Final Reflection

Final Reflection

I am so happy that we, as elementary teachers, were given the opportunity to enroll in this class this summer! Though there were some concepts/lessons I am already very comfortable working with, there were SO many more things that this class gave me the opportunity to explore and work with for the first time. I am excited to start the school year and begin implementing these new ideas! 

I really liked the various options that we had to choose from for each lesson. This made each activity something that I could really think about and plan for to include within my classroom. I was able to create things that I will use and can put directly to use. I will continue using the Google forms, Animoto, and Prezi within my classes, both for myself and with students. I now have a great Prezi to use as a model to introduce myself to the class! Some of the things that I am most excited about incorporating in my classroom this year that will be new include the Zooburst book of Spanish food, the Tagxedo of adjectives, and my YouTube channel, now that I have it organized a bit better for my students to access. I know these activities will engage and motivate my students this year, but they will also enhance my presentations and examples for the students to learn from!

A group of us from Island Lake got together each week to put together our lessons and were able to work together. This time was great because we were able to collaborate on different lessons and think about how these could be applicable in a variety of grade levels. The directions for each lesson were very well written and easy to follow. The tutorials that were provided were also extremely helpful in guiding us along! I enjoyed having the option to work at your own pace. Overall, it was a great class, one that I learned a lot from and one that will enhance my teaching greatly. The piece I enjoyed the most was collaborating with my coworkers - so many of us are starting the year with  new knowledge on how to incorporate technology within our teaching!

Activity 10: Free Choice

Activity 10: Animoto

I introduced Animoto to my students last year, although I had never used it. Some of them chose to use it to present various topics and had a lot of fun. So I thought I would try it out! I made this video as a short introduction to Laurentian Environmental Center. This video could be used to spark their interest! We do not go to Laurentian until May, so there is always a lot of anticipation and this would be great to show them before our meetings to help them make some visual connections with what we talk about.

The free version of Animoto only allows you to make a 30 second video with about 8 pictures. When I first learned about Animoto, I thought this piece was going to limit what my students were able to create. Although it does limit some exercises, there are many positives to it as well. Some ideas that I have had to incorporate this in my classroom include:

• Introductory videos to share with the class
• Illustrate their writing 
• Show student findings for research projects
• Summarize a story (This was an idea shared at a conference I attended. The person mentioned that the 30 second piece would really require students to be very specific with their ideas. Great idea!)
• Explain the elements of a story
• Use it to introduce a new concept, it would be able to spark their interest

Make your own slideshow at Animoto.

Activity 9: Fitness Assessment

Scenario Reflections

Scenario 3: Anonymous Blogging

Ms. Gifford learned about a new blog that does not require the arduous process of setting up individual accounts for each student. This seemed like an easy way to jump into blogging as a class. Ms. Gifford talked about acceptable use with her students but did not inform the principal or parents of her instructional goals or objectives for using a class blog. Because students did not have accounts, they were able to post comments on the blog anonymously. Although, this protected student privacy, it snowballed into a barrage of inappropriate and harassing comments. Ms. Gifford quickly shut the blog down and went back to the drawing board.

Ethical Issues: It is necessary that students understand they need to be responsible when posting ANYTHING online. Anything they post, school or social related, needs to be appropriate and able to be said in front of anyone - mom, dad, grandma, principal, teacher, and peers. If this cannot be done, they then will lose privilege and complete the assignments on paper and not have interaction with their peers. 

Safety/Well-being of Others: The largest problem is the lack of respect from the students to their peers - clearly a bullying issue. This would need to be addressed immediately by the teacher. The class couldn't continue until the students' well being was being addressed and planned for appropriately. 

Going Forward: Looking ahead, the teacher should choose a format for student interaction that requires a login and password. It should also post names for all posts so that students will be held accountable for the things they write. Lastly, the teacher should inform the students and administrators of the objectives, reasons, and benefits for using the blog and collect signed appropriate use of technology forms for the district.  
Personal Story: Last year, I had a student post a response about information he found researching, and made a poor choice on words that he used to describe the person. As an administrator of the account, I deleted the sentence and addressed it with him the following day. We discussed better choices for words that he could have used and from that point forward, there were no problems.

Scenario 6: Course Management Overload

Ms. Carlson is excited to use Edmodo, a course management system similar to Moodle with her students.  Although Edmodo isn’t officially supported by the tech department like Moodle is, she is excited to use it because she finds it much more intuitive to use and she likes the interface better than Moodle.  Ms. Carlson is vigilant about the privacy settings, has informed her principal and parents of her instructional goals and objectives. Her students jump on board and post to the discussion at record numbers. Ms. Carlson is pleased to see such motivated dialogue on a novel that had previously felt like pulling teeth.  Two weeks into the unit, she receives a parent complaint. The complaint is as follows: 

     Dear Ms. Carlson, Mr. Miller, Mr. Hamilton and Ms. McIntyre, 

     Although my son is a motivated and active participant in all of your classes, I am concerned that the school does not seem to have a unified course management system. He is using Moodle in Math, Edmodo in English, Schoology in Science, and Kidblog in Social Studies. Furthermore, all of these sites require different logins and passwords. As a parent, I am having a difficult time keeping this all straight and am requesting that the school discuss this issue and figure out a more streamlined approach. 

     Thank you for your consideration,  

     A supportive but confused parent

Ethical Issues: I don't really see any ethical issues in this scenario. I would check-in with the district to see that although Edmodo is not "officially" supported by the tech department, is it still able to be used? 

Safety/Well-being of Others: I think that the largest problem is with the parent in this scenario, although the safety and well-being of students is not being affected. The parent seems uncomfortable with the navigation to different websites.  
Going Forward: Therefore going forward, I think training of parents is something to be addressed by both the district and the teacher. Posting tutorials, either made by the teacher or company, could be posted to their website to be accessed by all parents and students when necessary. Students, both elementary and secondary, have the capabilities and are successful at navigating and accessing different websites - this has become part of their everyday use in technology. Although, it would still be beneficial to have a place where parents and students could go for assistance. Another idea would be to provide training at a PIN night on how to access the different websites and distribute a HELPFUL TIPS/LINKS sheet that parents could keep. I would also upload this to my website in case it is misplaced or they would like to access it there instead. 

Activity 8: Polling & Data Gathering

Device Accessibility & Math Review 

Poll Everywhere

I take a lot of polls in my classes using Google Forms, so I was excited to learn about a new way to also gather data. Poll Everywhere was very easy to use and quick to put together and then embed within a webpage. I am still learning a bit about how it all works and have some questions - will I know who responds just on the computer, or by text if I don't know their number? Can I organize the data once I receive it and modify it in different ways like I can on Google forms? I am under the impression that this is to be used more so as just a visual that students can see overall responses to certain questions. I think it would be a lot of fun to have students create the questions and decide how to use them in our class that day or even during Morning Meetings. Overall it is another great tool to add!

Google Forms

Because of implementing Flipped Classroom this year and having access to iPads, I used Google Forms almost daily for my students. There are so many things that you can do to enhance your instruction with the forms. I have used them both as summative and formative, and sometimes just for fun, both with students and parents! Here are the many things that I like LOVE:

• Easy to put together, very fast
• Can ask a variety of question types (multiple choice, true/false, paragraph, short answer)
• Responses are organized into a spreadsheet which is great for feedback 
• Can use conditional formatting to shade in certain boxes when they are answered correctly - saves on grading!
• Can embed on a webpage easily and/or send out as email
• Students are very motivated to complete them, who doesn't love to complete something online that's quick and responds immediately vs. writing it all down on paper, collecting, sorting, etc!??
• Answers are stored and can be accessed on ANY device - this is great to bring up while conferencing with parents
• You can select fun backgrounds (THEMES)! <------- Clearly my favorite part!**

*Tip that I learned from my Flipped Training: Always make your first question about their name, this puts their answer in the first column which makes it easier to see who completed it. 

**There are not nearly as many themes as there used to be! Apparently, they took away a lot of the old themes, and when I did a search, I found they are working to add more. Whew!

Activity 7: Cloud Computing

Sharing in the Cloud

I LOVE working on things within the Google Cloud and using the various Apps! I have researched and explored a bit with other sites such as Dropbox and Sky Drive, but found Google to be my favorite because it allows me to work on something without having to download it to my computer. This is great because I don't have to download the document, edit it, and then upload the document once again for others to see the changes. The availability to edit it as a group and the fact that it saves as you go puts this ahead of others for me. 

I have not used the "comment" access before. This would be great to use when you would prefer to be the one editing the document or don't want things changed quite yet, someone could leave a comment to provide suggestions. I also think it would be great for student writing. They could share the document with myself and their peers, and we could provide feedback without changing the document. This is easy to access, edit, and share! 

Unfortunately, I did not realize until the end of the year that all elementary students have emails (this piece I knew) in which they are only allowed to receive incoming mail (this piece I also knew), but they DO have access to all Google Apps! <----- This was a wonderful surprise! This is great because this past year I had students signing up for a Gmail address to access these Apps, but this year they already will have the emails set up. Having the Cloud makes it easier for students to share their work in class, access it anywhere, and share their work with their peers and teachers. Clearly, I am excited about having this available to all students next year (or just really tired). Woo hoo! :)

Cloud Computing: Fraction Review

Activity 6: Study Tools

Tagxedo and Quizlet

This week I chose to use both Tagxedo and Quizlet. I have heard a lot of great things about Quizlet and had a fun time preparing a lesson for my students. I incorporated different words or phrases that indicated a certain operation in math. For example, less than would indicate subtraction and in all would indicate addition. I think this would be a great resource to use with my students as a reminder when working with word problems. I will definitely be planning on using this to enhance my students vocabulary in all content areas this year. I found it to be very easy to use and would be a great, quick tool to have available to my students. 

Using Tagxedo was a lot of fun! I put together another Tagxedo about a year ago, but never really thought about how I could incorporate it in the classroom in a meaningful and purposeful manner. The example that I put together was based on providing students with a visual that had various adjectives to use in place of he word "cold." I really liked this idea and think that the students would have a fun time putting these together. We talk a lot about using different words, jazzy words and this creates a great visual product to display in the classroom. Both were very easy to use! I look forward to implementing them in my classroom this year. 

Tagxedo Example: Jazzy Words for Cold

Quizlet: Terms that Indicate Operation

Activity 4: Screencasting Place Holder