For my final assignment for EDIM 514, I had to create a digital portfolio. I chose to create a Google Site to present all of my material. The reason that I chose this medium was because I was very familiar with it and because this is something that will grow with my professional development, I felt it was important to utilize a tool with which I was very comfortable.
My site has 6 subpages. The landing page for the website is the "Welcome" page in which I give a brief description of who I am and what to expect within the website. On the "Resume" page I created and embedded a Glogster that displays all of my education and employment experience in a timeline format. I had also played around with Smore, but decided to go with Glogster because it seemed more impressionable. For the "Selected Works" page, I created a list of all of the Wilkes classes that I have attended along with a an example of a work I created along with a long. I also included links to my various blogs that correlate with each class. In the "Online Presence" section, I listed links to my Twitter account, personal Blogger blog, and my teaching Google Site. In "Favorite Links," I created a Symbaloo of many of the sites that I regularly or with which I have at least experimented. Finally, in the "Contacts" page I incorporated an embedded email form along with a list of other ways to contact me through Twitter and Google +. The one thing that I really wanted to do was embed my Twitter feed, but, because of the changes to iGoogle, there was no way to create one. I've searched and experimented a lot, but could not seem to find a way to do it.
View my digital portfolio here.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
Attend a Live Webinar
This week's assignment (actually last week's) was to attend a live webinar. The reason I'm posting today is because I attended a webinar today. I actually had planned on attending a webinar last Wednesday night, but, even though it was marked on the calendar, it was not presented, presumably due to Thanksgiving being the next day. Anyhow, I found a webinar on Discovery Education to attend.
The webinar that I attended was titled Discovery Education Techbook: The Student Experience. The hour-long program was hosted by a man named Duane Waber and began at 4 p.m. on Monday December 2, 2013. Before I was able to attend, I had to download Cisco's Web Ex application. The presenter announced his arrival and explained that he was a substitute presenter due to the original host being unable to attend. He welcomed everyone, explained the purpose of the webinar, and gave the attendees access to view his desktop. From there, he walked us through the steps on how to create and manage classes in the techbook and gave us a general tour of the techbook interface and how to switch between grade and content areas. He continued with explaining how assignments worked and how they could be shared through a wide variety of social media including Facebook and Edmodo. Finally, he showed us a newer application within Discovery Education known as the "Board," which was very similar to Glogster. He also showed us how students and teachers could share "Board" projects with others throughout the Discovery Education Network. He concluded by asking for any questions, to which there were none, and thanking the attendees for their attendance.
In order to break down my observations of the webinar as a medium, I've created three lists below as strengths, weaknesses, and strengths/weaknesses (I'll explain that one when I get to it).
Strengths
The greatest strength of a webinar is the ability to communicate with the host, attendees, or both. It is not just a lecture, rather a conversation. This allows for the host to mold his talking points to his audience. For example, the host of this particular webinar asked, "has anyone ever used the techbook before?" I explained that I used it briefly, but for a grad class, not on my own. Other participants stated that they had never used it. So, the host took a very general approach to the content.
Some other strengths I observed were the ability to collaborate with people from all over the world, the ability to archive, and, something I hadn't thought of before, the ability to replace a host. As for the latter, I thought it was neat that, in the event of emergency or some sort of happenstance, someone else could step in instead of canceling the broadcast.
Weaknesses
I really only noticed one weakness with the medium. Technical difficulties happen, oftentimes beyond our own control. Power outage, lack of Internet connection, or other hardware issues can render a session kaput.
Strengths/Weaknesses
Finally, I created this category because each item can be a strength or a weakness. The first strength/weakness is the ability to view the host's desktop. Its great for demonstration purposes, but if you were to follow along with the host on your own browser or other application, you would have to switch back and forth. Maybe a small weakness, but worth stating. The other strength/weakness is the fact that it is all live. Its a strength because that is the whole point of a webinar, to collaborate live. Its also a weakness because an attendee or a host would have to be at a certain place (somewhere with access, essentially) at a certain time as opposed to a prerecorded show that could be created or viewed at one's leisure.
Aside from my previous observations, I would say that I enjoyed the presentation in that format. The content was presented a bit slowly, but of course it was geared toward the other two attendees, who did not have any experience with the techbook. But, it was definitely nice to have the host explain the techbook with a live demonstration. It made it easy to follow along. I do think I will attend some webinars in the future. They are typically free and easy to access, so it would be a great way to help myself professionally.
This type of webcast could be incorporated into the classroom as a way for students to connect with professionals around the world. Initially, my mind shot straight towards high school students attending webinars as a surrogate for college orientations or as a way to interact with professionals in their potential fields. But, then I also thought that elementary or middle school students could benefit from this in the form of meeting veterans on Veteran's Day or something along those lines. Although, I also think that Google Hangouts or Skype would be a bit easier to manage with students. Students could also benefit from webinars as broadcasters, but again, I would presume secondary students only. There are certain themes that go along with being a broadcaster such as digital literacy, public speaking (sort of), professionalism, flexibility, and content mastery all of which benefit students immensely. Students could present their own broadcasts as an alternative to typical projects or even broadcast live events such as sports or band concerts.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
The webinar that I attended was titled Discovery Education Techbook: The Student Experience. The hour-long program was hosted by a man named Duane Waber and began at 4 p.m. on Monday December 2, 2013. Before I was able to attend, I had to download Cisco's Web Ex application. The presenter announced his arrival and explained that he was a substitute presenter due to the original host being unable to attend. He welcomed everyone, explained the purpose of the webinar, and gave the attendees access to view his desktop. From there, he walked us through the steps on how to create and manage classes in the techbook and gave us a general tour of the techbook interface and how to switch between grade and content areas. He continued with explaining how assignments worked and how they could be shared through a wide variety of social media including Facebook and Edmodo. Finally, he showed us a newer application within Discovery Education known as the "Board," which was very similar to Glogster. He also showed us how students and teachers could share "Board" projects with others throughout the Discovery Education Network. He concluded by asking for any questions, to which there were none, and thanking the attendees for their attendance.
In order to break down my observations of the webinar as a medium, I've created three lists below as strengths, weaknesses, and strengths/weaknesses (I'll explain that one when I get to it).
Strengths
The greatest strength of a webinar is the ability to communicate with the host, attendees, or both. It is not just a lecture, rather a conversation. This allows for the host to mold his talking points to his audience. For example, the host of this particular webinar asked, "has anyone ever used the techbook before?" I explained that I used it briefly, but for a grad class, not on my own. Other participants stated that they had never used it. So, the host took a very general approach to the content.
Some other strengths I observed were the ability to collaborate with people from all over the world, the ability to archive, and, something I hadn't thought of before, the ability to replace a host. As for the latter, I thought it was neat that, in the event of emergency or some sort of happenstance, someone else could step in instead of canceling the broadcast.
Weaknesses
I really only noticed one weakness with the medium. Technical difficulties happen, oftentimes beyond our own control. Power outage, lack of Internet connection, or other hardware issues can render a session kaput.
Strengths/Weaknesses
Finally, I created this category because each item can be a strength or a weakness. The first strength/weakness is the ability to view the host's desktop. Its great for demonstration purposes, but if you were to follow along with the host on your own browser or other application, you would have to switch back and forth. Maybe a small weakness, but worth stating. The other strength/weakness is the fact that it is all live. Its a strength because that is the whole point of a webinar, to collaborate live. Its also a weakness because an attendee or a host would have to be at a certain place (somewhere with access, essentially) at a certain time as opposed to a prerecorded show that could be created or viewed at one's leisure.
Aside from my previous observations, I would say that I enjoyed the presentation in that format. The content was presented a bit slowly, but of course it was geared toward the other two attendees, who did not have any experience with the techbook. But, it was definitely nice to have the host explain the techbook with a live demonstration. It made it easy to follow along. I do think I will attend some webinars in the future. They are typically free and easy to access, so it would be a great way to help myself professionally.
This type of webcast could be incorporated into the classroom as a way for students to connect with professionals around the world. Initially, my mind shot straight towards high school students attending webinars as a surrogate for college orientations or as a way to interact with professionals in their potential fields. But, then I also thought that elementary or middle school students could benefit from this in the form of meeting veterans on Veteran's Day or something along those lines. Although, I also think that Google Hangouts or Skype would be a bit easier to manage with students. Students could also benefit from webinars as broadcasters, but again, I would presume secondary students only. There are certain themes that go along with being a broadcaster such as digital literacy, public speaking (sort of), professionalism, flexibility, and content mastery all of which benefit students immensely. Students could present their own broadcasts as an alternative to typical projects or even broadcast live events such as sports or band concerts.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Broadcast Yourself
Intent and Purpose of the Broadcast
The purpose of this week's assignment is to perform a live broadcast. I chose to make a broadcast about creating parody songs as motivational tools for students taking the PSSAs. This is an activity that I have been doing
for the past 3 years at the middle school and the students really enjoy
it. In all honesty, standardized testing
is not too exciting for the students that have to partake, so the idea is to
motivate them by allowing them to take part in the process of parodying a
song. Originally, the middle school had
an “advisory” period on every Wednesday and would do different activities. When I arrived, I helped my mentor, Marisa,
with helping to create and record parody songs for her advisory. I have a strong background in music and
brought a lot to the table in terms of recording (especially with having a
MacBook and GarageBand). Other teachers
would have their students simply record the new lyrics over the old songs. But, I would find an instrumental track and
have the students sing over it and then, of course, spend countless hours
mixing in order to create a polished final product. I then became “in demand” when PSSA parody
time came around. Last year, however, it
was decided to not do the PSSA parody so I took it upon myself to create
one. This time I created a movie via
iMovie to accompany the song. The kids
really, really enjoyed it and, from there, I realized that it was something
that I should push myself to do annually. The first song we parodied was "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz. The second song parodied was "O.M.G." by Will.I.Am and Usher. And, the third song (with video) is "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen.
With the changes that our
district went through over the past summer, I am now teaching a class at the
high school called Video Productions.
One thing that I wanted the students to do was create a PSSA parody song
and video for the elementary and middle school students. This is a project we are currently working
on. I have two groups of three students
working in a “competition.” One group is
parodying “What does the Fox Say” by Ylvis and the other group is parodying “Walk
this Way” by Aerosmith/Run DMC.
Testing
I chose to go with Livestream because I've seen it in use before. Sign up was simple. I downloaded the "Livestream for Producers" application and played around with it on Tuesday night. On Saturday, I tried out the live stream for practice 3 separate times and rehearsed what it was that I wanted to broadcast. The feature that I thought was the best was the ability to cast camera or screen or both. I also played around with the mixer feature because when I would play the QuickTime files, they would present feedback so I adjusted to only record the internal audio as opposed to the microphone.
Advertisement
To advertise, I sent out a tweet on Saturday in the afternoon. I then emailed my colleagues at my district and posted to FaceBook. I posted to Twitter several times on Sunday and once again on FaceBook.
The Broadcast
I started to broadcast at approximately 7:55 pm on Sunday night. I started early to get prepared. At 8 pm I began the true broadcast. I started by identifying myself and my purpose. I worked with Livestream's "Livestream for Producers" application and was able to show myself on camera and show my screen (which was very important for demonstration purposes). I quickly explained the purpose of the broadcast and showed a couple of example PSSA parody songs. Then, DISASTER!!! Not really, but I hit stop on the Livestream application instead of stop on iMovie. It was an easy problem to fix, so no big deal. Although, I did forget to turn the mic on when I came back in (about 1 minute, whoops), but I fixed that and repeated what was missed. Anyhow, I moved into the demonstration portion in which I explained how to acquire an instrumental track mp3 and how to open GarageBand and import the mp3. Then, I demonstrated how to adjust key and tempo as well as how to adjust different audio effects. The next step was to record vocals, which I also demonstrated (poorly, yeah I know) and explained. Finally, I showed how to create a final mixdown and check audio levels as well as how to export. I wrapped up by explaining how to use the parody song with iMovie and allowed for time for anyone to ask questions.
The Good:
I thought I performed fairly well. I mumble and stutter all the time, so that wasn't nerves or anything. I was happy with the topic I chose and thought I explained it fairly well. I spoke fairly clearly and reminded myself to slow down when talking. I thought I did a good job with utilizing both screen and video capture and simultaneous screen/video capture. I rehearsed my spiel several times before and thought it flowed well. I think that when any adverse things happened, I recovered well.
The Bad:
I could have improved the lighting and did a little bit more practice with working with the audio (my voice booms sometimes). Overall, the broadcast, with better practice and timing, could have been about 5 minutes shorter. I could have explained some of the more technical things with GarageBand, or maybe just given a more straightforward example instead of bumbling from advanced to beginner speech. In my mind, I kept telling myself to remember the audience that I was broadcasting to.
The Ugly:
Attendance... I did advertise several times on Twitter and FaceBook and emailed all of my colleagues at my district. I got two friends from FaceBook, one colleague from work, and my wife (who you can hear in the background every once in a while). So, despite my efforts, I did not have much of an audience. I was pretty disappointed by this because I did reach out to a lot of people. I presume there may have been several factors including the fact that I chose to broadcast on a Sunday night. I thought it was a good time, but I don't have kids or cable, so that may have been an oversight on my part. Anyhow, I did publish the broadcast to FaceBook, Twitter, and my weekly Tech Blog for my district. Hopefully I will get some more views.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would say that I actually really enjoyed doing this. Even though I was disappointed by the turnout, I had fun explaining something that I know and enjoy very much. I definitely see the value of broadcasting in education. However, I would assume that it would be difficult to get students to attend a live broadcast outside of school. I would also assume that some students would really enjoy it. It would not work with my 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th graders, but I could see getting a good draw from my two elective classes (9th-12th and 10th-12th graders). I can see myself using this in the future, but sparingly, unless I can really develop it into a very purposeful activity. I do like the archival capabilities of Livestream, but as a free subscriber, broadcasts are only available for 30 days. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience and I hope to develop a way to incorporate broadcasting into my professional life.
Here is the archived broadcast - http://new.livestream.com/accounts/6313323/events/2586978
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.Sunday, November 24, 2013
7 Day Social Immersion Challenge
I
decided to tackle both options for this week's assignment. I'm not an
overachiever or brown-noser, I just wanted to try both of them out. The
first was my first "Twitterthon" in which I followed 50 people and
made 6 tweets per day. The second was a 365 photo a day challenge divided
by 52.
Twitterthon
2013 (November 18-24)
To
begin, I had to create a new account with Twitter. Very poor customer service
in regards to remedying my issue with my original account. But, I
digress. I created the @jahocking account and dove right in to the
Twitterverse. Like I said, I had an account previously, but I rarely used
it. So, it was a fresh start. I'll liken my Twitterthon to throwing
someone into water who did not know how to swim. Sure, I understood the
platform, just never immersed myself in it. And, it was actually a little
exhausting trying to think up something relevant to post.
Anyhow,
I needed to follow people. I began by entering in #edtech in the search
box. I found several educators who seemed to be fully immersed in the
Twitterverse. And, as I watched their posts, I found other people to
follow. I also sent out a district-wide email requesting twitter
handles. I got 10 results from that. I thought that was sort of a
low number out of 120+ teachers and administrators.
After
following people, some of them started to follow me. I wondered why
anyone would bother. Who am I in this big world? But, I suppose the
answer is that people want to expand their own personal networks. It was
really cool to have something that I posted retweeted or even favorited.
I
then needed to make 6 posts per day. I think this was the really tough
part. I'm not trying to sell myself short, but I just never felt I had
that much that was interesting to say. Granted, that is not a requirement
when making a tweet, which I also found out. So, my tweets varied.
Sometimes I retweeted what other people stated. Sometimes I selflessly
promoted myself. Sometimes I posted about what I did that day. And,
sometimes I searched for news articles and shared them.
My
final take on the Twitterthon is that the #edchat (and other similar chats) was
valuable, the ability to access twitter via phone and laptop was impressive,
the amount of older people on Twitter shifted my view on education and
technology (no offense to anyone), and the amount of connectedness was
astounding. I'm glad that I had the chance to participate and will definitely
keep using Twitter to stay connected.
365 Photo-a-Day/52
I
am no photojournalist, but this project made me feel like one. I suppose
I would liken it to a diary. But, unlike having extreme depth, its a list
of snapshots that capture a snippet of your day. It was fun reflecting on
each picture.
November
18
November 19
November 20
November 21
November 22
November 23
November 24
My final take on the 365 picture challenge was that it was interesting. I do enjoy taking pictures, sometimes. I think it would be difficult for me to mandate myself to doing this everyday. It was fun to look back on the blog as I compiled it everyday. One thing that I think I did wrong was that I did not publish the blog everyday. I didn't really think about it until I sat down to compose my Twitterthon blog. I did take pictures everyday and reflect, just neglected that aspect of it.
Again, the purpose for doing both was just to try them and record my results/observations.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.Integrating Social Networking
Integrating social networking into a lesson could boost
students’ digital literacy and enhance their learning experience. For this example, I am developing a lesson
with project that integrates social networking and other web 2.0 tools for my 10th-12th
Grade Personal Law elective class. The
reason I chose this class is because it is truly content/knowledge-driven as
opposed to my other classes, which are primarily skills-driven. Also, for your information, my district
utilizes the Learning Focused Schools (LFS) model of lesson/unit planning, so
the lesson will be organized as such.
Quick background/synopsis on lesson:
With this being my first year teaching this content and with
a severe lack of established curriculum, I’ve been building this course from
the ground, up. This unit is on Contract Law and this lesson is on Offers, Offer Termination, and Offer Acceptance.
Lesson Essential Question: Basically, an essential question is an objective stated in
the form of a question.
How are offers created, terminated, and accepted in regards
to contract law?
Students will create a new notebook in Evernote on a laptop with the essential question as the name of the notebook. Alternatively, students may use their personal smartphones and download the Evernote app on Google Play or iTunes.
Activating Strategy: The activating
strategy is basically a part of the “anticipatory set” in which prior knowledge
is diagnosed through an activity.
For this lesson, I would have the students create a KWL
chart through Google Docs and invite all other students to collaborate through
a shortened URL link via bit.ly on Twiducate (the invitation/link would have
been sent out prior to class).
Students will then share their ideas on the K and W parts of
the chart and “clip” the webpage to their phones or laptops via Evernote. Of course, students will revisit the L part
at the end of class or after class as an assignment and repeat the webpage
“clipping.”
Acceleration/Previewing:
This is another part
of the “anticipatory set” in which vocabulary is presented (accelerated and
previewed for students who need it).
For this lesson, I would make a list of vocabulary terms
that students need to define and post to Twiducate. Each student would have 2 terms to
define. Students will then copy and paste
all terms and definitions into an Evernote note.
Teaching Strategies:
This section is where
the breadth of the content is delivered in specific manners (i.e. direct
instruction, cooperative learning, independent practice).
For this lesson, I would teach the content directly in a
Prezi and have students take notes and ultimately develop a backchannel log
through Today’s Meet, which will be shared through Twiducate (the link for the example below is http://today.io/QXg7). Every student
must post at least 4 notes during the direct instruction. Students will then incorporate the backchannel log into their Evernote notes.
Graphic Organizer:
This section is meant
to ensure that students are getting graphic organizers that relate back to the essential question.
The students will create a flow chart graphic organizer
using Google Drive Drawing that answers the Lesson Essential Question in a
step-by-step manner. Students would need to "clip" the webpage to their Evernote notes.
Extended Thinking
Activity:
This is the section in which students take their learning to the next level.
Assign students to develop thoughtful questions, collaboratively find lawyers, share
lawyers and contact information on Twiducate, and communicate with them via
email requesting them to Skype during class on the topic of contract law and offers. This way, students construct support for their own knowledge while developing a deep understanding for the law from a professional. Students would be required to log notes on Today's Meet and add the backchannel log to Evernote through the link provided on Twiducate. Alternatively, if students are unable to get a lawyer to Skype, they can have him/her answer questions on Socrative or Poll Everywhere. Students will then discuss answers and take notes via Evernote.
Summarizing Strategy:
In this section, students summarize what they have learned.
Students will revisit the initial KWL chart developed on the Google Drive Spreadsheet and fill in the L section. Students will then review other students' responses and ask any questions to other students about their responses on Twiducate.
Assignment:
The assignments include:
Evernote Notes, Google Drive Drawing - Graphic Organizer, Google Drive Spreadsheet -
KWL chart, Twiducate - vocabulary definitions, Today's Meet notes. They should all be combined into a separate notebook within Evernote.
Final Analysis:
I enjoyed challenging myself with creating this lesson. The project itself would be the Extended Thinking Activity, although other activities are built within each section. Integrating social networking is expected through Twiducate and even Skype. Students also share notes and collaborate via Today's Meet and Google Docs. And, of course, Evernote brings it all together in a medium that students have access to all of the time.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Mobiles in the Classroom Interview
Jennifer Carey is the Director of Educational Technology and High School History Teacher at Ransom Everglades School in Coconut Grove, Florida. She graciously granted me a 30+ minute interview via Skype on the topic of cell phones in the classroom. To further engage myself with this week's theme of cell phones in the classroom, I conducted the interview and typed up this blog post on my cell phone (#bonuspoints @teach42). I did, however, record it in GarageBand on my MacBook Pro so that I could go back if I missed anything. I'll have to look into a good mobile phone recording app.
The reason I chose Ms. Carey for the interview is because of this article I found when I was searching for people to interview. She seemed to be quite the advocate for using any technology in the classroom. As a matter of fact, she attended the EdTechTeacher iPad Summit in Boston, MA this past week.
The first question I asked was, "What prompted you to try using cell phones in the classroom?" She responded by stating that at the school she worked at, most, if not all, students had cell phones due to the affluent nature of her district. Furthermore, she read a Pew research study about how smartphones were more readily accessible and used by those of lower socioeconomic status than traditional DSL Internet. Moreover, booking laptop carts or computer labs can be problematic. Besides, she pointed out that the power of smartphones these days are more powerful than the technology used to get man to the moon.
Ms. Carey explained that she originally had the students use cell phones as a quick reference device and a way to diagnose student climate on particular content via Poll Everywhere. Socrative was a tool that she began to use in place of poll everywhere because she liked it more and students had access to 3g/4g internet. She has also had students take notes. She says that she has been able to manage disruptions and/or behavioral problems with a one strike and you're out policy and through moderation of use.
I took this break to ask Ms. Carey a personal question about advice she would give to me on trying to convince my district to allow cell phone use in the class. She stated that her current school gives teachers the power to determine whether or not they want to allow cell phones in the classroom and that students do have the ability to use their cell phones personally, but only on break periods. She also stated that a good policy for a school would be for students to "bring their own devices." However, the issue of inequality would need to be addressed. The biggest problem she has seen is cheating. In addressing that problem, Ms. Carey believes that tests should be authentic and not based on facts that students could just google.
The next question was regarding school policy. Again, her current school maintains a policy that allows teacher discretion in the use of cell phones. She mentioned that in her current school, students in yearbook club or students on field trips were expected to buy disposable cameras, get the photos developed, and then scan the photos to be used digitally. Not only does that cost a lot of money, but also time.
My next two questions were about student and parent response to using cell phones. Ms. Carey stated that the students are always excited the first time, but then realize that is still work and thus becomes less exciting. She states, in response to the second question, that she never told parents about cell phones in the classroom and no parents seemed to ever care or notice. But, of course, when a cell phone is confiscated, the parents call.
I then asked Ms. Carey if she ever encountered technical problems with cell phones or technology. She responded by stating that she never had any big problems technically, but that technology becomes a scapegoat for some students. For example a student might say that they had trouble blogging, but in actuality he/she never even logged in. So, technology has a way of verifying the truth about whether a student did or did not complete an assignment.
The final question I had planned was about the evidence that Ms. Carey has observed in justifying the future use of cell phones. She stated that at her current school, all students have an email address provided to them and could access it from school computers, but they rarely checked it. After being frustrated by this, she had her students get their cell phones out and had them sync their email accounts to their phones. That was just a quick fix that cell phones allowed for. Ms. Carey also applauded cell phones for giving students more autonomy, flexibility, and productivity with note taking via EverNote. She gave another example abour how a student on a long bus ride to an athletic event can easily study or share notes. Cell phones provide portability and flexibility.
I ended the interview by asking Ms. Carey if she had anything else to add. She stated that kids are going to make mistakes whether they have cell phones or not. We, as teachers, must guide students on how to use technology through guidelines and expectations. Teachers need to learn how to use cell phones in the classroom through professional development and that administration needs to back policies firmly. Banning cell phones, she states, simply does not work.
You can find Jennifer Carey online @TeacherJenCarey or check out her blog.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
The reason I chose Ms. Carey for the interview is because of this article I found when I was searching for people to interview. She seemed to be quite the advocate for using any technology in the classroom. As a matter of fact, she attended the EdTechTeacher iPad Summit in Boston, MA this past week.
The first question I asked was, "What prompted you to try using cell phones in the classroom?" She responded by stating that at the school she worked at, most, if not all, students had cell phones due to the affluent nature of her district. Furthermore, she read a Pew research study about how smartphones were more readily accessible and used by those of lower socioeconomic status than traditional DSL Internet. Moreover, booking laptop carts or computer labs can be problematic. Besides, she pointed out that the power of smartphones these days are more powerful than the technology used to get man to the moon.
Ms. Carey explained that she originally had the students use cell phones as a quick reference device and a way to diagnose student climate on particular content via Poll Everywhere. Socrative was a tool that she began to use in place of poll everywhere because she liked it more and students had access to 3g/4g internet. She has also had students take notes. She says that she has been able to manage disruptions and/or behavioral problems with a one strike and you're out policy and through moderation of use.
I took this break to ask Ms. Carey a personal question about advice she would give to me on trying to convince my district to allow cell phone use in the class. She stated that her current school gives teachers the power to determine whether or not they want to allow cell phones in the classroom and that students do have the ability to use their cell phones personally, but only on break periods. She also stated that a good policy for a school would be for students to "bring their own devices." However, the issue of inequality would need to be addressed. The biggest problem she has seen is cheating. In addressing that problem, Ms. Carey believes that tests should be authentic and not based on facts that students could just google.
The next question was regarding school policy. Again, her current school maintains a policy that allows teacher discretion in the use of cell phones. She mentioned that in her current school, students in yearbook club or students on field trips were expected to buy disposable cameras, get the photos developed, and then scan the photos to be used digitally. Not only does that cost a lot of money, but also time.
My next two questions were about student and parent response to using cell phones. Ms. Carey stated that the students are always excited the first time, but then realize that is still work and thus becomes less exciting. She states, in response to the second question, that she never told parents about cell phones in the classroom and no parents seemed to ever care or notice. But, of course, when a cell phone is confiscated, the parents call.
I then asked Ms. Carey if she ever encountered technical problems with cell phones or technology. She responded by stating that she never had any big problems technically, but that technology becomes a scapegoat for some students. For example a student might say that they had trouble blogging, but in actuality he/she never even logged in. So, technology has a way of verifying the truth about whether a student did or did not complete an assignment.
The final question I had planned was about the evidence that Ms. Carey has observed in justifying the future use of cell phones. She stated that at her current school, all students have an email address provided to them and could access it from school computers, but they rarely checked it. After being frustrated by this, she had her students get their cell phones out and had them sync their email accounts to their phones. That was just a quick fix that cell phones allowed for. Ms. Carey also applauded cell phones for giving students more autonomy, flexibility, and productivity with note taking via EverNote. She gave another example abour how a student on a long bus ride to an athletic event can easily study or share notes. Cell phones provide portability and flexibility.
I ended the interview by asking Ms. Carey if she had anything else to add. She stated that kids are going to make mistakes whether they have cell phones or not. We, as teachers, must guide students on how to use technology through guidelines and expectations. Teachers need to learn how to use cell phones in the classroom through professional development and that administration needs to back policies firmly. Banning cell phones, she states, simply does not work.
You can find Jennifer Carey online @TeacherJenCarey or check out her blog.
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Digital Story Created with a Cell Phone
This week's assignment was to create a digital story by using only a cell phone. I tried to take it a step further by downloading the blogger app and creating this post entirely on my cell phone. Anyhow, the first video you'll find below is a one shot, full hd video without any editing or use of any video tools hosted on Google Drive. The second is created by using the same video plus music and images and mashed together in an app call magisto hosted on YouTube. It doesn't really work well with one long clip, but if I made shorter clips I think it would have turned out better. So, the second video was more for fun and experimentation. I figured I'd document my trials so that if I come back to this, I know what worked and what did not.
Video1
Video2
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Video1
Video2
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Discovering Something New
A big part of being on the cutting edge of technology is actually going out there and trying new things. Luckily, several databases exist to expedite the process. Still, the amount of websites and applications out there is mind numbing. For this assignment, I was tasked to discover something new regarding the the web 2.0 tools that are out there. I utilized the database Go2web20 in order to access new tools because it seemed easier to use with its filters. Of course, when I started to seek out new sites, my tab bar started to look like this:
It's obvious that there are innumerable amounts of resources available. Even though the assignment did not require me to evaluate education-specific cites, I did choose one that was education because it is a way for me to sharpen my online skills and fill up my toolbox even more.
After browsing several sites, I came across PowToon, an online cartoon maker. I actually had been looking for a tool like this before. I've used GoAnimate! and the recently closed Xtranormal, but I've found that PowToon is really easy to use after playing around with it for a little bit. The site even has several easy-to-understand tutorials. Simply enough, I registered via my Gmail account and confirmed through my email. I did watch the tutorial that popped up after registration and then began to create a PowToon. The cartoons you make are limited to 5 minutes, so I decided to create one on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey because that is what I am in teaching in my Guidance class. I would explain the interface as similar to Microsoft Power Point because you have a slides pane on the left and an editing pane in the middle. See screenshot below. Many keyboard shortcuts work with the program like Command(CTRL)+C and Command(CTRL)+V for copy and paste. Some shortcuts like Command(CTRL)+D for duplication and Command(CTRL)+Z for undo (my most used shortcut) did not work. I ended up spending about 20 minutes creating a PowToon and I really thought it was neat. I shared the completed video with YouTube and then embedded it into my website underneath the embedded Vokis. The final part of the review is the most important. PowToon is a "freemium" site. Paid accounts allow for more toons, tools, and high quality downloadable videos. Check out their accounts page. $48 for a teacher account + 30 students accounts seems fairly reasonable. Overall, I would say that PowToon was very easy to vet and has a certain educational value for students and teachers alike.
Finding a second site to evaluate was difficult. I didn't want to just find any old site for the sake of completing the assignment. I came across ResumUp and tried it out because it seemed interesting. Several months back, my wife came home and showed me a resume that someone had sent in to her workplace. It was visual and really interesting. I think the person who created it used Photoshop and Dream Weaver or some combination of Adobe products. I'm a total novice when it comes to those programs, so ResumUp intrigued me. For a while, I've had the idea to create a resume on Prezi or Glogster to demonstrate my Web 2.0-ness. ResumUp was easy to register for and easy to use. You simply edited different boxes and put in your own information. The only part I did not like is that some cities, like Belvidere, NJ or Stroudsburg, PA, did not show up in the pre-population box and therefore those cities would not show up in the resume. See below. The site provides the ability to connect with other professionals, find vacancies, and share your resume. I did not want to share my resume, so I took a screenshot.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
It's obvious that there are innumerable amounts of resources available. Even though the assignment did not require me to evaluate education-specific cites, I did choose one that was education because it is a way for me to sharpen my online skills and fill up my toolbox even more.
After browsing several sites, I came across PowToon, an online cartoon maker. I actually had been looking for a tool like this before. I've used GoAnimate! and the recently closed Xtranormal, but I've found that PowToon is really easy to use after playing around with it for a little bit. The site even has several easy-to-understand tutorials. Simply enough, I registered via my Gmail account and confirmed through my email. I did watch the tutorial that popped up after registration and then began to create a PowToon. The cartoons you make are limited to 5 minutes, so I decided to create one on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey because that is what I am in teaching in my Guidance class. I would explain the interface as similar to Microsoft Power Point because you have a slides pane on the left and an editing pane in the middle. See screenshot below. Many keyboard shortcuts work with the program like Command(CTRL)+C and Command(CTRL)+V for copy and paste. Some shortcuts like Command(CTRL)+D for duplication and Command(CTRL)+Z for undo (my most used shortcut) did not work. I ended up spending about 20 minutes creating a PowToon and I really thought it was neat. I shared the completed video with YouTube and then embedded it into my website underneath the embedded Vokis. The final part of the review is the most important. PowToon is a "freemium" site. Paid accounts allow for more toons, tools, and high quality downloadable videos. Check out their accounts page. $48 for a teacher account + 30 students accounts seems fairly reasonable. Overall, I would say that PowToon was very easy to vet and has a certain educational value for students and teachers alike.
Finding a second site to evaluate was difficult. I didn't want to just find any old site for the sake of completing the assignment. I came across ResumUp and tried it out because it seemed interesting. Several months back, my wife came home and showed me a resume that someone had sent in to her workplace. It was visual and really interesting. I think the person who created it used Photoshop and Dream Weaver or some combination of Adobe products. I'm a total novice when it comes to those programs, so ResumUp intrigued me. For a while, I've had the idea to create a resume on Prezi or Glogster to demonstrate my Web 2.0-ness. ResumUp was easy to register for and easy to use. You simply edited different boxes and put in your own information. The only part I did not like is that some cities, like Belvidere, NJ or Stroudsburg, PA, did not show up in the pre-population box and therefore those cities would not show up in the resume. See below. The site provides the ability to connect with other professionals, find vacancies, and share your resume. I did not want to share my resume, so I took a screenshot.
My final observation is that this site is geared more for business professionals, not teachers. It would be interesting if a site like PAREAP or PAEducator would team up with ResumUp to provide this type of service to teachers. There is definite potential for this site in education because it can be a more fun way to introduce the concept of a resume to high school students. Overall, the site was fairly easy to use, but I do not know how much I would actually use it.
The third site I chose was Class Dojo. Once I received Untangling the Web, I thumbed throughout it to see what I was in store for and tried some of the websites out. After hearing my district's elementary school principal talk about Class Dojo, I figured I needed to try it out for myself. The sign up process was simple, as most sites are, and I got to work right away. I'm the kind of person who likes to try out new sites and, THEN, seek out tutorials if I need help. Class Dojo works in the opposite manner, so that was a bit frustrating to me. I just like to get in and get to work. However, after following the instructions I could finally set up a class and import students. The first day I tried out Class Dojo was Thursday of this week. I teach a quarterly 7th Grade Computer Science class in which I have them complete typing exercises for the first half of the quarter (an eighth, I suppose). The particular class I have now has really great students, but they are very chatty. I offered incentives such as listening to music or playing typing games for the first and/or last 5 minutes of class, but it wasn't until I implemented Class Dojo that I saw them really understand the incentive system. I simply plugged my projector dongle into my laptop and let them view their scores for the day. I gave them a +1 if they were on task or a -1 if they were off task. I said that if they were in the positive for points, they could play typing games at the end of the period. It worked very well. The next day, I acquired an iPad from another teacher so I could try the application out (I feel the website version is cumbersome in terms of finding students and then clicking several times to get what you want). I also printed and distributed the student/parent logins for the students because I thought they could just sign in and view their progress instead of looking up at the projector. This is one part I do not like about Class Dojo. It requires that students input a parent's email address. This was only an experiment for me and I did not want to get phone calls asking what the program was all about, so I aborted that step in the process and just continued the way I had before. Maybe I misunderstood the process, but the students couldn't change their avatars without a parent's email address. The only things I would like to see changed is the ability to change the order of students (alphabetical or by seating chart) by dragging their avatars. I clicked on the "IDEAS" cloud on the bottom of Class Dojo's website and typed in my suggestion for including a seating chart style modification and will report their reply when I receive it. Overall, Class Dojo was easy to use and is definitely educationally sound for both teachers and students.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Fill Up Your Toolbox
For this assignment, I was tasked at trying out some newer technologies that enable expediency in the wide, Web 2.0 world :). The following details my experience and opinions on each site.
The first site I tried out was the URL shortener goo.gl. Seeing that Google will soon own us all technologically and that I use a Google Site as my primary website, I figured it was the best site with which to become acquainted. I did check out bit.ly and TinyUrl to compare, but did not find any discernible difference. I pasted my websites full address (http://sites.google.com/site/hurricanehocking) into the shortener text box, clicked shorten URL, and out came goo.gl/Jezk6l.
This is amazing and solves many problems that I oftentimes run into in class. Look at my regular URL. Students sometimes assume to type in www. or think that it is sites instead of site and vice versa. Of course, once students get to my site, I have them bookmark it so we don't have to go through the painful process again. Utilizing the URL shortener would mostly solve that problem. I'm sure all of us would like to have www.ournamehere.com, but domain hosting is quite costly. One caveat I noticed is that all letters are case sensitive. The J in the goo.gl URL must be capitalized. I tried it lower case and it did not work. It's not a huge deal, but you do need to be very specific. In contrast, typing in GOOGLE.com or GooglE.com will take you to the same place.
The second site I tried out was the Quick Response (QR) code generator delivr.com. The site is set up very similarly to the URL shortener sites. Simply paste a URL into the QR code generator and out comes a QR code. I figured I would paste my new goo.gl URL in to see if I could blow my laptop's mind with web 2.0 awesomeness, but all it did was simply make a QR code. Look to the right.
Believe it or not, I actually recently started to use QR codes. In my Video Productions class, one of the students does a student survey via Poll Everywhere on a weekly basis for our weekly announcement projects. He just distributes paper with the QR code, URL, and response options and students, during lunch, scan it with their phone and take the poll. I'll have to mention utilizing the URL shorteners for that so students without a QR reader can participate a little bit easier. I also envisioned utilizing the QR codes in class with the laptops. Turns out, most readers for the macs cost money, but I did find one at http://dansl.net/qrreader/ and tried it out. It didn't work. Maybe because I do not have a steady hand or even lighting. That is something I would need to research more before using in class.
The third and final site I tried out was the bookmarklet Quietube. I was not very familiar with bookmarklets until after learning about them and trying this one out. This was not as quick a process as the URL shortener or the QR code generator. I'm a bit ashamed, but I had to watch the tutorial video. After that, however, I did generate a Quietube URL (http://quietube6.com/v.php/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAYZBS40lcc) for a video I show my Guidance class. And of course, to simplify things, I created a short URL http://delivr.com/27red (this time with delivr, obviously). Now that I've tried delivr's generator, I think that the URLs generated are simpler than the other sites.
I do not think that I would use this site that much. I much prefer to just embed videos on my Google Site. I do understand the benefits of Quietube, especially if I were to send students a link, but I more like my way.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
The first site I tried out was the URL shortener goo.gl. Seeing that Google will soon own us all technologically and that I use a Google Site as my primary website, I figured it was the best site with which to become acquainted. I did check out bit.ly and TinyUrl to compare, but did not find any discernible difference. I pasted my websites full address (http://sites.google.com/site/hurricanehocking) into the shortener text box, clicked shorten URL, and out came goo.gl/Jezk6l.
This is amazing and solves many problems that I oftentimes run into in class. Look at my regular URL. Students sometimes assume to type in www. or think that it is sites instead of site and vice versa. Of course, once students get to my site, I have them bookmark it so we don't have to go through the painful process again. Utilizing the URL shortener would mostly solve that problem. I'm sure all of us would like to have www.ournamehere.com, but domain hosting is quite costly. One caveat I noticed is that all letters are case sensitive. The J in the goo.gl URL must be capitalized. I tried it lower case and it did not work. It's not a huge deal, but you do need to be very specific. In contrast, typing in GOOGLE.com or GooglE.com will take you to the same place.
The second site I tried out was the Quick Response (QR) code generator delivr.com. The site is set up very similarly to the URL shortener sites. Simply paste a URL into the QR code generator and out comes a QR code. I figured I would paste my new goo.gl URL in to see if I could blow my laptop's mind with web 2.0 awesomeness, but all it did was simply make a QR code. Look to the right.
Believe it or not, I actually recently started to use QR codes. In my Video Productions class, one of the students does a student survey via Poll Everywhere on a weekly basis for our weekly announcement projects. He just distributes paper with the QR code, URL, and response options and students, during lunch, scan it with their phone and take the poll. I'll have to mention utilizing the URL shorteners for that so students without a QR reader can participate a little bit easier. I also envisioned utilizing the QR codes in class with the laptops. Turns out, most readers for the macs cost money, but I did find one at http://dansl.net/qrreader/ and tried it out. It didn't work. Maybe because I do not have a steady hand or even lighting. That is something I would need to research more before using in class.
The third and final site I tried out was the bookmarklet Quietube. I was not very familiar with bookmarklets until after learning about them and trying this one out. This was not as quick a process as the URL shortener or the QR code generator. I'm a bit ashamed, but I had to watch the tutorial video. After that, however, I did generate a Quietube URL (http://quietube6.com/v.php/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAYZBS40lcc) for a video I show my Guidance class. And of course, to simplify things, I created a short URL http://delivr.com/27red (this time with delivr, obviously). Now that I've tried delivr's generator, I think that the URLs generated are simpler than the other sites.
I do not think that I would use this site that much. I much prefer to just embed videos on my Google Site. I do understand the benefits of Quietube, especially if I were to send students a link, but I more like my way.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Dig Deeper into the Mainstays
As the digital aspect of education
evolves, specific sites have led their related genres. Within this blog post, I will be evaluating
Twitter, iPiccy, and Symbaloo from the social, creative, and curation genres,
respectively. I chose each site because
I have little to no experience with them and wanted to see how they could be
used to expand my digital repertoire.
Twitter is one of the mainstream,
mainstay mediums of the social networking genre. According to its website, Twitter is “The
fastest, simplest way to stay close to everything you care about” (2013). In the past, I did sign up for an account,
but did not do much after that. I
understand the lingo involved and all that Twitter entails. I just never really cared to give it a shot,
I suppose. So I must be doing things the
slowest, most difficult way. I
digress. The educational value of
Twitter is evident, both for the classroom and for the professional teacher,
independently. My mind automatically
thinks about the impact such an application could have when studying
government, economics, or other contemporary social studies. There is also relevance within studying the
past. Students can create accounts for
historical, literary, or scientific figures and “bring them into the modern
age.” In my email interview with EricSheninger (@NMHS_Principal) from New Milford High School, he mentioned the importance of
establishing Personal Learning Networks and how Twitter helps enable that (E.
Sheninger, personal correspondence, October 31, 2013).
iPiccy is
an online application that I had never heard of before unwrapping Untangling the Web. I have used Prezi, Glogster, and VoiceThread
somewhat extensively, so I wanted to branch out and learn something new. Unlike Twitter, I had no experience at all
with iPiccy, so I signed up for an account.
Wow! It is impressive in terms of
how much it allows its users to manipulate, filter, and edit their own images
and it does not require sign up. Despite
my steadfastness to utilizing new technologies, I have to admit that this is
one genre in which my skills are stale.
I typically use Power Point to manipulate imagery, but iPiccy is really
advanced. I think that iPiccy definitely
has a place within education, but it is not a featured player. It seems to act more as a supporting role of
other applications.
Symbaloo is
an online curation application that allows users to socially bookmark
favorite/important websites and other applicable applications. I have used the site very, very briefly in
another Wilkes EDIM course, so I am revisiting it more as a novice/newcomer. I really like the layout of the site as it
reminds me of my smartphone the way it is set up on a grid with application
favicons. As simple as it seems,
organizing bookmarks in a graphic manner is what Symbaloo is all about. It would be a great choice as a default home
page in any browser for both student and teacher. In my research, I came across the Tech Tips for Teachers Blog and found some interesting uses of Symbaloo. A user of the blog, Jayme Linton (@jaymelinton), posted
about how she uses Symbaloo for online fieldtrips and “webmixes” all different
sites for students to explore and how engaging it is for students to be able to
go somewhere else (digitally) every day (2013). Embedding Symbaloo into my Google Site is
something that I plan on trying out to give students a graphic visualization of
the sites that they use and, of course, allow ease of access instead of typing
in long URLs.
Exploring
new sites has always been very enjoyable for me. I love that feeling that I get when my brain
goes into overdrive thinking about how I can use a new tool in the
classroom. The three sites previously
divulged will definitely give me something new to try and I am excited to do
so.
References
Linton, Jayme (October 24, 2013). Take your students on a virtual fieldtrip
everyday. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://techtipsforteachersblog.blogspot.com/?utm_content=bufferb105a&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer
Twitter, Inc. (2013).
About Twitter. Retrieved from https://www.twitter.com/about
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. Thursday, October 31, 2013
Using New Technologies
For this assignment, I
decided to forego interviewing one of my colleagues and find someone new to
interview. Many of my colleagues do a
lot of great things with new technologies, but I wanted to put myself out on a
limb and really try to learn something new.
I flipped through Untangling theWeb and stopped on the section on Twitter and pinpointed Eric Sheninger,
Principal at New Milford High School in New Jersey. I emailed him with the questions and he
promptly replied. You can find his
contact information at the bottom of this post.
As a principal, Mr. Sheninger
has given his teachers autonomy in regards to the choosing and implementing of digital tools. He gives his teachers
time in the school day to develop their own skills and research new tools as
well as promotes hands-on training at the Edscape Conference in New Milford.
Taking a seemingly
laissez-faire approach towards utilizing new digital tools, the only real
obstacle to face is parental permission.
Quite simply, the only requirement Mr. Sheninger asks of his teachers is
to have students get their parents to sign a media permission form (page 2). He shared that document with me in our
correspondence and it seemed quite simple.
It was basically an affirmative or negative towards students publishing
media (any format really) created within the district with the responsibility
of appropriate use falling on the students and the acknowledgement that the
district is not responsible for inappropriate use and/or content that is on the
Internet.
Mr. Sheninger’s only advice
for teachers wanted to replicate his efforts is to establish a Personal
Learning Network (PLN). By doing so,
teachers share their ideas and successes for other teachers to benefit and
continue a dialogue to improve the skills of all involved. To explore this idea more, visit KQED’s blog
on the top five PLNs.
Mr. Sheninger - @NMHS_Principal - EricSheninger.com - Blog
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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