Final Capstone Reflection Things 1-21

Two technological items that I was introduced to while going through 21 Things for 21st Century Educators were Evernote and Diigo. I think both of these technology applications will make me a better professional because I can learn and share with others so they can learn more as well. I can be more productive and save paper from printing by looking at my diigo highlighted articles and with Evernote I can actually clip the entire article for reading later even if the website disappears. I see Diigo and Evernote as tools that help both me and my students to better summarize and take notes so we can see the similarities and differences between the different author’s points of view. We can also take our summaries and use them to generate and test hypothesis as we extend our knowledge. I think that digital storytelling is a thing that I will be incorporating more into my classroom. I see digital storytelling as a combination of visual learning, digital images, and sometimes screencasting. Digital storytelling requires students to think through what the main message is to be shared with their audience through succinct digital images - either still or video - with a sound track or captions that will catch another person’s attention. Digital storytelling requires students to put into practice all of the NETS-S. Most specifically the student must be creative in production of an original story covering a particular topic that requires multiple types of technology to complete. Students must communicate and collaborate with their team partners as well as consider how they communicate appropriately with their audience. Students must research how to best photograph or video record their subject. Students must evaluate, synthesize, and process all of the information about their subject into the creation of their story. Managing a project like this requires deep critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making to create the best project. Students will become better digital citizens when they see how human, cultural, and societal issues converge in their story. Because of the different facets of a digital story, students will learn how to select and use technological applications to create their story. Trouble shooting these applications and transferring what they know to others will happen because projects require those skills. It will be exciting to see what happens as I use digital storytelling with my students. One thing that I will use to continue growing professionally is developing my professional learning network through Twitter. I want to give myself 15 minutes a day to log in, read the pithy thoughts of others and read through linked articles that others have found useful, and collect their tweets in my diigo library or collect the articles in my Evernote notebook. I also want to interact with the individuals I follow on twitter by commenting on their tweets and links that they share. My interaction on Twitter has been a priceless to my growth and ability to connect with others who think deeply about ideas that I care about and share what they learn with others. One aspect of digital citizenship that I want to do well and teach my students and co-workers to do well is to create a positive digital footprint. I want students to see how I interact with people on Twitter and in my blogging and for them to model that behavior in their own online presence. I want students to understand that there must be boundaries about what personal information is shared online. I want them to live a life without regret and guilt over a status update, photo or video that they have uploaded. I want to remind them of the Golden Rule - treat others as you would want to be treated. I want them to think critically about how they use digital resources and to contribute to online communities in a positive way to build up others. My views have been widened through this course because I have come to see how wide technology is and where students could get into situations where negative choices could be made. Helping students have positive experiences and helping students learn positive ways of behaving will make all the difference as I move on in the way I educate young people about technology.

How to use Twitter for Personal Growth

I am working on a story boarding exercise to create a digital story of how to use Twitter for Personal Growth. Have I missed anything in my story boarding that would be necessary to make my story better? I updated my presentation to include @ mentions as communications tools.

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.