Final: Reflective Post

This is our final post for the semester and I have really enjoyed this class. I talked about this in my last post, how this class has changed in just the span of 12 years. This class is essential for us "Tech Generation" kids as we become teachers. We have learned a lot in this class.

We learned about utilizing technology in web based projects. Our main projects that have incorporated this was Collaborative Lesson Plan, WebQuest, and our last project our Web page. Our lesson plan was a group project. I worked with 3 other intelligent women. Our lesson plan was on telling time and it was for 2nd graders. Our main source of technology was the interactive white board. This is a whiteboard mounted to a wall and connected to a computer and projector. You can use your finger or a pen to operate the whiteboard and can operate things such as websites, games, and PowerPoint presentations (Maloy, 2013). WebQuest are awesome projects that allows your students to learn somewhat independently as they look and learn resources that you provide for them by themselves. I used mine to teach a subject I taught my middle school after school students, which was the 7 habits. Our last project was to make a webpage as teachers for our students and their families to access. I don't know any teacher that has done this (and by this time you know I know a lot of teachers). I think it is an amazing thing and I will incorporate it in my teaching career.

We learned how to critique in the beginning of class. We critiqued an educational website. I chose to critique pbslearningmedia.org. The purpose of this  project was to teach us how to make a rubric. Which between this class and my Intro to Ed class this semester, I feel like I am a rubric making pro. The first time I heard about rubrics, I was against them. I am one of those people who can't stand how education has become a performance to the state more than it is to teach students. And the rubric seemed to me to be the critic of the performance. After doing them a couple of times, I realize, they are more common sense than anything else. If a student does bad, he gets a lower grade. If he does good, he gets a higher grade. Rubrics just emphasize this. It also holds the students (and in this case PBS learning media website) to a high standard.

We learned about legal issues such as copyright and cyberbullying. I personally learned that you need to make sure that all of your pictures and post that you post on the internet isn't copyrighted and that cyberbullying is illegal. Here is a link that I found very interesting about cyberbullying and it helped me to write my post for our Legal and Ethical discussion. 

We created portfolio type projects like our Webpage and WebQuest, as well as our wiki page. Our Wiki page was another group effort. I worked again with some amazing girls as we introduced a few of Marzano's Strategies. We were able to add videos, graphics, charts, and links to further discuss our strategy that we had picked.

We researched websites that help us with integrating technology in our own classrooms. This was one of the first projects that we did, but it came in handy because we had to research for almost everything we had to do here. I chose three articles that I believe helped me then and will help me in the future. They are: How to integrate tech when it keeps changing, Why should I integrate multimedia resources into my teaching, and How 5 inspiring tablet classrooms are changing education. I know these helped me and they will be helpful to anyone who reads them.

We discussed how to teach with tech to ELL and ESE kids. Our main project for that was our collaborative lesson plan, and our discussion for that was Assistive/Adaptive Technology for students. In our discussion we had to chose a profile of a student with a disability. I have had experience with teaching a deaf student and I used most of our techniques to discuss in this post. I relied pretty heavily on website and that was signsavvy.com. For our ELL discussion we had the same kind of discussion where we had to chose a profile of a ELL student. I chose someone who had came to America from Mexico. I talked about using other spanish speaking students as well as Google Translate. My two references that I used for this post were: Supporting English Language Learners with Technology, and How to Integrate Technology with Teaching ELL Students.

 All in All, I would like to say that I have learned a lot in this class and I have enjoyed it thoroughly! I hope this is what I can expect in all of my education classes. I cannot wait to become a teacher with all of this knowledge of technology.

References:
Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Digital Badge # L

For this final blog post, we read chapter 12. I was reading this chapter, a few things stuck out to me.

The first thing was one on one laptop computing. This are something that I hope more and more schools start to integrate. Unfortunately, While I think most schools do have the want to convert their schools to one on one laptop computing schools, no one has the funds for this. My mother, who is an art teacher for Eastside Elementary School in Clewiston, Florida, wants to get a grant to fund a set of maybe 25-30 labtops on a cart, so that all of the enrichment teachers (Art, Music, P.E., and Library/Media Center) can use them in their classrooms. Which is a bit difficult and tedious. So some schools just stick with one or a few computer labs instead of a laptop for each student.

Speaking of grants, this was also a section in our book. As I have just said, it's tedious and difficult to write and obtain a grant. Both of my parents are teachers and have written numerous grants in order to get things for their classrooms. My mother has gotten supplies like canvas', clay, paint, and other art supplies. My father has received a grant that gave him money to take his students on a field trip. Even though they agree that it's hard work to write a grant that you may or may not get, it's very much worth it. The possibility of getting a grant and using it to teach your students in a unique way out weighs not even trying to get one, and having nothing to teach with.

I have talked about me coming up in a BYOD school and this chapter talks about schools like this. I have had issues with kids asking me if they could charge their phones. So I constantly had phones plugged into a wall. Phones went missing, one day there was a fight out on the plaza and an iPod Touch got smashed, the parents of the kid who smashed it had to buy a new one for the other kid, Once I got my middle school kids in line and some one had a school owned nook (the book club had bought about 40 Nooks (probably with a grant) and rented them out to all of the club members). While in line, one of the girl's head phone came out of the headphone jack and the music started playing out loud. I am not sure what the name of the song was, but the chorus had the same word repeated a few times, which was "Ass." I had to take the nook back to the teacher that headed up the book club and tell him what was on school property. There are many problems in this program, however, none of the problems I have mentioned are new problems that schools are facing. Cursing, fighting, interruptions in teaching and learning, these are all things that teachers have dealt with since the beginning of time. In fact, students bringing their own devices helps students to use their own technology while doing school work. Which teaches students that there are more things to do on their phones and tablets than just Candy Crush. My father is now a high school teacher at Clewiston High School in Clewiston, Fl. His students just ended a big project that they could use their phones for. He had a CSI murder senario and his students had to take pictures of a crime scene set up by him. I got to sit in on his class and watch the students excitedly try to figure out "Who killed Mr. Harn?" It was amazing, I had never been this excited in science ever. But it was technology rich and the students had a blast while learning something.

I have had a great time in this class. When I was in middle school and high school, my parents were going to college. While I was in high school they both decided to be teachers. They started to take New Technologies for Education. I asked them what to expect in the class. Keep in mind that they took this class in 2004. They told me Microsoft Office. That was it. Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel. That was it. My point with this story is I can't imagine me going in as a teacher and not using technology. I use technology everyday. And so do most of the people in my generation. However, I am very grateful for this class. I know people in the other class that this school offers that are bored in their class. This class has had so many projects and learning possibilities for me, even though I am pretty tech savvy, I believe I can be more efficient in technology now that I have taken this class.
Resorces: Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Badge #K

For Digital Badge #K we read chapter 6. The three things that I want to discuss is WebQuests, Virtual Field trips, and Virtual Schools.

I chose to write about webquests because we just had a major project on webquest. I thought I had a great understanding of webquest and was really excited about making mine. I realized that I was off a bit on the purpose of a webquest. I probably should have read the text book before I made one. Anyway, I see that the true purpose of a webquest is really awesome for students. I think that the webquest makes for an amazing activity in of itself and would be great to incorporate in lesson plans.

Virtual field trips are also an amazing activity to incorporate into lesson plans. I got to observe a class this semester that had two different virtual field trips to Italy and Russia via Google Maps. The students asked questions about the cars in Italy and the buildings in Russia. It was a great way for the kids to learn about different cultures in a more interactive way. Other websites let you have virtual tours of museums and art gallery. These are great ideas and a great way to use technology in class.

The last thing I would like to talk about is virtual schools. When I was in 2nd grade, my mom and Aunt had decided that they wanted to home school us and my two cousins. My two cousins went the whole year in home school but my mom (after about 3 months) put us in public school. Fast forward 20 years and my husband and I have discussed the kind of schools that we want our (future) kids to go to. We are both Christians and neither one of us want our kids to go to a Christian school. My mother-in-law would kill us if we sent them to a charter school. Home school isn't an option. So it looks like we will be sending our non existent children to public school. I have often thought about virtual school and I have had three (different from before) cousins who go to virtual school. I am not opposed to virtual school. In fact, I know that students can and have succeeded beyond their expectations (one of my cousin's actually skipped a grade). But one of the reasons why we don't want our kids to go to a Christian school, and is the same reason for virtual school, is that we believe that the better school socially is a public school. And there are pros virtual school. Some of the pros would be that they work at their own pace as well as their being a larger selection of subjects to chose from. These are reasons enough for me to consider it in the future. However, there are some other reasons to not consider it either.

In conclusion, Webquest and Virtual field trips are something that I may use a lot in my teaching. I and my class can benefit very well from them. And virtual schools may be an amazing venture for your and your children, but approach the idea with caution.


References: Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Badge #J

In this blog I will discuss a few things from chapter 11. The things that I found most interesting in this chapter was digital portfolios for teachers, digital portfolios for students, and online preassesment surveys.

In a world where digital is all over the place it's a smart idea to keep a digital portfolio handy for any job. I went to a trade school where I learned to be a multimedia designer. One of the projects that I had to do was to make a digital portfolio. I had my actual one that showed print, but the digital portfolio showed my print, web and video making skills. This was a must in order to be hired as anything multimedia related. As a child of two teachers, I have witnessed my parents getting together portfolios so that they could show the principals what they could offer, especially my mother who is an art teacher. Teachers can benefit from having a digital portfolio, or an eportfolio, because it shows principals (or who ever hires you in that district) that you are not only creative but also adaptive of technology.

Digital portfolios for students are also a great way of keeping students in check with themselves. I cannot remember if I talked about this in this class or in my other education class I am taking this semester, but while I was teaching in the after school program at the school I worked at, I had students keep a online data notebook. This way, when the students had student-led conferences, they could show their parents and teachers their progress. It displayed their ambitions for their school year, there own personal mission statement, the progress of their grades, behavior, and goals during the year, and it gave them a chance to create it in the way that they chose. These were really great because the students who did well were excited about keeping up with their grades as did the students who were improving. It gave the students a goal to shoot from. While what we did was just a portion of a digital portfolio, it's a great idea for students to document what they do so that they can move forward in their progress.

The last thing I want to discuss is Online preassesment surveys. In the three years of tutoring and summer camp that I have done, pre and post surveys were mandatory. I personally didn't like doing them and tried to make them as easy as I could. I believed that I could teach students and that they could learn because what I was teaching was relatively interesting. I taught technology, photography, film, and photoshop. Everything they would have to learn (i.e, how to operate a camera, different acting jobs, and how to use basic tools in photoshop) would be done everyday, and that it was ridiculous to give a pen and paper to a middle school student and tell them to guess the best that they could during the summer or after they got back from a big test. As a future teacher I see a difference in having it in the classroom where as having it in extracurricular activities is just awful. If it had been online, I think my students wouldn't have minded very much but having being sat down and given a pencil the first time they saw me I think made them a little uneasy.

In conclusion, I am looking forward to sitting up a digital portfolio, I think digital portfolios are great for students and keeping up with their progress, and I think online surveys are much better than hand written surveys because they allow the students to have a change of pace.

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Reference:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Badge #I

For this blog my classmates read and blogged about chapter 4. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention and a few weeks ago, my teacher alerted me and told me that I had done the wrong chapter. So since I have already blogged about chapter 4, I am going to blog about the chapter that I should have done a few weeks ago, which is chapter 5. The things in Chapter 5 that I would like to discuss is Wikipedia being used in classrooms, Copyright infringement, and cyber bulling.

I always feel like I go back to previous blogs I have posted and I state the same things over and over again, however, I feel that these blogs are in conjunction with each other. So with that said, I am a child of the 90s. I remember doing middle school projects and having to go to the library to look up things in world book encyclopedias. Even when I was in high school (I graduated in 2005) I had to have 4 reference from books and 2 from the internet. It was a widely common knowledge that the things on the internet were not as factual back in the day. Fast forward to today, and we have many viable options as far as internet research goes. Wikipedia is a very controversial topic among teachers and professors. The fact that it is a community written encyclopedia is often the factor that many educators have a problem with. For example, a few years ago, comedian Sinbad had woke up with calls from his daughter. His daughter asked him if he was ok. After assureing her he was fine, his daughter told him that his Wikipedia page had stated that he had died. After getting it cleared up, it was reported (again) that he had died of an heart attack. Anybody can put information on this site, which is why this is an highly controversial site. I personally think that most of the information is true on Wikipedia, but question what is and what isn't. So as a future educator, I would allow students to use Wikipedia, only if they could back it up with another viable source.

Copyright material is always a very scary thing to me. I value my education and have many times been passed with plagiarism and copying/cheating while in college. Once because I simply didn't know. I had copied sentences from a book for homework and didn't cite my material. My teacher let me off the hook because she genuinely believed that I had no idea (which I, being 18 at the time, was very grateful for this). Then while in Art history, we had to review the movie Psycho. I got mixed up and gave a summary of the movie. My art history teacher accused me of copying and pasting my information from websites. This I knew was wrong. I had spent hours working on this and coming up with a great summary with my own words. And I was not going to get in trouble with plagiarism again. I wrote her a strongly worded letter apologizing to her for the misunderstanding of a review and summary and would understand any docking of grade for this, but that I had put in a lot of work and hours in to writing a summary in my own words, and if she thought I had plagiarized then she needed to come up with the proof and there wouldn't be any. I believe I got a B- on the homework. A year later a friend copied a test paper word for word with mine, and of course I was in the dean's office. I was thankful my friend had came clean and told them that she had copied me, But after these situations, I have decided that I am done with these problems. I try to stay clear of anything that can become copyright issues. I know that after doing these blogs that you can only use domain free items and is happy to do this.

The last thing I would like to talk about is cyber bulling. This isn't something I had to deal with growing up with too much. The main ways students are cyber bulling others are through sites such as facebook, snapchat, twitter, and instagram. I didn't have any of these when I was a kid. Although we did have chat rooms, I wasn't allowed on them and there for, I didn't notice it too much. I know as an adult and a fan of youtube, that people can be mean when they are not face to face with you. They tend to feel a little more powerful behind a keyboard. I know I have talked about this recently, but I was able to teach technology in a summer program a few years ago. In this class the kids were able to maintain a kidblog. They were given strict orders to be careful with what they put on these blogs and that I had the power to see all of their post. They knew if they wrote bad things about another camp member than I would report them and they were kicked out of the program. Unfortunately, the district that we were in wanted me (a non teacher in their county) to be kicked out of a technology program. I later became the photography teacher and I did that for the rest of the summer so we only were able to do two weeks of blogging. But the kids had a blast and they were very well behaved. I know that is not the case, and especially when you think no one is watching you write horrible stuff about someone. One of my campers a family friend of mine and she had me as a friend on facebook. I noticed that she and another girl were tearing this other girl apart. The things that they said about this girl were awful. The extremely sad thing was they were in 5th 6th and 7th grade. To put that in another perspective, they were 10, 11, and 13 years old. I am an adult and I don't say the words they were saying about the 10 year old. I told (the family friend) what she was doing was awful and even if the other girl was saying it, she was agreeing and how it would make my friend feel she was the one being bullied. I think I resolved the issue, but there are many more cases out there that turn deadly and for a 10 year old to have to experience this is just plain heartbreaking.

In conclusion, as a future educator, I will do my best to be fair with Wikipedia, teach my students about copyrights and the importance of copyright in college, and bullying in general, but also online bullying.

Reference:
Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Digital Badge # H

For this digital badge #H, we had to read chapter 9. Three topics that I would like to discuss are power point strategies, YouTube and online streaming video websites, and video editing software in the class room.

PowerPoint and Prezis are very popular in teaching. As I have stated before, my parents (who are teachers) use PowerPoint and Prezi on a weekly basis. These are great tools for teaching, as well as great for students and projects. Some presentations that I have been able to teach using PowerPoint are about me (the students) and something we called Personal Electronic Data Notebooks. We had the students create PowerPoints that examined their grades, FCAT scores, and behavior for the year. It was a great way to keep the kids in check with themselves as well as put their own influence in the design. Prezi's are great to do this kind of thing as well.

YouTube is a great thing to use for education. At first, my thought was that anything on Youtube has to be examined carefully before showing to students and especially younger students. But I have noticed that YouTube has something called YouTube Education. This allows for safe YouTube streaming. Also, Khan Acadamy and Discovery Education are great educational video streaming that I have used before.

Finally, I would like to discuss video editing. Having being certified in Adobe Premier Pro, and a small side business of making videos for education, graduations, weddings, reunions, and ect; I have used a few video editing software.  All of my computer's in my house are macbooks. So I am very familiar with iMovie. I use iMovie quite a bit. As well as have used Microsoft Movie Maker in the past. Like I just said, I am certified in Premier Pro, so I now use an editing software that's a little more expensive, but I can say, for movie making in the class room, that iMovie and Microsoft Movie Maker is just as impacting as Premier Pro for what students can use it for.

References:
Discovery Education streaming. (2008, December 4). Retrieved October 19, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=illMlepgrDM


Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Digital Badge # G

For this post, we read chapter 10. Chapter 10 was about students with cultural, academic, and physical differences and they way technology can help them in everyday learning. The three things that I chose to talk about today are multicultural students and online language translation services, the digital accommodations of low-tech, mid-tech, and high-tech, and the use of interactive electronic storybooks.

The first thing I would like to elaborate on is multicultural students and online language translations services. I have said many times while on this blog, that I worked as a after school tutor for a local middle school. I have been very discreet about which middle school in which town because of this being on the internet and even though, these post are for grades, I realize that random people are looking at my blog. My Digital Badge #A has around 31 views and I am pretty sure my professor isn't viewing my first blog post that many times. But if my professor is familiar with the local schools in our area, she will know which town I am referring to when I say, I come from a migrant community. This town is a migrant farming community. Our main produce is tomatoes. The diversity of the students are Hispanic (being mainly Mexican and Guatemalan), Haitian, White, and Native American (in that order). All of that to say, As a tutor I am very familiar with online language translations services. By far the one that we used the most was Google translate. This allowed the Spanish speaking and Creole speaking students to communicate with me the problems they were having as well as I communicating with them on what I wanted them to do. The upside to this was that I got to learn a little Creole and Spanish as I went along (I brag that my first words in Creole were close your mouth and sit down.) A small side note, I also worked with a deaf/ hearing impaired student as well. My boss asked us if anyone knew American Sign Language. After no one said anything I told them I knew the alphabet and they sit me with the student. After a year of working closely with her, I was able to sign somewhat fluently with her. I won't go into much detail on it because I talked about it in my disscussion post, but we used a site called Signing Savvy. This sight was an online dictionary for ASL. It did great and I still use it today to look up a word. Going back to Google translate, they now have an app. So it's great to use in classrooms.

Another thing that stuck with me as I was reading this chapter was the low, mid, and high tech accommodations. It seems so simple, but it's really good information. I found myself really going back to the chart and taking notes of situations and their low, mid, and high tech accommodations were. I would also research and in some occasions look closely at some of the apps. These are great solutions to everyday things.

Lastly, I am going to talk about the use of interactive electronic storybooks. This isn't a huge surprise because it seems like I often talk about Reading Rainbow and the app that they have. I do plan on using this when I become a teacher and I am excited about this. But I have talked about Reading Rainbow too often in these blogs, so I will spare you the lecture on it. Instead, I will talk about the use of storybooks and ebooks in the classroom. I don't think that anyone is arguing that online storybooks or ebooks are ruining the classroom. They engage students both visually and audibly, they help students decipher words that they may not know the spelling of, but have heard the word said before, and they teach students to pronounce words phonically. I suppose some would consider it a lackadaisical approach to reading, but I don't see it that way. I see it doing more good than bad. I am not an advocate of ebooks only. I do believe students should be able to pick up an actual book from time to time, but ebooks in the classroom are a very smart decision.  Every post in this blog we have to add a digital tool. We have these tools to chose from and some that I have been looking at using (but haven't really found a good use for it yet) are two digital storytelling sites called Story Bird and Zoo Burst. My grandmother has a book published. Because we are of Christian faith the book is called  Children's Parables: Earthly Stories With Heavenly Lessons for Children. And my shameless plug is that you can buy it and order it from amazon here. So it's no wonder that I wrote a short story a few years ago. I lost it when my computer was stolen and I am rewriting it now. Everyone that had read it told me I should have it published. My dream of course is to get it published one day when it is ready. I believe that these sites (Story Bird and Zoo Burst) are great sites to make story books and have your students read them.

To recap I think that Google Translate is an amazing app and works great with students who speak a different language. The chart in the textbook that shows everyday situations and the low, mid, and high tech accommodations for them are very informative and I will be using these notes for when I am teacher. And lastly, digital storytelling and ebooks are a must for classroom technology.




 References:
Children's Parables: Earthly Stories with Heavenly Lessons for Children Paperback – December 5, 2013. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2014, from http://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Parables-Earthly-Heavenly-Children/dp/1490816755/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413208276&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Christian Children Books Karen Frantz

Google Translate. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2014, from https://translate.google.com/

Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Storybird. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2014, from http://storybird.com/poetry/poem/48jq26brrw/published/
 

Digital Badge # F

This week's blog was centered around Chapter 8 in our text book. To me this was one of the more interesting chapters in the book. I feel like now we are getting into some pretty good tools to use for classrooms. The topics I would like to discuss would be Blogs, Wiki pages, and briefly on understanding Textspeak and Textisms.

Blogs are a way for people to explain things, showcase work, or to create a community in which people can come and interact with. Blogs in classrooms can be very good in the sense of creativity. I know if given the chance many kids would gladly tell you about their day and all of the events that are coming up in their lives. I had the chance to work with middle school aged students one summer in the Boys and Girls Club. I taught technology (for only a week due to me not being a Collier County Certified Teacher) and during that time the kids kept a blog. A few things that I wanted to make sure of. One, when working with minors, what they say and do should not be posted for the rest of the internet to see. So I needed to make sure that this was a closed blog. I found a blog site called Kidblog.org. This was amazing. I made 8 different classes (we had 8 different groups) and the classes were able to post and only see their classmates blog. The kids would get excited about writing what they did that day, or what they were expecting to do during the weekend. I also had to explain to them that if they had a crush on some one or had information that they didn't want people to know, this was not the place to express that. This was not a virtual diary and that everyone else could see this post. I got very positive feedback on it. I know this would be a great English assignment to use in schools today.

This class is making Wiki pages to talk about Marzano's strategies. If I am honest with myself (and with my professor who is reading this) I was terrified of this project. I have never created a wiki page and I have only been aquatint with it for about a year now. So when the professor said it was time to make a page with other classmates I had a mini panic attack. I was very nervous. After working with it for a week now, I feel more comfortable with it. Although, I still have a hard time thinking of things to put in it and understanding my classmates on direction, I am working as hard as I can to make a wiki page with as much information as I can find. With all of this said, I would recommend middle/high schools include this in their curriculum. It's a great way to show researched information. They can be very informative as well.

The last thing I would like to discuss would be textspeak. I have talked about growing up in the 90s and getting my first cell phone when I was a senior in high school. Although, I had friends with cell phones when I was in middle school, my parents felt that I shouldn't ever be anywhere that an adult is not and therefore, do not need a cell phone. I ended getting my mother's hand-me-down cell phone when I was 17 years old. I know own a smart phone and I don't like texting on it very much. My fingers always press other letters, and I am not as fast at texting as I am at typing. So I am cursed in this texting world that we live in. I remember texting lingo when I was a kid being "LOL," "BRB," "TTYL," ect. I remember when people started putting numbers into words like "L8er," and "@mb3r." I once read a sentence on myspace that looked like this:

"H! My n@m3 !s @mb3r. ! l!k3 th3 c0l0r gr33n!"

My head would often hurt when reading this. I hated seeing things that looked like this. Then the thing was not to use vowels at all:

"Hy, My nms mbr! I lk th clr grn!"

Which was not any better. Just a few years ago I noticed people duplicating the ampersand when they would say and like "&&I was like..." and the last thing I saw (about a year ago) was the replacement of the letter "G" with the letter "Q". Some things I understand, like the since of abbreviation and phonetic abbreviation. But I don't know if the last couple of examples show phonetic abbreviation. I once had a student ask me if it was illegal to spell her (future) son's name with a number. I had no idea if it was but I hope that this child changes her mind when she is an adult. I do honestly think that text talk needs to stay out of education and stay between friends. (Although, I have to suppress writing LOL many times while turning in discussion posts.)

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References:

Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Safe and Simple. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2014, from http://kidblog.org/home/

Digital Badge # E

After reading the comments in my last post I realized that I did the wrong chapter. I want to apologize for that. I will make sure to pay attention to which chapter I am on from now on.

With that said, this week's chapter was Chapter 7, and again, the last bit of the chapter was the most interesting and what I think I could talk about the most. So I am going to be discussing the types of digital games that the book acknowledges. Internet based games and desktop based games, simulation type games, and virtual worlds.

The first I would like to talk about is internet based games vs. desktop based games. An Internet based game (or browser based game) is a game that you can find off of the internet, while a desktop game usually comes from software. There are a lot of really good educational games for both. A good example of internet based game would be anything from the website coolmath.com. When I taught in the after school program at the middle school I was at, the middle school students would try to ask me if they could play games. When I would say no, they would ask, "even Cool Math?" Cool Math is a great website for the kids to learn math and science and some reading as well. But all of it is in the form of games. They are mostly puzzle type games and a lot of them are very familiar to games that students would play while not in school.  A good example of a desktop game would be Oregon Trail or Mavis Beacon Typing software. What makes internet games better than desktop games is the fact that most of them are free. The thing that makes desktop games better than internet games is they can give you more exclusive content. So there are pros and cons to both types of games

The second thing I would like to talk about would be simulation games. I think the most popular simulation game out there is The Sims (which is one of my favorite games). The Sims have a lot of games like The Sims, SimCity, and SimTower.  These games allow you to build people (The Sims), cities (SimCity), and buildings and skyscrapers (SimTower). These games teach about life, geography, economy, and finance. Although, I haven't ever seen The Sims in schools, SimCity and SimTower are both great educational games. Simulation games put the student having all control of the object.

The last thing I would like to discuss is about virtual worlds. The book gave the example of the adult game Secondlife. This is a game that I have played before. I appreciate that it stated it was an "adult" game, because I wouldn't suggest this game to any kid. In fact, I really wouldn't suggest it to adults. It's vulgar, it's very personal, and type of people who normally play this game are a little odd. I thought it was just like some game that you could play and not have to worry too much about. But I figured out it was called Secondlife for a reason. You have to devote you first life (the real one) into this game. It was too much for me. What I know my middle school kids loved was Minecraft. I know that you have to get a subscription, but my middle school kids had found a demo version and played it on Fridays when they were allowed a little computer time. The good thing about virtual world games is that it teaches you real-life situations when you may not have access to it. For instance, in these worlds you may have to get a job to get money, or plant things so that you can have food. This teaches students to be responsible.


References:
Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Schaffhauser, D. (2013, September 10). Will Gaming Save Education, or Just Waste Time? -- THE Journal. Retrieved September 28, 2014, from http://thejournal.com/Articles/2013/09/02/Will-Gaming-Save-Education-or-Just-Waste-Time.aspx?Page=1

Digital Badge # D

Normally, When I start to write this blog I read the chapter and try to pick out three different things in the chapter that stood out to me. This time, as I read chapter 4, I noticed the there was only one thing that really truly stood out to me. And that was the section titled Assessing and Evaluating Students.

In this section, it is stated that there are three factors that influence teachers on assessment. The first of which is personal experiences. The text book goes on to say that new teachers tend to teach in the way that they were taught. So if you were taught by lectures, you will tend to lecture to your students. I think this is why it's good to take classes like Introduction To Teaching Profession, Introduction To Technology For Teachers, and Introduction To Diversity For Educators. They teach us different ways to teach. They open us up to new options that we wouldn't other wise have. It's important for us to see other ways to teach. I am not exactly for or against Common Core. I see somethings that don't really make me happy with it. However, one thing that I agree with is that everyone learns differently. It's important not to just stick with one method of teaching, because most classes don't learn in only one method.

 The second factor is standardized testing. There's been a lot of stuff here recently about standardized testing in the news. First of all, Lee county made historical news in being the first and only county in Florida that opted out of standardized testing. Again, I am on the fence about standardized testing. On one hand I believe that there should be some form of exit exam. Most states have one. However, I think Florida pushes to hard for their test. As any Floridian knows, FCAT is a major part of schools. This one test has the power not only to not allow a student to pass high school, but also has the power to cost teachers their jobs. I graduated high school in 2005. I started high school in Florida in 2003 after I moved from Alabama. FCAT was brand new to me and I took my first FCAT exam when I was a sophomore in high school. My brother got very ill that year. We almost lost him. At one point we thought he had a stroke. All of this happened during FCAT week. Being a student for the first time in Florida, I didn't realize how important FCAT really was. I "Christmas Treed" the test just so I could go back to the hospital to see my brother. The next year I realized how important it was and really tried at it. Unfortunately, I didn't pass. I missed the math by about 4 questions, and the reading by about 2. My senior year I passed the FCAT. It took me three years, but I finally made it. Three years later, the school I attended had gotten and F (for about the 5 year in a row) and they got a new principal. The new principal fired 27 teachers. That's when I realized that this test was crazy. I believe very much, that this is a major factor in a teacher's lesson plan and assessment.  If not they could duly pay the price.

listen to ‘Public Schools and Standardized Tests’ on Audioboo

The last thing that was mentioned as a factor was teacher test. As a future teacher, I know there are test that we have to take such as the General Knowledge Test, the CLAST, and any subject area exams that is required. Many teachers believe that this way is the exact way to teach their students. There could be some things a person can take from this test, but to make assessments from this solely isn't the best idea. Like I said before, best to mix in ideas instead of keeping with one.

Like I said in the beginning of this post, I tend to read throughout the whole chapter and figure out what three seperate things in the chapter spoke to me. But this whole section spoke to me and I felt I had something to say about everything in this section. I am also curious to know how you feel about these subjects (Professor Coleman).

Reference:
 Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Badge # C

I just got done reading in chapter 3 and the biggest things that jumped out at me were the 4 learning theories, digital, media, and visual literacies, and our digital citizenships.

The first I would like to discuss would be the 4 learning theories which are: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and constructionism.  The behaviorism theory is we learn by how we act to things around us. One of the greatest experiments of behaviorism is Pavlov's dog.  Ivan Pavlov would ring a bell whenever it was time to feed his dogs. He discovered that once he would ring the bell his dogs would begin to salivate. To put it to an example using students, If you give your students rewards at the end of the week for doing their work, and continue to do it for a few weeks, the students would do their work, unprompted, because they expect an reward at the end of the week. Cognitivism is the theory that learning comes not from environment but internally, as in our memory, motivation, attention, ect. By reading this blog, you understand what I am saying because you have memorized these words and their meanings. So you are able to decipher this because of cognitivism learning. Constructivism is basically that we are able to interpret the world in our own way. So experiments and activities are key to this learning style. The last would be constructionism. This is essentially the same things as constructivism except for it adds that people learn while doing things in the real world. Which I can relate to because I am a very hard headed individual. I learn by trial and error. I have been out of high school for almost 10 years now. In between this time I have had 7 jobs, have gotten married and been to 2 different colleges. I did well in my first year of college. I went to what was then Edison Community College. I wanted to get out of South Florida so I went to North Florida to a college and I was an 19 year old free person. I rarely attend my classes and I ran out of money. I moved back down to southwest Florida and began my career as an uneducated person. I hated working the jobs that didn't envolve kids. These were jobs like CVS and JoAnn Fabrics. I hated working with money in fast paced situations. With working with kids and no education I worked with babies. I have been thrown up on, pooped on, and I have been in a room with 12 crying, sleepy, cranky infants. I knew that I couldn't do that for much longer. I had the opportunity to work with middle school students after school for three years. I enjoyed this although middle school was just as bad as the infant room with all of the hormones, emotions, drama, and (sometimes) blatant disrespect. I decided I wanted to be the boss of my classroom, and going back to school would be the only way to do it.

I also liked reading about digital, media, and visual literacy. I have learned that I am more visual literacy kind of person. I learn by videos, books, magazines, ect. My mother is an art teacher for an elementary school. She always has Prezi's for her kids. In her words "It's like Power Point but on crack." I plan on using things like Prezi for my classroom

The last thing I want to talk about it our digital citizenship. As citizens of this country, we have our rights. No one has the right to take away any of our rights. Digital citizenship is our digital rights. I am currently injured and because of my injury I had to step down from my job working with the middle school in the after school program. The good news is I have time to commit to my FOUR online courses this year. Even though some of it has been taken up by doctors appointments. All of this just to say, all of my classes we give responses to our classmates discussion post. They must be constructive and valuable information. We simply cannot write "You suck!" on the post (which is just mean but I guess they need to tell us this for a reason.) We need to be open to people's beliefs and rights and not big meanies (as my 7 year old cousin would say.)

Reference:
 Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Badge # B

There were a few things I found interesting in Chapter 2 this week. One of the biggest things that I read that made me really reflect was about web 2.0. More so on Web 1.0. As I said in my last post, I am a child of the 90s. I asked my brother (who is just a year younger than me) what he could remember about technology during his elementary through high school years (1990 - 2006.) We had just got our first family computer in 1997.  I remember the dial up modem and having to wait patently for my mom to get off the phone just so I could listen to midi files of *Nsync (one of my favorite things to do on the internet at that time.) He and I both remember having to take a typing class. My mother took a typing class when she was in high school. But she took it on a typewriter. We took ours on a computer. I remember one girl in class who was really good at typing. The teacher asked her "How can you type that fast at your age?" Her response was "I talk in a lot of chat rooms." These days kids aren't great typers on keyboards, rather, they are great texters on phones. Unlike the kids of today, I received my first cell phone when I was a senior in high school so my texting ability is limited. My brother and I agree that one of the biggest influences in technology that we had experienced at school was playing the game Oregon Trail. What Oregon Trail taught us was that if you survived the 1800s you were close to godliness. The rest of us died of dysentery. As for web 1.0 being taught in schools, that wasn't even an option for us half of the time. In our high school years (which was after the millennium) We were able to do some research papers off of the internet but even then most teachers still wanted us to look things up in encyclopedias. (Which I remember using alot in middle school and high school.)

Another thing that I found interesting in this chapter was using technology in a fun and interesting way instead of what most of my teachers would do (lecture.) There are many good things about lecturing. However, most people can pay attention for just a few minutes or more. To sit in a classroom for 45 minutes is just ridiculous. I want to be the teacher that has everyone's attention for the day. The way to do that is to make it fun for the kids. Bringing technology to them certainly wouldn't hurt.

Post by Amber Lee.

The last thing I want to talk about is the already availability of educational web 2.0 tools. One of these tools is a website called Edmodo. Edmodo is a site that is just like Facebook for students. The school where I was a after school middle school tutor used this a lot. The students would have assignments in class and they would submit them via Edmodo. Much like how we use canvas here at Florida Southwestern. Again, as I said in the last post, I worked at a BYOD school. Where I noticed there were some issues with having devices at school. There were many more great aspects of this method. The kids (when prompted) could get out their devices and do research. I honestly like this method of teaching. It allows the students to use devices, web 2.0 tools, learn from researching by and for themselves, and it allows them to have a little fun doing it.

 Resorces:
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

https://www.edmodo.com/about

Digital Badge #A

On this particular post we are supposed to talk about three concepts in the first chapter of Transforming Learning with New Technologies. The three concepts that I found most interesting were building our digital identity, current tech tools used for teaching, and the technological pedagogical content knowledge.

A digital identity is what you know technically as a teacher. For instance, I went to school to be a graphic designer. I am certified in Adobe Photoshop CS5, Adobe Dreamweaver, and Adobe Premiere Pro. Photoshop is a program that allows you to manipulate photos and work with design. Because my vocational technical school was a business school, I learned how to make business cards, flyers, post cards, ect. Dreamweaver allows you to make websites, and Premiere Pro allows you to make videos. I was an after school tutor at a middle school and I taught the kids there Photoshop. We were able to make book covers, motivational posters, and movie posters. I also have made two teacher appreciation videos, interviewing students about their favorite teachers. In the summer I work for the Boys and Girls Club and have taught my kids for two years photography and film. They enjoy the process. This is what my digital identity is. I have been asked to make power points and with newer versions have been extremely lost. Students have shown me what to do. So I would love to step out of my Adobe comfort zone and learn other technologies.

Current tech tools used for teaching are Laptops, smart phones, tablets, ect. The school that I taught after school at is a BYOD school. (Bring Your Own Device) The kids always had phones and tablets that they could get on during their day school and look up projects and research information. The book club in the school gave out rentable nooks. The kids could read books and at the end of the school year turn in the nook. Although I thought this was a great idea, it had its problems. Kids wanting to take them out, downloading inappropriate music on them, and the countless amount of charging phones. But like everything that can become a distraction, it's easily fixed. I was born in 1987. Which means I was a child of the 90s. Any kid growing up in the 90s can tell you their favorite thing about reading class was Reading Rainbow. Just recently I noticed that the host of Reading Rainbow, Kickstarted a petition to bring Reading Rainbow to schools and home via technology (Burton, 2014). As a future mother, I was excited to see that it would be available to my child. As a future teacher, it made me think of how beneficial it would be to implement it in my classroom. I began to daydream about my second graders (my dream job) on tablets listening and watching (and of course reading) Reading Rainbow. I knew that that would be something that I made happen.

The last thing that I want to discuss would be the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). There are three TPACK concepts, content knowledge which is strictly the concept you are teaching, pedagogical knowledge is the knowledge of teaching methods, and technological knowledge is knowing all the types of teaching with technology (Maloy, 2013). The book talks about implementing all at the same time while teaching. I think that is what most teachers do, or at least, all the teachers I know do. I can see where one teacher may excel teaching in one concept, but it is critical that we take all of these concepts and teach them together.


Resorces
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Burton, LaVar & Reading Rainbow (2014) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/readingrainbow/bring-reading-rainbow-back-for-every-child-everywh