Final Reflection

I felt that through taking the class CEP 810 I have both grown as a teacher and as a student of technology. The sessions each week were displayed in a way that many learning styles were able to be met. The videos were able to clarify and enhance concepts that I either had little knowledge on or that were a bit confusing. There were many technology concepts that I was able to either use myself, use in my classroom, or will try it in the future. I feel that my growth was supported by actually being able to try many concepts, such as Zoho, Jing, and Prezi. Part of my personal growth plan earlier in the semester was to use technology in three ways. They were to: expand my growth in using technology, to use one new technology concept in my classroom each week, and to share new technology with my peers at work.

These were the technology concepts that I brought into my classroom:

1. Jing: I used this to capture images of students drawing food chains on our interactive white board. We then came back to the images and used the editing tool to turn the food chain into a food web.
2. Ideas from a blog that I followed: There was a blog that showed ideas for kindergarten. Our classroom, is buddies with a kindergarten classroom and for a craft we used the idea of creating a brace map to display the parts of a scarecrow.
3. RSS feed ideas: I have used videos from my RSS feed in the classroom. Some include: synonym game and place value site.
4. Creative Commons: Students have practiced siting images they have used from the internet when working in groups.
5. Prezi: I created a storyboard for the book we read "Our Only May Amelia."
6. http://www.visuwords.com/ I used this with book clubs on new vocabulary they came across as they read.
7. I created a Smilebox creation depicting highlights from our Halloween party.

These were the technology concepts I shared with peers at my school:

1. Google Docs
2. Prezi
3. Jing
4. RSS feeds
5. Delicious bookmarks

These were the technology concepts that I have continued to use in my everyday life:

1. TPACK to help with my organization
2. Google Docs, Google Reader, and Google Presentation
3. Jing
4. Delcious bookmarks
5. Interactive Whiteboard information from the SIG presentations

I feel that I would have liked to grow a little more in understanding cloud computing. I tried to do some of my own research to better understand the concept and some of the apps available for teaching. I felt that my limitation to learning more about cloud computing was that since I only really understand it in the world of Google apps that I am constricted when trying to learn about it in other ways.

I also would have liked to learn more lessons that I could actually integrate into the classroom. There were a lot of technology resources available throughout the course but I felt that they were more helpful on an individual basis. However, I found discussion forum for lessons that integrated NETS-S resourceful.

Some concepts that I have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology are that first using it through modeling and then slowly releasing responsibility demonstrates scaffolding. Also, having students work in groups allow for them to problem solve first amongst themselves compared to coming straight to the teacher. One of my goals in my personal growth plan was for the students to have more self-discovery compared to me jumping into help and explaining each time. Since the course started I have released more technology responsibility to the students. I always model first so they can see the goal of the lesson in action. Students have been using some ideas that I got from MSU EduTech on MACUL Space. An example of this is that they have been doing group presentations using Prezi about long vowel words.

Integrating the Internet has helped me to think and evaluate the uses of technology in the fact that there are so many resources out there. From following a few 4th grade blogs, I was able to gain some sites to use in my classroom for all subjects. I even was able to uses a few sites on the same concept, such as place value and vocabulary. Also, I have become more aware of the fact that I need to have a critical eye when using the Internet since there is so much out there. Using quality control is really important so that they the technology used in the classroom is actually enhancing learning and not hampering or wasting valuable class time just to say it was utilized.

I feel that the assignment that I turned in that really exemplified good teaching with technology was the Personal Learning Network Visualization Plan. I like to use project based learning as much as possible. I feel that this project was opened ended so that I, as a student, could use the type of technology that meshes best with my learning style. I decided to use iMovie since integrating sound, pictures, and movement is very hands on.

I also found that the SIG project was an amazing opportunity. I was very hesitant to learn that there would be an online group project. I did not know how this could be possible. However, through the use of Google Docs, Google Presentation, and especially Google Chat, our group came together. It was incredible to see our group talking to one another online while we edited our project. It truly showed that online collaboration is possible.

As I look back at my Personal Growth Plan, I had three main goals. One was to integrate at least one new technology each week in my classroom so that students could have more self-discovery compared to being so teacher directed. A second was to share technology tips with peers at my school. Finally, the third was to increase my technology skill set. As highlighted above I was able to meet all of these goals. I feel that I became well rounded from this class since my goals were not only centered around my classroom or myself, but also to share technology tips with my peers. I even have shown my family some new sites and tips that awed them, such as Jing and Delicious.

A new goal I have for myself is to begin a blog for my classroom as noted in my Technology Plan. I feel that it would be beneficial for parents and other educators to gain an insight into our classroom each day. I see it starting as teacher directed but then students could take turns writing a post about each day of school. I will reach this goal by continuing to look at mentor blogs, such as the 4th grade blogs I follow on my Google Reader. I will also try to gain feedback from families and teachers at school as to the type of information they would like to see in the blog.

My long-term goal after this course is to continue widening the scope of my technology knowledge. I signed up to take CEP 811 in the spring and will take CEP 812 in the summer. I plan to keep integrating technology into my classroom daily and hope there will be professional development opportunities possible each year. I became more confident in my use of technology throughout this course and believe it will continue to grow and expand.

Learning Styles

My learning styles:

• Tactile/Kinesthetic
• Visual

Types of teaching strategies more effective to my learning style:

• Tactile/Kinesthetic: Hands-on approach, exploration of what is being taught, many breaks, listening to music while working, skimming thought materials before really digging into it, and making around to learn new things.
• Visual: Being able to see everything that is going on. May visual displays such as charts, diagrams, illustrations, videos, notes, hand-outs, and other images. Taking detailed notes with highlighting important details.

Types of teaching strategies less effective to my learning style:

• Tactile/Kinesthetic: Sitting for a long time, not being about to explore myself, and listening for long periods of time.
• Visual: Listening without any visual representations, many verbal distractions, images without pictures and diagrams,

We can't teach each lesson focusing on every learning style that we have in the classroom. What should be our focus instead?

• In each lesson it would be beneficial to have visual, auditory, and tactile elements to the lesson. When giving directions you can orally say them, write them on the board, and also have the kids practice them by moving.
• You can make sure that students have a chance to work independently, with pairs, and with materials so that students can watch, listen and actively participate.
• Visual learners make of many of the population then auditory and then tactile. However, all three styles should be in each lesson to best meet the needs of as many students as possible.

Creative Commons Lab

**I had to change my image since the Lansing Capital Building image was not allowed to be downloaded.

Photo Attribution

Original image: "The mascot pup after a bath in 1943"

Image Url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/australian-war-memorial/3526345203/

By: Ronald Keith Monro

License URL: http://www.awm.gov.au/about/copyright/index.asp

Image

Photo Attribution

Original image: "Michigan State Capital"

Image URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/larrythebiker/47034025/

By: Larry the Biker

License URL: http://www.flickr.com/help/general/#147

I use images in my classroom all the time. Just today we read a book about tap dancing and most of my students have not seen this before. I shared both images from my Google search and videos from You Tube. Students then asked if they could have them put up on our classroom sites so they could view them at home. The copyright of these are important to know since I was sharing them with my class and then they might be sharing these with others.

I would use this image in my classroom since we are currently learning about the Michigan government. Most students have not traveled outside of the town they currently live in and would be interested to see what an actual capital building looks like. I could use this image to compare and contrast how the city town hall looks in the area which the students go to school at compared to the Lansing State Capital. It would be important to share with the students that I did not take this photo since credit is due to the correct person. I would share the cite of this image with them so they understand more about citing and the responsibility with it.

From cep 810

From cep 810

PC Maintenance and Security

Tutorial 1: : Explaining Cookies.

One thing that I learned that I would like to share with others is that cookies are small information bites that are placed on your computer and this is how websites keep track of you. There are two types persistent cookies and session cookies. Persistent cookies are ones that track your interactions on a site each time you visit and session cookies only track each individual session separately.

I was surprised to learn that cookies are what track and remember your name when you come back to a site. The example the tutorial gave was that when you set up an account with amazon and make a few purchases and come back in to login into the site it welcomes you with your name and suggested items to purchase based on past items bought. When I completed my online Scholastic book order this morning cookies tracked my previous purchase also an suggested books to buy.

Tutorial 2: Sandboxie

I think it is important to know about this product since it can be downloaded from the Internet and its purpose is for information from the Internet to not go straight back to your hard drive but to this program Sandboxie. You then have complete security on the Internet.

The thing that surprised me the most was that you can use this program through your web browser so that anything you click on or download does not come back to your hard drive but is stored in the Sandboxie.

Tutorial 3: Setting up preferences in Google search

You can filter searches in Google by clicking preferences and then following down until you get to filtering safe searches. Then there are three options and you can pick strict filtering.

I was surprised to hear that you can pick how many search results come up. The default is ten but there could be up to 100. It would be helpful to know this since it would connect with the type of searches a person does and how time is available.

Tutorial 4: Malwear and how you get it

This word is defined as being "malicious software to destroy, wreak havoc, hide potentially incriminate information and and damage computer software." It is meat to "break your computer" and is an umbrella term for many examples of Malwear.

I was surprised to hear how you get it. It can come from downloaded pictures, games, and software. It can come from pop ups, emails, and peer to peer software sharing. These all can include viruses, even Instant Messenger can hurt your computer if your computer is not updated with anti-virus protection systems.

More reflection using the RSS Reader

Time is always precious when teaching, but when it comes to conference week this is even more true. I also had a new student start this week and in the midst of everything I was having some trouble connecting to him since he has been so shy and quiet. However, we had our book fair this week and he picked out a Goosebumps book. I remember from the Scholastic blog that I am following on my RSS Reader that the site had games and other activities about the Goosebumps that he had bought from the book fair. I was able at school during a snack break to quickly call him up to my desk to share this site.

First, I opened up my Google Reader. Then I scrolled down to the Scholastic blog and was able to get to the site to show him the interactive games that connected to his Goosebumps book. He lit up and I started to feel a connection. Since the site was on my RSS Reader and not saved to my bookmark bar bar on my MAC at home I was able to access the site anywhere.

The RSS feeds have saved me a lot of time when searching for ideas. I have been able to follow 4th grade blogs that have given me great sites to visit with my own 4th graders. I don't have to read through the whole blog but am able to just get the highlights with what I want to look more into. I also continue to follow a kindergarten website. My classroom is buddies with a kindergarten classroom in the school. I have been searching for a fall activity to do with both ages that is appropriate. The feed had pictures of scarecrows that a class made and then created it into a brace thinking map. I also was able to share this site with the kindergarten teacher since our school is working on using thinking maps. The teacher has been struggling with how to integrate it into her kindergarten curriculum and this site had a few appropriate examples. She then shared it with the other kindergarten teachers. This all was made possible since using the Google Reader.

Continuation of using the RSS feeder

As October is already upon us the some of the blogs and feeds that I am following are beginning to touch upon ideas and things going on this month. The Scholastic feed that I am following has a video interview with J.K. Rowling and also a video on a mall that has a Goosebumps Horror Land video. I am always trying to find ways to engage my readers. Many of my students follow series and would benefit from watching these videos as they continue to grow intrinsically as a reader by wanting themselves to read more. I often feel that my students read the books and get so attached to what is going on in the book that they glaze over the fact that it was written by someone. Each of my students are writers themselves and if they can begin to see the connection between their writing being read by others readers they can take literacy to the next level.

Using the Google Reader page to quickly see highlights of blogs and feeds have allowed me to have more technology integration in the classroom. It has also not taken up too much time. I am able to share more videos like the ones shared by Scholastic and game from Ms. O'Brien's blog. It has really taken motivation of my students and engagement to another level.

Getting things done

I have always been the person to have a pad of paper and a pencil by my bedside. I would always write my to do lists. When I finished a few items I would cross those off. Then I could create a new list on a post it or a scrap piece of paper with the remaining items and a few new ones. This process continues forever since there are always new items to be completed in my life. I would have a few small notebooks going on a once since just having the process of writing allowed me to prioritize even if I had a few lists going at once.

For this GTD lab I decided to use Google mail as a new process.

1. Collect: All emails are sent to my work gmail account. I use Google Calendar so all reminders for events are also sent to my email.

2. Process: The process was at first overwhelming because I have always been the person to either keep the email forever or delete it. So when emails began to pile up since I was not going to have these only two outcomes I became nervous.

3. Organize: Once I created labels to categorize each email into things started to fall into place. I create a label for each subject area, teams I am apart of for my school, parent emails, meap, and so on. I also was able to flip between my email and Google calendar to see what is going on with the school, my grade level, and I added things going on in my room.

4. Review:I feel that the process is already starting to help me because when I open my email I read the email and then moments later categorize it into a label. The reduces all the inbox emails and deleting something I may need at a later date. Currently, when I open my email all the labels are on the side with emails slotted into the corresponding area and the calendar has events highlighted depending on place (school, grade, classroom).

5. Do: I do feel that I will continue this process. It took a lot of time in the beginning since I needed to create all the labels. However, now the process is starting to fall into place is the structure is already put into place. I plan to even spend time doing this for my home email. I can create labels for this cep 810 class, coupons that I get, travel documents, and other. I am looking forward to this organization!

Social bookmarking

I have been familiar with using delicious since a previous class I had through MSU used this site. I went to Australia the summer of 2008 for a Pre-internship Study Abroad. I took two masters courses and lived and taught with an Australian teacher for a month. Our study abroad leader helped our group set up a delicious site where we all shared websites about Australia and teaching there. I used the site before I went there but when I came back the life of student teaching took over and I have not used it since.

Unlike learning a bike, remembering how to use it did not come right back to me. I was able to add some sites, but need to find enough time to really utilize it. I have in my browser sites divided by subject area and grade level that I can move into delicious so I can access these sites both from work and from home. Currently this is what my delicious site looks like and I hope that I can add many more sites quickly.

Social networking and my life

After exploring Ning, LinkedIn, and Facebook I feel that these social networking sites fit best into my life in the professional aspect. I usually spend so much time looking for resources that align with the curriculum that I teach, technology to be using during tech time, and "googling" things that time flies by without being as productive as I could be.

However, using some of these social networking site can allow me to visit one site and see suggested items to explore or unitize in my classroom compared to just searching for them individually.

I know that my district uses Twitter and Facebook to send out messages about great things that are going on our district so that press releases are positive. I taught summer school and a teacher took video on his I Phone of students putting up a tent and then writing about it. This was then shared on our Facebook page for families to see unique opportunities available through the summer school program.

I already use Voicethread in my classroom. Students will write and illustrate works. Last year we made class books on homophones and contractions. Students then recorded their voices to go with their page of the class book. We also completed shared writing where students recorded their voices to go with the sentence they contributed to our shared writing. After reading the Educational Networking Wiki, I was thinking about how I can use both this technology and others with my students. One individual shared that kindergartners wrote a class book in America and the same aged children in Turkey collaborated in this book with recording their voices in their language. My 4th grade classroom is reading buddies with a kindergarten classroom in my school. The partnerships could work on a class book and record voices to the book so that both classrooms would benefit from its use. This also would be an opportunity for my to show other teachers in the school Voicethread and how uniquely it could be used in kindergarten when children are just learning how to read.

Continuing to follow my RSS feeder

Day 3

I am spending my Friday night with a nice cup of hot apple cider grading and working on coursework. I am noticing that all but one of the blogs from 4th grade classrooms have not been updated to reflect upon today's school day. There were 128 new feeds when I entered my Google Reader last night compared to 56 tonight. The Tech and Learning feed had three new information links that I viewed today. All three of them brought me to the main page but I was able to explore from there my interested. I looked into "best practices" and "ideas and opinions." I felt that I kept getting directed to the same page which did not have articles that interested me. However, using the Google Reader saves time since I am able to see the title and quickly browse the articles and posts from blogs. I found it helpful since not only is a teacher's time valuable but most individual's time is limited.

I really enjoyed being able to connect to a professional learning community outside of my school. I was able to see what other teachers at not only my grade level but in all ends of teaching are doing in their classrooms and strives they have made in the digital community. I especially was interested in the feed from ISTE Connects- Educational Technology about the movie "Waiting for Superman." My Superintendent mentioned the movie on our district's opening day and I have not previously heard anything about the movie. Since it came up on the RSS page I was able to dig a lot deeper into what the movie was actually about and even watch a movie trailer.

From my exploration these past few days with the RSS reader I plan to share the use of it with teacher and parents at my school. I have a small handful of parents that consistently use the internet and we keep in close contact with sharing education sites. If we were able to inform each other using the Google Reader it would cut down on emails between individual families. I can also do the same with peers at my school. At a conference this morning, we were given many sites on autism. I could look for blogs and if I could follow these sites and then add them to a folder on my Google Reader. They then would either be able to be shared or if fellow teachers decided to also have a Google Reader we would be able to share items.

Following my RSS Reader

Day 1

At first, I felt that using the Google RSS Reader was a little overwhelming. I had difficulty finding blogs and other feeds to apply to. However, I started to think about the websites that I visit most often and from there I was able to add new feeds to my Reader. I am always checking Scholastic, Apple, and the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCEs). All of these sites I was able to add to my Reader. Then I became creative in my google searches. I first searched 4th blogs in Michigan and there was not many possibles. Following this search, I made the quest more board and looked for solely 4th grade blogs since I am a 4th grade teacher. I added five 4th grade blogs. The first day that I added these feeds was yesterday and when I was searching through them I felt as if I was reading a newspaper. There were many headlines and content to dig deeper into. I first was drawn to the feeds from Webblogg-ed and the GLCEs since that day I had just been at a curriculum meeting for my district, in which I would be helping to align the GLCEs to the new Core Standards for math in 3rd and 4th grade. I was able to see that Webblogg-ed seems to be much more updated than the GLCEs.

Day 2

Coming into today I feel much more opened minded about using the Google Reader. I was able to take time to look through each of the feeds that I receive. I paid special attention to the five 4th grade blogs that I added to my feed. Two of the five have not updated posts since March and May. I did not find these too helpful since much of the information was outdated. However, two of the other feeds are actually from the same school. I was amazed to see the amount of information shared with families and to the degree of technology used. There were websites with math games and more shared with families, daily homework, spelling words, videos used in school, and even on the actual blog a Twitter following of dates and assignment due dates. I posted a comment on Mr. O'Brien's 4th grade blog about how useful I found it as a fellow teacher. The communication was very clear and creative.

I scrolled through past posts and have saved many of the website games and videos to share with my 4th grade classroom.

I felt that using the Goggle Reader today was much more manageable since I was more open minded. I scanned each one and found the short headlines helpful since I could quickly view the items I wanted to learn more about and those I was not as interested in.

The Scholastic feed was especially appealing since the videos stood out. I did not know that authors record themselves reading books that they have published. I plan on sharing some of these videos with my readers since I am always looking for ways to keep engagement in reading. I have many students that follow series and will be interested to see the author of 39 Clues come to life in the video shared.

I have a classroom website that I update each week on homework, spelling words, newsletters and calendar information. I also have sidebars for each of the subject areas that have games and helpful websites. When my class goes to tech time they know how to login to my Moodle page and from there can click on the site we will be using for the day compared to typing in the long address. I plan to add more sites to my webpage and even some videos that I discovered during my exploration of my RSS Reader today. I found a rap place value video and also a rounding video I think would be engaging to my class.

The differences between traditional web pages and blogs

After reading and exploring blogs and web pages I have discovered that a main difference between the two are that web pages are created to be viewed and used by others by using the link and information already provided. Blogs are more interactive and collaborative. Individuals can comment to posts and each and every page created. Communication between both the creator and viewers of the blog can be seen on posts and also regulated by the administrator who created the blog. I created my own classroom website so that families and students could access information such as copies of homework, useful websites, and calendar dates. I used a blog during my TE 401 class when I was sharing a project and wanted feedback on my work and also for collaboration.