Ed Tech For Teachers

            This week’s topic was about tools that can assist the education process. I knew about a few of them, but had not heard of a lot. I think technology is something that can help teachers save so much time, which is so precious in an education environment. One thing that was mentioned a lot was Google Classroom. It takes away all the stress that comes with making sure you can get all of your students their assignments, or making sure they have access to what they need. With Google Classroom and the countless tools it has, it takes away all of that stress, because everything is right there.

            There were many other tools available to help a teacher. There are two lists we read of websites, and I thought both were great. One listed polldaddy, which can be used to make surveys. I know if I have a quick and easy survey to fill out where I just have to click a few buttons or type a few words, I’ll definitely do that. That could almost definitely be used to contact parents about simple things, and I’m sure the response would be great to that. I’d love to use that in my future classroom to communicate with parents. One tool I hope I never need but is cool nonetheless is a Virtual Assistant. You can hire an assistant to help with things such as imputing digital grades and data, or edit PowerPoints. I hope that I’m never so busy that I can’t afford the time to put in my grades myself, but good to have available if you need it. There was also wunderlist, which is a way to help keep you organized, and it can be shared with others,a huge plus when working collaboratively with colleagues.

            All of these different types of tools can benefit everyone. As a teacher, many of them could help me save time, which as I said previously, is priceless for a teacher. I could spend more time with my students, or doing things like planning lessons instead of trying to organize everything. This is beneficial for myself, my students, and their parents, because their children are reaping the benefit of me having more time. The tools like polldaddy that can be used for surveys with parents are also beneficial for myself and parents, because it saves time and is easy.

            Technology is wonderful, as a tool in the classroom and a tool for the teacher. It can be used for almost anything, and I’m glad there are specific websites out there than can be used by a teacher to help them save time and energy so it can be devoted to their students.

Blending Learning

This week’s topic was blended learning. In the beginning, I was a bit confused by what exactly blended learning is, because it was made clear in Hawthorne’s topic video that it was not just online classes. After watching more of her video, the other videos we were given, and reading a few articles, I think I’ve got it. Blending learning is learning that is done in part in a brick and mortar building, and in part online. I believe this infographic we were provided has a very good summary of it. It also gives examples of each type of blending learning, which was a very easy way for me to understand what exactly they all were.

                I think blended learning is a wonderful concept that is becoming a reality in many schools. This semester has personally had more diversity with online resources than any of my classes before. This class, Ed Tech, for instance. We met face to face three times in the beginning of the semester, and the rest of it has been online, with the option of attending the labs every week if we choose to for additional help. I also have a completely online class this semester, Intro to Exceptionalities. The only times we have (optionally) met have been an intro session and some exam reviews. I also have two classes that are primarily face to face that we occasionally have online days in. This has made for a very different type of learning for me, though I am really enjoying it. Like one of the kids said in this video, I have always gotten bored in traditional face to face classes. I always remember a time in my 7^th grade pre-algebra class, where I was working ahead and got in trouble because I wasn’t sticking with the class. Had that been an independent partially online course, it would have been fine if I had been working by my own pace. In my Intro to Education class, we watched a film called Teach. Here is a preview for it. In that film, one of the teachers starts using Khan Academy in her math class, and it allowed students to work at their own pace. I think that’s the best way to teach –personalized to each student, at their own pace, to help them succeed. Blending learning makes that possible.

Once I become a teacher, I hope to be able to use some technology, though I think that having a blended classroom in my chosen group, early childhood education, would be somewhat hard to do. Without meeting with the children face to face every day for the entire school day, I couldn’t imagine being able to teach things like how to read and write or how to do math could be possible. I did google it, and found this webpage about how to integrate technology. It listed things such as using a computer to enhance teaching or give more practice with a concept, which is definitely in the realm of possibility and something I hope to do in every class I teach.

Formative and Summative Assessments

            This week, we learned about assessments, both formative and summative. Personally, I believe assessments are very important. They have been demonized recently by media, parents, students, and teachers alike, but when done well, they are very effective learning tools and can measure learning in a way nothing else can.

I’ve heard of formative assessments, but never really knew what they are until today. This page gave a pretty good comparison between formative and summative assessments, but the gist is that formative are happening while the learning is taking place and measuring what is being learned, and summative are a final assessment at the end of a unit. Until now, I never realized that essentially anything you do in a classroom, whether it be a worksheet, a quiz, or a paper, is a formative assessment measuring student progress prior to the final, summative assessment (usually the final unit test, in my experience). Growing up sometimes I felt that the things I was doing in the classroom were kind of useless and not helping me, but now I realize how important those things were to both myself and my teachers, so they could see how I was doing.

This week’s topic video was done with Scott Kinkoph, and he used a few formative assessment tools that were pretty cool. One was PearDeck. It allowed him to ask students questions real time while he did his lecture, which was an awesome tool. He could give questions that were options A or B, Yes or No, numbers, or even open ended questions where the students would type a response and submit it. Using it, he could see the answers as they were coming in, and use them to influence the direction of his lecture. I think that’s a very useful tool, because the students can actively participate in what they’re learning. The other tool he used was EduCanon. I got to try it out on one of this week’s videos. It was a very useful tool. It asked you questions throughout the video, and then you can immediately find out if you got the answer correct or not. I loved that tool, because knowing there were questions coming that could quiz me and make sure I understood helped me pay attention to the video and make sure I was really absorbing it. Had I taken a quiz at the end instead of throughout the video, I think I would have done worse on it.

Personally, I believe the most striking thing about this presentation was just generally about formative assessments. The fact that they’re the best tool that we have as teachers to assess what our students are actually learning and are still struggling with is crucial. In the future, I hope I have more opportunities to measure my own learning and then my students learning using software such as the ones we used today or even good old fashioned paper and pencil assignments such as quizzes and worksheets. 

Wide Open (Learning) Spaces

            This week’s topic was about learning spaces. It involved by the physical and technological “space” children can learn in. This article gives a pretty good summary about the physical learning spaces. These flexible learning spaces really do encourage learning and engagement. In this video, the teachers and students discuss how having a room that is adaptable to change has impacted everything for the better. Students being able to collaborate and move around and act like kids while still learning really is making a difference for them. There were several other videos we watched this week that showed different types of learning spaces, and this video showed these massive structures that could be used for all different types of learning, which was amazing to me. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and my dream would be to someday be teaching in a school that allows open learning environments like these and doesn’t just want their students sitting in a desk the entire day. Another video showed a class of younger children, around the age I want to teach (early childhood), and their classroom that can be moved around and adapted by all the individual learners to accommodate their needs. This is a wonderful idea and something I hope I can adapt to my own classroom regardless of the school district I’m in.

            Google Apps for Education is a great resource for the digital portion of a flexible learning. This webpage gives a brief overview GAFE, but it’s basically an education based way of using google apps such as gmail and google docs. I think it could definitely be used in the classroom and help develop learning space. It can be accessed by anyone at any time, which is a difference from the standard eight hour day that students can contact their teacher in now, only while they’re at school. It facilitates a more open, inviting, and accommodating learning environment than ever before.

            As we design future learning spaces, we should question the traditional eight hour school day. I know I did it for 13 years, but the thought of it now exhausts me. Knowing that there are different ways that children learn, there’s a chance that someday, the school day could change. It might still be an eight hour day, but part of it might include distance learning. Even if it is still an eight hour day of school, we should question the structuring of the school day. Like mentioned in the topic video with Brueck this week, is 8 hours of switching classes every 45 minutes necessary? Possibly not. As seen in this video we watched, this is a nontraditional high school that is innovative and doing things in a completely different yet seemingly very successful manner. A full day spent sitting at a desk doing worksheets is just not what the future holds in education, nor should it be.

            As for the University of Akron, I am not on campus for almost anything other than my classes. The more open learning spaces I’ve observed are tables in the library for working with peers, along with the study rooms that one can reserve in the library that you can work with someone in. These are for one’s personal time. In class, there is very little room or even ability to move around and collaborate the way seen in the videos this week. I personally tend to work alone, so I’ve had no issues with Akron’s campus, but someone who needs collaboration could definitely have an issue with the way Akron’s campus and most classes are set up. It’s build for traditional schooling, with a teacher at the front of the room lecturing, not for working together with your peers. 

E-books in The Classroom

This week’s topic was about e-books. I'll be the first to admit that I usually am not the most engaged viewer of the weekly topic videos, but this one was truly awesome, for lack of a more accurate word. I’ll also be the first to admit I wasn’t sure how I felt about e-books in the classroom – the technology to make them could be expensive if you’re using iPads, younger students might have a hard time with the technology, etc. – but this week’s topic video make me do a complete 180. Jon Smith’s e-books he has made with his classes are phenomenal. He turned kids that hated school into the biggest fans of writing, which is so inspiring.

In the Topic video this week and in the two articles we read about Smith’s special education classroom, it was amazing to me how his students didn’t want anything to do with writing, and as soon as they started writing books, they couldn’t stop. I believe students publishing books for the world to read is definitely a great motivator, and could engage even the most unwilling of children once positive feedback starts coming their way from strangers in the form of downloads. You can involve them for every part of the writing process for anything like John did with his class – brainstorm some ideas, write a rough draft, edit, repeat until the book or whatever you’re writing is done and it’s published. This could be integrated for almost any subject type. Write a book about math like Smith’s school did, or a science book like the kindergarten class did about bats. It could be a game changer for exciting the students, and making them really loving their work.

Using e-books could be beneficial in any classroom. I definitely am seeing a place for it in my future classrooms. I’m going to be teaching early childhood, and have always struggled thinking about how to integrate technology into a classroom of such young children. This struggle was quelled by Smith’s website with all of his e-books, however. There were many books by young classes about things such as shapes, animals, and food. I don’t have a Mac or iPad (though this video about Book Creator for the iPad is tempting me to the thought of getting an iPad), so I was unable to access it, but one of the books description said they took pictures then wrote a sentence about that picture using capital letters and periods. Even with the youngest children I could use books to help with grasping concepts like that. The main consideration I’ll have to make is if what I’m doing is truly helpful to my students, or if I’m using technology just to use technology. I’ll have to ensure a healthy balance of different ways to teach things and not overdue the e-books that I’m currently so thrilled about the concept of. Another issue is just parents not being sure about their children being on the internet at such a young age, which is something that can hopefully be solved with internet safety talk and permission slips.

           

The most striking thing about Smith’s presentation to me was the fact that over the last two and a half years, his e-books had close to 25,000 downloads, and possibly exceeding that since the topic video was recorded. Those 25,000 downloads have been in al but three countries that iTunes sells to. I know that in this class that we constantly are talking about sharing worldwide, but hearing that figure made me realize it is truly worldwide. Almost every country that these books can be downloaded in has downloaded at least one. That’s incredible, and I’m sure young students would think so even more than I do. I’m thrilled about the possibilities that this presents.

Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use in The Classroom

This week, we had two Weekly Topic Videos from YouTube, CreativeCommons & Copyright Info and Understanding "Fair Use" in aDigital World. These two videos were all about copyright, creative commons, and fair use. As a future educator, knowing about what I can and can’t do with someone else’s work is so important, because the internet makes sharing and using things you find seem effortless and that you can do it without a second thought. I never knew that if someone creates and posts content, they automatically own a copyright to it. I thought it was something you needed to apply for. I also didn't know that creative commons licenses were free and could be as restrictive or not restrictive as the creator wants it to be. 

            In my future classroom, I need to make sure that I am only using things I have a legal right to use. I know as a future early childhood education educator websites like Pinterest have a lot of ideas, and I need to do my best to make sure anything I download for use in my classroom is something the original content source has permission to post, along with myself having permission to use it as well in the way that I intend to use it. There are also certain rules regarding copyright in the classroom. I knew teachers had a bit more leeway than others with fair use, but the University of Akron's library has this guide that lays out some of the specifics that I thought was very helpful regarding classroom exceptions, such as using things in the classroom but not anywhere else in a school, and things can be performed or displayed, but not passed out/distributed. 

            As for my students, I know at that young of an age there isn’t going to be too much worry with them violating any copyright laws, because I doubt at the early childhood level there is going to be too much opportunity for them to even do so. The beginning of that stage however could be in the third grade, the tail end of early childhood where sometimes students start doing reports. When it comes to that point, I would explain that using things without the owner’s permission is stealing, and that stealing is wrong and we cannot do it and be respectful citizens in our classroom. One of the required readings this week was this page about Teaching Copyright, which lays out a curriculum, including work sheets, about teaching copyright, which could definitely come in handy with older students that actually need to know the rules regarding copyright. 

            The biggest thing I see an issue with regarding copyright is the illegal downloading of music, movies/tv shows, and pictures. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never really seen the big deal – they make so much money already, it’s so easy, what’s the impact of one download? The problem is that many other people share that attitude, and it can spiral out of control and the creator of the content loses out on a lot of possible money because of it. Like I said previously, it is stealing, it just doesn’t really “seem” as bad as, say, stealing a physical copy from Best Buy seems. With my students, I can explain that they’re really hurting the people they’re stealing from if things are illegally downloaded, because it can prevent them from making money and living their lives. Hopefully that plants the seed that in the future, they need to make sure they are only using/downloading things on the internet they have the right to.

Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying and Internet Safety, oh my.

            Digital citizenship. To me, digital citizenship is using the internet responsibly. Both personally and professionally, that means I need to be careful about what I put on the internet. I've been using the internet and social media regularly since seventh grade. There are almost definitely some things that I posted on social media that I would be embarrassed by. The older I get, the more I’ve realized that everything is on the internet forever, so I try to not post things that could paint me in a negative light.

            Going off of that, cyber bullying is a huge issue with social media and the internet. Anyone can say anything they want about anyone, whether it be on Facebook, ask.fm, tumblr, etc. It can be anonymous, or your name can be attached to it. I’ve gotten into my fair share of “fights” with people on Facebook. The people that were then my friends and myself, hurling insults back and forth through both comments on statuses and personal messages. This hasn’t happened in many years because as I said previously, I don’t like to cast myself in a negative light, and saying mean things to people on a public forum definitely doesn’t make me look like the good person I know I am. In addition to that, the older I’ve gotten, the less things that I used to fight about with people seem to matter, and aren’t something I would even spend any time dwelling on the way I did then. But when my “Facebook fights” were happening, I was in high school. They were the thing that mattered to me then. I was fifteen years old, and didn’t understand the consequences of my actions and words the way I do now, four years later with a lot more experience with the internet. Now, I use social media in a positive way, the way I think it should be used by everyone.

            Keeping that in mind, I understand why adults would have concerns about internet safety for both themselves and their children. If anyone can do or say anything they want on the internet, why would someone want to take the risk of actively using it? I have some concerns about internet safety myself. I recently made every social media I have private (except for twitter, so everyone in Ed Tech can see my tweets about my blog posts). However, this type of attitude, that the internet can be evil place, is holding everyone back. The internet can be a safe place if you follow “the rules" and use it responsibly. A webpage we read this week, Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship, outlined the nine main points of being safe on the internet and using the internet well. As long as you follow those, internet safety can be achieved. If someone just avoids the internet out of fear and ignorance, they’re missing out of all the wonderful knowledge the internet holds, and are depriving the world of their possible contribution.

Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge.

TPACK. Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge. Before I watched Dr. Gary Holliday’s lecture on TPACK, I’d never even heard of the word pedagogy (it’s the how of teaching – how you actually do your lesson). It took a while for me to understand what exactly all of it meant. It’s a very interesting concept, the integration of technology in the traditional combination of pedagogy and content in the classroom. A very good video we watched on YouTube called TPack in 2 Minutes is a great summary of what Dr. Holliday gives us in his video.

Technology/tools are something that are becoming increasingly available and necessary in the classroom, though they aren’t always the easiest thing to integrate. There are many questions to be asked about it. They start with is this technology effective? Can I easily integrate this into my lesson? Will it be beneficial to the lesson? Is there any chance using this technology will hurt my lesson? How accessible is this technology? The list goes on and on with possible issues, but the benefits of using technology outnumber them.

Those positives are enormous. Technology can make something so much simpler. In one of my high school classes to prepare for a debate we used a class set of iPads to look up information. We got up to date information at the click of a button. Had we been using books, it would have been outdated information that took a lot longer to find. There’s also the ability to find other resources on the internet and with technology to enhance the class – in a lot of classes I’m currently in my professors will use videos to show something that they simple aren’t able to demonstrate in a classroom. There are some very significant barriers, however. Money is a huge issue for many schools. They can’t afford a class set of iPads, or computer labs for the students to use. There’s also the issue that depending on the place one is teaching, technology just isn’t very accessible.

In my future classroom, I want to be able to integrate technology. Since I plan to teach first or second grade, however, it’s going to be a little harder to integrate technology that it would be in a high school classroom. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find applications on computers that students can use. YouTube videos are something that keeps a child’s attention usually, and could make a lesson more fun. My hope is that I’ll have a smart board in my future classroom that can be used for both myself and students to write on and use the technology. I want to keep a constant rotation of new things in the classroom, both to motivate students and to eventually find something that really works for me and my students.

TPACK was something that was very confusing at the beginning. By the end, I think I mostly get it. My remaining question is simply how to integrate technology effectively into a lesson so that it’s not the entire thing, but as a supplement. For the answer to that, I’ll just have to keep using the internet and using the tools myself that I hope to integrate into my classroom so I can find out.

Open Access Learning

This week for Educational Technology, it was all about open access. Just about everyone has access to technology, more so now than ever. This has changed the landscape of the classroom and education as a whole.

            In our learning environments, we have endless ways to share. In the YouTube video “OpenEducation Matters: Why is it important to share content?” it was discussed about how something put online can reach people all around the world.  This feeds into the concept of participatory communities - people are hungry for information, and are also the creators of that information. As educators, we have an obligation to create content and share it along with the information that we’re taking in for our own use.

            In the classroom, I believe open access can be easy. Uploading a video of your unique lesson to YouTube or blogging creative lesson plans is something everyone can and should do. It can help anyone learn something, whether it be another teacher or a struggling student that’s googling something they need more help with.

            I believe the future of education lies in technology. Students having internet access can bring learning to a whole new level, because they can access content at all times of day. Smart phones have already capitalized on it, because people can use them literally almost anywhere in the world at any time. Getting new information is at the click of a button. It will be different, but I believe it will be good.

            I do not believe textbooks will become obsolete. Traditional paper textbooks, however, may. E-books are a whole new plateau of education and the open access platform. They can be shared at the click of a button, and used anywhere – laptop, smart phone, tablet, etc. I also believe textbooks will be supplemented more than ever with external resources – videos, articles, and websites with games – to help kids see something in another way. 

Sharing is Caring

                This week’s assignment was all about sharing your work. The more technologically based the world gets, the more it becomes an obligation to share rather than a choice. Everyone should be sharing something in order to both assist themselves and others in the ever-lasting journey of teaching that we’ve all embarked upon. 

This week’s topic video was Sharing:The Moral Imperative by Dean Shareski. In Shareski’s video, he discusses how important people sharing what happens in the classroom can be for other educators. A lot of the teachers in his video made blogs. I believe blogs are the most effective way to share with a large range of people. The teacher who made the graphing lesson that more than 6000 people used was inspiring to me, because something that seemed so little in the beginning ended up meaning so much.

            There is a fine line between what and what not to share. In Amy Burvall’s video, #daretoshare, she says the entire process should be shared. I’m not sure I necessarily agree with that. The entire process can be important, this can be detrimental to children. If their failures to learn something are broadcasted to the world, that can be really discouraging. I think documenting the students as a class can be effective during the process, and if they want, sharing their individual successes at the end is a good way to get everyone involved. Regardless of one’s obligation as a teacher to share, the students being comfortable and feeling safe in their world and schooling is the most important thing.

            Sharing both face to face and online, I believe, are important. Sometimes you need to be in front of someone to feel comfortable with what you’re learning, and other times, all you need is  YouTube video or a blog post to get a feel for something. When I’m a teacher, I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to create a classroom website/blog to catalog what we’re doing. It could be a resource for both parents and other educators to keep a tab on what’s going on in my classroom, and how it’s working for the students. I would have a feedback form available so if someone had suggestions or concerns, they could be addressed.

            Public writing being formal and error-free is something that is an issue. Writing something up real quick is prone to errors. A friend of mine read my first blog post then let me know I used a wrong word, something I hadn’t noticed just quickly glossing over after I finished typing it up. Being formal and using academic language is important, but it isn’t the end of the world if you have a typo. When it comes to sharing, it’s more important, at least in my eyes, to share with a word misspelled than to not share at all.

            I believe transparency in the classroom should be a given. There should be a way to share what you’re doing with whoever wants to know, whether it be parents or a teacher on the other side of the world that is teaching the same things you are. Making yourself, students, and their parents comfortable can be an issue, but it can be done.

            

Social Media and Me

My name is Bernadette Grady. I'm 19 years old. I live with my boyfriend, Matt, and my cat, Kitty. I go to the University of Akron, and I'm an early childhood education major. 

I’m a big user of social media. I religiously use Snapchat and Instagram. I use Facebook less often, mostly for family and groups. I use Pinterest, even though I don’t follow anyone I know and am not followed by anyone I know on it. I just made a Twitter for this class.

 I definitely agree with most things the author of A Teenager’s View on Social Media said. The only reason I use Facebook often is a private group my friends have to keep in touch and make plans. Instagram is definitely the one that makes your life seem the most glamorous, showing only the best shots of a night. Snapchat is where I post a thousand pictures of my cat, my boyfriend, and the show I’m currently watching on Netflix (currently One Tree Hill). Pinterest is definitely mostly female. My boards consist of crock pot recipes and DIY Christmas decorations. On my personal social media that interacts with friends and family, I try to put my best foot forward. I post the good highlights of my life, because I don’t want to share the lows with the world.

Technology in the classroom is nothing new to me, though it has certainly evolved. It’s definitely transformed from taking math practice tests and reading comprehension quizzes on computers to being a major part of life inside school and out. I never thought I’d see a day where I would be using an iPad in class to look things up. When I learned I had to have a Twitter and a blog for this class, I was pretty confused, but now it’s getting exciting. I think technology being added to the classroom is awesome, and we’re definitely in for a wild ride over the next few years to see where it takes us.