ITEC 501

www.mywebspiration.com/view/156071a30384

The mind map is probably pretty self explanatory but just to highlight a few things…

As the teacher and the “leader” in the classroom, I am responsible for making sure that the things I teach are effective and relevant.  I am responsible for teaching the appropriate curriculum and integrating this content with technology.  As I use technology, I need to make sure it is presented and used in a safe and ethical way.  I need to model all of these amazing ways to use technology to teach and learn.  I want my students to develop that love for learning and as I learn about new technology I want to pass that passion and excitement on to them.

It is important to me that I develop an interactive learning environment in my classroom.  Using technology with the students in my classroom can help me to achieve this goal.  The students will work in collaborative groups and learn to evaluate the resources that they are using and the work that they complete.  As a teacher, there are so many resources (in the school and on-line) that can be used to enhance the learning experience in the classroom.

Examples of the school resources include laptops, smart boards, computer labs, and specialists.  Examples of on-line resources include web sites and all of the different things that we have explored in this class.  Web-quests, blogs, screencasts, befunky, google earth, podcasts, etc. can all be used in the instruction.

The teacher and the interaction between the technology and the students will (that is the goal anyway) grow a classroom of thinkers.  They will be exploring, reflecting, questioning, engaging and growing in these hands-on, authentic, differentiated experiences.

With the skills acquired from using the technology in the classroom from their model teacher, the students will be life-long learners and creators.  They will move from using the technology and its resources to creating them and inventing them.

I had fun creating this mind map! Enjoy!

I participated in a discussion this evening, Monday, July 6th, at 8:00 p.m.  The title of this event was Cyberethics, Cybersafety & Cybersecurity (C3) – Sexting.  The purpose of this group is to “help inform the educational community about the ethical, legal, safety, and security implications of technology use”.  The leader of the chat was Davina S. Pruitt-mentle.  She is a faculty member at UMCP in College Park, MD.  She has been a member of tappedin since 2003.  I also learned that she is a senior researcher and policy analyst from Ed Tech Policy, Research and Outreach.

I felt this would be an interesting event to attend since we recently did a research activity on internet safety for our class.  Also, my husband is an administrator at a middle school and this is an issue that he has had to deal with throughout the year.  It is almost shocking to me that students as young as 11 years old are dealing with this.  I think this is an important topic for me to learn more about as a mother and as a future teacher.  Children have access to so much technology and with the benefits come the risks. 

This was a fairly large group.  There were 18+ participants.  It was a little bit difficult to keep up with everything that was being said so I am anxious to get the transcript and review the sites that were mentioned during the discussion.  The discussion went off topic often and there were a few participants that frequently strayed from the topic and made the discussion difficult at times.

Topics that were discussed were: What is sexting?  What problems/issues are associated with it?  Is it illegal?  We discussed whether or not cell phones should even be allowed in schools.  There were differing opinions on that and some of that depended on if they were elementary students, middle school students, or high school students.  One interesting point of discussion was that most of us, as adults, didn’t really know what was legal and what  wasn’t or what was considered “sexting” and what wasn’t.  So, one comment I made was that if we don’t know, how do children know?  We discussed the need for schools to  have and enforce a code of conduct.  Davina suggested modeling appropriate cell phone behavior and brought up the fact that there really aren’t a lot of laws yet.  We talked about the responsabilities of parents, teachers, lawmakers, and the phone companies.  Another interesting point that Davina brought up was that the U.S. has stricter regulations/feelings on pornography, sexting etc.

Overall, I feel like tappedin.org has a lot to offer and it seems like it would be a good way for educators to learn more about specific areas that they are interested in and a good place to go to ask questions.

These three photos of my children (Christopher, Katie and Ben) were enhanced using http://www.befunky.com/.  I just fell in love with this site.  It was so easy and fun to use.  All you have to do is upload one of your own photos and then you can apply one of the photo effects.  There are additional editing tools that you can use also.  It literally, as the website describes, can turn your photos into artwork.  For an artistically challenged person like myself, it was very empowering.  There is so much that even very young students could do with this in the classroom.  For “All About Me” books or “Star of the Week” bulletin boards you could take a picture of the student, download it, and allow them to choose which effect they like the best and then print it out to use.  Older students could do this themselves and create artwork of themselves, their families or a place in a variety of lessons.  The artwork does not need to be printed out.  It can be added to  class website site, a blog,  or shared in a variety of ways.  Recently, my daughter’s class hosted an author’s celebration where artwork, stories, and poems that the students created were on display and/or read.  It was a wonderful event.  I can see using the artwork created from this site incorporated into an event like this  – to be printed out and hung or used in a PowerPoint slide presentation.  Kids love to see pictures of themselves and create things using pictures of themselves.  I think this really allows them to be creative and explore technology in a very user friendly way.  I will certainly add this to my PortaPortal site and other favorites that I will add are:  http://www.graphic.org/concept.html, http://www.kartoo.com/, http://k-8visual.info/free.html, and http://www.mapskip.com/.

I thought the Discovery Education site was an incredible resource for all teachers of all grade levels.  It was very user friendly.  The site provides curriculum standards that coordinate with the streams.  It also provides, for the stream, black line masters, a teacher’s guide, and a quiz. 

The stream that I downloaded was titled Sound:  A First Look.  I could absolutely see using a stream such as this in my classroom.  The stream addressed:  What is sound?, What does the word vibrate mean?, What are sound waves?,  How do we hear?,  How does sound travel?, and terms such as echo and pitch.  The stream also includes fun facts such as the fact that tools do not make any sound in space.  The stream discusses how to make instruments from recycled household items.  What a great way to reinforce in music class what is being studied in the classroom.

I remember when my son, Christopher, was studying the term vibrate as part of his first grade science curriculum.  This was a hard term for him to comprehend and I really think that using this tool would have helped.  It is very visual and provides lots of real life examples.

Not having any previous experience with Google Earth (other than my husband looking up where Santa was for my kids on Christmas Eve) or Mashups, I was so amazed by the sites and everything that they had to offer.  There seem to be endless possibilities on how to incorporate them into lessons and enhance lessons.  Sometimes I feel like some of the technology that is out there may be distracting or not applicable to lower elementary grades but these two applications seem to have a lot to offer. 

When looking at the http://www.terrapass.com/flight/flightcalc.html there were a lot of math and science applications.  Students could use this to figure out math problems, calculate which would produce the least or most carbon, and provide the students with an opportunity to make thoughtful decisions about how their actions impact the environment. 

The site, http://www.flashearth.com, really brought geography to life.  It would be neat in a classroom to locate a place that we were studying on a traditional map or globe and then locate it on flashearth.  If we were doing a Flat Stanley type project, we could locate the places Flat Stanley visited.  We could do this using GoogleEarth too and use the ruler feature to measure the distance he traveled!

One site I really liked was http://www.virtualtourism.blogspot.com.  It seemed very user friendly.  One can look up places (such as the Great Wall of China or the Statue of Liberty) and see the google earth photo rather than just a text book photo.  The site also gives the basic history and information of the sites.  It really brings the places to life and I think it would make them seem much more real to the students.

One idea from http://eduscapes.com/sessions/gis was to read the trade book Make Way For Ducklings and then look up the actual location on Google Earth.  This could be done for so many trade books, linking language arts to science and social studies!  When reading stories about anything from the underground railroad to the Battle of Gettysburg, these places can be found and brought to life.  

These applications seem to provide a more thoughtful and in depth look to all aspects of education and students can answer questions with more depth and thought using these tools.

Several observations that I made from reviewing the sites on our assignments page were:

1.  I can see how podcasts provide students with a very interactive, hands on learning experience.  

2.  It would be important to provide a transcript with the podcast posting because the sound quality on many of the podcasts that I listened to was poor.

3.  One of the first applications that came to mind when reviewing the sites was in assisting ESL students.  It would be a great way for students to listen to trade books in their native language or in English, practice their English language and then hear it played back to them, and a great way for them to turn in projects or papers if they are more fluent in speaking English than writing English.

A few sites that I found:

1. http://www.pinkydinkydoo.com/podcasts.html

This podcast was very enteraining and I think that it would hold the attention of young children.  The Pinky Dinky Doo podcasts could enhance the listening skills of my future kindergarten class and they also introduce new vocabulary words. 

2. http://slapcast.com/users/Jamestown/

This is a podcast recorded by students and it is a poem about Jamestown.  My elementary class could listen to this during the filling out of a KWL chart or circle map of Jamestown.  We could even use it as inspiration for creating our own poem on a historical place or fieldtrip.

3. http://cfbpodcast.cfbisd.edu/weblog/kincaida/

This was probably my favorite of the podcasts that I found and it would be a great lesson plan.  The class used the book Goodnight Moon and their knowledge of the state of Texas to create their own story.  This is a great way to incorporate social studies and language arts.  They are highlighting the things that they learned about their state.  While doing this project they are also practicing their speaking skills. 

4.  http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio/shows/Willowcast27.mp3

This is a recording by students on the American Revolution.  I can see doing something like this in my own upper elementary classroom as a review of all the things they have learned on this or another topic.  The great thing about it being a podcast is that the students could download it and listen to it over and over again as a study tool before an exam.

In creating this screencast, I at first was feeling a little overwhelmed .  After reviewing all the sites, directions, etc. , it seemed a little more manageable.  The hardest part for me was going back and re-recording places where I messed up.  It seemed to work best when I wrote down what I wanted to say and read it directly from my “script”.  I have not seen a screencast used in a classroom setting but it seems like there could be some good uses.  Perhaps if students were creating their own project on excel or in word and needed to go back and review the directions.  This would allow students to work at their own pace and review as needed.  I could also see this being used on a math teacher’s web site.  The teacher could create a screencast that explained how to do certain types of problems.  If a child didn’t undersand while doing their homework, they could refer to the screencast.  It would also help those students who may have been absent.  As an aspiring teacher of kindergarten or first grade, I am not entirely sure how I would use it in the classroom.  It is very interesting technology though and as a student, I can see the benefits.

http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cQ122ufno

My portaportal link is below.  Enjoy!

http://guest.portaportal.com/WendieJohnston.

Below is the link to my powerpoint presentation on voicethread.  The presentation is 5 slides on fair use, copyright, and internet safety.  With so much information, it was difficult to narrow down what to include in the presentation.  I tried to pick out the most important messages that as parents and teachers, we need to know. 

Voicethread is  a new frontier for me.  I had never even heard of this but it seems really cool.  I do not have a microphone and I even tried to record my voice using my phone but couldn’t get that to work (way over my head I am sure).  It was fun playing around with the comment option.  When I posted the link in my blog and tested it, it actually surprised me that I got it to work!  Enjoy.

www.voicethread.com/share/529746/

I just finished the Tips and Tricks session on Tappedin.org.  Many things were introduced and it did seems to help make sense of what at first seemed overwhelming.  I noticed others from our class in the group.  During the tour, we learned how to move from room to room and how to follow others around (very cool).  We also learned how to edit our own profile and view other profiles.  I think this would be very helpful when trying to decide whether or not to join a group or participate in a discussion.  Tappedin.org provides a lot of links to other web sites and seems like a great way to find information on a topic that you are interested in.  If you are teaching a specific grade, subject, level… there is a lot of specific and broad groups and information.  During the tour we were able to join a group.  The one downside, at least for me, is that the actual chats seem to be time consuming.  One thing that the site offers is  the archives.  If you aren’t able to participate in the actual online discussion, or you are interested in one that happened in the past, you can always go back read the transcript.