Field Experience

LINK TO FIELD EXPERIENCE

Sadly Its Over

          In EDU 235 we cover many different topics to help us as future teachers learn how to use technology in our classroom. Since the beginning of the semester I have learned many different Web 2.0 tools, different technologies offered to special need students, and more. I plan to try to use as much technology in each subject that I can. In English I can use tools such as Animoto or Storyboard That to help kids tell a story,  to help students tell a story or explain parts of a story. For math, there are many websites that have games and manipulatives to help students gain a better understanding of the content.


           One thing that I found very useful was actually having to use tools to see how they can be used in education. Trying to figure out the some of the technology proved to be a tad confusing, but after playing around with it, it became fun and interesting. Also, some of the focus questions and TIP models were a tad challenging. If I could o back and redo this class I would be sure to do my work on time instead of waiting till the last minute (I still have not learn my lesson).  In the future I suggest being picky over what focus questions students answer and having more example of the TIP model.


          In the first half of the year we did not cover assessing their own cultural competence. In the second half of the semester we did cover this by participating in a presentation explaining what cultural competence is. We also each watched webinars on cultural competence and how teachers address cultural competence. After watching a webinar, we made podcasts summarizing what we had watch using Audioboo. We also had a whole section in our e-portfolio for global and cultural competence.


          Over the second half of the semester we did more work with the Common Core and ISTE standards. We went over more possible lessons using the TIP model to analyze our own work. Also, we did many samples of TIP model to help us prepare for our final. We also went over how to help students understand what goes on while they are on the Internet. Our Prezis help teach kids about digital citizenship and fulfill the objective for understand the ethical implications of online educational practice. Throughout the second half of the semester we went more in-depth of all the other objectives making sure that as future educators were up to par with our technology pedagogy.

 

My Hero: John Lennon

To begin my research I used two websites to find out about John Lennon, Biography and Biography Channel. As I went through the websites I began to find pictures to go along with many events in his life. This link shows information I gathered and the source of my pictures on a Google Doc.

Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.7
Conduct short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions for further research and investigation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.7.1
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.8
Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

ISET Net Standards:
1. Creativity and Innovation
     Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative                  products and processes using technology. Students:
     a.  apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes.
     b. create original works as a mean or personal or group expression.
     c. use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues.
     d. identify trends and forecast possibilities.

3. Research and Information Fluency
    Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students:
    a. plan strategies to guide inquiry.
    b. locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety     of sources and media.
   c. evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on                                    the appropriateness to specific tasks.
    d. process data and report results. 

Objectives:
Students will be able to:

• conduct research on someone they believe is a hero.
• use creditable site to conduct their research.
• use the Web 2.0 tool, Animoto, to show what they learned about their hero.
• create a 2 minute video about their hero.

      After using Animoto I think this would be a great tool to use in my classroom. It is a different way for a students to show what they learned about a historical figure, book, or even just plain research. It is an easy to use tool that allows you to choose from many different formats and songs. You can add pictures with captions or just plain text. When it comes time to present the final video, you just have to press play and you are off. There is no clicking like in a PowerPoint.
      I enjoyed using Animoto more than a PowerPoint or Prezi. It is really neat to have a song play as the pictures and words scroll through. There were a few down sides to this tool though. First, it was hard to fit all I had to day in 50 character on the first line and 40 on the next. It was hard to get all my thoughts down grammatically correct. Also, though there is many different choices for music, it was hard to find one that worked well with the video topic or that was the right length.
      If I were to bring this tool into my classroom I would add a template of what and in what order I would want to see the information. Younger kids would need better guidelines so they would not get distracted on finding pictures. For my older students I would just give them a checklist, like what was given to me. I think that this is a good tool to use in upper elementary grade levels, middle and high school. It is a creative way to put a new spin on a traditional PowerPoint activity.

Chapter 9 & 11 Websites

Chapter 9

Read Write Think: Read Write Think offers classroom resources, professional development tools, and parent and after-school resources. Under the Classroom Resources you can find lesson plans, interactive templates, printouts and more. For Professional Development, teachers can find event ideas, strategy guides and online events. Under Parents and After-School Resources there are many different activities that parents and teachers can use in all grades. I believe that this cite can be used for all grades. Some parts are more for younger grades because they are templates for teaching new concepts. I can use this in the classroom to help students understand different concepts in English such as poetry, letter writing, interview questions and more and will put the finish product in he correct format for them. This site offers many different lesson plans to help teach different english topic for all grades.

Center for Digital Story Telling: Center for Digital Story Telling offers different stories from around the world. You can create custom stories or use many of their stories. This can be a great tool for many different grades because students can create their own stories or a teach can use a story that fits into their lesson. This site offers many different stories from all over the world to give students and teachers a global prospective.

KidPub: KidPub is a site for students to improve their writing skills by having students share their work to an audience around the world. The only down side is that there is a one time fee. Not only can students post their essays, poems and reviews, but they can also write book and have them published on the website and be found on Amazon. I believe that this site would be good for middle school and high school grades because students will be able to not only get their work checked by other students or teacher, they will be able to see how other students are writing and how they could apply what they read to their own work. This site helps enforces good writing habits because they are posting their work for the world to see. Also, students can get and give feedback to other students so they can work on their grammar skills.

Shakespeare Online: Shakespeare Online offers plays, analysis, biography, and more. Students can read different types of plays and poems written by Shakespeare. Also, they can read about the background of Shakespeare's life and writings. This website can be used from about 7th grade to 12th grade. This website helps students gain an understanding for a writer to help them gain a deeper understanding for the author and his/her work.

Chapter 11

National Library of Virtual Manipulative: This site offers virtual manipulative for students. It has different visuals for grades pre-k through 12 and a various math topics. These different tools can help students gain a better understanding of the more abstract math that this hard to process. This online tool is great for all grades. The benefits of this tool are that students can have a visual to help them process the math. This site helps with technology integration in a math classroom because students will be able to find the virtual tool that best helps them understand the topic at hand. 

Leap Frog: Leap Frog is a educational learning system. It offers fun while reading or doing math. there are many different devices and games. These games are for pre-k through 4th grade. These games get helps kids find fun in learning giving them rewards in the games. Also, they can find the games that interest the, and reinforce what they are learning. Students can use these in the classroom as a reward once completing an assignment. 

My Webinar Podcast

My Podcast on The Power of Story Using Personal Narrative and Podcast with Young Adult English Language Learners By Susan Pearson.

listen to ‘Webinar’ on Audioboo

Midterm

In EDU 235 we cover many different topics about technology in the classroom. I find that our main focus is the TIP and T-PACK model. The TIP model is the steps needed to determine how to use technology in a lesson plan. The T-PACK model shows the balance between technology, content, pedagogical and knowledge. We have also covered many different Web 2.0 tools that can be used in different class activities. Some of the tools we have covered include Blogger, Prezi, Storyboard That, and Weebly. In the class we use Google Docs which is great for collaborating and sharing among students.

In the class we different activities to understand how technology can be used in a classroom. We share our book work through Google Docs which is much easier then emailing of printing them out. In a classroom I could use Google Docs as a way for students to pass in papers or focus questions as well as have groups of students collaborate on an assignment. One of my favorite activities was the tool challenge. It helped me understand how to take a lesson plan and add different tools to make it better.

I find this class to be somewhat challenging. The work load can be much at times but I believe that the concepts can be a lot to remember. There are many topics covered in this class so it can be hard to juggle everything at once. Somethings that I ind exciting about this class are finding new tools, to use in my future classroom. With everything I have so far learned, I believe that I will be able to run a successful classroom with the use of technology.

Me and My Digital Citizenship

In class, we took the time to find our self on Google. When I did this, I found the site Spokeo, which that shows all the people with your name. From there you can search by state until you find yourself. Here is a link to what I found on myself. The video we watched explained that a digital footprint is created as soon as you are born. With birth records, birth announcements and sharing of cute pictures the newborn is already creating a footprint without their control. What exactly is digital citizenship? It is a concept which helps teachers, technology leaders and parents to understand what students/children/technology users should know to use technology appropriately. As the years go on, our digital footprints grow and no matter what we do, it will never go away. Digital citizenship is everything that you do on the Internet. 

A digital tattoo is an expression of yourself; it’s highly visible, and hard to remove. There are many different ways you can protect yourself on the Internet, but you will still leave some trace. As you grow-up your tattoo will change and evolve, but someone will still be able to trace what you were doing on the Internet before you had the ability to even use the computer.

Over the years I have joined many different social media sties and have not really thought about what I was putting up. Of course as family joined I began taking things down and watching what I say and put on the websites. Growing up we were never taught that what goes up on the Internet will never be taken off, but only to not talk to strangers (which was the biggest concerns then). As I got older I began to hear stories of students not being accepted to their dream schools do to what they had on the Internet, so I became to be cautious about what I was posting. As i have gotten older I have began to regret what I have posted in the Internet. Unfortunately, with the openness of the Internet, I do still tend to run my mouth and say things I should not on the Internet; however, I have learned what is appropriate when it comes to pictures.



Here is a Prezi to help teach students about Digital Citizenship.