Thing 15 Staying Informed Reflection

I have been using Google Reader since March of 2012. It has changed the way I find information on the web. It brings feeds from different blogs and news agencies all together in one place. From this one place, I can choose to go out to the individual blogs to read more, especially if a feed has been truncated. Several blogs that I follow truncate their feeds because their blog entries were being posted verbatim on other “gathering” sites without necessarily providing links back to the original writer or blog. Another important thing to know about an RSS aggregator is that if I only read the content in the agggregator, the blog author doesn’t get the site usage information they would otherwise gather through products like Google Analytics. That site usage information may be used to help the blog owner make money or to help the blog owner decide what kind of content will be created next based on high traffic postings. I love my Google Reader and when an author creates something that is important enough to read, I click through to the original content to give the author information they can use to be a better content creator.

Sometimes having an individual RSS content stream would be useful. An example for me is Science Codex - a site that aggregates short research abstracts. It sends me so many reader subscriptions that sometimes I just delete them all without reading them because I don’t have time to catch up with the abstracts. I am sure there is a way, but I haven’t figured it out yet, to filter the different types of blogs into folders. For example, my education blogs, my crochet blogs, my cooking blogs, and my sewing blogs would go in individual folders and I can use my time more effectively to read through content in those individual areas but not all at once.

Thing # 13 Online Interactive Learning Tools Reflection

Google Earth is an awesome educational tool that could be used in many different ways to better understand the world around us. I read about a research study in Chicago where the researcher used Google Earth to determine the amount of community gardens in the Chicago area. Using data that is readily available like Google Earth can allow researchers to learn more about their community in order to make it better. Having parks, gardens, and bodies of water make our lives better and these are characteristics that can be seen on Google Earth. Giving students the big picture about the world and their place in it is often eye opening to some that have never been out of the state of Michigan, out of the midwest, or out of the United States.

I liked the StudyStacks because it was easy to sign up using my Facebook login information and it was super easy to create my stack with two columns given to enter information into for the flash cards. I can see students using StudyStacks on their smart phones to practice for an upcoming test. Carrying around a bunch of flash cards can be bulky and inconvenient. Using an application like StudyStacks, a student can carry around thousands of flashcards and have plenty of room for more on his or her electronic device. I like that a student could create their own StudyStack that could focus in on something the student really feels they need to study. Giving our students more tools to learn is another reason to use web 2.0 tools.

Thing 13 Flashcards Portfolio piece

I uploaded the link to my Rational Equations flashcards on my Algebra 2 site. I hope my juniors can use those flashcards to get better and reducing rational expressions.

Thing #11 Presentation Tools

Today I was experimenting more with creating presentations for my students. They are so used to multi-media presentations that prezi is a lot more appealing to them. Figuring out how the frames work together was a major learning curve for me. I finally figured out how rearrange the frames so that I can focus on the most important part of presentation one “step” at a time. I used a template that had a set of stairs leading to a door at the top. I think this non-linguistic representation is a great metaphor for the process that students take as they prepare their learning direction for college.

PowerPoint is so linear in comparison to prezi. I like the way prezi allows me to zoom into a particular part of the screen so that students are focused on just one area and not the whole page at one time. I think that is useful because students can get distracted by all the different choices afforded to them and with prezi their distraction can be dissipated.

    Using online tools like prezi allows me to create a new kind of presentation to share with students to connect with them my students on a new level.  I could see them using a project like this to pick their specific “steps” on their way to fulfilling their general education requirements. Each step could be the courses they specifically picked based on their interests. Hopefully a project like this could help them better understand and connect the steps of graduating with their actual choices.
    Zoom It is a great tool. I have used it to show students some specific points on graphs in math class.  Again it focuses in on a specific part of a picture and helps me keep students connected to the important part of a graphic that I have projected in my classroom.

Thing #10 Digital Images

I like to use digital photo sites to post photos that I want students to use without having to pay a lot of money. I know that on my blogger site there is a limit to the number of pictures I can upload. I want to begin using flickr to upload the photos of my class lectures so that students can refer to them if their notes are incomplete or if a student was absent from class. The photo sharing site makes it useable to many different people. As I have been reading Marzano, it makes me want to use non-linguistic representations more often and digital photo sharing sites allow me to do so more easily.

I am cognizant of the difference between public photo sharing and password protected sites. I have to say it is annoying to have to create an account to be able to view photos that are on password protected sites. I really like the Creative Commons attribution because then I can share my content with others and I can add to the educational tools that are present on the internet.

Thing # 9 - Copyright and Fair Use Quiz

https://docs.google.com/a/battlecreekacademy.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGRVQWtONzRUd3ZiRnVUU2tvUi0zSVE6MQ#gid=0

Please click on the link above and take my Copyright and Fair Use Quiz

Thing 8: Visual Learning - See Balanced Students

When I put my reflection for Thing 8 into wordle.net, it was amazing to see where my focus lies "See Balanced Students". That really is one of my goals and it was fun to see how wordle helped me see that message that I hadn't really caught onto before.

21ThingsBCK Thing 8 Visual Learning

I love Wordle and Bubbl.us as tools to help students create non-linguistic visual representations of the concrete ideas they are learning. This last summer I used bubbl.us to help students consider the way they thought about themselves. As they considered the different mental, physical, emotional, and social ways that they described themselves, it opened up their thinking to see where they may need to include activities that were more mental, or physical, or emotional, or social in order to be a well balanced person. The bubbles formed in a wheel with the central spoke being the individual’s name helped them to see how crowded their lives were and if one activity or descriptor should be swapped with another activity or descriptor in order to have a more balanced life. The ability to use bubbl.us to rearrange the spokes, create child bubbles to go more in depth about a descriptor, and see the interconnectedness of certain activities or descriptors was priceless for young people trying to find a balanced life.

Wordle has been a great tool to see how often a particular word or idea comes up in a written document. I have had students take portions of their scholarship essays and look at where they have focused their discussions. It helps them to see if what is truly important to them is what is written about in the document. This is key in being able to help students see if they are writing an essay that meets the requirements of a particular scholarship or if they need to add other content to make the essay stronger. The size of the words in wordle help them to see where the focus is in the essay.

Diigo as a Collaboration Tool

Diigo as a Collaboration Tool

Objective:

1. Use Diigo as a tool to collect information about research topic.
2. Use Diigo tools - highlighting and sticky notes - to communicate to others about a research topic.

Introduction:

Diigo is a web 2.0 tool that is used to socially bookmark digital content and annotate this content. The content that is annotated becomes part of an individual’s “diigo library” that can be shared with others to help curate content on a variety of subjects. In a world where there is so much content on a subject, curating this content and sharing excellent resources among a group of people with a common interest is vital to collaboration and communication.

Standards Used:

http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-s-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2

NETS-S: 2a, 3a, b, c, d

Materials:

Computer with diigo toolbar installed attached to LCD projector, mouse or wacom bamboo tablet with stylus to select content, and projector screen

Activity:

The teacher will demonstrate the use of diigo by selecting a topic to research. Using the CARDSS system of website evaluation, the teacher will pick a website that is legitimate for the research project. Students will have a copy of the CARDSS acronym to use as they evaluate each individual page the explore. The teacher will demonstrate how to select and highlight text including how to change the color of the text for added emphasis. The highlight color is changed by choosing the drop down arrow on the highlighter button. The teacher will include some sticky notes with comments about the content that is highlighted. A sticky note is added by hovering over the highlighted portion and clicking on “add sticky note”.

Practice:

Students will pick 3 career websites to annotate using the highlighter and sticky notes. Some excellent resources to start with are http://www.bls.gov/ooh/ , http://www.onetonline.org/ and http://www.doleta.gov/jobseekers/

Students will use a particular class tag so others in the course can see each others libraries of content. Students will find answers to the complete the following information and create a word processed write up based on their research:

Write a detailed description of the nature of the job. What is done, how it is done, etc

Write out the DOT # and describe the job in relation to Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

List any special traits (worker requirements/personal qualities) that are needed for this job. Underline ones you now have.

What post high school education or training is required. List two places where you can get this education or training and approximate cost for each place.

List methods of entry into this job.

Is licensure required? How is it obtained? Cost?

Explain how the job will meet any of your workstyle and work values.

Describe the working conditions of the job.

What is the job availability for the next ten years?

What is the approximate yearly/monthly Salary for this job? Starting? Top?


Assessment:

Use the rubric found at http://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?code=Z643W&sp=yes to give students feedback on their

• content & development
• organization & structure
• format
• grammar, punctuation, & spelling

Resources:

CARDSS system for website evaluation

http://www.21things4teachers.net/uploads/1/5/4/6/1546201/joycevalenza-advanced-secondary_criteria.pdf

Capstone Reflection 21 Things for 21st Century Teachers Thing 1 to 7

This course on 21 things for 21 century teachers has been a refreshing reminder that what I am doing as an educator in learning new technology is useful and helpful. I have learned about a couple new tools that I had not used before taking this course but many of them I had used before so it has simply been validation that  what I have been using is educational sound and used by others in similar ways to what have used the tools for.  This last summer I had been using twitter to connect with other educators and decided that I wanted to create blogs for my classes to better communicate with students, parents, and concerned others. This face of my classroom has become useful to some of my students and I hope through this course to make my blogs more useful.

A new tool that I am consistently using  is Diigo as a way to develop my professional development library and remember all the awesome digital resources I find. I am currently integrating Diigo into my Careers class to help students share resources with me and with their classmates about different areas of careers that they are researching. This ability to collaborate and communicate with each other is an effective teaching and learning strategy. Diigo also allows me to reinforce the effort students are making to learn more beyond the small body of information that I guide them to. The summarizing and note taking components of Diigo make it an excellent tool for students to develop their understanding and make their own connections between content.

My use of Google Docs has also strengthened my teaching practice by being able to give real time comments and feedback to the summaries that students write. Being able to collaborate with students in this way has been amazing as I see them catch a passion for learning more. I have also used Google Docs to create quarterly plans with class goals,  assignments and additional resources so if a student misses a class they know what needs to be done and why to make up what they missed. Many students have found this helpful in their hectic lives to have a concrete list of what is happening next.

A new tool that I would like to use more in my classroom is Skype. My students often ask me, “Where is the real world application of this math topic?” I would like to use Skype to communicate with professionals that actually use the math we are using in our classroom. I would like students to see that professionals in all areas of careers use math in different ways - not just engineers, scientists, and mathematicians. I envision having a Skype chat once a week where a career professional shares how they are using a particular math topic that we are learning about in real life. It would be great to connect with former graduates of Battle Creek Academy so students can begin to envision themselves doing what these professional alumni are doing.

I have modeled collaboration and communication by sharing my library of research with my students and showing them how a professional would use tools like Diigo and Google Docs. I am planning on presenting a short faculty inservice on using Diigo to help my coworkers strengthen their professional practice. I hope to help other less technologically comfortable students and adults see my excitement for technology and how it has made my life better as a person and as a professional. Hopefully my excitement will help another individual take a risk to try something new with technology in their professional or personal life.

21ThingsBCK Thing 7 Digital Citizenship

Today’s proliferation of web content makes it necessary to evaluate everything that I see and read. Determining whether the content is accurate, reliable, and relevant is part of that evaluation process. Having connections to other accurate, reliable, and relevant websites makes the original websites authentic and legitimate. Students need to do this evaluation because making sure that there is truth in the sites they visit, use as resources, and that influence their decisions is important to making even better decisions.

My first plan is to help students understand how personal information is used on the web. I am going to schedule a skype meeting with a human resources manager to talk to kids about how their personal information on social media can be used both to support their future career plans or to thwart their ability to get a job. The individual is a former student of our school and has worked for Kraft as a human resources manager for several years.

My second plan is to have the Michigan Cyber Safety Initiative program have a presentation at my school. The most important part of that presentation would be about sharing inappropriate material on their cell phones or other electronic devices. Helping students see that adults in their lives are concerned for their safety and want to help them create a mindset of making the best decisions possible to be prepared for life after high school will help students be more successful.