OTEN and Yodio

I made a Yodio! I'm pretty impressed with myself, and it wasn't as hard as I had thought it might be. The audio wasn't great but I think it's because I recorded it on speaker phone as I drove home (hands free). I enjoyed the OTEN conference as well. I copied this photo from LeeAnn's post on facebook--Thanks LeeAnn

I also posted a blogster I created from an inspiration at OTEN

Educational Technology Standards

• The first few standards are the ones that caught my eye--not because they are first, but because they fit into my content language arts the best.  Creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; and number 4 critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. They also encourage literacy which is great. Kids today have a big connection with technology, so if you can build literacy skills with that, I think they would process it more easily. You are helping students to connect their personal knowledge and history to predicting and create new ways of using technology. 
• One thing I really appreciate about these standards, is that they, not just technical literacy, but general literacy.  This is great, because a lot of kids can relate to technology more than any other subject area. If they have the opportunity to develop literacy skills, such as predicting, interpreting, connecting, summarizing, with a subject they enjoy, they will have a much better chance at grasping and improving their own literacy and apply it to other content areas. I truly hadn't thought about this connection before--which is surprising since are youth today basically use technology as a second language.  
• In general, these standards are trying to give students the tools they need to succeed and navigate through our technologically growing society. They also seem to be giving students an appropriate way to discover and use technology--which is very important. You can get into a lot of trouble on accident if you don't know what to avoid while using the Internet and technology in general. It can be scary to think of what kids can find, or what can find them. I'm surprised how specific these standards are. They certainly give a lot of room for creativity, but they are just as specific as any other content area.  The great thing is that you can accomplish these standards in any content area, which is pretty great. 
• For research, I could have them research an author, or the historical events that took place during the time of the novel they are reading. They could then get together in groups and come up with a presentation and create some kinds of podcast. I could then compile them and post them on our class blog. They would probably appreciate the technologically infused project.

Analyzing Student Data in a Spreadsheet.

Here is my chart. This took me quite a long time to do, but it is my first time using Google Sheets. After I got the hang of it, it was a pretty quick and easy way to determine classroom data. It's a good tool to know and be a bit familiar with.




1st sheet shows the student, test, and overall average. Then I made another chart to sort low to high averages. I duplicated the data another time to show the below overall average. Then I created a separate sheet for the graph itself. I needed Maria's help to embed the data. It wasn't as easy as embedding my screenr video because screenr has an option where you can turn your URL into an embedded HTML text. There you go! A nother giant technological step for Jan. :)

In analyzing the students growth, I see that most of the students have progressed from test six to test ten.  If this were in fact my class, and I discovered this, I would take another look at why this is. Is it because I made the test more simple? Did I have better prep for my students? Were they more motivated to study? and so on. Another thing is that not all progressed by a lot. Queen even dropped by five points. I think it's important to use this data to analyze the way you assess your students. By looking at what I did differently for each test that may have bettered their scores, I could then implement those things more. This really is an interesting perspective when analyzing your classroom, and how to improve your students scores. Certainly there are many ways to evaluate, but this is one of them most cut and dry and easy to see. You could even create individual graphs for parents to see their students growth, and it would be up to you to put in where they are compared to other students or not.

Assignment #5: Multimedia Project

Here is my screenr video. I already wrote about how it works and how you could use screenr in the classroom in my previous post. One thing I didn't mention is how I bumped my glass of water during the recording. I guess it's good to know that the recording will pick up background noise pretty easily. So, here it is embedded, which I have to admit probably took me longer than it needed to. First I just had the image embedded without the audio, but I figured out that you needed to put the embedded code directly into the HTML, or have it linked up to a YouTube video, select "insert video" and go from there. So, that's all. I'm excited to see how this will work in my classroom. 

My Favorite Web2.0 tools / Post #4

Web2.0 is a wonderful resource for web based functionality. It's a great resource, especially for people like me who are unaware of the immense amount of possibilities of applications and services on the web. More importantly, this site shows you how to use such tools. "Cloud computing" is another way to explain it--the idea that a local computer is not as necessary as it use to be.  I could probably spend all day pocking around all the tools, but being a MAT student, there just isn't much time for such things. Being "in the cloud" may soon be in most of our vocabulary banks. It truly is a more efficient and also safer way to compute. You can use any computer to access your projects, and they are safe from simple computer malfunctions or human mistakes.  In undergrad, my computer crashed when I was just about finished with my ten page final paper. I lost it all! If I had been using google docs or some other Internet program, I wouldn't have had to rewrite the entire thing from memory. I also like that with most of the tools, you don't have to download something to your computer, or purchase something at the store and then install it. Picasa is especially cool. I like that I can put my photos up and access them from anywhere. I can also share my photos easily with my friends and family. I am excited for the time when I can actually play around with all these wonderful web based tools. For now, I've mostly just tried a bit of many.

I was placed in the "Tiny URL" group. At first I though: big deal, you can shrink an address. I didn't think it was all that useful since you can link a URL to  a word pretty easily. Then I played it around with it, and after a bit more thought, I realized the significance. It's much easier to share a link via email, for instance. You can just shrink it down, past the new link into your email, they click on it and boom. End of story. It takes just a few seconds as well. You simply go to http://tinyurl.com/ , paste your long URL into the space provided, hit Make TinyURL button, and bam, there it is. You can also customize part of the name if it is available. You can also secure privacy if you wish to keep the actual URL private for some reason. 

In regards to increasing a teacher or student personal productivity, is just that it gives you a smaller link to share. For teachers, you can write the "tiny URL" on the board being more confident that the students will write the address correctly. The smaller URL would be time saver for the classroom. This would in turn enhance learning by increasing productivity. You would be spending less time getting them to the correct site and more time would be left over for actual learning.

3. Screenr

Screenr is a screen cast. It is an easy recording system that records your voice and the images on your computer. You can use it as a tutorial if you wanted to show someone how to do something on their computer. You can do so many things including, power point presentations with voice overs, demonstrate how to use different search engines, make a mini lesson for your students showing them the elements of a plot line, and many other things.

The first thing that popped into my mind for using this in my class room were readings. In a creative writing class I could have my students read their poems or stories and have images they think go with it in the background. This would promote fluency because they would be hearing their reading and know what to work on. They could share it with me and I could give them pointers as well. By hearing their own narratives, they will have an easier time at revision as well. They could also share the read version of their writing with other students to get a critique on the actual story and not be distracted by most grammar. If they are extremely shy and never want to read in class, I could use this as an alternative. I could also have them recite poems or passages from stories and choose images that they think relate to the piece. I believe reading out loud is an important aspect of literacy and this program could be a great tool for this. 

Here is my example of what a student could do. I read the intro to a short story by Marquez and had three images: a picture of Marquez, the book cover, and a piece of art I found with searching for images of the story.

 

Here is the link to our project: Doc group project Cohort-B'12

For me, this google docs exploration was a new experience. I've never used it before, but I will be using it in the future, and in fact, I have already used in a class project. My original thoughts were that it was just like word, so why bother. Now I see that it does so much more.

Some things you can do with google docs that you can't with word...

*share the document with others

*chat to your doc members

*work on a project from different locations

*insert Internet links: including videos, pictures, websites etc.

*use the link from your doc for a blog,

*Write separate comments within the doc

Personally, I will use this for writing workshops. In the past, when I've workshopped/edited a story for one of my creative writing workshop group members, they've sent their stories to me by an attachment in an email. Email attachments pose many issues--sometimes the file isn't compatible with my computer, I have to attach it back, it's still in my computer, it's difficult to edit by typing on their doc. etc. With google docs, I could make comments as I go and not upset the structure of their text. I could also have them view it at the same time as I, enabling me to get any questions I have answered.

Use in the classroom...

I think I could find many uses in my classroom. My students could put their assignments in google docs, invite me, and I could make comments when it's not class time. I could also set up a survey in a doc, invite my students, and get the results without wasting paper.

Overall, this was a good trek through google docs. It will be fun to get more comfortable with this program, and to discover more of it's capabilities.

Blogging with Students

I think blogs could be a great way to introduce technology and information to your students. I also think it could be tricky and that you should be sensitive and aware of your students capabilities.

Here are some of the ways I might use blogs in my classroom:

*Having my students follow certain blogs--either we all follow the same one, or having them each choose one to follow--could be a good way to put relevance of what we're learning in our classroom with the outside world. It also may be a good opportunity to show the different ways to write--a blog can be much more informal than an essay for example. You could also have them edit blogs for sentence structure, grammar, development of ideas etc. to get the students mindful of writing elements.

*If the parents and students sign a release form, a blog would be a great way to post students work so the parents could see a presentation. Or, a grandparent from across the country could read their grand kids poem. You could also make it more public and connect with another school or class and comment on each others blogs.

*I could have a blog, as the teacher, with relevant links for the class to do research or have a better understanding of what is going on in the classroom. Or even post notes for them--being mindful that if you post your notes, many students won't pay attention in class. 

This is Me...

So, I'm, Jan. I live in Millersburg with my husband, Ben, my dane/lab Barney (full name Sir Barnacle Linus), and my fish, Bilbo. I grew up, mostly in Eugene and loved it...or liked it a lot for the most part. I have three nieces and one nephew who I will miss so much during this program. I majored in english at the U of O. I've worked at starbucks, a video rental place, nannied, and in publishing. I LOVE writing (fiction) and my family. In my spare time, I love hiking (the outdoors in general), being crafty (sewing and wire twisting, not witch crafty), and reading. I like a lot of things that I will not bore you with.

So, I'm here at Willamette University so I can get into a classroom with as much confidence and skill that I can. I'm getting my certification in high school and middle school language arts, and middle school social studies. My ideal job would be in a middle school classroom teaching reading/writing and infusing creative writing into the curriculum. I think middle school students have a lot to offer, and I would love the opportunity to learn from them and also, possibly, ease their awkward years when they are somewhere between innocents and...you know... Also, I am glad to have such great people in my cohort. I think y'all will make these next ten months much better than if you were all a bunch of (insert something not so pleasant). 

Pretty much, that's who I am in writing. I'm not great with technology so I am glad to figure some of this stuff out. Until next post, Ciao!