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Monday, August 27, 2012

TOOL ELEVEN: Self Assessing and Reflecting

1. What are your favorite tools you now have in your personal technology toolbox? Briefly describe a particular activity that you will plan for your students using at least one of these new tools.
I have no tools as of yet but I anticipate executing many of the projects I outlined in prior entries.

2. How have you transformed your thinking about the learning that will take place in your classroom? How has your vision for your classroom changed? Are you going to need to make any changes to your classroom to accommodate the 21st Century learner?
I realize I need to get with the times and learn from my students to see how I can hook them with technology and improve how I deliver instruction.

 
3. Were there any unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
 
Access to a wide variety of interesting resources.

TOOL TEN: Underneath it All - Digital Citizenship

1.Discuss at least three things you would want to make sure your students understand about being good digital citizens.

-how not to endanger themselves
-how to find information that is accurate
-how to make their personal information and profiles professional so they understand that employers, etc. have access to a  lot of information

2. Share at least one of the resources mentioned above or on the Ed Tech website that you plan to use instructionally.
 
Cool Cat.
 
3. Explain briefly how you would "teach" the idea of digital citizenship to your students.
 
I would provide scenarios of worst cases in which people did not have digital literacy, and how this impacted their lives. Then we would discuss ways to alleviate and prevent such issues.
 
4. Explain briefly how you plan to share the idea of digital citizenship with your parents.
 
I could mail letters home but this would probably be a difficult task to complete.

TOOL NINE: Incorporating Classroom-Based Devices as Tools for Learning

Why do you think it is important to tie the technology to the objective?

Because technology should be in service to a greater learning goal, not the goal in itself.

Why should we hold students accountable for the stations/centers?

So they can be responsible for how to use technology and show they have mastered the objective.

Visit 2 of the applicable links to interactive websites for your content/grade level. Which sites did you like. How could you use them as stations? How can you hold the students accountable for their time in these stations?

I could use studyladder to help individual students work on grammar or comprehension. I can have them print out the results of quizzes.

List two to three apps you found for the iPod Touch/iPad that you can use in your classroom. What do you see that station looking like? How can you hold the students accountable for their time in these stations?

Animoto: students can create and then present videos based on their own creative narratives -- pulling out images in order to focus on how imagery impacts the storytelling.
Brainpop: students can individually get quizzed on personalized topics they need improving on.

What about other ways to use the iPod Touch/iPad? Share another way you can see your students using the device as a station.

Create their own graphic organizer to show terms and evidence for how they found the theme for the story.


TOOL EIGHT: Taking a look at the tools



After watching the videos/tutorials, list two to three things you learned about the device(s) that will be in your classroom this fall.

1. You can download items from itunes directly to the ipads.
2, I am responsible for the content on ipads.

How do you plan to manage the device(s) in your classroom? Do you have ideas/suggestions that others may find useful?

I will create norms, review them, and practice them; they will center around how to get the ipads, how to keep them clean and working, and ensure students use them appropriately.
TOOL SEVEN:
Design a collaborative project with another classroom.
  1. Post the following about the project:
    1. Content objective: Students will interview an author.

    1. When you plan to implement: Spring

    1. What tool(s) you plan to use: Skype
              A brief description of the project (plan - two or three sentences)
              Students will read a common text and the author will skype in -- they will develop questions beforehand, document the answers, and write up what happened. They can then write up an analysis of how the author's answers inform their understanding of the text.


Sunday, August 19, 2012

TOOL SIX:

I would use twitter to have students tweet their reactions as they are reading a text or when they are finished. I would probably make a twitter feed for our entire class but as an example I made one here.

I can also use it to have students post online memoirs-- the space constraints will force students to write about themselves in a poetic way. It teaches one to be succinct with language.


TOOL FIVE: This is a wordle I created based on the school to prison pipeline definition in wikipedia.

I think using this word cloud could help me as a warm-up activity: once students are familiar with a word cloud, I can tell them that this comes from a definition of the school to prison pipeline. It is likely a concept they had not heard of, so based on this graphic, I would want them to predict in a few sentences what they think the concept means. Then we could actually go to the definition to confirm or refute their initial ideas.

I would probably also use create comix after we read a play on zero tolerance to have students come up with editorial cartoons commenting about what they think about school disciplinary policies and the school to prison pipeline. Here's an example I made I could offer them.
TOOL FOUR:

Thetool that seems most exciting to me is Google docs, because it would be a good way for me to interact with a student's ongoing draft from anywhere – I can provide feedback in the student can continue to make revisions simply by logging in.
TOOL THREE:
I think the site for National Public Radio will be useful because as an English teacher, I have access not only to ways to connect our texts to real life current events, but they also provide coverage of people's everyday lives in Story Corps: http://www.npr.org/series/4516989/storycorps

Then the obvious YouTube has always been helpful because I can find almost any text dramatized, and can find lots of videos of poets reading their work aloud.for example I plan to use the following videos in my classroom:
Hearing Nikki Giovanni read her own poem is going to help me hopefully solidify the student's understanding of tone.
This video on the school to prison pipeline could help supplement a play that the students will be reading called zero tolerance.

About copyright and fair use,I basically learned that you need to make sure to attribute your sources whenever possible, and that most of these resources are free as long as you are not profiting from the use of the videos. I could use dropbox in my classroom by creating individual folders for students and having them submit their work there.


TOOL TWO:  The points that stood out to me are to use explicit feedback rather than an empty phrase such as "that is correct,"and to make sure to complement the blogger when providing criticism. It is different from working with a teammate because it is easy to type anything without thinking of the tone of the words you use.


Share the url or name of a blog or social network that you plan to visit in the future. What does that site have to offer?

This site is amazing because it not only updates you on the social and political context of education reform, it actually discusses the nuts and bolts of applying theoretical concepts of good pedagogy into your daily lessons and interactions with students.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

TOOL ONE: Write a brief post about your experience to date. Did you find the experience fairly easy? Did you face any challenges?

This was a fairly easy experience. The only challenges I had was creating an avatar, and since a lot of the images of people did not look like me, I chose an animal. Another difficulty was coming up with a URL for the blog since I knew that it would be permanent.