has proposed that students will be able to choose to do traditional, staggered days, or fully online school this year. Teachers will have to accommodate whatever choice the student and their family makes. Using Poll Everywhere will allow me to foster classroom engagement as I have live stream and traditional settings being taught simultaneously. Students at home will be able to participate in the class just like as student in the room. Projects 2-5 Files Project 2 - Lesson Plan Project 3 - Technology Survey Project 4 - Google Doc Project 4 - Google Slide Project 5 - Podcast Week 5 Group Evaluation |
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