HRACS Here We Come!

I will be conducting my first Professional Development outside of our school this week and I am just a little nervous. We were able to practice in front of our colleagues last week and one of the suggestions they added was they wanted specific ways that each technology could be used in THEIR classroom. I am guessing that is what the teachers this week will also want to know; therefore, we will have to make sure we share how we are using the different software such as Voki, Edu.Glogster, Quizlet, Blogs, Museum Box etc. in our classrooms. For instant, Voki is simply fun for students to play around with. One student last week had his Voki singing a  Christian rap song, while one of our English teachers is using Voki to connect student learning from the previous day to what the student will be learning today. Instead of her repeating herself for each class and possibly leaving off an important fact, her Voki catches the student's attention and engages them in learning. Next we will go over Edu.Glogster. Edu.Glogster, is a creative way to capture the students attention and gives them a way to display their work in a new way. Both Edu.Glogster and Museum Box allow students to learn new information and share it with their peers and teacher in a unique and creative way. Sri Kusumawati Md Daud, Fauzan Mustaffa, Hanafizan Hussain and Md Najib Osman in their article, Creative Technology as Open Ended Learning Tool: A Case Study of Design School in Malaysia, concluded that students need a wide variety of technology training and open ended assessments to allow students to think on their own and determine the best way to display their findings. Employers need students who can figure out the problem and solve it. In addition, Quizlet has increased several students quiz scores after using the software to study for their quizzes. It is an easy program that teachers are picking up on very quickly. Finally, Blogs are being used in Bible classes, English classes, history classes, and technology classes to collaborate student learning. A list of six technology standards which students should know nationally by eighth grade to enhance employable skills and raise Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy in the United States are listed below (Kay and Honey, 2005):

• Communicate Effectively: Students must have a range of skills to express themselves not only through paper and pencil, but also audio, video, animation, design software as well as a host of new environments (e-mail, Web sites, message boards, blogs, streaming media, etc.).

• Analyze and Interpret Data: Students must have the ability to crunch, compare, and choose among the glut of data now available Web-based and other electronic formats.

• Understand Computational Modeling: Students must posses an understanding of the power, limitations, and underlying assumptions of various data representation systems, such as computational models and simulations, which are increasingly driving a wide-range of disciplines.

• Manage and Prioritize Tasks: Students must be able to mange the multi-tasking, selection, and prioritizing across technology applications that allow them to move fluidly among teams, assignments and communities of practice.

• Engage in Problem Solving: Students must have an understanding of how to apply what they know and can do to new situations.

• Ensure Security and Safety: Students must know and use strategies to acknowledge, identify, and negotiate 21^st century risks.

How are you measuring up in your classroom with the above mentioned standards?

Work Cited

"Critical Issue: Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement." Web. 20 Feb. 2011. <http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te800.htm>.

Keep Creativity Alive

I found the following quote to be very eye opening:

“With important groups such as ISTE, AASL and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills all calling upon schools to stress originality, imagination and creative production, the meaning of those terms along with related concepts such as synthesis, innovation and invention becomes central to defining the purpose of education.”¹

I feel fortunate to be employed by an administrator that realizes that every lesson will not go well. Ken Robinson in his video entitled “School Kills Creativity” put it another way. He defines creativity as “the process of having original ideas that have value.” He continues by saying, “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.” Is not that the issue with us technology immigrants versus the technology natives that we teach on a daily basis?

While teaching high school students, I try to make them think and explain to them what I, as an employer, use to expect from my employees. I would have a basic idea for a flyer and I would share my idea with a high school student, give them the pricing, and give them a few days to come up with a one page front and back flyer. They would show it to me, we would make suggestions, edit it for errors and eventually they would print it and watch it being stuffed into monthly statements. Today of course, the same flyer may be attached to a website or emailed to customers, but the idea of allowing a 16 or 17 year old to have that much influence was, I am sure, scary at first. As a teacher, I teach the same way I use to manage. I do not give them all the answers. YES they get frustrated at me at times, and yes I do have to help some students more than others depending on their SIP (Student Intervention Plan), but all in all, I am hoping they will leave my class knowing how to think on their own and have the confidence to still make mistakes. As Ken Robinson also stated, we may not see the future; however, the students we are teaching need to have the skills to make something out of it.

One resource I use in the classroom is Microsoft Publisher. This is a simple program in which the students are able to make brochures, flyers, door signs, websites or whatever they wish to make. One student just brought me her health brochure she made depicting the heart and its importance to the human body. She was really proud of her progress. I might say, it was pretty impressive looking. Until next time . . . .

Work Cited

¹"A True Original." Educational Technology Students Schools Libraries Teachers Parents Staff Development. Web. 09 Feb. 2011. <http://www.fno.org/jan09/original.html>.

Pageflakes.com is my new discovery. You are able to set it up as your home page, attach your  RSS reads, connect to Facebook, have the weather right in front of you each morning as you wake up and read your favorites, and even attach your to do list to keep you organized. Andy Carvin in his article entitled What is RSS? explains that RSS, Really Simple Syndication, allows publishers of web articles to simply find updates to a set number of articles of interest. One such article on RSS's suggested that you limit your list to five blogs to follow to begin with. You are able to add to this list or subtract by a simple click of the mouse. No longer is it necessary to log in to all of your favorite blogs, now you are able to just list them on your RSS and as they are updated, you will receive the update on your RSS. What is next? Until next time . . . .

Works Cited

Carvin, Andy. "What Is RSS?" PBS Teachers Learning.Now. 2009. Web. 6 Feb. 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=81920>.

Free Google Downloads

Well Capstone II is here. Another twelve weeks of hard work. In addition, a colleague and I are planning a workshop for HRACS and I just found a new blog and five free downloads. The titles and link to the pdf files is as follows: Other Technology Guides for Teachers, Google for Teachers, Making Videos on the Web - A Guide for Teachers, Beyond Google - Fifteen Tips and Tools for Improving Internet Search, Google Earth Across the Curriculum, Twelve Essentials for Technology Integration, Download all five free guides at http://www.freetech4teachers.com/p/free-downloads.html. Hope you enjoy your visit to my blog and are able to take away something new.  Until next time.