Flickr

I have been taking pictures throughout the semester for my Educational Technology class. We had some pretty random topics, so if you are interested you can check out my Flickr account. One topic that we were supposed to take pictures of was Fargo. I took a couple, but I really wanted to take a picture of someone walking around outside in ankle deep snow with nothing more than shorts and a sweatshirt on. I think that would depict Fargo nicely, don't you?

Exploding Box

This is an Exploding Bod that we created in our educational technology class.. We used four 12X12 card stock paper sheets to  create this box. The inside of the box is glued together by the base of the box and all the other pages are not attached in any way.

There are many different ways that this can be used in your classroom. One way would be to create a fun story. Each page could have a little picture and some words to describe the picture. Students could put mini pictures on each page, or this could be a collection of all their work over the year. For example, they could put their iSpy picture on one page and a poem that they wrote on another. they could put a picture of their family and friends on two more pages, and write about themselves for yet another page. The possibilities are endless!

NETS Standards for Teachers and Students

NETS standards set regulations on what teachers should know and how they should act in the professional setting. According to the NETS standards, teachers must use their knowledge to facilitate student learning, they must create new learning experiences for their students, they must be professional, they must exhibit legal and ethical behavior while at work and in front of students, and they must continue to improve and learn.  The NETS standards encourage teacher knowledge of the latest technology to enter into the classrooms.

I am going to make sure that my students and I possess the skills to be successful in a few ways. I will attend every presentation and discussion on the latest technological advancements in the classroom. I will study and work with the material before introducing in to the classroom. I will give my students a tuitorial on how to use this new technology. If I get confused I will not hesitate to ask a coworker or even a student, if they understand the technology better than I do.

For more information on  NETS Standards you can visit their website and explore it for yourself!

iPads in the Classroom

iPads are becoming increasingly popular in the classroom. Teachers are finding that there is so much more their students can do than they could without an iPad. Students can take notes on their iPads and add their own touch by drawing on their notes. There is a website that lists 20 educational apps for iPads that teachers are using more and more in the classroom. Some of the programs include eClicker (a way of polling students), Teacher's Assistant Pro (track student behaviors), gFlashPro (quizes, flash cards, stores images and audio, and more), and Pages (create handouts, tests, quizzes, assignments, notes and presentations). You should really check out 20 Amazing iPad Apps for Educator for more information!

Instagram Images

We created instagram images in our educational technology class. Here is a link to the website that I used to create these Instagrams. You can cut these out after printing them and attach them to a tile with mod podge. Then you can glue a magnet to these and hang them anywhere magnetic. This is also a cool idea for a project that your students can work on and give to their parents!

Cupcake

This is a cupcake we made in my educational technology class. First I used the quick selection tool to delete the background and the paint bucket tool to change the color of the cupcake. Then I selected the gradient tool to create the rainbow. I saved this as a ping file so there will be no background showing.

Discovery Education Puzzlemaker

My friend and I created a tutorial for the website  Discovery Education Puzzlemaker. This is a great website to use to create fun puzzles for your students that are specifically designed towards your lesson. You can also have students or parents create puzzles for each other. Here is the link to our Education Puzzlemaker Tutorial. Enjoy!

Holiday Plans

I went home for Thanksgiving break. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was my little sister's birthday, so we went out to eat to celebrate. On Thanksgiving day my family and I volunteered at the Thanksgiving community dinner at my church. We served Thanksgiving meals to the less fortunate and whomever else came in for a lovely meal surrounded by friends.

I spent the next day with my high school friends, catching up and enjoying each others company. The rest of the weekend was spent working on homework and projects for my classes. Overall it was a wonderful weekend.

Teacher vs. Student

I have learned a lot over this past semester, in my classes and during my field experience. One of the big things that I noticed was that there is a HUGE difference between being a teacher and a student. As a student you have to complete homework and study for tests, but as a teacher you have to create lesson plans, correct homework, grade tests, communicate with parents, and organize your classroom (all while making it look so easy to the students).

As a student I always thought the teacher was mean for giving us so much homework and making us study for tests, but looking at it from a teacher's perspective I can see how wrong I was. Teachers need to assign some homework to see what the students can do on their own and what the teacher needs to reteach. Teachers also have to give out exams as a more formal way of assessing student learning. Teachers also have a pacing guide set for them that they need to follow.

As a teacher it is interesting to observe your students in the classroom and out of the classroom. It is helpful to watch their interactions with peers and with adults. There are some things that are difficult as a teacher. You have to discipline the students who misbehave (when you were a student you may have thought the misbehaving students were being funny) and try to redirect the class. You also have to deal with issues such as bullying and home life. As a student I was never bullied and was not a bully either. My home life was wonderful because I was raised by loving parents. As a teacher I will have to figure out the best ways to deal with bullying in my school and maybe even in my classroom. I will also have to be on the look out for signs of abuse or neglect on my students. It is so different to be on the other side of the classroom for a change.

QR Codes

We experimented with QR codes in our educational technology class. Here are the worksheets that I created using QR codes. It's a way to make lessons, in this case math, a little more interesting for your students. I created these QR codes on QRstuff.com but you can also check out Snap Maze or Kaywa for more options.

This is obviously a more structured worksheet, but you can also create matching, flash cards, and fun activities as well!

Polaroid Pictures

This is a fun way to create memories. You can cut them apart after printing them and create a collage of mini Polaroid pictures. You can glue these on tiles using mod podge and attach a magnet to the back of each mini Polaroid and hang them on your fridge, locker, or anything magnetic. Students could create these as gifts for their parents as well. Here is a link to the website where I got the template for the mini Polaroids if you want to check it out!

Germ Cover

This is something that we made in my educational technology class. After printing it off I wrapped it around a hand sanitizer container using mod podge. This is a really awesome way to make a boring hand sanitizer container look like it belongs in a classroom! Children are always spreading germs around, so if you have this on hand you will be able to quick give them a squirt if they sneeze in their hands, or on a desk.

iPad Rules

When you introduce iPads in the classroom you need to make sure that you set rules and regulations for your students to follow. You can either make your own or look online for ideas. Above is a picture of a poster that I made of rules for iPad use in my (future) classroom.

Forms

Here are two forms, the first one is before and the second one is the one that I edited to make a little more fun! I grouped the information into three categories: Your Child, Parents, and Contact Information. This makes the form easier to look at and it looks like less of a burden to fill out. Different fonts and colors also enhance the overall look of the form.

Blurring out Faces

This is an example of a student collage I made. I blurred the faces on Gimp 2. I first opened up the picture that I wanted to use to blur the face, then I selected the ellipse select tool and circled around the face that I wanted to blur. Under the filters tab at the top of the page is a blur option. There is a list of options, click on pixelize. Gimp gives you the option to choose the pixel length and width. You can experiment with the numbers but I found that it's best to use between 10-20 pixels.

This is a very useful tool if you want to show off your work (that includes pictures of students) online. All you have to do is blur their faces and you can still get your idea/project across to your audience.

Magazine Cover

This is a magazine cover that I created on Photoshop. All you have to do is create a new project in Photoshop and make it 8 X 10 inches. The resolution I used was 300 pixels/inch. When you create this magazine cover, make sure to give every block of writing a separate layer. This will be very helpful for moving the words around and tweaking your project.

iSpy Picture

Here is an example of an iSpy page that I created in my Educational Technology class. There are a lot of educational uses for an iSpy page. It's a lot of fun to create and then students can work on their writing skills. Different levels of writers can be challenged with this task. Younger students can work on writing complete simple sentences. Older writers can work on compound sentences and more skilled writers can work on rhyming words. The teacher can even go one step further and create a book out of his/her students' pages.

Apple in Education

Schools are increasing the amount of technology in schools every day, and one way this is happening is by including apples in education. 

Students can read textbooks that come alive on their apple device. This includes interactive diagrams as well as videos. This creates more hands on learning than a textbook would never be able to provide. As textbooks can be dull and boring, apple books prove much more interesting to the student and keeps them on task. Students can still highlight text as they would in a normal textbook and the apple device is much lighter than carrying around several textbooks in their backpack.

Apple also allows you to create your own textbooks of which you can include pictures, microsoft word documents, diagrams, backgrounds, tables, charts, animations and so much more! You can read more about this by clicking on the iBooks Author Website on the homepage of the website.

For more information and a free download visit Apple in Education.

Paperless Educator

I read through The Paperless Classroom about becoming a paperless educator. I think that it is possible to become a paperless educator to an extent. You cannot avoid textbooks and workbooks, because lets face it, sometimes it is just easiest for the students to write out their work on paper and read from a textbook.

The best way to go about becoming a paperless classroom is to be organized. Every subject and assignment needs its own folder and sub-folders. You, the teacher, also need to understand how to work online assignments and group projects in order to explain to your students.

Once you are comfortable with these programs and have an organization system that works for you, you will be able to start getting your students involved. All of your students will need an e-mail address.

You can start out with Google docs. There are many different programs to use on Google docs.: email, blog, websites, questionnaires, documents, presentations, spreadsheet, forms, drawings and tables.

One really great way to go paperless would be instead of writing papers they could be done on a computer and submitted online. Instead of writing out multiple rough drafts and a final copy, students can type up their rough draft, submit it for peer/teacher editing, and then revise it (without having to rewrite the whole thing and using multiple pages of paper) and turn the paper in via e-mail or however you would like to have it turned into you.

Build Yourself Wild

This is from the website Build Yourself Wild. You can have students visit this website to create a self-portrait or cute monster. After students create their person you can have them write a paragraph or paper about themselves or their monster friend. This could be a fun activity at the beginning of the year to help you get to know your students.

Favorite Teacher Blog

My favorite teacher blog is called Adventures of a 6th Grade Teacher. Miss Klohn blogs about her classroom and their daily activities. Along with her posts she also puts up pictures of her boards and projects so that other teachers can have some ideas on how to teach certain lessons. I love how she posts, not just one, but multiple photos about the same assignment/project. This makes it more clear for other teachers who may want to duplicate her idea. I suggest that you check out her blog, she is creative and provides the reader with very useful information!

Printing Posters from your Printer

This is the poster that I wanted to have larger than a 8.5' X 11', so I visited the website called Block Posters. It's a really cool website that lets you make a huge poster out of regular printer paper. There are many awesome websites out there, but a lot of them are confusing and difficult to self-teach. Block Posters is super user-friendly and only takes three steps to go from a tiny picture to virtually as large as you would like! I decided to make my poster 4 sheets wide by two sheets tall. Block Posters even tells you approximately how big your picture will measure out to. My poster will be about 2.5' X 1.8'. If you think this sounds like a fun website I included the link to Block Posters for your convenience.

I would use this in my future classroom for a few different reasons. This is cheaper than printing a real poster, so if I need to save some money I could make a poster this way. I can also create large posters that could cover up a huge portion of a wall. The students could work together to put the poster together. That would create classroom bonding between my students. We could all take a class picture, print it off this way, and assemble and hang it up together.

VCSU's Education Program

 VCSU has a very good elementary program. I have learned a lot about teaching methods and strategies that I will use in my teaching career in the future. I like learning about teaching methods and then seeing it come alive in the classroom. In class we learned about making cards to congratulate students on doing a good job and the my cooperating teacher has cards to give her students after they get a certain amount of stickers for behaving and doing their work. I would like to learn more about specific teaching methods. I want to learn different ways to teach students. Once I learn that I will be able to be a very effective teacher.

Practicum

I started my 40 hour practicum at an elementary school this fall. I am about halfway through my field experience and I am having a blast! I love learning about different teaching strategies and I am taking in as much information as I can from my cooperating teacher. I feel like I wish I knew more about how to teach the students, because I know how to do what they are learning, but I'm not sure how to best teach the students.

It is so different to be in the teacher position than in the student position. I understand more now why teachers teach what they do and why they assess students. How else is the school supposed to measure what the students are learning?

Because of my experience so far, I am looking forward to my teaching career.

Winter

It's October 4th and it is already snowing! Will this be an early start to winter? Hopefully not, I love snowy activities, but please, can't it wait until late November at least?

When it snows I love to build snowmen, go sledding and ice skate. Snow ball fights can be fun, but someone usually gets hurt. Therefore, I tend to avoid the flying chunks of snow.

Copyright

Copyright is not something that should be taken lightly and there are many rules that need to be followed. The site titled, Copyright for Teachers and School Librarians, provides the reader with questions and answers about copyright at school. Teachers need to be careful about making copies, showing videos, and playing music in the classroom. However, there is a ‘fair use’ policy for non-profit educations. Fair use allows teachers to use copyrighted materials without permission, but that is only to a certain extent. Teachers are not allowed to play music in the classroom unless it is in the public domain, related to what they are teaching, or they have permission to use it. Teachers are not allowed to show videos in the classroom unless they are related to the curriculum, recently shown on TV, or the teacher must purchase a license to show other types of movies in class. Teachers are also not allowed to display pictures of well-known characters unless they have purchased the rights.

There is a site called Taking the Mystery out of Copyright which seems like a good site for children. The information is easy to understand and it has cute characters which help make the information more fun to learn. They also keep repeating some of the same information over and over again because repetition helps people remember. This site talked about how copyright protects you. Anything that you create is protected from the moment you write it down. You can also register for a copyright by sending an application to the library of congress. Your registration becomes active as soon as they receive your application and you receive a certificate four months later in the mail.

Copyright protects everyone who creates something new and unique. It is important to follow the law and be informed on what is and isn’t legal. If you are informed about your legal rights as a teacher you will be able to find a lot of materials to use legally. I attached the links to the two websites I found this information on: Taking the Mystery out of Copyright and Copyright for Teachers and School Librarians!

Embed a form

This is a great way to get to know your students. They can fill this out on the first day of class and you can read through them to add to what you know about your students. Some of the information could be information that you would eventually find out on your own, but it would be awesome to know all this information right from the start! It will help you connect more quickly with your students.

Google Apps

Google Apps is very useful in the classroom. There are so many different options for teachers and students. Google apps is very user friendly, a plus for student (and some teacher) users. A few of the many options Google apps offers you is an email account for teachers and students to use. When you create a Google account, Google does not have the right to your information. If you delete your account all of your information is also deleted. 

Google apps is free for all non-profit education organizations. Google is very secure and it will also protect your privacy. A really impressive application in Google apps is that you can work online with others on projects such as: documents, presentations and spreadsheets. Google apps also gives your school the option to set up a video portal inside the school.

If you familiarize yourself with Google Apps, there are many opportunities to engage your learners in a new and exciting way. Just a few of your options are learning how to send surveys and quizzes online (and collect them as well) and how to work with others online. The possibilities are endless!

Here is the link to the Google Apps website.

About Me

Marc Prensky

I recently read two articles written by Marc Prensky. The first article is titled Before Bringing in New Tools, You Must First Bring in New Thinking and the second article is titled Using Cell Phones for Exams. I did my best to read these articles with an open mind, tossing all of my previous thoughts and opinions to the wind. While reading the second article, however the wind blew them back in my face.


Prensky’s article, Before Bringing in New Tools, You Must First Bring in New Thinking, provides the reader with pointers and ideas for integrating technology into the classroom. One of Prensky’s suggestions was setting up a video chat with a professional on a topic that the class is learning about. This could either go really well or not well at all. Assuming that the technology works perfectly (which one can never assume) this could be a wonderful opportunity for students to talk to professionals all around the world. This is something that students would not have access to without technology. On the other hand, if the program quits working or if there is a problem with the connection, the students will be disappointed and the teacher will have to try to get them to pay attention to a completely different exercise (which will not be easy if it involves reading out of the book).


Prensky wants educators and students to think about what they want to use their technology for before making any purchases; this way schools will not end up with technology that goes untouched. This is a valid point, because why waste money on one piece of technology when you could have added so much more to your students’ learning experience with a different type of technology? The thing about technology is that it is almost instantly outdated and easily broken. Books last forever and do not run the risk of being dropped and ruined. If a laptop or iPad is dropped it runs a high risk of being destroyed. Will schools have to provide a student with a second iPad or computer if they break it? Will the child’s family have to pay for the broken piece of technology? What if the family cannot afford it? What if the school replaces a broken laptop only to have the second one destroyed as well? There are many questions to think about when deciding how much technology should be integrated in the classroom.


Prensky’s second article, Using Cell Phones for Exams, was more far-fetched than the first article. It is true when he states that education needs to change with the times in order for our children to be able to function in the world when they are adults, but I just cannot get over the fact that he wants to allow cell phones in the classroom for tests. Prensky defends his point by saying that adults are able to consult others and look up information if they do not know something. Do you want your doctor googling how to remove an appendix? I sure don’t. Prensky also says that we do not need to know multiplication facts or where countries are located because we have calculators and maps readily at our disposal. This is true in part, but if that information was already in our heads it would be much quicker to access than having to look up the answer. I know because I am not very good at memorization and it is not hard to tell how much quicker I could solve a math problem or find a country without having to look it up.


Technology is becoming more and more a part of our daily lives, but how much is too much technology? Is it really that much more beneficial that we need to use iPads instead of books? Although technology can become a great aid in the classroom, we need to make sure that we are examining all the positives and negatives for our students.

Brad Flickinger

This is a photo on Brad Flickinger's website

Brad Flickinger’s Educational Technology Bill of Rights for Students is both realistic and unrealistic.  I agree that students should be able to use their own technology if they already own it (like many of the VCSU students already owned a computer before being issued a school computer) and being able to use WiFi at school for academic reasons.  Students should also be taught how to use technology in the classroom setting because this would be extremely helpful for the students in the future.  Instant feedback is also a plus; Flickinger has a point when he says that grading by hand can be extremely slow and frustrating for students.  It is also a good idea for students to be taught how to be safe online.  Although Flickinger has made some valid points, there are still some areas that I do not agree with.  I do not believe that students should use Wikipedia to find information; there are plenty of other more reliable websites for students to use for research.  Teachers could provide students with a list of possible websites to use for certain research projects.  I also do not believe that it would be a wise decision to allow students access to facebook during school, as this would prove more a distraction than an aid to their learning.

There was both positive and negative feedback to Flickinger’s Educational Technology Bill of Rights for Students.  Some thought his list was spot on and agreed with what they believed, while others were quite angered by his statements.  Among those who were angry with Flickinger’s Bill of Rights were those who commented on his grammar.  I do believe that he should have proof-read his article before posting it on the internet.  One comment stated that students providing their own technology would make the classroom more unequal, which is something that I had not thought about.  If there is a student who has less money than the majority of the class, this would become apparent if students used their own technology.  Someone else wrote that education is not a right.  I totally disagree, because up until high school, education is a right and required of every U.S. citizen.  It amazes me that someone would even think that education is anything other than a right of the people.  Another comment made a suggested change from Flickinger’s original statement, “I am smart enough to verify what I find online to be the truth.” to her revised statement, “Teach me how to verify what I find online is from a reliable source.” I think this person is making a good statement because children do not know if a website is reliable or not unless they are taught how to determine that.

Brad Flickinger is working to make a difference in students’ education.  He has created the Badge program which helps students learn at a more effective rate.  Flickinger says that instead of him teaching the whole class at one time and waiting for students to try to follow along, he records the lesson in a step by step program in which each student can follow at his/her own pace.  Students receive badges for completing lessons and once they receive a badge they can move on to the next lesson.  The last lessons are elected badges (i.e. movie making), which provide students with motivation to complete the required badges.  He also has different stations with equipment for the students to work with, this way he does not have to purchase 30 microphones, 30 video cameras, etc. but can teach effectively with 5 or so of each set of equipment.  I think that is a good way to save money and not harm the effectiveness of the program itself.

http://www.schooltechnology.org/



Use stations to maximize use of minimal equipment.
Let students learn at their own pace.
Do not make a quick learner wait for the rest of the class; let them move on to the next assignment.

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Hi, my name is Vanessa