Tuesday, February 26, 2013

My Blog 02/27/2013

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

My Blog 02/20/2013

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Monday, February 18, 2013

My Blog 02/19/2013

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Week 5 Journal

What are your overall take-aways from the methods/tools that you might use to 
differentiate the classroom environment (for teacher productivity and student 
progression)? Which of these may you use in your classroom in the future?


Most of my favorite tools seem to be the most popular with teachers 'in the know'. They are popular for good reason- easy to access and use, usually free, student-friendly, and have great staying power. I could see using these tools in the future with a classroom, as long as they have good computer access. 

For help to "remember everything" and gain access from virtually any device, I could use Evernote, Google Docs and Calendar, or Dropbox. Both the teacher and students can use these sites to store and access resources and assignments. Edmodo is another tool for these purposes, with the advantage of social networking to help with interaction between teachers, students and even parents. So far Edmodo is my personal favorite.

For group projects, Edmodo or Wiggio would be very useful in the classroom. The students would have options for setting group goals, organizing ideas, communication with other members, and submitting a final product where the teacher and group members could access it. Using Screencastomatic (make step-by-step tutorials from your computer) or Xtranormal (free animated do-it-yourself videos) would give students a fun way to present their work.
Through this class, Twitter has become a good source to share information with other teachers. It's definitely not my favorite way to communicate, but it makes it easy to gain access to resources and helpful advice from all over. I use Tweetdeck to help make my tweeting a little less chaotic. However I would not use Twitter with students as I think it is too distracting and unorganized.

There are also all the tools I've mentioned in past weeks for goal-setting, analyzing student differences, and assessing progress. The best thing to keep in mind for me is to keep it simple. With so many different technology tools at our disposal, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of Newness and use something different and/or cooler every week. But to stay organized and focus on the goal of the technology (supporting student learning and teacher productivity), I will do best by using one or two sites for everything. If all the offerings of a site are used to their potential, that's all you really need, in my opinion.
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Friday, February 15, 2013

Week 4 Journal

How can I use tools "in the cloud" to easily manage 
and deliver feedback to my students?

 Last week was a whirlwind! That's why it's taken all of this week just to recover and get back on the ball. I got a taste of teaching full time in a 5th grade classroom BY MYSELF for a full week. It was so much harder than even my student teaching last semester- even though/because it was the same students. The reasons why children have to make life miserable for their substitute (whom they actually like, according to other teachers) would be a fabulous study!

To answer this week's question, I think Edmodo was the best tool I came across. I have heard it mentioned frequently in the last year or so, but never knew much about it. This tutorial is a great introduction to how this can be used to manage students' work AND your own: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPqRanqJm6E

One of the biggest perks to Edmodo is that it's easy to use. I think just about every student has seen or used Facebook, and Edmodo is a lot like that. I asked a teacher I know about using it with her class, and she said they really like it. She can't use it for their assignments because of limited access; but many students interact with her on Edmodo just to get updates, keep in touch, or share their experiences with classmates. Like other social networks, students can post pictures and other materials to their hearts' content. The teacher can monitor posts, approve each post individually, or block selected students from posting anything. In a tech-saturated environment, this can be the only online tool you need for teaching. The creator of the tutorial above shows how to use it for saving all his teaching files in one place, creating assignments, grading, and much more. The students can use it as much or as little as the teacher decides- they could actually complete all their assignments online, as well as post their progress or steps along the way.

ClassDojo is a simple behavior management tool. It can be displayed on the teacher's computer or projected on a smartboard for immediate behavior feedback. The daily data can be charted to show improvement or challenges, times that are a particular challenge, or behaviors that can be targeted. Administrators and parents can also access the information to discuss it with their children.

Here is a great list of other free Cloud tools: http://www.educatorstechnology.com. These can just be used as easy-access storage, or a way to access student work and give them feedback. Here's another free blog with useful technology tools: http://educationwebcloud.blogspot.com/

A paid resource with lots of tools included is Adobe Creative Cloud. The current lowest price I can find for this is $19.99 per student and teacher per month. Ouch, quite pricey for us average joes, but if your kid was in a seriously technified school, maybe going for some kind of designing or other creative career, this could be worth it.
  
Last week I also finally got to talk "face to face" (I was just "voice") with my wiki partner. We used Google Hang Out, thanks to Chip and Lee holding our hands to get it started! That was fun, but since then with just the two of us being a "group", good ol' fashioned email has worked fine. We finally put the pedal to the metal and just might have the wiki page ready to go on the 19th.

I really enjoyed the twitter chat on Tuesday, which gave me some good info on using technologies like Diigo, Dropbox, Minecraft, simulations and how to stay safe from the snow blob (really!!)
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My Blog 02/16/2013

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Thursday, February 7, 2013

My Blog 02/08/2013

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

My Blog 02/07/2013

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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Week 3 Journal

What technology tools can I use to manage and track differentiated student progress in my class?

This week I focused on finding tools to manage and track student progress. My priority was to find FREE things that would be easy for the students to use. The links I found are posted here: My Blog 02/05/2013.

At first I experimented with business-oriented project management sites. One that could be useful is ZOHO. The free package is for an unlimited time so this is a big plus. It only allows one project, but many participants can be included. This looks like one way to create goals within a project and track students' progress; but it might be reinventing the wheel when there are much more popular tools out there. These were listed at http://www.diigo.com/list/drlee66/tools-for-trackingmanaging-progress by Lee Graham. (Of those more typical tools I like the looks of Edmodo and Wiggio- but I haven't been able to play with them.)

My favorite find for younger kids was Goal for It http://www.goalforit.com/. This was a site created for parents, kids and anyone else wanting to set some goals for themselves. It has a fun look and feel and seems easy to use. I believe this would be very useful in many different classroom settings! It could be used to modify behavior as well as set up projects and assignment goals. One warning- this is an open online community so kids would need to be shown how to keep their goals and activity private or only share with the class/teacher. Parents could also get into using this with their kids.

Over the past week I have read the blogs of classmates, the Connectivist Daily, and other web articles related to technology in the classroom. I have made attempts to join a Wiki group, with continued lurking in various groups to find the best fit. I have finally settled on the 4th-6th grade group.

Going into the next week, I'm excited to be working more with my Wiki project group! We are going to decide the best way for us all to communicate, and I'm hoping we use Edmodo or Wiggio. I really wanted this class to be an opportunity for hands-on experience with technology tools that I will use with students. Those particular tools look like something that I would return to; especially Edmodo which is already very popular for schools. 


 

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Monday, February 4, 2013

My Blog 02/05/2013

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Sunday, February 3, 2013

http://www.goalforit.com/

This one is worth it's own post. I'm so excited to find a great way to set personal goals! I think this will be a fun and simple tool that can be used in any setting. A teacher could easily help students create their own goals, set up their own free account, and track the goals themselves. There is plenty of built-in positive motivation just by checking off your goals- and you can also earn points toward self-assigned rewards!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KiPT9yFCaNc

I'm glad this week's assignment to find tools for students to set and track goals led me to this =)
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