Tecs 290

Edutopia Video Reflections: Harrison Central High School
At Harrison Central High School, every class and even some extra-curricular activities use technology. I was so impressed by the technology they used-they are very high tech! Even the cheerleading team used technology and I thought that was so unique. Not many atheletes can say that they use technology to monitor their own and their team's heartrate and other vital signs to help them get in better shape. In the history class where they used the clickers to play games you could tell the students were actually having fun, and one student described how much more exciting and seemingly worthwhile the class was when they were engaged in an activity or game. The history teacher said that when she compared exam scores, when the class had reviewed with the clickers their scores were higher than when they did not use the clickers to review. That must be so encouraging to that teacher to have found something that works and that her students like. Other teachers can feel that same way if they integrate technology and games too.

I also thought it was so cool when the physics class studied their hobbies and applied physics to them. There were students with videos of them playing softball, cheerleading, and even playing the xylophone, and I noticed they all seemed to be engrossed in what they were doing and they all seemed to have a firm hold on the physics ideas.

Mary Scroggs Elementary School
I would love to teach at this school! To begin, every morning the school watches a live newscast created by the students themselves. Every class has a webpage, and parents are able to get involved with their child's education. Parents are able to look online with their child to see what their homework assignment is for the evening, and they can do it together on the computer. This is very convenient for the teacher also because she can grade online and reply by email immediately. The student and their parents get instant feedback and the teacher has less papers to keep track of. It's a win-win situation. In a kindergarten class the teacher posts a summary of the day written by her class on their webpage and parents can look at it every evening. Parents are catching on to communicating with the teacher primarily by email and it is much more convenient for the teacher to answer parents questions and concerns-no more phone tag! Teachers even have their own offices and phones! This school is actually what I would call luxurious; I have never seen anything like it before. I hope other schools will follow suit, and do it very soon.

A Product of Learning
This video starts out by showing a class project in which middle school students created their own CD roms that they shared not only with each other but also with their parents in a formal presentation style. This school is one of the most diverse in the state so it is exciting to see underprivileged students receiving such a great education. Kids are encouraged to do their best and they do because they are presented with high-quality curriculum. The video closed by quoting a student who said nobody feels stupid around here anymore. That made me feel so good to know that somewhere in this world there are students who feel so safe at school. and so good about their education. Every student deserves that!

Leading With Laptops
It was so amazing to watch students so young do such advanced research on their own laptops. A group of students was actually on a boat on a lake collecting their own data to take back to their classroom and analyze, all the while they have their laptops with them. One of the teachers said they thought it was very important to use the laptops as more then just a "big pencil", and I liked that idea. It can be very challenging to come up with new ideas and very easy to assign a paper or an essay created in a word processing program. But there is so much more capability than that it is just a matter of research and exploration. The research and exploration the Maine teachers did was well worth it, based on comments from students such as "I like assignments to be hard because I learn more". When I heard a student on the video say that I thought it was a miracle. I then thought I hope they really mean it because that is a teacher's dream come true!

My 3 Choices:

Las Vegas: Vegas Virtual
A Las Vegas school district offers distance learning to their high school students. This is very unique because typically we only hear about virtual classes at the university level. This incredible flexibility offered to high schools students allows them to work more-even full time-to earn money for college while still completing high school. The idea began when a geometry teacher created a class webpage he designed for students who fell behind in his class. His other students also benefited from the review and the idea went from there. These online classes are not just get your assignements off the internet and submit them over the internet-they actually meet in a sort of chat room at a specified time and day for the course of the term. It is still very interactive. One online teacher shared that she loved the arrangement because she can wake up 10 minutes before class starts and teach in her pajamas. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me! She also feels that she gets to know her students better than in a regular classroom because they open up more and take the risk involved in class discussions because they are not actually face-to-face with their peers. This way their personalities come through more. These classes, although they are not for everyone, do seem to be a pretty good arrangement for some.

Beginning the Journey: Five year-olds Drive their own PBL Projects
In this preschool, students pick a theme for a project that they want to learn about, then they get to play with it. For example, if the students decide they want to learn about Brazil, they may pretend to go on a vacation there. Their teacher sets up a pretend airport complete with a check-in desk, pilot costumes, and passports. The students go through the process of checking in their luggage, and boarding the plane. Next, they may research what sights they will see in Brazil, etc. All classrooms have Smartboards in them, and teachers teach with them all day long. Some of the things the students were able to do on the Smartboard was downright astonishing. Plus, the students were so articulate and sharp-and only four or five years old. They were pretty tech savvy too. This video was really fun to watch! It was my favorite out of the seven I watched. If you haven't seen it you should check it out because it is really, really cool! And the children are adorable.

Hula High Tech
This Honolulu school has a lot going for them. They have a live newscast every morning. They get online everyday and track endangered species and connect to the rest of the world. In a fourth grade classroom, students use technology to create a multimedia project that describes their family history. They can even create their own family tree. These are giant steps for this school that had very little computer access or knowledge previously.

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Posted 19 July 07 10:33 by veronica | 0 Comments
Part 5: Reflections from this Course: I learned so many things in this course that I will most definitely use in my classroom. First of all the Powerpoint games were fun! An interactive, fun way to use Powerpoint will be something that students and teachers alike can enjoy. Teachers can also enjoy the flexibility of creating the games-they can be made for any subject area or any grade level.

Blogging was a new discovery for me in this course also. It was perhaps the most amazing of discoveries actually. I have many many ideas for blogging in a future classroom. Reflecting on the day's news, what students are looking forward to, how they feel, something that made them proud or happy, or something that disappointed them are just a few. I would love for them to share their favorite book they've read recently, plans they have for the weekend or the rest of the school year, or just how they are feeling or what is on their mind. I know this type of freedom will be so beneficial to students in so many ways.

I feel this same way about podcasting. Like blogging, podcasting I had no clue it was taking place in classrooms, and the freedom that is possible with podcasting is awesome. Some ideas I have for podcasting include interviews with staff, literature circle discussions, and even just fun projects like school news casts.

Finally, I loved creating my social bookmarking account. Delicious was so easy to use and after I downloaded Firefox (which I also discovered because of this course) I was able to add Delicious buttons to my toolbar which make it even more convenient. I was worried that I would not be able to put 50 bookmarks in my account, and I actually have about 70, and it grows every day! I had never heard of social bookmarking before this course and now I don't think I could live without it. And I haven't even looked at other users' bookmarks yet! Once I am able to explore that I know my account will grow even larger! Many, many resources were shared in this course that I will definitely want to use in the future, and now I have a way to store and save them. I am glad to have discovered so many useful tools and resources. Not only will they come in handy in the classroom but I am eager to use them in my methods courses and other education courses. They should definitely make life easier.

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Posted 19 July 07 12:51 by veronica | 0 Comments
Part 3: ALTEC: The teacher I chose to share some information with Miss Werth (lkwerth@scatcat.fhsu.edu). She teaches 4th grade at Wilson. I shared with Miss Werth the growing poularity of blogging in the classroom. I chose to share this idea with her because I thought it would be an idea she would be likely to use since she teaches at a higher grade level, even though I told her that it is common in Kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms. She was interested to hear more about blogging, and I mentioned to her that I use TeacherLingo.com, and that Other blogs can be found using Google. I told her about ALTEC also and all the great tools found there. Miss Werth, like me, especially liked the Rubistar tool, and felt that would be a tool she would find very useful.

Rubistar is going to be invaluable to me. I will be starting the Teacher Ed. program in the fall and rubrics are going to be everywhere!! I have no experience in making rubrics but the specifics they require are going to be somewhat challenging at first. This is where Rubistar comes in. It will also be helpful beyond college. I know now that I will be making rubrics for almost every activity or assignment in my classroom. When I was in high school I had a teacher who made a rubric for everything and I loved knowing exactly what she expected of me, and knowing exactly why I got points deducted or why I got an A. Actually, I got alot of A's when I knew exactly what I needed to do. I want my students to have that security too.

I loved all the other tools also, like the two that were created to help with research projects. They will be extremely helpful in teaching students who are new at research.

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Posted 19 July 07 12:30 by veronica | 0 Comments
Part 1 of Final Project: The directions in Part 1 state to read all of the articles above and reflect on what you learned, etc. These directions however were somewhat vague to me; which articles? There are 2 groups of them so I am just going to reflect over EVERY single one as not to miss any.

First, the article over schools lagging behind in technology from USA Today. The article mentioned that education is the only business that is still hesitant to use more technology and I found it interesting. It is so true that many teachers and administrators seem hesitant to change their ways when what they are doing seems to be working fine, but there is always more than one way to do things and you can usually find a better way! The article also quoted some elementary students as saying that they think teachers should have to take more technology classes, which I actually thought was kind of sad. Students feel like they are more open and able to use technology than their teachers and that is not the way it should be. Teachers always need to be fearless leaders for their students.

The National Education Technology Plan website was awesome to explore. It gave me much insight into the plan and gave me ideas and insight throught the success stories tab. There are seven action steps also that are a great framework to follow. Great resource.

Next comes the National Education Technology Standards. This site is awesome because it gives lesson plans and unit ideas and details. I was not aware there were such standards, and for all grades so this was a new site for me to explore. In the past, I have only explored the Kansas Education Standards, and have never paid attention to any technology standards? Are there any on the KERC website?

My favorite article was the Adopt and Adapt article from Edutopia. Although lengthy, it was jam-packed with information. The thing that stuck out to me the most was that the Secretary of Education said that students should be suing us for not giving them the needed technology for education. That statement really stuck with me and got me thinking, Is it true? Could students really bring a suit like that? What would happen? There were many other things that made me think. The article talked about completely redesigning school design and curriculum and it sounded like a huge, exhausting challege. I began to think of everything that would go into this undertaking. Years of planning, moving, and experimenting does not sound like fun. I hate to do things like that, even though that is not very teacher-like of me to say. I like to have a plan and know that it will work, I guess that means I like to be in my comfort zone. I was thinking what a pain this will be and then I got to the closing of the article and it says "A big efort? But Our kids deserve no less." This statement was perfect!

The HighSchool.com link at Edutopia was not working...I tried it about 6 different times.

The Wikipedia page on blogs is one that I have explored before. Before this class I knew NOTHING about blogs, but after reading the wikipedia entry on it I felt like I had a good understanding. Then as the class went on I began to understand blogging and its possibilities even more. I certainly did not know that Kindergarteners were out there blogging. I am still amazed by that! I actually once thought that blogs were for professional type business people and that's all. I was dead-wrong about that.

Developing Blog Posts at Speedofcreativity.org was a little irrelevant to me. It listed ideas to blog about and now that I have a deeper understanding of blogs I didn't feel like I need ideas any more. I am not really one to have trouble thnking of something to say. There are usually alot of thoughts running through my head no matter how random or irrelevant they are.

I don't really know what to reflect over from the blog by Will Richardson. I guess it is a good example of a blog that seems to be very professional. The one thing that did strike me was that the blog looked so good that it took me a minute to realize what it was. I hope people think that about my blog to some degree.

Okay, so the article that follows the link to that blog was about the man who wrote it. He was a teacher who introduced blogging at the high school where he works and is now the instructional technology man. No wonder he talked about presenting at the conference in his blog. It is pretty bold of him to have begun the blogging craze-proof that many of the risks are worth it. Richardson has even now written a book about web tools. That is a great success story.

The article on educationworld.com was much like other articles I have read over blogging. I really did not pick up on any new information, but I did realize one thing: I am going to have to carefully plan and agonize over every detail before I ever let my students blog. This means I will need to look at the internet settings,the blog page settings and options (can these blogs be search results on search engines, can the whole world look at them, etc) in order to keep my students and myself safe. Contracts and acceptable use policies will be needed, as well as much correspondence between school and parents to keep them completely informed.
I was also reminded through this article that students write better when they have a bigger audience.

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Posted 18 July 07 10:57 by veronica | 0 Comments
Part 2: Apple Learning Interchange Reflection: Both my teacher I shared with and I loved Apple Learning Interchange. I never knew that this existed with so many resources and ideas. I used to always do Google searches for ideas for classrooms and lesson plans, etc. However, I never found anything as high-quality as the resources presented in TECS 290. Maybe I did and then overlooked it when I found I had to create an account because I hate doing that. But now I have an account created and the URL is in my delicious account. I like Apple Learning Exchange because it is technologically oriented and technology is not my stong suit. I am actually pretty behind in technology which is pretty bad considering I am a college student. At this age I should be at my technology prime. Really, everyone should be in their technology prime-this is 2007!

I discovered some links for higher education learning which was awesome because it makes the site so much more diverse. A very wide variety is something that everyone loves.

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Posted 18 July 07 10:40 by veronica | 0 Comments

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