Podcasts

Although there were only a few of us in class, I really am glad we had the opportunity to learn how to create a podcast. It was so similar to the digital movie...I only wonder if a PC version would be that easy.

On another note, I taught some of my colleagues how to use the Windows Movie Maker and boy were they excited! They too commented on how easy it was to navigate through and are excited to introduce this to kids and to have them use it in their next IB unit! Now only if that excitement would spread through to the rest of the staff. We had a staff meeting on Wednesday before class and watched a clip on technology and preparing our kids for the 21st century. After that clip a lot of the staff commented that they would like more training on using various programs...so staff development here I come!

Sorry

I will have to apologize for not posting since last week's class. I have been really distracted with care for my ailing step father so thinking and concentrating on anything has been really hard!

In the last session we had I LOVED the etherpad activity we did. This would be a great way for kids to work collaboratively on their writing skills and to help with editing work. I don't know if I am ready to implement this tool, however, it will be in my bag of tricks for later use.

Right now, I am working on completing my lesson plan. I think I am a bit too detailed, but it was fun creating. I have a student teacher right now and we discussed how we could use this as a culminating activity for the end of our reading themed unit. I can't wait to get my hands on the CD of our class projects so that I can utilize some of the ideas in my classroom!

Hope you all have a relaxing and happy Thanksgiving!

Keyboarding

I was really happy that we discussed keyboarding in class and did the activity with the pros and cons of teaching keyboarding stand alone or as part of TPACK. As I mentioned in class last week our district wants us to teach keyboarding stand-alone and I had a training to do so. However, I have seen other teachers teaching the stand alone version of keyboarding and the kids complain all of the time about how boring it is to do. No thanks!!!!!

Last year, I utilized using technology with my students in all of their writing and publishing. I feel as though integrating the technology as part of my instruction kept the kids motivated to write and their writing and computer skills improved. So needless to say I don't teach keyboarding stand alone. I feel as though the kids are at different levels of keyboarding skills and I allowing them to go at their own pace with typing and navigating through the various computer programs. I also, strategically place more advanced tech saavy kids next to students who may need assistance. This works out well as they can help those who I can't get to right away.

Digital Storytelling...continued

Sorry this is late getting on here....I thought it posted by obviously not if I am rewriting this.

So this past week I was sitting in one of our collaboration meetings for our International Baccularette unit (which is a cross curricular program to help prepare students for the 21st century) we were discussing our next unit of study which is culture. And bam...it struck me that we could use digital story telling to have studnets write personal narratives or to recreate a cultural story. I brought that up to my colleagues and they were excited to try it! So that got the ball rolling....I then went to my principal with the idea and he was excited as well. So now I am in the process of getting information for the software that we need.

Then funny enough, I was at a wedding this weekend and was talking to a kindergarten colleague of mine and we were talking about technology and she was so excited to share that she knows how to use Animoto, but was limited to only 3o second clips and that's when I told her about VideoSpin. So I will be showing her that sight this week!

I am so excited to incorporate the digital storybooks!

Digital Storytelling....I made a movie!

I am proud to say that I finished my digital story...and I did it all on my own! This was quite a feat for me knowing that I have not been in class for the last 2 weeks. I was starting to freak out, but I took a deep breath and decided to do a search online to see if I could find a site where I could download a program to make a digital movie...and low and behold I found a free one...Pinnacle Video Spin....This site was fabulous as it gave you a tutorial on how to create the video. Then I had to figure out how to record my voice on my computer...after figuring that out I was good to go. I want to make more videos! Anyhow, I look forward to sharing this with the rest of the class although the subject matter is a bit of a downer...it will be something that I can share with my son as he gets older.

Digital Storytelling

So I have written my digital script. Initially, it was hard to narrow down a topic but once I got into the flow of writing, things fell into place. It was motivating for me to find the different songs and pictures to incorporate into my story. I am still nervous as to how to incorporate the music, pictures, and text into the movie....but I will hopefully figure it out. I can not wait to see the final product of my digital story!

I could definitely use this activity when we doing personal narratives for my kiddos. This project would definitely take a lot of prep and patience from me as students muttle through the process however, think of the engagement and motivation of all students!!!.

I definitely, think that once I master this digital storybook, then I could also take this to my building staff members and offer it as professional development.

Digital Storytelling

To be honest right now I am a bit nervous about doing this project (as I am kind of figuring this out on my own because I missed the last 2 classes...so any helpful hints would be appreciated!) Right now I definitely can related to those teachers who I have talked about who are hesitant to try anything new especially when instructions are not clear or have been missed. I do feel as though this will be a good activity to use with students in a variety of ways such as in story mapping, sequencing, and characterization. But for right now, I will muttle through...happy storytelling. I look forward to see the creativity of our class members!

Preparing Tomorrow's English Language Arts Teachers Today: Principles and Practices for Infusing Technology

Pope, C., & Golub, J. (2000). Preparing tomorrow's English language arts teachers today: Principles and practices for infusing technology. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 1 (1). Available: http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss1/currentissues/english/article1.htm

This article does a great job of supporting our topic of discussion involving TPACK and integrating technology into teaching language arts. The primary focus of this article was how teacher preparatory courses in English language arts can integrate technology into courses.

The authors begin the article by giving 3 examples of how teachers were using technology to connect their children to the world.

High school students in New York assemble and publish a school literary magazine each year. The students working on this magazine are from 10-15 different countries. The student editors solicit contributions on the Internet, and students' writing is sent to the editors through e-mail for review and evaluation.

A teacher in Florida used a listserv to have chapter discussions where students in her classroom and students in Russia post their responses to each chapter and share thoughts about their readings.

Shorecrest High School, in Seattle, Washington corresponded with Israeli students through the International Education and Resources Network ( http://www.iearn.org/ ) during the Persain Gulf War.

Using these types of technology practices would be beneficial for my school as we part of the International Baccalaurette programme which the philosophy is to create well balanced and worldly students.

The authors continued the article by stating that teacher educators need to be infusing and modeling technology into their teaching to prepare students and future teachers for the 21st century. The authors noted seven principles for infusing technology into language arts teacher preparation programs:
focus on the importance of technology as a literacy tool;
model English language arts learning and teaching while infusing technology;
evaluate critically when and how to use technology in English language arts classroom;
provide a wide range of opportunities to use technology;
examine and determine ways of analyzing, evaluating, and grading English language arts technology projects; and
emphasize issues of equity and diversity.

The authors suggest that the principles listed above can be utilized by English language arts methods courses to “infuse technology in a way that does not interfere with content pedagogy but supports it in a way that actively involves students and prepares them with the technical and pedagogical skills for creating the new learning-centered classroom.”

At the time of my teacher preparatory course I had one course involving technology, but only the basic functions of the computer such as internet and powerpoints. Clearly, technology has become much more advanced since the 12 years I have graduated. It is up to teachers, school districts, and college preparatory courses to keep up to date on the advancing technologies. If not we are doing a disservice to our future educators and students in regards to preparing them for the 21st century.

Tech rant....

So as I am nearing the end of my graduate program in administration one of the questions posed is how are you going to prepare your students for the 21st century. Although there are other components to preparing students for the 21st century one obvious topic is technology. This is where I get a bit frustrated at my district.

Last week I met with one of our technology directors for the district and he informed me that the building will be rewired and teachers will be getting new laptops. Then when the question was asked...what about a laptop lab or mobile unit for the school. The answer: the district does not support monies for students. WHAT????? Then he suggested we could go to our PTA...please the PTA is already providing enough for our students and often coming in the red. I then asked the question about grants, etc. and was encouraged NOT to go that route. Seriously.....and the reasoning being that when things go wrong then the district can't support the repairs, etc.

So essentially what I have come to conclude.....districts are expected to follow certain mandates...however they aren't doing about meeting those expectations of supplying the equipment necessary to meet those needs. Can we say frustrating!

Weblog

Huffaker, D. (2005). The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom. AACE Journal, 13(2), 91-98.

I chose this article because of recent classroom discussions regarding weblogs. This article explores the roles of weblogs in classroom literacy. According to the article weblogs are like personal journals or diaries and is an online venue for self expression and creativity. This in turn enhances storytelling and literacy. According to studies adolescents make up a large portion of the blogging community, almost 51.5% of blogs are developed and maintained by students ages 13-19. With blogging so popular amongst youth, the author felt as though it was hard to ignore utilizing technology into literacy and wanted to study the effects of blogging to enhance learning. This article identifies the importance of blogging and feels as though technology integration can promote literacy through storytelling, allows collaborative learning, and provides anytime-anywhere access.

The author describes the importance of teaching literacy to children and adolescent development through digital fluency, a way people become comfortable using technology as their natural language. Researchers feel as though technology literacy will be another prerequisite for lifelong learning and employment. This article also discusses the art of storytelling to increase literacy stating “using the Internet to communicate allows an author to use verbal literacy while extending digital fluency” Lastly, this article explores various ways that blogs can be used for both individuals and groups and in different classroom settings such Buckman Arts Magnet Elementary School in Portland, Oregon uses blogs to create a portal for all classrooms. The blog links among each teacher, showcasing photographs, student artwork, and classroom news.

Overall, this research article did a great job of promoting the utilization of blogging within the classroom to increase literacy skills. I feel as though blogging can be effective if monitored properly and students were taught cyber etiquette.

This week I have really tried to immerse as much technology into my teaching as much as possible. I feel as the more I utilize and expose kids to various activities the more routine using technology will become. I found some great interactive websites created for friendly letter writing and used it with my kids. Let me tell you these sites engaged my kids and kept them interested in the topic. It was exciting to see all the hands up to try and answer questions. Here are a few of the sites I used with my kids.
edujourney.net/Classroom/PowerPoint/FriendlyLetter.ppt
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/letter_generator/
http://www.billybear4kids.com/post/office.htm
http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/ecards/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/english/writing/letters/play.shtml

After reading the articles regarding social networking sites I have mixed reviews about using such sites. Teachers need to be responsible in insuring that there is an educational purpose and goal in regards to the way that students are using these social networking sites. If these goals or expectations are not conveyed then yes there will be issues of misuse. I feel if teachers are educating students about the dangers of the internet such as sexual predators and teach students about technology etiquette and anti-bullying (trolling) then social networking can be an effective educational tool for increasing student achievement, can provide a link to the community/world, and can increase student engagement.

Also, a how do I create a wiki page to use with my students/staff to access sites I find to use.
Hope that's not a silly question.

Post-its (because I didn't know what else to call it)

This past week's activities were so much fun! As a teacher, you get busy with meeting standards and assessments and don't have enough time to see what resources are out there. This class has allowed me to get a taste of what technology has to offer. The only problem I struggle with as a teacher is having the time to research more activities/resources that are available. I hope that once my life of graduate school/teaching/mommy slows down then I will have the time, but I have a good start with the activities that Dr. S has provided for us thus far.

From the readings, I am interested in learning more about the literature circles and the virtual books using powerpoint. These two activities I think would beneficial for kids and fun to do. For me it may be a time consuming process as we have limited time in the computer lab each week.

Which poses another issue. The accessibility and the willingness for districts to provide techonology to support such great ideas and expose kids to more activities utilizing technology.

This week in technology.....

This week, was a pretty successful week as far as learning/teaching/and using technology. I organized a VERY successful staff development with colleagues. Some of my skepticism towards some of my staff members and using technology was eased. I have learned that with LOTS of organization and reassurance you can teach an old dog new tricks. This thinking can also be relevant with students who are learning to use technology. Although there may be times you and your students may get frustrated, but you have to patient and know that new technologies take time to work out kinks. This week made it very exciting for me to want to do further trainings with my staff and to incorporate more technology into my classroom as they were very appreciative and were more at ease with the “scary” computer.

This week’s reading by Dr. Schmidt was filled with a variety of technological tools that I could use and introduce to my staff. This week’s in-class activity gave me a deeper understanding of what TPACK is and allowed me to distinguishing the various components needed to teach literacy, the technologies that are available, and how we can teach those skills. It really helped me to “refresh” my bag of tricks.

TPACK readings

These two articles riterated my feelings about the fact that teachers need to be preparing students to not only be literate in text but literate using technology to increase skills. It made me feel good as a teacher to know that I have incorporated some of the ideas suggested in the articles. My students love researching on the internet and I find their writing and reading skills improved the more we spent time using computers. However, with the experience that I have had teaching not many teachers are comfortable in venturing off and using something other than paper and pencil. Several limitations I forsee is the lack of funding and lack of time devoted to provide teachers professional development or training in using such technologies such as digital storybooks, movie maker, etc. Many districts have not yet raised the bar when it comes to writing district goals that includes creating technological literate students. Until school districts see this as a viable need then teachers will continue to do the same paper and pencil tasks.

Can veteran teachers be taught new tricks?

Being the technology person at my school (because no one else wanted to do this...surprise surprise) I find it very disturbing how many teachers (who have had atleast 10 years of using technology for grading purposes) want you to hold their hands. No matter how many hand outs or professional development is given these teachers still rely upon others to set up their elmos, in-focus machines, and help with grades. This disturbs me because I wonder how those same teachers are helping students be literate in the area of technology.

This week's class inspired me to go to the principal and ask if I could do more professional development for helping teachers integrate technology in their instruction with programs such as Wordle, Comic Life, and blogging...so wish me luck! I am really excited to learn more each week if my principal supports this idea!

From my educational administration program one of the key components that was strongly emphasized was ensuring that students are techonologically literate. Yet, schools are not being equipped or funded with the tools necessary to provide these opportunities for students. It's really interesting to see that when I was a special education teacher I had a SMART board to use and money to spend on technology with my students. Other sped teachers had them as well, but they were tucked in a corner collecting dust. But as a general education teacher, I have a good old fashioned blackboard (not even a wipe board). Don't get me wrong I have tools such as the elmo and in focus machine, but the SMART boards are awesome and the kids are so motivated when you are able to utilize them!

As an educator I get tired of hearing negative comments about how kids are not able to do things. One particular gripe I have is when using technology. I have found over the years kids are very knowledgeable about computers. At times, some of my students have taught me a thing or two about various types of technologies. These teachable moments where the kids are able to see that I do not know everything about everything is powerful! Unfortunately, there still remain teachers who are unwilling to be vulnerable especially with technology and in my opinion they are not doing their children any favors. I also have seen teachers who are set in their ways and find technology (computers) as being just another “add” on to their day. It is important for teachers to have professional development to help them to integrate technology into their curriculum.

One way that I do this is in my language arts class. Although I know this isn’t a new or innovative idea, but after every piece of major work my kids compose they are expected to type the final draft. One of my colleagues had major issues about how ineffective this was. Noting that the computer does spell check for the kids and it was too time consuming. I often responded with how although it was time consuming, it was worth it to see my kids engaged and looking forward to writing time (which isn’t always the case with most kids). Not only that, but my kids became better writers as they were able to see their errors immediately.

After reading the blogging articles this week, I am very excited to utilize this with my kids! Although I know this may come with some opposition and red tape, I think this would be a great opportunity for my kids. I am concerned about accessing a blog site for my kids and the management piece. Would it be easier to do one address that all students can log into? If anyone has any suggestions please send them my way! Thanks!