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.

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 4 Reflection: Communication Tools

Communication is so important in the classroom.  Skype provides a great way to bring in experts to talk to my students even when they can’t take off a day to visit.  The first thing I would like to do is schedule some alumni to speak with my current seniors about what college is like and what our seniors should consider before starting their first classes in the fall after graduating.

I have enjoyed backchanneling at a couple of educational conferences this summer. It was nice to read what others were thinking as we listened to the same speaker. The backchanneling gave me ideas of how to use the new things that I was learning and helped me to connect with other educators who were thinking the same way I was. On twitter I follow several different math teachers, guidance counselors, and science teachers. I like to use my “favorites” on twitter as new entries into my diigo so I can remember the pithy things that professionals say.

As I consider how to best use skype and twitter, teaching students to use these resources in a way that they will be proud of if a future college admissions officer, future employer, or a grandparent were to read or see their interactions is key. I would really like to have a human resources person give a presentation to my students about the best uses of social media communication tools because my students don’t understand that what they post now could be used for or against them when they apply to college or to a new job. Using twitter would be an excellent teaching tool because it gives students that are afraid to talk an avenue to speak up through the typewritten word. Using skype would allow me to engage students with a experts in different areas and I could potentially meet with a group of students to go over questions on a homework assignment outside of a school day.  

21ThingsBCK Thing 3 Reflection: Collaboration Tools

Thing 3 has been great to increase my productivity. The template I downloaded for comparing cars will be a great tool in a career class where students have to think about which car they will purchase after finishing post secondary education and whether they can truly afford the vehicle. The collaborative aspect of Google Docs has already changed the way my classroom runs because I can comment on items for student to fix in a draft document and help each student create a final product based on collaborative feedback from myself and other students. This has been particularly helpful with some essay writing that students are doing for scholarships and college applications. Google docs has also saved unknown sheets of paper as the drafts don’t have to be printed multiple times in the editing process.I am trying to get my coworkers to get on board with using google docs as a paper saving device.

The other tool I used was Doodle to schedule a meeting where my coworkers would look at student essays to determine two scholarship nominations.  We could have used Google docs to read the essays and then come to the meeting with 3 top essay writers so we could have been prepared to simply discuss who was the best essay writer and vote. Instead, time was taken for my coworkers to read the printed essays, submit who they thought was the best student for the particular scholarship nomination, and then we voted.  Wasted time and wasted paper. Doodle did give my coworkers options on when to meet in person for voting on scholarship winners and Google docs had allowed me to give students feedback on their essays before I printed them for our faculty discussion.  Each step forward helps my coworkers and me become better technology users.

21ThingsBCK Thing 2 Reflection: Web Presence

As I reflect on Thing 2, it reminds me just how important my web presence is to those that I work with and who may some day hire me. I have blogs for teaching math, chemistry, or computers, for school guidance counseling, and for personal creativity. Each of these is connected with the same email address and my real name so if someone searched for me online, I could be found. I use my web presence to connect with people that need the resources and ideas I have to share. My most active educational web presence is digalgebra2.blogspot.com where I share videos and resources for my Algebra 2 and digcounseling.blogspot.com where I share information and resources for school guidance counseling.

An advantage of having a web presence is the ability to point people to a specific resource that I have found so I don’t have to repeat myself as often. It also provides an excellent communication tool in conjunction with the emailing and texting to students and parents that I do.

A disadvantage is that I have to keep pertinent information posted to the blogs otherwise it becomes less useful to the students and parents that I work with. Another disadvantage is the initial time it has taken me to create these web presences. Organizing information in a pleasing way and in a logical manner takes thought and time. Another disadvantage is that I have to really consider how the written words in my blog and the spoken words in my videos are perceived by others. I don’t want to have something posted that I will later regret.

I wouldn’t give up my web presence for anything, but I do consider what I post carefully before it goes live for the world to see.

21ThingsBCK Thing 1 Reflection About Basics

Some of the shortcuts I use the most often are ctrl z for undoing something that had been deleted, ctrl s for saving, and ctrl a for selecting all the text on a particular page. I use these all the time when I edit written work. As I read through the forum about keyboard shortcuts, it reminds me that some other adults have no idea that there is a simpler way. It makes sense to teach some shortcuts first as people become more familiar with using technology.

During the summer of 2011, I began using delicious.com as a way to organize web pages for a careers class I taught.  It was great to organize around different “stacks” that students could access. During the summer of 2012, I was introduced to diigo through twitter. I love diigo even more because it allows me to annotate the web pages so I can remember what was so cool even after significant time has passed. I also like the feature of being able to highlight text and sort through my different tags to find relevant web pages that I can use with my students. I also use an integration between twitter and diigo to save my “favorite” posts from twitter to diigo so I can remember the pithy things people say.

This year I have improved my career class by using diigo with my students’ career projects. Some examples of the assignments and activities would be students bookmarking scholarship opportunities, college, career, and job search information. Diigo will be a great tool to improve their researching skills. Students in my careers group can look at what other students have bookmarked to see if what has been found already might be something they would want as well.

As I consider Marzano’s work, I think that this lesson on social bookmarking makes the best connection with cooperative learning. Those of us in this 21 Things course can share what we find with each other, thereby curating content so others don’t have to spend as much time searching for the elusive webpage or web activity to fill a certain need. With my students I hope they can use diigo to share information about colleges, scholarships, and careers that they find which will help each of them develop a college going attitude.

As I consider the NETS for teachers, I think the one that Thing 1 aligns well with is Standard 3: Model Digital Age Work and Learning. I am showing that I am technologically fluent and can transfer what I already know into a novel situation with a new technology. I am also modeling the emergent use of a tool like diigo to my students so that we can all be lifelong learners and sharers of learning. Locating, analyzing, and evaluating technology is so necessary if I am to use the technology in my classroom. I am doing that more and more each day as I work through these “things”.

Epic Greeting from English Class to Mrs. Belyea

Hail Mrs. Belyea! Educator of many various levels of mathematics. I humbly come to thy class in my noble pursuit of the knowledge that lies in the textbook of pre-calculus that I would most undoubtedly fail to contemplate without thy instruction that thou providest me with. I have been brought here from my home in Climax, where much corn grows, and in the land of the country where many lakes gently lie out night under the stars in their uttermost beauty, to asketh for thy help in the problems of the assignment which though bestoweth upon me. I humbly request that thou grantest me thy divine wisdom in guidance in hopes that I may meet with success in the terrible trials I may face later in this life.

State of Now live stream

http://edu2012.stateofnow.com/

#140edu

I have had lots of tweets, I will have to see if I can get them sorted on my blog.  Time to learn something new and make something useful for myself.

Reflections on 5 steps to building a social media presence from scratch

I really liked this article 5 steps to building social media presence from scratch

that said "Today’s teachers need to be able to support their students in knowing how to effectively connect, communicate, collaborate, cooperate, and create." This is such a true statement and one of my goals for this year.

Then the author said this as well "The resume is a 20th century relic. Sure, you can have that one dimensional representation of who you are, but what will set you apart from the rest is the online persona you actively create and the connections you make in your network." This I think is very important as I work with students to prepare for success in their life post high school. Who they are online is more important today than it ever was for students and teachers alike.

Web 2.0 Tools to use with Technology

http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2012/07/10-byot-byod-back-to-school-basics.html

A great list of tools to do all the things that a student or teacher would want to do this school year.

Tutorial to Create an Instructional Classroom Website

http://www.myweb4ed.com/blog/myweb4ed-create-an-instructional-classroom-website/

For someone that needs help getting their blogs created, here is a resource to get started.