Light at the End of the Tunnel

"Inside the Tunnel" by Autowitch from Flickr CC License CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Link: http://bit.ly/1y71HvR

The end is near! I will be honest. I am very happy that this is my last post. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to create and learn a variety of blogging websites as well as how they work. I am grateful to have utilized a blog to network and share the work I have created throughout the semester. However, I highly dislike writing. When I am asked to write and am not given a specific topic, I freeze. I push the assignment all the way to the bottom of the list. That being said, I will not spend my entire last post, blogging about how much I hate blogging.

Let's reflect a bit about the past semester in Educational Technology. I definitely dabbled in areas that were uncomfortable such as Creative Commons licenses and had fun creating with new presentation programs such as Prezi. I am looking forward to bringing Prezi into my classroom and having my students work on Digital Storytelling projects throughout the year. I will admit that I am disappointed in the lack of ready-to-use classroom ideas I feel I am leaving this class with. I predicted to be completing this class with a head full of new ideas that I couldn't wait to use with my students. Not only that, but I figured this would occur weekly. Instead, I found myself wasting large amounts of time reading 45-page chapters on dry technology information. 

Perhaps these jewels of classroom ideas are waiting for me within the Twitter feed that we were "feeding" throughout the semester. As I browsed through my classmates' tweets, there seemed to be some great ideas and articles. Sadly, there was not enough time to actually read them. I look forward to having this network of information and continuing to be connected to fellow educators and technology users. I am not a big Twitter user, but if you are ever looking for some new ideas to refresh your day-to-day curriculum, it's a great place to start!

Last, but not least, was Rubric creation. Rubric creation is special because it covers both categories of difficulty and extremely useful. Rubrics can be difficult to create as well as extremely time consuming. However, I am so glad that we created them for our digital storytelling projects. It made me reflect upon the rubrics I currently use with my students as well as where else I would like to add rubrics in my teaching. Many fellow classmates agreed that they assist in clarifying expectations and communication between teacher and students as well as parents. iRubric was a great website that was user-friendly for creating my project rubric. I was then able to embed this rubric into my wiki page.

I am looking forward to utilizing the few skills I feel that I am solidly taking away with my 4th graders as well as taking that large, expensive book back to the library for good!

Cheers!

The Pieces Come Together

"Puzzle" by Ella Phillips Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 License 

Link: http://bit.ly/1pdcPXo

Over the last few months, our Educational Technology instructor has been assigning readings and assignments to be completed weekly. These assignments would all come together to form a culminating Digital Storytelling project that we would guide our students through online. At the time of completing these assignments, it was often times difficult to see the bigger picture. Sometimes I had trouble understanding how it would all fit together, but I must say that I am enjoying the reflection. 

The assignments could be challenging, but were always educational. We were instructed to complete varying assignments from creating a wiki page to completing an entire digital storytelling presentation. 

We knew that over time, all of these assignments and readings would come together and make complete sense. Well, we are finally there! Yes, folks today I can say that I have completed all necessary checks, rechecks and submissions. My culminating project that consists of a working and public Wiki page complete with both curriculum and lesson plan pages has been submitted for grading. It is amazing to see how all of the work has been put together.

If you are interested in directing a project such as this, creating a class wiki page for your students to access data is a great idea. Within the wiki page, you can create pages for organization. For example, I have a curriculum page that includes: project expectations, sites for research, an embedded example Prezi, and an embedded rubric. There is also a page that includes the Lesson Plan. 

Now to reflect upon the process. I like to take what I have been completing and think about how I can implement it within my current 4th grade classroom. We complete a few large projects throughout the year and I am curious as to how I could break it apart and complete one piece at a time. Not only have I learned to use a wiki page to direct a project for my students, but I have also learned to direct a project by pieces. 

My First Digital Storytelling

I would appreciate your feedback on the following project. My project is a Novel Wrap Up of the current novel study we are completing of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate in my 4th grade classroom. I really liked the suggestion of a fellow classmate to do a movie trailer of the book, but I wanted my students to start using Prezi at this point in the year versus iMovie. I feel that it is a useful program for this grade level. I am open to suggestions for digital storytelling names and projects other than just "summaries". 

I didn't just want my students to summarize, but to emphasize some of the important content the book offers. I offered three choices for my students to incorporate into their Novel Wrap Up. I chose to explain the Texan heroes that Calpurnia's brothers are named after. For other guidelines of the project, please see my curriculum page on my wiki page.

Digital Storytelling in the 4th Grade Classroom

"Performing Arts Center, San Luis Obispo" by Malcolm Carlaw  on Flickr CC BY 2.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Recently, in my educational technology class, I have been introduced to the world of Digital Storytelling. Right away, I knew I had discovered a learning jewel for my students and they would love this idea because my students love to tell stories! They are constantly making connections (shh..don’t tell them) with stories and sharing their own personal experiences. Most of the time, I have a hard time getting them to listen instead of speak! Another reason why I know my students would really enjoy this activity is because they already have shown a fondness of technology. Our class is extremely fortunate to have one-to-one iPads, so the students are utilizing them quite often. They create Pic Collages, participate in online discussions and use the internet to access online curriculum.

Digital Storytelling projects can be created using a variety of programs consisting of, but not limited to, Prezi, VoiceThread, Slideshare, iMovie and many more. Within the project, students can integrate text, images, and video in order to express their thoughts and ideas.

I need to plan a Digital Storytelling project for my 4^th grade students. I can relate it to any curriculum subject that I am teaching and choose the program of my choice. For my students’ first storytelling project, I would choose Prezi. It is easy to use and has high variety of visual presentations.

It will be necessary for me to model how to create a Prezi by walking through a few steps. We will discuss many items including: how to add text, how to add an image, how to add a video, how to change text color, how to change the path, etc. Utilizing “Up and Running with Prezi” will be a great tutorial on Lynda.com to show my students some of the skills previously listed. I will also show the students an example Prezi so that they can see how it works.

As for the curriculum the project will be correlated with, I will choose our language arts program. We are currently reading a novel called The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. The students could summarize the main ideas of the story through a Prezi using text, images, and video. Prior to creating the Prezi, it is recommended that students plan, or sketch out, the story they would like to tell. My students will use the Flow Map from Thinking Maps to plan out the important events in order. They can also plan what kinds of media they would like to be incorporated into their Prezi.

I am grateful to have learned such a valuable learning tool to use in my classroom.

Prezi or Not, Here I Come!

This week in my EME5050 class, I was instructed to create an online presentation using my choice of tool. I chose to create my first Prezi. I found Prezi to be extremely easy to use and the help section quite helpful.

I also challenged myself to modify a picture from Flickr using Online Image Editor. This was another user friendly site that I enjoyed using. I have never been one to edit pictures because I didn't know how or what to use. I am glad that I have been introduced to new tools and experiencing what they have to offer.

Hardware History

"Overhead Projector" by Jim Hickcox on Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

This week in EME5050 class, we have delved into the depths of hardware. It is important to understand the terminology that is involved with technology. It is also quite difficult to remember and acquire these terms correctly. First off, there are just so many components to technology hardware. Second, technology is continuously changing and those components are changing with it. How many times have you or your colleagues been speaking with your IT department about a problem that has been occurring, but because of the lack of appropriate vocabulary, the conversation stumbles and steps to simplify must be taken in order to sort out what the problem is? I know that I am far from perfect when it comes to my knowledge of hardware terminology (I found this chapter and module quite useful) and I find myself wincing at the verbiage being used by fellow teachers who are far from up to par on their technological terminology.

Why is this important for us to examine? As educators, technology has taken a front row seat amidst our curriculum. We are integrating technology at every step of the day in order to take our instruction to the next level. Educators are ensuring that our students are learning 21st century skills in order to be ready for a 21st century workplace. It is important for us to know and understand the tools that we are teaching with. At this point, teachers almost understand less about the technology than their students. However, teachers have been growing and changing with the technology. We have seen pieces of machinery enter our classrooms as the new and improved tool and then be replaced years later. 

That being said, I had to feature a picture of an overhead projector on today's blog post. When I think of a piece of classroom technology that was the main focus of technology for years, only to be replaced in years to come with pieces such as projectors and Smartboards I think of overhead projectors. They were in all of my classrooms growing up. Now that I am a teachers, they are mostly replaced. When I started my teaching career about 7 years ago, they were still in use. However, today my students and I have an inside joke to where we refer to it as the "dinosaur". What is interesting is that they think it is actually quite neat! 

There are many people keeping the history of  hardware alive today by collecting the names and pictures of the varieties of computers, personal laptops, and gaming devices all on one website. Check out http://bit.ly/WgDgO8 for a little blast from the past. Also, another great website that I found extremely interesting that goes as early as 1972 with a Hewlett-Packard is http://oldcomputers.net/. 

No matter what age you are, you will embark on an educational journey with technology. Learning the terminology and the basics to understanding how it all works will ensure a smooth and successful road. We have a lot to look forward to in our future!

Students Learning Online Ethics

When I started to read about online ethics and the definition of ethics provided by Merriam-Webster, it truly struck a chord for me as an instructor of 4^th graders implementing technology in the classroom. Over the past few years, our academy has been implementing technology use campus-wide with the long-term goal of one-to-one iPads for 4^th -12^th graders. Well, this is the year!

During these years, we have strived to create a save technology community for our students by creating guidelines and informing them of the best practices when online for educational purposes. In order to complete this mission, we created a technology committee that created posters and videos that shared our technology mission statement. We have also included rules and guidelines for internet and iPad use within our student handbooks. Additionally, educating our faculty and staff on what is expected from our students has been a focus on professional development afternoons.

If students know what is expected of them, their behaviors are better. This results in quality work and time spent in classrooms. Poor choices are made less often as students are not testing their boundaries because they already know what they are. Posters were created for each classroom so that they can be referred to when necessary and students to do not have any reason to not be held responsible.

According to UCF instructors, it is important provide information about academic integrity. They emphasize this focus in their Student Conduct video. The instructors use adjectives like being “clear” and “vigilant” about their expectations of students. They understand the importance of providing clear expectations about cheating, plagiarism and other tech-related policies in the classroom. The syllabus is a great place to provide the information for students to refer back to. Some instructors teach the information and then test on it. This way, they have covered the material and ensure the fact that all students have heard the information as well.

How universities establish and model their expectations is something we can learn from. After I provide the information found on our classroom poster (versus a syllabus), I can quiz my students on the information. This way, it ensures they have all viewed the expectations of our class. Lastly, all expectations will be included in our student handbook as part of our school conduct.

As for plagiarism, it is difficult for students in 4^th grade to entirely wrap their minds around that concept. However, this is the perfect age to start introducing the topic especially since their time spent researching online has greatly increased. Robert Harris states in his article about Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers “students simply do not know what plagiarism is” (2013). This is why it is important to start introducing citing and plagiarism to them while they are young. Last year, my teaching partner and I started having one of our upper school AP English teachers visit us to discuss this topic and its importance. Then, our students were required to start citing their reading anthology on their weekly reading assessment. This was a great first step for them to get acclimated to the process.

References:

UCF (2011) Academic integrity. Retrieved from http://engage.ucf.edu/v/p/RXaKtxM

Harris, R. (2013, December 27). Evaluating internet research sources. Retrieved from http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm